Passenger ships, are they pointless?

[Zer0cool]

As far as I can tell all 3 passenger ships are completely redundant in game.

On each occasion a Python or Anaconda outclass all of the in terms of carrying capacity, jump range and defence.

Passengers have no preference on the athestics of the ship.

So again, why bother?

FDEV needs to make something special or Unquie about these ships other than the way they look. Maybe make it so passenger cabins on a passenger ship get a 50% increase in total capacity?

Just a thought.

 

[sirrus tamus]

Passenger Ships built by Saud Kruger; like the Dolphin, Orca, and Beluga liner; they are "special" in that they can outfit Luxury Passenger Cabins. Something of note: most CMDRs these days are stacking Economic Passenger missions; however, "good" payouts can be earned from Luxury Missions. They dont Compete with a 50mil stack in a 500,000ls supercruise haul; but, Luxury Missions are what the ships were designed for. (Specifically)

Luxury Missions can be found at Tourism stations; the CMDR most likely will have to be allied with certain factions to get access to these "special" missions.

 

[Iskariot]

As far as I can tell all 3 passenger ships are completely redundant in game.

On each occasion a Python or Anaconda outclass all of the in terms of carrying capacity, jump range and defence.

Passengers have no preference on the athestics of the ship.

So again, why bother?

FDEV needs to make something special or Unquie about these ships other than the way they look. Maybe make it so passenger cabins on a passenger ship get a 50% increase in total capacity?

Just a thought.

There are of course Luxury passengers who can only be transported in the passenger liners.
But I think adding another mass transport passenger class like Mass Tourists might be good.
Mass Tourists would not want to use cargo ships but would prefer true passenger liners.

I still feel that the Imperial Cutter should get special privileges.
She should be able to transport all passenger classes.
She looks like the ultimate luxury passenger transport and can defend herself very well on top of that too.
If I was a luxury passenger in the Elite universe I would definitely prefer to travel on a Cutter.

 

[Dommarraa]

Dont forget the T7, brilliant for the short range bulk missions, and so cheap you get one free with every Beluga

 

[777Driver]

FDEV needs to make something special or Unquie about these ships other than the way they look. Maybe make it so passenger cabins on a passenger ship get a 50% increase in total capacity?

Just a thought.

Do you mean like a stock 128 tonne fuel tank and VIP only cabins? Hmm, wonder where I could buy a liner with those unique stats?

 

[GG7]

The Luxury Cabin advantage is indeed highly overrated. You can make far more $$ running passenger missions with a multi-role ship than you can with any of the dedicated passenger transports.

While I prefer using an ORCA to take on passenger missions, I am not fooling myself into believing that one of my Anacondas could not make me more money per hour doing the same task.

 

[Jimbodiah]

You can do sightseeing in a cobra or any other ship woth a spare size 5 slot. Why would you use a conda that maneuvres like an oil tanker or a python with 5ly jump range? Why bring guns in the first place?

The dolphin is just cute and cheap, the Orca is an Asp on steroidd and a joy to fly. Conda is only helpfull for hauling bulk economy passengers in the mindless afk grind for credits.

 

[Stealthie]

Sad thing is, they're all really nice ships.
They just don't excel at their intended purpose.

Indigowyrd suggested I should convert my Beluga into a mining ship.
I tried it and it worked really well but the sight of seeing a Beluga splitting rocks just makes me die a little bit inside.
So I transferred all my mining kit back onto my T9, where it belongs.

 

[777Driver]

I think it would be easier to sum things up with the following statement - Why bother doing anything in game when you can fly a noobconda chocked full of economy class passengers and a bit of mode switching..

 

[Sylveria]

The Luxury Cabin advantage is indeed highly overrated. You can make far more $$ running passenger missions with a multi-role ship than you can with any of the dedicated passenger transports.

While I prefer using an ORCA to take on passenger missions, I am not fooling myself into believing that one of my Anacondas could not make me more money per hour doing the same task.

This actually points out exactly why Passenger Ships are on the "meh" list currently... the only difference is Luxury cabins, which currently are underutilized because of the simple expedience of Economy missions and the payouts for the time invested. Either Luxury missions need to be brought to the same level of standard (payout balanced with time invested) or the Economy missions need to be adjusted so that they're not the go-to choice for passenger missions.

Because Economy cabins can be outfitted in ANY ship, and Luxury cabins being understated/underrated, it communicates a perception of "redundancy", but Passenger ships are in no way intended to be redundant.

 

[-VR- Max Factor]

As far as I can tell all 3 passenger ships are completely redundant in game.

On each occasion a Python or Anaconda outclass all of the in terms of carrying capacity, jump range and defence.

Passengers have no preference on the athestics of the ship.

So again, why bother?

FDEV needs to make something special or Unquie about these ships other than the way they look. Maybe make it so passenger cabins on a passenger ship get a 50% increase in total capacity?

Just a thought.

I use my Dolphin for passanger missions because I enjoy flying my Dolphin. The credit per hour matters very little to me.

 

[Frameshift_is_Magic]

The bulk PAX missions aside, Luxury cabin missions are underwhelming even compared to First Class missions. Also, it seldom pays to have more than one Luxury Mission (sightseeing), so the Beluga is extra useless. I still fly it from time to time, but not because it is superb at its role.

 

[Flanker37T]

I think it would be easier to sum things up with the following statement - Why bother doing anything in game when you can fly a noobconda chocked full of economy class passengers and a bit of mode switching..

Well, in my opinion, that is a glaring problem which would get patched within days in any other multiplayer (advertised as multiplayer) game.

 

[Tobasco da Gama]

I use my Dolphin for passanger missions because I enjoy flying my Dolphin. The credit per hour matters very little to me.

From the perspective of player choice, this is certainly a 100% valid perspective. But from the perspective of overall game design, it's still a bad thing for Elite to have the "Big 3" be the best option for every role in the game. There's a really good Game Maker's Toolkit video on the subject that I think makes the case very well.

 

[Mxpower76]

Well technically you could get a Python and Conda and be done with ship buying forever but that would get boring. But I agree that something extra with these ships would be nice. Like 20% bonus for using a passenger ship. Or 20% bonus for using a T ship to run cargo.

 

[Hooplah]

I disagree per the comments I made on another thread. They are not redundant by any measure and excellent passenger ships. But it is one's point of view playing the game. Arbitrarily saying they are redundant is often dismissed.

Passenger Dolphin or Type-9

With every Forum post there are a dozen ways to respond to them sometimes emotionally and often taken the wrong way. That is why emoticons were invented but don't always work. Per ED Pilots there are even many more ways to play and view the game as we all see it. What never changes is that we will often NEVER agree!

What works is researching ships with great YouTube videos (and some are crap), researching the Forum (and some of them are crap as well) then actual flying experience for enough hours to make an informed decision. Many don't do that which is why those who did are often here on the Forum to help. Use them wisely.

Note that emoticons NEVER work with girlfriends, wives or any female but that is for another Forum.

Fly Safe!

 

[Alex Brentnall]

Dolphin is fun and great for the price point. Python is a wee bit more expensive

Orca is amazing. Yes on numbers Python wins it but the Orca has speed, style and is a fun ship to fly.

Beluga isn't as useful as I'd like personally. I get what it's got but for me the internal slot restrictions make it unappealing for anything more than inner bubble travel, even then I'm not entirely convinced and usually go for the Orca/Cutter/Noobaconda

 

[Captain Jack Sparrow]

If you take the Orca and Beluga out, how are NPC's going to get themselves stuck in the mail slot and blasted by the station?

 

[Mengy]

The problem isn't the ships themselves, the problem is that luxury missions are lackluster. The three passenger ships have the unique ability to do luxury missions but those missions just aren't that great, so their "unique skill" is mostly worthless.

If Frontier made luxury missions actually worth doing then you'd see the three passenger ships suddenly have a niche. Until that happens they will continue to be second rate to other ships which can do the pax job better.

 

[Muetdhiver]

The dolphin and orca are okay. The beluga is a beached? Bleached? whale : the only specialist ship worse than generalist in its very narrow niche.

What would be nice is luxury missions being a notch above regular ones, and having well defined spots here one can find them. Like tourism systems, and very unequal societies, like corp, monarchies or feudal.