Beluga Buff When?

[Herdygerdy]

How about a buff - increases passenger capacity, lighter weight for passenger modules. In passenger ships only. Haven't done any sums but maybe up to 20%. Like an SRV hanger comes as H an G. But you only get one option presented when outfitting. Transfer of module is restricted too.

This would give them the edge over converted cargo ships but wouldn't let them carry more cargo.

Makes some sort of sense too. Passenger Ships would have dining areas, rest areas and utilities built into the design. So a module would just be sleeping / living quarters.

A cargo ship wouldn't have these. And as a cmdr I don't want to share my dining room with a kitchen for 4 (or whatever) with hundreds of the great unwashed . So in theory, space would need to be given to seating, toilets and food printers in the module itself. Adding weight to those modules.

 

[Phazon Xenomorph]

It literally has everything to do with the Belugas capabilities. If luxury missions do not create the incentive to fit them then the fact the Beluga can fit them means nothing at all. Perhaps other posters were correct that only Saud Kruger ships should have been capable of carrying passengers but that's not the route FDev went so this is the situation we find ourselves in. To suddenly turn back and make it so only Saud Kruger ships can take passenger missions would create so much salt from all the players that have cashed in on this equally as much as adapting the mission RNG to spawn a higher number of luxury missions as this would again effect the many Anaconda bus services.

Even the Beluga's cabin space / luxury arguement could be it's own thread if only Frontier would buff what the damn Beluga was meant to do. Sightseeing and Tourism/Exploration. It should be an extreme fringe jumper like the Conda (slightly better since it's combat capabilities are far less than the Conda) and have to not need downgrading or low emissions mods to fix stock A grade heat management issues. Instead it fails at everything except the odd madman who solos a thargoid with it (which other ships do better now that Thargoids don't just chase you when you reverse throttle).

 

[Kaybe]

As many of us have mentioned, Beluga's main problem is that she's bested by several ships in the very role she's supposed to be the best at.

First off, bulk passenger Luxury missions simply don't exist and never will.
Second, Anaconda is better at Economy and Business bulk passenger missions. In fact ...
Third, Anaconda is MUCH better at long range exploration VIP missions. Luxury long range explorers are incredibly rare. In fact, I have never personally seen one and I've done a TON of passenger mission board browsing.
Fourth, Orca is better at single passenger class 6 Luxury VIP missions.
Fifth, the Dolphin is best at class 5 Luxury VIP missions as it's the only one of the lot that can land at Outposts.
Sixth, Beluga is the *only* SLF capable ship that can't equip the big trio: Shields, Fuel Scoop, SLF.
Seventh, Beluga is limited to a class 6 fuel scoop for it's 128T fuel tank ... which wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that the ship runs VERY hot. In fact, the only ship I know of that runs as hot is the Imperial Courier. In fact, for the Beluga, it's a huge problem because she risks taking damage when fuel scooping and ing off her passengers.

People need to stop fawning over this ship and praising it when they know damn well that she's underwhelming. She's the biggest and most expensive passenger liner that is simply beaten by several ships in that very role. It needs a buff.

 

[lenna]

First off, bulk passenger Luxury missions simply don't exist and never will.

Luxury passenger missions are not necessarily about bulk transport (and there are missions that require Luxury cabins currently) and if a VIP/Tourist wants Luxury capability then the Orca or Beluga are the only viable options.

As for the Orca being best for C6 cabin missions, it has only 1 C6 Luxury cabin while the Beluga can have up to 3 C6 Luxury Cabins (though personally I would only recommend fitting 2) and both are comparable in earning potential v. build cost (assuming you do not make IMO foolish build decisions).

As for bulk passenger carrying - stop flogging that dead horse - the Passenger craft are not the bulk carriers some think they should be and seem to have been deliberately balanced that way.

FD have a full season of QOL updates in the works, so claiming that the passenger mission situation will never change is just confirmation bias to support a flawed argument for a not-needed balance change.

No-one is claiming the Beluga is perfect nor praising it as such, but pointing out how the moaning about the ship is (in our opinion) unjustified.

I find it ridiculous that some people are so focused on what the Beluga can not do and ignore any and all of the positive attributes it has. I actually hate the short PNR of the Orca and while it is perhaps fast, I still favour the Beluga - it is a more capable craft despite your protestations to the contrary.

 

[lenna]

Seriously rlsg, you wanna rep that. This person might sound like an ally in this argument but they clearly haven't read this thread through.

They obviously have read it and come to similar conclusions - the Beluga and other luxury craft are not targeted at the bulk transport market.

The bulk transport moaners really need to gain some perspective.

 

[Starwolfe]

Using similar reasoning the Beluga can take more than 4 cabins, the only way you can fit 4 cabins to an Orca is to compromise on the build - lets cut the min-max argument rubbish once and for all, that horse is dead and long overdue for being buried.

Even with 4 luxury cabins on the Orca (using min-max principles) the Beluga is still better positioned - 2 x 6 + 2 x 5 (Beluga non-min-maxed) v. 1 x 6 and 3 x 5 on the Orca (min-maxed). The Beluga can fit an additional 1 x 6 Luxury cabin by sacrificing the SLF capability taking it up to (3 x 6 + 2 x 5).

Keep in mind that Luxury Cabins are tighter on space and thus group size could be an issue with the Luxury 5 cabins (4 people max in a Lux5 v. 8 people in the Lux6). Therefore, if two of the groups are larger than 4 people the Orca would not be able to carry both groups (assuming Luxury cabin requirement and/or no-module-swapping of-course).

You fail at reading, we get that.

I said it BARELY beat out the Orca for over twice the cost.

Crying out loud gibberish, stop blindly defending the flawed ship and read first in an attempt to comprehend the argument.

 

[Van R Flyheight]

They obviously have read it and come to similar conclusions - the Beluga and other luxury craft are not targeted at the bulk transport market.

The bulk transport moaners really need to gain some perspective.

Now you're argument is even more shaky. You are now disregarding all bulk transport A-B, not just the economy ones?

Well then now the Beluga really has nothing. Long range sightseeing is better done in a DBX, AspX or Anaconda. Bubble sightseeing is better done in the Dolphin, Orca or actually any of the other long range ships I just mentioned. Sightseeing missions RARELY go to the same place and NEVER with multiple luxury missions.

Also you say that they have read the thread but they've only dropped in three times to give some half comment like git gud. My suggestion would be for you two to in fact git gud and join the rest of us multi-billionaires in our supposed failed meta tactics of playing this game.

 

[Urazz]

I do believe the Beluga should be the king of passenger missions. Maybe give it more potential passenger space so that you want to pick it over the Anaconda for passenger missions.

 

[lenna]

You fail at reading, we get that.

No, you critically fail at comprehension.

I said it BARELY beat out the Orca for over twice the cost.

Hardly, min-max builds don't reasonably count where overall balance is concerned since you are compromising with the obviously intended capability balance.

Crying out loud gibberish, stop blindly defending the flawed ship and read first in an attempt to comprehend the argument.

You are the one repeating the same loud gibberish, I have pointed out the obvious flaws in your unreasonable critique of a "balanced" but not perfect ship.

 

[lenna]

I do believe the Beluga should be the king of passenger missions. Maybe give it more potential passenger space so that you want to pick it over the Anaconda for passenger missions.

If that is done then the relative hull price should be increased, it is however currently the king of passenger missions where "Luxury" capability is even a minor concern.

 

[kofeyh]

They obviously have read it and come to similar conclusions - the Beluga and other luxury craft are not targeted at the bulk transport market.

What?

This is like saying an airbus A380 isn't targeted at bulk transport of passengers because it has first class as well as cattle. Or that combat ships aren't designed for combat because a generalist can carry more HRM. Frontier did what they always do when adding ships that have a specific role. Neuter capability under a well intentioned, but none-the-less false sense of balance.

This isn't a logical argument to make. It never was. It's fallacious at best. Frontier has a very very long history of doing this. Beluga is just the latest example (well, Type-10 was the latest, but they resolved the under-sized distro, which examples that they can actually add viable dedicated ships, it just often takes more than one attempt).

It (Beluga's) core goal is dedicated passenger ship; what type of passenger isn't actually a relevant distinction. Just like a trade ship, trades. What it carries, isn't a defining point.

Frontier have built passenger ships that are eclipsed by not-passenger ships because of module sizing choices. Nothing more. This is purely a consequence of module sizing (this is the root cause so often, you could set a watch by it). This extends to the powerplant versus FSD/ Thruster, as well as optional internals.

Beluga carrying more people than anaconda, is not an abnormal outcome; in the same way that anaconda should be able to carry more cargo than beluga. Module bay count, continues to be a defining factor in what ships are used for. Role, less so. That's a little out of whack.

 

[Starwolfe]

No, you critically fail at comprehension.


Hardly, min-max builds don't reasonably count where overall balance is concerned since you are compromising with the obviously intended capability balance.


You are the one repeating the same loud gibberish, I have pointed out the obvious flaws in your unreasonable critique of a "balanced" but not perfect ship.

No, you have not. You continued to claim one extra cabin justifies doubling overall price and reduced performance - what is effectively a trade as opposed to an improvement.

No reasonable person is accepting that as we all want to see the Beluga good at something more than just barely scraping by with sacrifices.

We want the ship to be a ship worth picking because its the best at its job, not because its just barely better by sacrificing something it should be good at.

 

[lenna]

Now you're argument is even more shaky. You are now disregarding all bulk transport A-B, not just the economy ones?

Well then now the Beluga really has nothing. Long range sightseeing is better done in a DBX, AspX or Anaconda. Bubble sightseeing is better done in the Dolphin, Orca or actually any of the other long range ships I just mentioned. Sightseeing missions RARELY go to the same place and NEVER with multiple luxury missions.

Also you say that they have read the thread but they've only dropped in three times to give some half comment like git gud. My suggestion would be for you two to in fact git gud and join the rest of us multi-billionaires in our supposed failed meta tactics of playing this game.

In-game credits are meaningless to the matter at hand - it does not matter how many credits an individual has, it does not change the fact that FD use ship price as a primary factor to indicate relative ship capability. As for my personal in-game worth, it is moot where this debate is concerned and mostly hampered by real life demands on my time that restrict the amount of time I can spend playing ED in VR - would love to spend more time in ED but can't for various reasons, it does not invalidate ANY of my points though.

I believe the "git gud" remarks you are referring to were more targeted at the heat complainers than the min-max-ers but their critique is pretty fair if a tad more coarse than I would personally use. Given the general apparent views of those complaining from either camp though I believe their retort is more than a little justified. I fully understand their frustration.

The kinds of missions I normally stack are tour missions and then I try to plan my route to visit all the destinations in an efficient and appropriate order. They normally pay between 5-10M a group when there are 2 or more stops. The bulk missions normally pay worse for time invested IMO/IME and I tend to steer clear of wanted/criminal or scanning sensitive missions. Even given that, I normally have no trouble finding more than enough missions to justify using a Beluga over the Orca.

If I am doing bulk missions, they are normally just opportunistic top ups because I happen to be heading in that rough direction. I have done stacking of bulk passenger missions and while I do not criticise those that get something out of them, personally I find them no better than cargo running missions. While most of the Luxury missions I have come across so far tend to fall into the Bulk category it still does not invalidate the points about the Beluga.

Nearly all the long distance passenger missions are "scanning sensitive" and in those cases if I were to engage in them I would favour using a ship intended for long journeys and better suited for stealth operation such as an Asp Explorer - especially since these missions are rarely above economy class IME. YMMV.

It sounds more to me that yourself and others are attacking the wrong target, complaining about a balanced ship rather than pushing for needed QOL improvements in the passenger mission area.

Given the relevant ship designs (Dolphin/Orca/Beluga look well suited to tour operations with their apparently large passenger viewing areas), perhaps ALL legal/non-criminal/non-scanning-sensitive tour missions above a certain level of reward should require Luxury cabins (or benefit from using higher class cabins - something I believe is already the case based on my experience. demanding passengers in higher class cabins seem to make less or no demands while than those in the minimum class required cabins - YMMV). Scanning sensitive missions probably should probably be at most business class, perhaps first class, because of the apparent demand for low-key transportation (this may already be the case - not looked at them that closely but most of the ones I have considered do seem to be economy biased if not economy exclusive). Bulk missions in general, reward should probably scale (more?) appropriately with cabin class demand along with other factors, currently I have seen little or no linkage between the two - cabin class seems largely an unlinked RNG factor.

The bemoaning about the Beluga capabilities stink to high heaven of agendas other than reasonable ship balance.

 

[lenna]

What?

This is like saying an airbus A380 isn't targeted at bulk transport of passengers because it has first class as well as cattle.

Not really, they are LUXURY transportation and designed specifically for that, no other ships have that capability - an A380 or other bulk carrier transport are designed primarily for bulk carriage, when retrofitted for "Luxury transportation factors" their bulk capability takes a significant hit. First class typically just means a bigger area dedicated to you as a passenger where bulk carriers are concerned.

Where luxury transportation is concerned, in ED we are limited to three ships specifically designed for that capability. Every other ship can not be retrofitted for Luxury capability but can service common or garden bulk transportation, assuming you can fit the relevant class cabin(s) that is.

Class 2 slots are limited to Economy
Class 3 slots are limited to Business Class max
Class 4 slots are limited to First Class max
Class 5 and 6 slots are any class that a given ship supports (meaning First Class for most ships - Luxury only for the Dolphin/Orca/Beluga).

FD have done an excellent job of balancing this overall capability, but have apparently let us down a bit on making the specific cabin classes appropriately relevant. That can only be appropriately addressed with changes to the mission system IMO.

Adding Class 7 and 8 cabins would not change much but, would make the likes of the Anaconda, Corvette, Cutter, and T-9/T-10 more capable where bulk transportation is concerned. I am not diametrically opposed to this, but I do feel it is unnecessary and would only exasperate the complaints of some.

Thinking more clearly about the Luxury ship designs the closest real world equivalents might be more along the following lines:-

• Dolphin - Relatively small Luxury boat (<40ft)
• Orca - Luxury Yacht/Super-Yacht (40-80ft)
• Beluga - Luxury Super/Mega-Yacht (>80ft)

 

[kofeyh]

Not really, they are LUXURY transportation and designed specifically for that, no other ships have that capability..

You know, I realise now, actually responding to this, is only contributing to the problem. I strongly disagree that a ship designed for passengers, should be less effective at this than a cargo ship. Just as I would be, if a passenger ship happened to better at carrying cargo, than a cargo ship.

The missions system, is only half of the problem. Fly safe. I'm out. o7

 

[lenna]

I strongly disagree that a ship designed for passengers, should be less effective at this than a cargo ship. Just as I would be, if a passenger ship happened to better at carrying cargo, than a cargo ship.

If you look at the huge sea going ISO container cargo-vessels they typically allow for a much greater cargo tonnage than current top of the line passenger vessels despite any relative volume similarities

RMS Queen Mary 2: 80T Displacement/150 Gross-Tonnage Volume - less than 3000 Passenger capacity.
Panamax Bulk Carrier: 52 DWT/5000 TEU
Neo-panamax Bulk Carrier: 120 DWT/13000 TEU

The TEU measure refers to what I know of as 20ft ISO containers and they are not an insubstantial amount of space (20ft x 8ft x 8ft 6in or 6m x 2.44m x 2.59m) that could theoretically be properly retrofitted and used for legitimate bulk passenger carriage - probably at least 2 people per container with appropriate shared amenities (only 1 person per container with no sharing of amenities). Less scrupulous people might fit alot more than that in each container. There would however be none of the Luxury facilities (e.g. swimming pools, ball rooms, planetariums, etc.) that you would expect from a Liner of similar size or even bigger size.

Being better/more-effective at carrying passengers should not equate purely to quantity carried.

 

[Captain Willard]

You know, I realise now, actually responding to this, is only contributing to the problem. I strongly disagree that a ship designed for passengers, should be less effective at this than a cargo ship. Just as I would be, if a passenger ship happened to better at carrying cargo, than a cargo ship.

The missions system, is only half of the problem. Fly safe. I'm out. o7

Of course you aren't contributing to the problem. You say passenger ships aren't as good as cargo ships, therein lies the problem.
Cargo ships can't carry lux passenger missions, apples and oranges. I've made more credits since the beluga was released than all other ships since week one of the games release and I don't do max cargo runs. I must be some weird old man I guess.
Overheats? I don't think so. Runs hotter than some, I hit 68% when jumping, that's not to hot. Weapons? slf? it's a passenger ship, what were you expecting? My suggestion to buffing the 3 passenger ships. Freighters, combat and multi role ships can't install passenger cabins. Bet you won't jump on that bandwagon. HAHA Of course not.
I'm sure vam has charts and graphs all ready to go for that answer. If anyone has taken offense as how to play this ship, it wasn't meant to be a condescending thought. I have four main bases, allied with all factions. I only fly the beluga out of one as it gives me luxury missions all the time, two at a time sometimes.

 

[kofeyh]

Of course you aren't contributing to the problem. You say passenger ships aren't as good as cargo ships, therein lies the problem.

No, I'm saying that a passenger ship carrying less passengers than a cargo ship, is no different to a passenger ship carrying more cargo than a cargo ship. Stop assuming I want a broken outcome because clearly that's what I want. I'm not trying to be nasty; it's just super popular to say "well you just want credits" and then ignore the actual concern.

I would like passengers ships to be designed and built to carry passengers, and to be good at that role. I'd like cargo ships to be built to carry cargo and be good at that role.

The assumption that a passenger ship should carry less passengers than a cargo ship, isn't a problem that needed solving!? That's not even logical. Whether or not the missions system is actually generating relevant missions, is an entirely different topic! Even if many more LUX missions were generated it still doesn't solve or change the underlying problem.

Would more LUX missions help? Probably. However it's not actually correcting the aberration that humanity somehow now uses cargo planes to freight people everywhere. We don't do that, in the 21st century; why the heck is the game doing that?

I just want crap in the game, to be consistent and at least a rough approximation of reality. That's it. Something that's consistent and jibes with likely outcomes; in the same way most people fly on a passenger plane to places; some will be in business, others, economy, and not always in the back of a cargo aircraft.

 

[Captain Willard]

No, I'm saying that a passenger ship carrying less passengers than a cargo ship, is no different to a passenger ship carrying more cargo than a cargo ship. Stop assuming I want a broken outcome because clearly that's what I want.

I would like passengers ships to be designed and built to carry passengers, and to be good at that role. I'd like cargo ships to built to carry cargo and be good at that role.

Whether or not the missions system is actually generating relevant missions, is an entirely different topic!

DANG Iv'e been spanked. ouch

 

[lenna]

However it's not actually correcting the aberration that humanity somehow now uses cargo planes to freight people everywhere. We don't do that, in the 21st century; why the heck is the game doing that?

Actually, that is not entirely true - or are you blind to certain things going on in the real world.

The worldwide military complex use retrofitted cargo transports to carry personnel on at least some occasions. It is also not unknown for passenger craft to be stripped down to carry cargo. Human trafficking also results in multiple families being stuffed in ISO containers like cattle. There have even also been cases of military vessels/craft not designed for passengers being used to evacuate people from hot spots in the world that have hit melting point.

In the ED universe, the human trafficking aspect is the slaves/imperial slaves. WRT everything else, the basis of most vessel designs is standardised modules which could be considered akin to current real-world ISO containers, albeit with greater variety and more flexibility in the main - with some bespoke exceptions like the Luxury cabins. Bespoke vessels like the Dolphin, Orca, and Beluga take a step back from that modular concept and focus on quality over quantity.