Time for small pad only stations?

[Riverside]

Small ships do need to be more special.

I do agree with this simple premise. I've played this game for a long time and one of the things that keeps me going is mixing it up a bit and using more than just a couple of meta-ships. But every ship in my fleet needs to be useful, preferably making the most of whatever that ship's strengths are.


The Advanced Drives (up to class 3) make what would otherwise 'progression ships' (ones that only make sense early in the game, like the sidewinder & hauler) useful again.

I have a 680m/s Sidewinder fitted with class 2 scoop, class 2 shield, ADS & DSS. It jumps something like 27ly and is a great scout for collecting exploration data within the bubble, I use it in particular for finding out player traffic. It's size, speed & manoeuvrability make it hard to hit, and if someone gets lucky it's rebuy is tiny.
I have a Hauler taxi with a similar loadout (jumps further, not quite as fast) for travelling between locations.
An Adder with a black paint job because it's the law.
A Viper MkIII, Courier and iEagle for CZs,
A 700m/s Eagle for larking about in my home system (Canyon running etc), and
A Diamondback Scout called 'SpaceWolf' because it looks a bit like an attack helicopter.

All of these become useful again because of those Advanced Drives and engineering.

I also have several Cobra MkIIIs for various mission running roles,
A Cobra MkIV called 'Minor' for small time mining (52t payload),
A CZ Vulture, and probably others I don't remember right now.

I found uses for all of those, or at least a reason to fly them, in some cases because they can do things bigger ships can't (mostly speed & not getting hit). I want to be able to use them for more stuff, I want to see more pilots flying them. They are viable, I'd like them to be optimal for something because a lot of them are great fun to fly.

But all I really need is a Python.

 

[Sylow]

Small ships do need to be more special. They need a purpose outside of simply being "starter" ships. Having some stations or bases in the galaxy which only small ships could access would give them a real in game use.

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I agree on the first part. Small ships indeed need to be more special. But I disagree that bases with small landing pads are the way to go.
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Small stations would just be to almost everybody, what outposts are for many players already now: fluff. Known to be here, but of no use. Does anybody here really thing that somebody would permanently get out of his Anaconda and fly a Viper, just so he is able to access these outposts? I rather think that almost everybody will ignore them.
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I fully agree that small ships urgently need help. There currently really is no point in flying one over a medium or even big ship. In old times, we had a number of pilots who preferred small ships due to their speed and agility. But by now, thanks to some new ships (Chieftain family, Krait) and engineering, we have medium ships poaching in the small ships flight profile. (Just like the Corvette with good engineering flies like a medium ship of old times. )
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It's not easy to help small ships out here. Some good ideas are really needed. But as long as those small-ship-only bases don't miraculously offer very special and very exclusive content (which would be very strange), they'd really not be worth the time. People would just ignore them. The improvement to small ships has to be done to the small ships. The ships themselves have to be made worth it again.
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The Advanced Drives (up to class 3) make what would otherwise 'progression ships' (ones that only make sense early in the game, like the sidewinder & hauler) useful again.

I have a 680m/s Sidewinder fitted with class 2 scoop, class 2 shield, ADS & DSS. It jumps something like 27ly and is a great scout for collecting exploration data within the bubble, I use it in particular for finding out player traffic. It's size, speed & manoeuvrability make it hard to hit, and if someone gets lucky it's rebuy is tiny.
I have a Hauler taxi with a similar loadout (jumps further, not quite as fast) for travelling between locations.
An Adder with a black paint job because it's the law.
A Viper MkIII, Courier and iEagle for CZs,
A 700m/s Eagle for larking about in my home system (Canyon running etc), and
A Diamondback Scout called 'SpaceWolf' because it looks a bit like an attack helicopter.

All of these become useful again because of those Advanced Drives and engineering.

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It's nice that you see it like that, but i don't. I have a Courier. With those drives, fully engineered, many pieces modded to lightweight. I used this for a long time, as only few ships came close. (Although the FAS was a medium ship which you were able to push to similar agility. ) Along came the Chieftain. Yes, it drifts some more, which seems to be a disadvantage. But drift can also be used as a positive, so it evens out in my eyes.
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The Courier still has higher top speed, but when not only the faction locked FAS but also the always available Chieftain are available, providing vastly superior firepower, excellent turn rates and some more survivability to boot, you have to love the Courier for itself to stick to it.
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[DNA-Decay]

This is page whatever and I’ve got nothing useful to add.
Except I was garbage for such a long time that my Cobra, uh whatever, OP has a point small pad only spots would have always beeen way cool. -

Dont expect to get noticed, just keeping it on the front page one more day.

 

[Riverside]

It's nice that you see it like that, but i don't. I have a Courier. With those drives, fully engineered, many pieces modded to lightweight. I used this for a long time, as only few ships came close. (Although the FAS was a medium ship which you were able to push to similar agility. ) Along came the Chieftain. Yes, it drifts some more, which seems to be a disadvantage. But drift can also be used as a positive, so it evens out in my eyes.
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The Courier still has higher top speed, but when not only the faction locked FAS but also the always available Chieftain are available, providing vastly superior firepower, excellent turn rates and some more survivability to boot, you have to love the Courier for itself to stick to it.
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That's the point, although I guess I didn't make it well enough. I'd like them to be optimal for something because a lot of them are great fun to fly. I'd like there to be a benefit to being a small pad ship, or to being physically small.

 

[Sylow]

That's the point, although I guess I didn't make it well enough. I'd like them to be optimal for something because a lot of them are great fun to fly. I'd like there to be a benefit to being a small pad ship, or to being physically small.

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Hehe. We both agree that small ships need some help. But we disagree on how to help them.
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Many people seem to believe that small ship only outposts would encourage people to fly small ships again. But by that logic, a lot of players should refuse to use one of the big ships and use a medium instead. Our current outposts have no large pads. But most people actually rather pick a large pad ship and just ignore outposts. After all, outposts don't really offer anything unique. Any service, goods and type of mission you could get there you can also get at a regular station.
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Based on that, I just conclude that the same thing would happen for outposts which only allow small ships. Very few people would be happy about them, most people would shrug them off as useless. And most likely will make a huge fuss about it. I really doubt that it'd make a significant number of players pick up small ships again. (Unless those new outposts would have exclusive content. But even then, most people would not switch to small ships, but rather complain about it till it's changed. )
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That's why I say: improve the ships themselves. Make them more rewarding to fly. That will help the ships more than any number of small pads on new and immediately ignorable outposts.
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[Riverside]

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Hehe. We both agree that small ships need some help. But we disagree on how to help them.
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Many people seem to believe that small ship only outposts would encourage people to fly small ships again. But by that logic, a lot of players should refuse to use one of the big ships and use a medium instead. Our current outposts have no large pads. But most people actually rather pick a large pad ship and just ignore outposts. After all, outposts don't really offer anything unique. Any service, goods and type of mission you could get there you can also get at a regular station.
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Based on that, I just conclude that the same thing would happen for outposts which only allow small ships. Very few people would be happy about them, most people would shrug them off as useless. And most likely will make a huge fuss about it. I really doubt that it'd make a significant number of players pick up small ships again. (Unless those new outposts would have exclusive content. But even then, most people would not switch to small ships, but rather complain about it till it's changed. )
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That's why I say: improve the ships themselves. Make them more rewarding to fly. That will help the ships more than any number of small pads on new and immediately ignorable outposts.
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Nothing wrong with your conclusions, it's a valid potential outcome depending on playstyle. But being able to land on a small pad, and being generally being physically small (and light, the Advanced Drives take advantage of this already) are the only differentiating factors.

When running missions for BGS influence (quite a popular activity) being able to land at an outpost is very handy; I visit them regularly. I do it in several ships, but I only need a Python (the biggest ship that can land at an Outpost).

It's no longer the case but being fast & manoeuvrable used to be more of a factor in the game - I got most of the way to Trade Elite in 1.4 doing small cargo & data missions with short timers where literally every second saved could mean the difference between success and failure of a mission. I did them in a Cobra MkIII. An AspX could jump further but couldn't get to the pad as fast and drifted a little more making speed docking a little more difficult. This is the kind of small pad ship advantage I'm talking about.

imo they are already rewarding to fly, we just need more reasons to fly them.

 

[Sylow]

imo they are already rewarding to fly, we just need more reasons to fly them.

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For me it's unfortunately more like "they were rewarding to fly". For me, the Chieftain and it's turn rates above and beyond what any medium ship offered before really hurt my Courier a lot. But I wonder if even more agility would really help small ships any more, or what other way could there be to help them?
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I mean, small pad outposts, as said, I think they'll be ignored.
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Another idea going around was to have CQC assets in the regular game and put objectives in there. So instead of wars only being decided by who kills the biggest number of ships in combat zones (only numbers matter, size does not, in the current system), we could have wing missions which contribute much more. We could have stations where only small ships could get inside their vents, to hit some switches and destroy the shield generator. (We could also have some ground installations, where only SRVs could reach the shield generator, etc. ) Only then the big guys could move in and lay waste to the target.
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Unfortunately I think that this also wouldn't help small ships so much. The question would still be: why bring a small ship, if you can bring a more powerful one and fly a SLF into those tight spots?
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So yes. I know that I don't have a substantial suggestion at hand, how to make small ships matter again. I wish I would. I just believe that the suggested small pad only stations won't do the job, but will simply be ignored. I still hope that somebody will come up with a viable suggestion on how to boost small ships to make them relevant again.
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[Nadreck]

CARRIERS.

That's all you need to make small ships relevant again.

...Unless FDev go down the route of only providing megaships that can take ships of all sizes (as the existing ones can). I think that would be a huge mistake, personally.

They could do it by price, I suppose.

Small-ship Carrier: 1 billion
Medium-ship Carrier: 5 billion
Large-ship Carrier: 25 billion

Or, if made available as premium content: £10 / £50 / £250 ??

 

[Tifu]

Small ships by nature are stealthier. Build missions for scouting, patrolling and smuggling where being spotted and/or scanned means automatic mission failure. In RPG terms, small ships are thieves and big ships are warriors. Both have a role if the game is balanced correctly.

 

[Ozram]

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Hehe. We both agree that small ships need some help. But we disagree on how to help them.
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Many people seem to believe that small ship only outposts would encourage people to fly small ships again. But by that logic, a lot of players should refuse to use one of the big ships and use a medium instead. Our current outposts have no large pads. But most people actually rather pick a large pad ship and just ignore outposts. After all, outposts don't really offer anything unique. Any service, goods and type of mission you could get there you can also get at a regular station.
.
Based on that, I just conclude that the same thing would happen for outposts which only allow small ships. Very few people would be happy about them, most people would shrug them off as useless. And most likely will make a huge fuss about it. I really doubt that it'd make a significant number of players pick up small ships again. (Unless those new outposts would have exclusive content. But even then, most people would not switch to small ships, but rather complain about it till it's changed. )
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That's why I say: improve the ships themselves. Make them more rewarding to fly. That will help the ships more than any number of small pads on new and immediately ignorable outposts.
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I think it would make subculture possibilities more fun. I’d love planetary outposts that only accept small ships or some that just accept up to medium ships, or single pad minor outposts in remote locations. The variety would be nice. Small ships are great to fly and having more excuses to fly them would e great. On a side note, I disagree with you’re premise about large pad ships being the most popular. I don’t have the figures (neither do you, apparently) but my guess is med ships are far more common for most people. Regardless, they all have their place. What I’d like is more ways to interact with the game where everything feels relevant. I want reason to land on a planet besides shooting rocks for mats for content entirely unrelated to driving an srv. I’d love it if FD understood gamers a bit better. It’s clear they don’t.