Sad trombone for large ship fans

This is not my argument at all. I have no problem with the fact that there are some activities in the game that are better suited for small or medium ships. Variety of roles and ships are a universal good in Elite Dangerous. But there should be a balance and in other areas of the game there should then be tangible meaningful advantages for large ships. Right now I am arguing there is almost no reason to choose a large ship in the game at all. Medium ships are almost always a better choice. Also, I would argue its not great for the game to exclude large ships entirely from a major event like this.

Disagree with me on the specific points? That's fine, and Frontier can sort through the discussion and take away from it what they will. However, I strongly disagree that my feedback or concerns are not valid.
Except you probably do have a large ship, and so do I, and so do a lot of other people.. so yes there must be a reason. perhaps it's not a good enough reason for you, since you think missions should be customized to ship capacities instead of happy medium where the medium size Python can also participate, and deliver these goods to outposts instead of just large pad stations, or "instant payout" one trip missions of max credits per haul ergo bigger ship = bigger payday and faction money. There's no reason a faction should care if it takes you more than one trip to haul the 5K tons of goods. They shouldn't just want to haul 500 tons of something just because it's the most efficient way for you to make money.

If they had missions that only could possibly be taken to large pads, that would rule out most of the player base who hasn't yet gotten to that level. Sure I get it that a couple bones thrown the way of the T9 or T10 would be nice, but that's what normal commodity trading is for. Fill up with commodities at station X, sell at station Y. That used to be a thing.
 
I still find a reason for a large ship in doing trade missions. Granted I don't need it for any of the missions, but mission stacking is a thing and I often find my Python doesn't have the capacity for the number of missions I can get going to a single destination. This right there is the right solution, imo, rather than making individual missions that a smaller ship cannot possibly do.

In cases where I don't have missions that fill the large ship, I fill the rest with normal commodity trading, buy-low sell-high. And sometimes I get lucky and the destination has missions for delivery of said cargo even.

Python is still my goto ship for trading, I like being able to take outpost missions....but I don't agree there isn't already an advantage for a larger ship. The number of times when trading in my Python where I could not take all of the missions to a specific destination due to cargo capacity is countless.
 
Except you probably do have a large ship, and so do I, and so do a lot of other people.. so yes there must be a reason.

I like the larger ships as I like the look and feel of them and to me if I was a real space pilot I'd love to fly that large ship. For me it is a stylistic preference and I suspect others feel similarly. We don't want to be forced to use medium ships for that reason.

If they had missions that only could possibly be taken to large pads, that would rule out most of the player base who hasn't yet gotten to that level. Sure I get it that a couple bones thrown the way of the T9 or T10 would be nice, but that's what normal commodity trading is for. Fill up with commodities at station X, sell at station Y. That used to be a thing.

Commodities trading is the one area left where large ships are definitely better. I do that sometimes though the money to be made there isn't very good compared to missions or mining. I do it for fun regardless. We both agree on that point. One thing that would be nice is if the gold-rush mechanics in the game switched once in a while from void opals to something else like trading in a commodity. Even that would throw us large ship space truckers a bone.

There are a few things about your arguments that do not make sense to me.

First, think about progression from a space trucker point of view (please look at my arguments through that lens as that is how I primarily play the game). The game has it nailed all the way through the Sidey, Hauler, Type-6, all the way to the Python. The haulage missions in the game scale with you and offers good haulage missions you can do in one go all the way up to that point (~200t or so which is Python level). You can fill your hold in one mission. The money for the ship you are in is pretty good. So players up to that point are in a good place in my opinion. But why does it stop there? I don't see how it would be bad for the game to continue this progression to missions which are suited for that type-9 or Cutter that you worked so hard to get. Why not let that progression continue? I don't see that as excluding anyone but as a continuation of progression.

Second, it doesn't take very long to get into a Type-9 these days for CMDR's who want to focus on trading. Even the Type-7 feels disadvantaged in this regard and that is not an expensive ship at all.

Finally, excluding large ships from a major event like the Interstellar Initiative feels punitive to me and is very disappointing. It really does make me feel that they are an afterthought in the game these days as the Python's and the Krait's are all seem to matter. Yeah that's a perception thing but that's how it feels to me.
 
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I still find a reason for a large ship in doing trade missions. Granted I don't need it for any of the missions, but mission stacking is a thing and I often find my Python doesn't have the capacity for the number of missions I can get going to a single destination. This right there is the right solution, imo, rather than making individual missions that a smaller ship cannot possibly do.

I have to respectfully disagree here. Mission stacking increases the risk of enemy NPC's interdicting. This has really adverse effects for CMDR's trying to do haulage missions in a Type-9. It pretty much mandates that you would use a Cutter which is much more defensible. Each mission has a chance to spawn these encounters.

Also, there are many missions that can only be done by small and medium ships so why not the reverse? Also, by your logic large ships should also not be excluded from this Interstellar Initiative as well?

I am not arguing for making haulage or trading worse in a Python. But there should be progression beyond that which takes advantage of the larger cargo holds of the larger ships. That just makes sense to me.
 
I have to respectfully disagree here. Mission stacking increases the risk of enemy NPC's interdicting. This has really adverse effects for CMDR's trying to do haulage missions in a Type-9. It pretty much mandates that you would use a Cutter which is much more defensible. Each mission has a chance to spawn these encounters.

I've stacked so many missions that the first page of my incoming message log filled up with "enemies incoming" messages....it's not a big deal. At most only 1 or 2 ever manage to actually try to interdict before I reach my destination and then I evade them. I think, once or twice, I may have been hit with 3 interdictions in a row...but it was partially my fault as I knew they were behind me and closing and I didn't do anything to be evasive as I approached the destination station.

I will say I do agree that it does push one to the Cutter though. That's what I ended up getting. Not because the stacked missions ever caused me damage, but because the pursuit was enough for me to want to stop and kill them some times. I named the Cutter "Vengeance".
 
I'm currently repairing stations, mostly A-B trading but I take any fetch quests that help too. I bought a Cutter hull specifically for the job, it has reactive armour, no shields & carries 792t of cargo. It's armed with four rail guns, a fixed beam under the nose and a load of heatsinks.

I named it 'Bait' ;)
 
I will say I do agree that it does push one to the Cutter though. That's what I ended up getting. Not because the stacked missions ever caused me damage, but because the pursuit was enough for me to want to stop and kill them some times. I named the Cutter "Vengeance".

Right. I have a Cutter too but I feel happier when I can fly the Type-9 for aesthetic and feel reasons. So this does cause an adverse impact for non-combat oriented space truckers that might prefer the Type-9 (or even the Type-7 for that matter). Lots of enemy NPC's even mass lock the Type-9 so you have to high wake out of there. Not a big deal when delivering commodities but super annoying when you are doing a haulage mission which only has one destination!

I'm not great at the interdiction mini-game so I've had to abandon missions because of this. Having this happen once and a while is fine, part of the game right? Having it happen often with stacked missions just gets annoying.

Also, stacking missions is also not great for another reason. It is rare to get multiple missions to the same place. Thus, this style of play makes shorter sessions more difficult as mission timers are not suspended when you log out.
 
I see what the Op is talking about. (Don't think I will be able to do the interstellar initiatives due to real life, so excluding that from my response), however he does have a good point about bigger ships losing their appeal.
I pretty much never use my T-10, as there seems to be a better smaller alternative for anything I can think of. Its a novelty ship. Its cool, but a novelty.
I never use my Beluga anymore, preferring the Orca and Krait for much of what I used the Beluga for.
I have three Cutters and all are mothballed, with the exception of my trade cutter which still gets random sporadic use, but i do find myself using the Krait and Python a lot more these days.
Corvette still gets a little use for combat, but not much, as I am using the Mamba and Challenger a lot more for that role.
Anaconda I haven't used in nearly 2+ years, because I just simply hate that ship and would rather go exploring in a Mamba than the Anaconda (did DW 2 in my Mamba). However this last is just my own personal strong biased dislike of the Anaconda.
So yes I do agree with the OP in that many of the bigger ships I use very little these days, as some over all shift has taken place in the game away from these ships. Can't single out anything in particular but overall they don't have anywhere near as much use as they use to for me.
 
Subjectively - [Insert like/dislike/opinion here].

Objectively - Large ships are bad for docking at Outposts.

That's about it, though. Really.

Regarding trucker progression, and this is just my subjective opinion - I would disagree with the assertion that the progression post-Python for truckers is Tonnage. I would counter that said progression is actually more along the lines of affecting or recognizing System States and other Market factors to really flex your profits. In that regard, a large ship is probably going to yield the best results, and by a significant margin.

Riôt
 
You know OP, FD isnt deliberately trying to scuttle your game right?
It just so happens that the site is on the edge of civilisation, the stations are only able to take small to medium ships and the guardian sites themselves are tricky to land at...
It actually makes sense for a frontier type expedition.
Maybe that was something to consider when folks voted on where to go for the iniative?
And then somebody at FD realised that only small to medium ships could do the job so they had to point that out because.... People would whinge about it anyway.
Lots of people use large ships, all the time, cept you because... Reasons...
 
You know OP, FD isnt deliberately trying to scuttle your game right?

C'mon I never said that. I just feel like large ships are neglected these days, I am not implying any deliberate malice. I am simply raising a concern with the game and yeah I am a little frustrated. I flew >12,000 light years back to the bubble in my exploration Beluga because I was excited about this event and I was sad to see the trade portion excluded my favorite trading ships. I don't think there is a need to be unfriendly because you disagree.

It just so happens that the site is on the edge of civilisation, the stations are only able to take small to medium ships and the guardian sites themselves are tricky to land at...
It actually makes sense for a frontier type expedition.

That's a valid point. If this was the only time in the last year or two that I felt that FD was neglecting large ships I would likely have not posted this thread and have just waited for the next one. Here is hoping the next major in-game event which is months away is more inclusive.

Lots of people use large ships, all the time, cept you because... Reasons...

Obviously I fly large ships as often as I can because I prefer them. Please disagree in a way that respects that I created this post in good faith.
 
Being forced to try new ships can be a lot of fun. Thanks to some other CMDRs recommendations I am doing a long haul in a... Beluga of all things, and loving it.

OP, try doing some cargo running in a Federal Drop Ship, it's a medium ship that flies like a large. You could haul a couple hundred tons with it if you gut it.
 
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