Funny, this is basically the Eagle Mk1 (Long range fighter), which was the starter ship of Elite Frontier II
Suggested Ships and Changes for Elite Dangerous
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Yeah, that’s where I got the idea, I could have just put LRF on there and everyone would know what I was talking about, but I wanted to describe it and keep it general. I don’t particularly like FDev being beholden to the original game completely, but it is nice to draw inspiration from it. If the Eagle MkI was to get added, it would be nice to have options when selecting your starting ship.Funny, this is basically the Eagle Mk1 (Long range fighter), which was the starter ship of Elite Frontier II
Eagle Long Range Fighter Mk 1 - Elite Wiki
wiki.alioth.net
Some good suggestions there, some I agree with and some that I disagree with (note that just because I disagree doesn't mean that I feel that the idea itself is bad!).
Regarding Core Dynamics, I quite agree that they need their ship roster expanding somewhat. As the Federations primary military contractor, they seem to have a vast number of missing ship roles that currently is forcing Federal factions to resort to 3rd party ships to fill the gaps in their lineup. On the combat side, I'd say that they have the small ships pretty well nailed down between the Eagle MkII and the Vulture, there isn't really much design space to implement anything smaller than the Eagle unless they are going to be implemented as SLFs (on that note, a much, much wider variety of SLFs is currently needed across all manufacturers, as the three human ones are pretty similar and there are no non-combat SLFs yet), although I can see the reason for a ship between the Eagle and the Vulture. It's also worth noting that the Eagle MkIII is already in the game - historically the MkII was the Federal variant of the Eagle while the MkIII was the Imperial Eagle, it's just that the Federal version is now showing its age so much that it has been decommissioned from military service and is now on the civilian markets.
CD medium ships are mostly covered by the dropship variants, but I can see three notable gaps in their lineup - a medium freighter variant of the dropship (~300 tonnes of cargo while shielded to place it in distinct competition with the Python as a freighter, but obviously sacrificing combat capability and jump range) and a miniaturised corvette to form CD's main Medimax design (Like Panamax, but for the largest possible ships that can land on a medium pad rather than the Panama Canal) that functions as a multirole competitor to the Python (ie, similar trading and combat potential, with the typical CD spin) and lastly some kind of Federal Monitor that is a dropship variant that can mount a huge hardpoint to provide fire support.
CD's large ship roster is currently entirely composed of the Corvette, which obviously needs a bit of attention. The main obvious gap to me is the "big ship on a budget" like the Clipper, T7 and Orca, which could easily be filled with an older and demilitarised Corvette that fits comfortably into the 30ish million credit price point and with appropriate performance. The other gap I can see is a ship capable of matching the Cutter (sure, the corvette has slightly greater firepower and turning speeds, but the Cutter is decisively a better trader as well as being stronger in almost every other combat metric; the Cutter is pretty much in a ship category above the Corvette in terms of both performance and cost), or possibly a competitor to the next-gen ships that maximise usage of a large landing pad.
In terms of ship naming and demilitarisation, I personally would rather keep the military ships as a reward for military service rather than removing the specialness to them. Rather than removing the benefits to military service, I'd much rather if military service became much more involved to make it interesting. Have the military demand that the player performs tasks in the areas they travel in or face demotions as an example - so a player entering within 20 ly of a system with a federal vs non-fed war going on might receive a message stating that they are being called up from reserve service and must obtain a certain amount of combat bonds in the nearby warzone. Sure, this hampers a players ability to min-max, but such is the price to pay for being a naval auxiliary/reservist. Players who already own rank-requiring ships might see their rebuys and maintenance costs increase if they fall below the required rank to own a ship, as the insurance company and the repair shops will have to start paying above-normal prices, bribing officials and possibly even purchasing black market or salvaged components to keep your ship running. For ship naming, I quite agree that simply "Federal X" is a very bland and sterile way of naming things as well as strangling future design space as it would be impossible to add in a second generation of dropships or an alternative corvette design. My personal suggestion for warships like the Corvettes would be mythical birds (so the current Corvette could be the Phoenix-class Corvette, which would than allow for alternative Corvettes down the line, such as a hypothetical Roc-class or Caladrius-class.
I know that the cat-themed ships are often suggested for Zorgon-Peterson, but personally I'd say that they should form the core lineup of another manufacturer. I think it's a complete waste of both an additional naming theme as well as some of the more iconic ships of previous games to simply shoehorn them onto a random manufacturer. This goes doubly so for these ships, as they were historically produced by the Gupta Industrial Corporation (except the Tiger, which was by a different shipyard), so the stage is already set for them to become a new manufacturer. There's also nothing stopping FD down the line from adding in even more of them, particularly branching out into other markets as the manufacturer reestablishes themselves, as there's no shortage of names of big cats.
On the topic of the Panther, rather than simply declaring it the ultimate ship or nerfing it down to the level of the Cutter, I'd say that it is a perfect opportunity to make a full lineup of top-end large landing pad ships that maximise available space and performance; effectively putting an upper limit on both size and performance for player ownable ships. Introduce the Panther alongside the Boa (FFE version, which was basically a scaled up Anaconda), a Federal Frigate, an Imperial Caravel/Carrack and the Alliance's Turner-class, then every ship manufacturer would have their fingers in the top-end pie and they can all be balanced against each other to ensure that there is no singularly best ship in the game.
Realistically, I could see design space in the game for at least 100 ships, possibly even 200+, as the main manufacturers will attempt to compete in pretty much every market while the smaller ones restrict themselves to their core competencies. At the moment with our ~40ish ships, there's entire swathes of ship roles and price points that are either empty or have a single manufacturer monopolising them.
I would talk about other manufacturers, but this post is getting pretty lengthy as it is with just talking about CD, cats and military ships.
Regarding Core Dynamics, I quite agree that they need their ship roster expanding somewhat. As the Federations primary military contractor, they seem to have a vast number of missing ship roles that currently is forcing Federal factions to resort to 3rd party ships to fill the gaps in their lineup. On the combat side, I'd say that they have the small ships pretty well nailed down between the Eagle MkII and the Vulture, there isn't really much design space to implement anything smaller than the Eagle unless they are going to be implemented as SLFs (on that note, a much, much wider variety of SLFs is currently needed across all manufacturers, as the three human ones are pretty similar and there are no non-combat SLFs yet), although I can see the reason for a ship between the Eagle and the Vulture. It's also worth noting that the Eagle MkIII is already in the game - historically the MkII was the Federal variant of the Eagle while the MkIII was the Imperial Eagle, it's just that the Federal version is now showing its age so much that it has been decommissioned from military service and is now on the civilian markets.
CD medium ships are mostly covered by the dropship variants, but I can see three notable gaps in their lineup - a medium freighter variant of the dropship (~300 tonnes of cargo while shielded to place it in distinct competition with the Python as a freighter, but obviously sacrificing combat capability and jump range) and a miniaturised corvette to form CD's main Medimax design (Like Panamax, but for the largest possible ships that can land on a medium pad rather than the Panama Canal) that functions as a multirole competitor to the Python (ie, similar trading and combat potential, with the typical CD spin) and lastly some kind of Federal Monitor that is a dropship variant that can mount a huge hardpoint to provide fire support.
CD's large ship roster is currently entirely composed of the Corvette, which obviously needs a bit of attention. The main obvious gap to me is the "big ship on a budget" like the Clipper, T7 and Orca, which could easily be filled with an older and demilitarised Corvette that fits comfortably into the 30ish million credit price point and with appropriate performance. The other gap I can see is a ship capable of matching the Cutter (sure, the corvette has slightly greater firepower and turning speeds, but the Cutter is decisively a better trader as well as being stronger in almost every other combat metric; the Cutter is pretty much in a ship category above the Corvette in terms of both performance and cost), or possibly a competitor to the next-gen ships that maximise usage of a large landing pad.
In terms of ship naming and demilitarisation, I personally would rather keep the military ships as a reward for military service rather than removing the specialness to them. Rather than removing the benefits to military service, I'd much rather if military service became much more involved to make it interesting. Have the military demand that the player performs tasks in the areas they travel in or face demotions as an example - so a player entering within 20 ly of a system with a federal vs non-fed war going on might receive a message stating that they are being called up from reserve service and must obtain a certain amount of combat bonds in the nearby warzone. Sure, this hampers a players ability to min-max, but such is the price to pay for being a naval auxiliary/reservist. Players who already own rank-requiring ships might see their rebuys and maintenance costs increase if they fall below the required rank to own a ship, as the insurance company and the repair shops will have to start paying above-normal prices, bribing officials and possibly even purchasing black market or salvaged components to keep your ship running. For ship naming, I quite agree that simply "Federal X" is a very bland and sterile way of naming things as well as strangling future design space as it would be impossible to add in a second generation of dropships or an alternative corvette design. My personal suggestion for warships like the Corvettes would be mythical birds (so the current Corvette could be the Phoenix-class Corvette, which would than allow for alternative Corvettes down the line, such as a hypothetical Roc-class or Caladrius-class.
I know that the cat-themed ships are often suggested for Zorgon-Peterson, but personally I'd say that they should form the core lineup of another manufacturer. I think it's a complete waste of both an additional naming theme as well as some of the more iconic ships of previous games to simply shoehorn them onto a random manufacturer. This goes doubly so for these ships, as they were historically produced by the Gupta Industrial Corporation (except the Tiger, which was by a different shipyard), so the stage is already set for them to become a new manufacturer. There's also nothing stopping FD down the line from adding in even more of them, particularly branching out into other markets as the manufacturer reestablishes themselves, as there's no shortage of names of big cats.
On the topic of the Panther, rather than simply declaring it the ultimate ship or nerfing it down to the level of the Cutter, I'd say that it is a perfect opportunity to make a full lineup of top-end large landing pad ships that maximise available space and performance; effectively putting an upper limit on both size and performance for player ownable ships. Introduce the Panther alongside the Boa (FFE version, which was basically a scaled up Anaconda), a Federal Frigate, an Imperial Caravel/Carrack and the Alliance's Turner-class, then every ship manufacturer would have their fingers in the top-end pie and they can all be balanced against each other to ensure that there is no singularly best ship in the game.
Realistically, I could see design space in the game for at least 100 ships, possibly even 200+, as the main manufacturers will attempt to compete in pretty much every market while the smaller ones restrict themselves to their core competencies. At the moment with our ~40ish ships, there's entire swathes of ship roles and price points that are either empty or have a single manufacturer monopolising them.
I would talk about other manufacturers, but this post is getting pretty lengthy as it is with just talking about CD, cats and military ships.
Thats why I had so many suggestions for Core Dynamics. I feel that any military contractor should be able to fill every role in a navy, even if that said navy doesn’t choose to use those ships. On the topic of the Eagle line up, I suggested the MkI as basically a new starting ship, the MkIII because in lore the MkIII had two versions, Imperial and Federal as a way to update the MkII. Lastly, I suggested the MkIV to be the new Eagle and compete with the Viper. The Osprey was suggested to be able to fill in the gap that does exist between the Eagle and Vulture. The Falcon is supposed to be more of a customizable SLF, Bigger than the Condor, but small enough to fit in the bay.
The Hawk and Kestrel are meant to be fast attack crafts, one a medium corvette type ship, and the other as a bomber.As far as a good multirole, I could se the use for that, but seeing as CD is a Military contractor and not really a civilian manufacturer. It doesn’t make a whole lot of ships that aren’t specialized. The Dropship variants you suggest is what I had in mind when I designed the Pelicans, all though I thought of them as more of Large Ships, and I didn’t include the Huge hardpoint because that would limit the number of Large hardpoints and make the fire support ability more limited as opposed to multiple large hardpoint that can cover a wider fire range.
A more Multirole design of the corvette would be cool, but CD tends focus more on Specialized ships. What I would suggest is two more ships that can fill a focus other than combat. A Corvette with better jump range, but less firepower. And another with reduced combat and maneuverability and increased cargo/passenger capacity.
After that, if CD wants to try to creat a smaller multirole that could lead into the other ships, that would make sense. FDevs could do either, as long a they make good ships that make sense.
I appreciate the time and thought you spared to respond with healthy criticism. If more people bring their thoughts like you did, more thoughtful ideas would spawn for what people want. I by no means think my ideas are the best and am open to I different solutions. I agree with many of you points and I will address the others later.
Don’t personally like the idea of ships being locked behind the ranks system, but it makes sense, and I’ve they fixed how ranks worked, it be understandable. First of all, allow us to actually join the auxiliary, not make it like a secondary but harder reputation bar that doesn’t give use anything but a handful of good ships and some lackluster permits. Make us have to do military missions to earn ranks. You start out locally, but once you unlock Vega, you can do better and harder missions to earn ranks quicker, but failing a mission would set you back, so there is more risk involved. In terms of rewards, there should be more. If we accept ships, that’s ok, but there should be more ships and more perks, such as discounts in federal space, along with weekly payments that increase with rank. Also, give use Federation cosmetics when we join and rank specific decals. The Sol system should be more of a Federation Reputation reward, along with other systems that have no military importance.
Ranks should be more inclusive, but not necessary to enjoy the game.
The Big cat names should come from a different manufacturer, but I doubt FDev would do that. If they have to come from one of the already existing manufacturers, it should be ZP, because they all but confirmed that the Panther was a ZP ship. The Panther could introduce us tho bigger ships that require external docking. I’ve seen that the Boa could be used as either a smaller anaconda or bigger. Bigger would make more sense, but I didn’t think for making something that would disrupt the Big 3, but I’m more than OK with it, but I would still like to see an anaconda model that’s better and look like a DeLacy ship( with those vents and a more sharper appearance) because the current anaconda was designed by Rimliner, making it not a DeLacy ship in design. The Frigate, Carrack, and Turner, as you call it, would be amazing ships to include for external docking, and great center pieces for a squadron, along with a fleet carrier, which could be something to use as more of a mobile base.
Yes, many people claim that ship purposes are lacking, but I don’t see this as true. Most niches are cover by one ship or another, if you exclude brands. The ships I suggest are more to expand the options per niche, without just copying and pasting.
I enjoyed your input and I would like to hear more of your ideas.
Right you are.
Historically Cutter was a small, one mast ship. Smaller then Clipper, when those two ships existed at the same time.
Clippers were huge transport vessels designed for long transoceanic voyages, optimised fors speed at the cost of cargo.
That's probably too late for this though - people are too accustomed to those names, even if there's something wrong about them. It still confuses me tbh.
They I think what happened was they originally had the proper name, but someone messed up and they got switched. They never bothered to change them because it wasn’t a problem, but now, if they start introducing more larger ships with the Clipper designation, it’s going make the imperial ships seem out of place.
The thing that I see with regards to overlap between ships in a niche is that every manufacturer always has their own spin on things, their own characteristic strengths and weaknesses. This means that ships that occupy broadly the same market niche will typically play in quite different ways and have their own fans and detractors, to say nothing about roleplayers and NPC loadouts / general immersion that wider manufacturer portfolios would offer. This style of thinking can be seen in most games that have different factions/races, such as the X-series having several different races that all have their own unique ships despite each ship still fitting into categories that are universal between races.
For example, Core Dynamics ships tend towards having strong shields, high maneuverability and concentrated forward firepower, but at the cost of low max speeds, terrible jump ranges, relatively fragile hulls and relatively few hardpoints.
Contrast this with Lakon ships, that often boast large numbers of hardpoints, oversized FSDs and strong hulls, but usually have somewhat undersized distributors, poor shields, no huge hardpoints and medium-poor maneuverability/speed.
So a Lakon ship and a Core Dynamics ship, even if they are both combat focused and hitting the exact same price point, would still offer somewhat different gameplay in terms of both flying them as well as fighting against them. Nobody would say that a T-10 and a Fed'Vette are basically the same ship, as despite their similarities as small warships in their respective navies, they are very different to fly and fight against (and this would still be true if the T10 got a buff to bring it out of the "completely useless" category). Similarly, sheer combat performance aside, a Vulture performs very differently to a DBX; this difference in style would still apply even if Lakon decided to create a dedicated heavy fighter variant of the DBX such that even if they are equal in performance they would still be different to use.
Unless there is some strange technical reason to not add in another manufacturer, such as being hardcoded in or having some kind of strange engine limitation that limits the game to 6 different manufacturers (assuming that the game reserves a couple of NPC only "manufacturers" for Thargoid and Guardian tech, it still seems really dumb to store a ship's manufacturer as a 3-bit integer; the extra upgradability and future proofing that would be offered by storing it as a larger integer would be well worth the few extra bits it requires) it should be quite easy to add in another manufacturer). On a similar note, I'd love it if the various manufacturers were to be implemented into the game as minor factions, with their presence/control giving wider selections of their ships and discounts in the shipyard.
We have also seen FD change manufacturers very late on in development for a ship; this is also why Delacey's latest few ships have all looked like a Lakon design - they were originally designed as Lakon ships but FD changed the logo on them at the last moment. Early promotional images of the Taipan had the Lakon logo on them, while the Krait MkII was actually released with Alliance logos scattered around in the cockpit (remember that Lakon is the Alliance military contractor) as well as there being references in the game's code calling the MkII the "Krait Tornado" - the Tornado being a famous British military aircraft that isn't far off the general naming theme of Alliance ships (the Crusader, Challenger and Chieftain are all British tanks).
In terms of larger ships that require external docking clamps, the idea that ships like the Panther would require a new landing pad is a bit of a myth as there is a lot of headroom in terms of available volume for the large landing pad. An Anaconda is "only" 155x62x32 metres, while the longest ship is the Beluga at 209m, the widest is the Beluga at 131.6m and the tallest is the T10 at 39.3m; so the Beluga is 35% longer and 112% wider, while the T10 is 23% taller. Even if we keep an identical shape and aspect ratio for the Boa as the Anaconda and simply expand each dimension by 23% to make it as tall as the T10 (and notably shorter and thinner than the Beluga) they we get a ship of 1.23^3 the volume which gives us ~85% greater internal volume than the Anaconda. Considering how the FFE Boa had about double the internal capacity, it is quite feasible for an expanded Anaconda design to have 80-100% greater capacity. Once you factor in the extra volume available by increasing length and particularly the width of a ship or adopting a less aggressively wedged design, it is quite easy to have ships with 1500+ tonnes of cargo capacity on a large landing pad which would be more than enough for the likes of the Panther with its "box with boxy engines" style of design. If necessary, the "boxiness" of a design can be reduced somewhat through the use of variable geometry, by tucking in the wings and fins when landing.
For a ship to require an external docking clamp, it would have to be such a massive leap over our existing ships in terms of size and capability that it wouldn't really fit as a player operable ship. However, I would be very much in favour of NPC-only larger-than-large ships to occupy the current gulf between the various escorts/commercial vehicles and the stationlike megaships and capitals. Once thing that I have grown to detest is the increasing usage of engineering by NPCs to increase difficulty; increasing the difficulty itself I am in favour of but I find it ridiculous that these enigmatic geniuses somehow now seem to have the time and willingness to personally tweak almost every military and pirate ship in the galaxy. It would make far more sense from a lore perspective to increase NPC difficulty through human tech broker modules (perhaps with each faction having a couple of tech broker modules it has access to), Powerplay modules (I know they now do use PP modules, but they should only use them if they are affiliated with an appropriate superpower rather than half the Federal Navy somehow being trusted members of Aisling's inner circle with their prismatic shields), larger NPC-only ships, increased numbers and improved AI.
You won’t need external docking if you are talking about slightly bigger ships than the big three, but I assumed that when you said “Frigate” and ships related in size, I thought of really big ships, but ships that barely fit in the hanger would be interesting as well. The panther won’t need external docking. I also have issues with the Devs switching manufacturers at the last minute does suck, but the Krait did need to be a DeLacy ship name wise, but the design is totally Lakon in design. And the Anaconda also looks out of place for a DeLacy ship, but hey explain that. For any ship that has external docking, it should be a somewhat static ship as more of a mobile objective to use as a command ship in squadron battles (if that were a thing). On the topic of power play and engineering, I haven’t gotten to use them in depth yet, so excuse my lack of nowledge on the subject. Ram Tah is also an manufacturer, so FDev will probably use that for guardian ships. There isn’t a problem with adding more manufacturers, I would prefer more, like one for the big cats. I had an idea for a CD subsidiary called Classic dynamics that basically use the FE2 designs for the bird ships.
Agree with this. The introduction of the Krait(s) and the Mamba - two ships which hitherto were I suppose 'heavy' fighters, are now 'mid-range multipurpose vessels'. FDev seem to be pushing every new ship into this category. So I agree with the OP in that a bigger variety of ship types and niches could be something that FDEV shouild consider.
Moor ships!
Me likey!
Flying spaceships in a spaceship flying spaceships game!
Cant go wrong.
I'd suggest that along with more ships, rather than constantly tweaking and fiddling with the current ships, in line with major power's and corps, lets have a bunch of ships that really settle in with factions/corp design in much more specialised roles. Maybe rank locked and expensive. But specialised in such a way as to remove the need for engineering entirely.
That way a player can choose to grind for rank and credits with a goal of an already highly specialised custom built ship with fancy paint jobs.
Kind of like your street legal safe space mitsubishi or subaru hairdressers car compared to a full on customised street illegal competition rally car.
An actual federal gunship, no cargo holds, built in warrant scanners, bristling with guns, improved scanners, defences to suit and hardly any jump range. Has to be shipped in.
Or an asp explorer, stripped down, lightweight, engines built for range and thermal protection, built in scanners and planet scanners, srv and slf bays for exploration versions of srv and slf. No guns, only heat sinks and more windows for viewing.
So on and so forth.
Me likey!
Flying spaceships in a spaceship flying spaceships game!
Cant go wrong.
I'd suggest that along with more ships, rather than constantly tweaking and fiddling with the current ships, in line with major power's and corps, lets have a bunch of ships that really settle in with factions/corp design in much more specialised roles. Maybe rank locked and expensive. But specialised in such a way as to remove the need for engineering entirely.
That way a player can choose to grind for rank and credits with a goal of an already highly specialised custom built ship with fancy paint jobs.
Kind of like your street legal safe space mitsubishi or subaru hairdressers car compared to a full on customised street illegal competition rally car.
An actual federal gunship, no cargo holds, built in warrant scanners, bristling with guns, improved scanners, defences to suit and hardly any jump range. Has to be shipped in.
Or an asp explorer, stripped down, lightweight, engines built for range and thermal protection, built in scanners and planet scanners, srv and slf bays for exploration versions of srv and slf. No guns, only heat sinks and more windows for viewing.
So on and so forth.
I would love to see a material mining 'landing' ship. Drops on a planet or moon, you send off prospectors which identify an area. then you send off miners. a way of collecting mats that does not mean you drive all over as some people do have issues in the damn buggy. Or a specialized buggy that uses the sub-surface mining. Drive to a spot.(cause it is already in the game) launch a prospecting rover. then fire the sub-surface miner. Using the same gameplay as in a ship, Boom, you get a few more mats that you don't drive all over the planet to pick up.
As for the Panther clipper being too big for the mailslot. put a Huge pad or 4 at the BACK end of the stations, Not internal. Used for bulk fright. Quick movement of bulk grains or stuff to storage. Would work on the Ocellus stations. Of course that would mean no automated dock and people flying the big ones getting used to flying to the back.
As for the Panther clipper being too big for the mailslot. put a Huge pad or 4 at the BACK end of the stations, Not internal. Used for bulk fright. Quick movement of bulk grains or stuff to storage. Would work on the Ocellus stations. Of course that would mean no automated dock and people flying the big ones getting used to flying to the back.
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Let's face it people, in the end there's only one ship we all agree on that should be re-introduced: the Interplanetary Shuttle
Yeah, If I recall correctly, from old lore and short stories
The Eagle Long Range fighter was a Faulcon deLacy design
The Federal and Imperial Militaries like them so much they purchased licences to produce their own variants
The Federal Mk.II and Imperial Mk.III
The Eagle was so popular as it could operate on its own without a carrier, compared to the Federal Falcon and Imperial Ospey fighters, which whilst could fit a hyperdrive, it was not worth it. as they could only fit the compact and expensive military drives with the exotic fuel requirement, complicating logistics, or a standard hydrogen fuelled interplanetary drive.
However prevailing doctrine shifted back to Short range fighters and the Eagles were superseded by the F63 and GU97s again.
It would be lovely to see the Eagle Long Range fighter in game, replacing the Mk.IIs in the independent systems security forces ( and whilst we are at it getting the Internal Security Service to use the Mk.III)
And it would be lovely to see the Merlin appear as the Alliance Light fighter
But I recall from a livestream that ships take a long time to create and produce so it isn't like we will see a lot turned out in short order.
And for the same reason we have the Six big manufacturers is each was to have a distinct design aesthetic easily identifiable, so I am happy to accept the explanation of the big Six buying all the successful designs, even if we don't end up seeing an AAAI line.
So the wish to see a lot of the old ships just for the sake of having them might remain a wish as it would be a question of value added for creating them.
Given Unlimited Budget and Time I would love to see
Eagle Long Range fighter for independents
The Merlin as the Alliance Light fighter
The Krait Mk.I as a Sidewinderesque reskin for Frontier systems
Cobra Mk.I s a Cobra Mk.IIIesque reskin for Frontier systems
Lion as a ZPG Cobra Mk.IV reskin for all players
Puma as a ZPG Large Trader
(both ZPG as they have the same space plane with winglets we see in the Hauler, Adder and Fer-de-Lance)
The Osprey and Falcons as reskins SLFs found in Frontier systems where they were sold off surplusNot sure what for the Boa as in elite it was a modernized Python but in FE2 and FFE it was a bigger Anaconda
And the Moray for water worlds with an SSRV
Making the ships you see in the Populated Rich core systems different from the ones in the poor backwaters and frontier systems.
But then does my idea fill a gap or is it just fluff and visuals
I would like to see the Panther Clipper make its long awaited entrance to the game. I wonder if it might be fun that the Panther gets even bigger than it was in FE2 and now becomes one of the first of the fleet ships?
So jump capable, with a repair/ restock facility and storage of your own modules but no facility to buy new ones. I would like to see it carry one medium ship and two or three small ships. Probably multiple hardpoints but given the lack of maneuverability they would basically have to be turrets.
This way you could have an FDL, a Viper and a Hauler (taxi) for example. This would help everyone spend their hard earned Void Opal cash. I also think this might refocus people on favoring smaller ships?
So jump capable, with a repair/ restock facility and storage of your own modules but no facility to buy new ones. I would like to see it carry one medium ship and two or three small ships. Probably multiple hardpoints but given the lack of maneuverability they would basically have to be turrets.
This way you could have an FDL, a Viper and a Hauler (taxi) for example. This would help everyone spend their hard earned Void Opal cash. I also think this might refocus people on favoring smaller ships?