same as dbs, none
edit: or better said, ships flown by people that are already bored by their other 30 ships
same as dbs, none
edit: or better said, ships flown by people that are already bored by their other 30 ships
The thing is that with 1 more medium hardpoint and 2 more utility, this little ship would be a beast of a mid-range combat vessel. Adding more optionals to it doesn't seem like it would actually solve its "I have no niche" problem, since with only 2 utility slots and the exact same hardpoint layout as both the DBS and Keelback, but much slower than the DBS and without the fighter of the Keelback, it would just be a slower and mildly more sturdy version of the DBS... tho the DBS can stuff 2 more optionals in which helps a lot in that regard.
My biggest issue here isn't the idea of buffing the Asp S; far from it, the poor ship needs love. I just don't know that the optionals boost would actually do anything to change it's lot in life. It looks so desperately like it wants to fight, and instead of giving it a bigger stick we're giving it a bigger backpack to carry stuff around in.
The T series (and all ships) should have been subject to repair rules- in that they were simple transports that had low repair costs while more advanced ships were more expensive to repair and run. But that went out of the window, something I'd like to see back but the howls from FC land probably say otherwise.
You would need to change the model completely to add another medium, are FD going to put that amount of work in (I would hope so, but so far its not been promising)? The 2 Utility slots already have sites and could be reverted more easily and adding internal spaces is a drop down exercise- a new medium would have to go above and behind the cockpit in a new blister (or re-use the Asp Es upper forward hull).
And one of the prime reasons no-one uses one is because its so slow and keeping it slow solves nothing. If anything we need a version of the CM4 in the game to fill that hole for the rest of the players, as in a progression of the CM3. For me the order of importance would be - 1) speed 2) utility slots 3) internal space 4) price. Even if FD only went to 1 and 2 it would make the ship more viable.
I'm not using it not because it is slow - i dont really care about it's speed, but because it has crap internals and/or crap jump range
Otherwise i would had made it my primary guardian/material gathering ship
So,
if i want range (Crystalline Shards) - DBX
If i want in the bubble mats gathering - Cobra mk3
If i want a good mix-ul or if i get bored - Dolphin
Jump range is meaningless with modules these days- its jump range is not poor, it just does not quite live up to its 'Scout' name for the price or abilities it offers. Plus, you are comparing it to a ship that has a larger class FSD anyway and over half the price.
Eh?
No, range it is not meaningless - 50ly is bare minimum for bubble mats gathering, but it's not really appropriate for guardians and really not for Crystaline Shards.
At least not for me.
All 3 ships i mentioned as being used instead of AspS are way cheaper than an AspS
And each of them have some advantages, at least for me
- C3 better internals and almost the same SC maneuverability, jump range bit lower but i like it better
- Dolphin, way better internals, good SC, better jump range (i kinda hate the cockpit view tho)
- DBX - way better range, ok-ish internals and SC maneuverabilty
Range is meaningless, because even lardy ships can jump acceptable distances now via engineering or modules making that metric less important than it did before.
And its why the Asp Scout needs to be cheaper than it is and have more to offer, because its not bringing much to the table. Its too expensive (if you use cost as a metric), too slow, too cramped inside. Its had tons stripped out in comparison to an Asp E, and yet is smaller on the inside when it should have more internal space (even if thats split up into smaller compartments). You could make that a feature since its got half the engines- so that its like a Courier in that speed and agility are linked to mass- so if those internals I proposed were filled, you would pay for it more than if they were using undersized or lightweight modules. That would resonate with its Scout moniker, and balance it against other ships.
I'm not really sure that would make a difference anymore, tbh. Repair costs aren't even pocket change these days; they're rounding errors. Using just my keelback I can rake in over 100,000,000 credits an hour doing mining, and my repair bills are already less than 100,000 credits tops; usually MUCH lower. 1 hour of mining already sets me up for 1,000+ repairs. If they modified things so it cost half as much to repair, that's 2,000 repairs for 1 hour of work. I honestly wouldn't even notice it happen if they didn't put out an announcement about it. I could probably accidentally make enough repair money for the whole year just flying around not even trying to make money.
I would say that a trade-off for other ships encroaching upon haulers already limited niche would need to be a bit more of a fair trade than just changing some numbers that are already so small that they don't really even register to the average player past their first month anymore. If they wanted to stuff another optional as well into the KB and T6 that would be another matter entirely, but leaving them at 7-8 internals while you have other ships of a similar price range and class rocking 11 and coming within just 10-15T of hauling capacity would just further the feeling of "why would I ever fly this?". While, IMO, not really answering that same question for the ship getting the buff.
So what about instead buffing the speed of the ship? I mean, it's always been odd that "scout" type ships aren't already zippy. While ideally I would think the hardpoints/utility slots would be worth the work, I agree with you that they are unlikely to do this. If it's a matter of looking for the easiest change that has the most bang for buck, I feel like you're really on track in pointing out that the thing is a space slug.
I know, but it was one of the reasons behind the T series and ships in general. But as time has gone on its been lost to the point of obscurity.
For me I'd be happy if it were made faster with more utility slots at a minimum, but the problem always is the DBS which is throwing shade over the AS.
Like I said in an earlier reply, I'd like it so that the Asp Scout has all the stuff I asked for, but the ship itself was sensitive to weight gain like the Courier- so for those who want to stuff it with armour it would still be slow but be tankier, for those who want it more Scouty would keep it light for that speed / and or jump range.
The extra optionals could help it on the route of being tankier with hull reinforcements (tho I can attest, running a ship with the same size powerplant, that it won't be able to fill all those slots with guardian shield reinforcements without having to skimp on weapons due to power constraints), but I worry about how happy folks would ultimately be with it being hull tankier given that it has the worst-for-its-class "shoot me here" glass canopy lol. They'd end up having to use a couple of their new optionals on module reinforcements just to make the tankiness worth while, or they'll constantly be running home so the windshield repair guy can put a new one on.
The overlap between the DBS and AspS is currently pretty insane, and I've always felt like they inadvertently reversed the designs choices on some of these things. The DBS has smaller top-end optionals which means weaker tankiness, but only a little more speed to make up for it while having the exact same hardpoints and 2 extra utility slots over the AspS. ... why? If that ship is supposed to be light and nimble, why did it get the 2 utility slots, and why do they have the same hardpoints? This feels like someone took the "no one's happy" definition of the word "compromise" and just ran with it.
Anyhow, I'll try not to derail the conversation too much on that point. I've just always been bothered by the imbalance of strength vs agility in this game; the difference between a corvette and a light fighter is too negligible IMO, and the middle-ground ships like the AspS and DBS really show that. There's very little wiggle room for them to move around in without stomping either on "fast"/light agile ships, or on slow/bulky haulers. And IMO it all comes down to the fact that they designed the system so that an Anaconda, which is the size of a football stadium, can nimbly do barrel rolls and dogfight a fighter the size of an F16.
