Small Ships are often overlooked

[Craith]

Viper 3 shields are paperweights. Not sure how you would call them tough.

I flew my Eagle with 69 points of shields, so the Viper's shields were plenty - shields are only needed when they hit you, and in a small ship you are not the highest threat until you open fire - at which point you should not be in their line of fire for more than a few seconds every now and then. If your shield does drop, silent running + boost is your friend, shake any unwanted attention, circle around, and come back to finish them. I do have more now in the Eagle, thanks to Guardian Shield Boosters.

But the Viper 3 has a lot of armor if you want it to, so losing shields from time to time is no reason to leave. With the eagle I bail below 40% hull, the viper was fine until 20% - usually thrusters are most at risk when I mess up some missile evasion or overstay my welcome when under fire.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

I played CZ when the AI went all lemming on the player. Viper wasn't so great there. Vulture was simply better. Better evasion, better weapons, better shields.
Viper was great vs capships. Felt a bit like trenchruns with all dumbfires. But I hear the meta has found a way to even trivialise capships.

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

I look at small ships all the time... as they bounce off the nose of my corvette or anaconda lol.

I agree with the principle of the op. I think they could expand missions to use small ships more. Like speed/ low altitude runs to avoid detection.

if people are worried about large ship exclusion, they could also extend these missions to SLFs which are under used as well

 

[lemon407]

SLFs which are under used as well

God aint this the truth what i would give to be able to launch 2 of them bad boys outta a large ship, i mean seriuosly, taking up to a potential of 32% income loss for having the ability to use 2 fighters seems pretty balanced to me.

 

[Mephane]

It would help for a start if some mission types didn't outright effectively exclude small ships. Delivery missions, even moreso after the recent nerf, are extremely tedious and inefficient to do in something with only 10-20 tons of cargo space. Passenger missions rarely only want you to transport one or two people, if you want to fly a small ship as a taxi service expect to often not even see a single mission available to you.

Both of these examples could be easily fixed though. Passenger mission generation, especially for VIPs, would need some bias towards generating more missions with 1-3 passengers only, and not just for first class and luxury cabins (small ships tend to only be able to fit economy and business class). Delivery missions could be generated specifically aimed at smaller cargo holds, where the cargo is not just some generic commodity but something randomly generated just for the mission, akin to how salvage missions include things like valuable art, i.e. unique objects with a high value to their owner but possibly low value on the regular market. These missions might even sometimes demand to be transported in a small ship to keep a low profile (doesn't need to be anything about smuggling even, just some fluff like a company not wanting a competitor to know when they are moving prototype tech or whatever).

 

[Rat Catcher]

Perhaps some sort of stall warning would be useful.

Some actual skill would help a bit!
Is there a way of knowing? (if you have the skill, please share, I'd be happy to learn!)

 

[Katie Byrne]

SLFs which are under used as well

they are a lot of fun

i think they could do with having the telepresence range increased though or a new order added to the AI, someithng like 'move to maximum range but stay within it' - that would have the AI of either your mothership or your npc fighter pilot maintain a ditstance of say 20-25km away

as, if piloted by an AI there are situations a fighter flat out cannot survive - and if piloted by a human it is all too easy to fall out of the 30km range

Source: https://youtu.be/e05qz1ej1Ac

Source: https://youtu.be/K9i-9yyeXOg

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

they are a lot of fun

i think they could do with having the telepresence range increased though or a new order added to the AI, someithng like 'move to maximum range but stay within it' - that would have the AI of either your mothership or your npc fighter pilot maintain a ditstance of say 20-25km away

as, if piloted by an AI there are situations a fighter flat out cannot survive - and if piloted by a human it is all too easy to fall out of the 30km range

Source: https://youtu.be/e05qz1ej1Ac

Source: https://youtu.be/K9i-9yyeXOg

100% agree. I spent last week bounty hunting for the CG. Most of the time I was in my SLF with the NPC in a conda or corvette. It was heaps of fun and I only had to relieve the NPC like 1 or 2 times when the shields went down.

tbh they should be able to be used same as a SRV for the planetary missions. Would be so much more fun to do the scanning missions (and I already like doing them in the SRV)

 

[Oytis57]

He might be a broken record but....he's not all that wrong about Engineering imo. It has a combination of every element most gamers can't stand. Grind, randomness of RNG, multiple "travel missions" , collecting mats that have no tangible value - and other busy work that's just a self-serving means to an end.

If the upgrades weren't so freaking game-breaking a LOT of people would skip it entirely. Seriously I just want this cancer over with so I can get back to just playing the game, but I can't make myself stop because the payoff is just too good.

Every game with a progression has some kind of "engineering" involved,crafting or whatever you wanna call it,do it and you get better stuff,don't and you are stuck,take it or leave it.

 

[Oytis57]

I played CZ when the AI went all lemming on the player. Viper wasn't so great there. Vulture was simply better. Better evasion, better weapons, better shields.
Viper was great vs capships. Felt a bit like trenchruns with all dumbfires. But I hear the meta has found a way to even trivialise capships.

Vulture without engineering the PP? Good luck!

 

[Cohen the Worrior]

Every game with a progression has some kind of "engineering" involved,crafting or whatever you wanna call it,do it and you get better stuff,don't and you are stuck,take it or leave it.

Or take what you want, leave what you don't want.

 

[Oytis57]

Or take what you want, leave what you don't want.

Wich means the same.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Vulture without engineering the PP? Good luck!

Know your power priorities.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

Every game with a progression has some kind of "engineering" involved,crafting or whatever you wanna call it,do it and you get better stuff,don't and you are stuck,take it or leave it.

My issue isn't conceptual, it's the implementation of it that's so poorly done in Elite.

And no, this isn't the "take it or leave it " forum otherwise nobody would be suggesting any changes for anything. Thanks.

 

[Oytis57]

[

My issue isn't conceptual, it's the implementation of it that's so poorly done in Elite.

This is a totally different matter

And no, this isn't the "take it or leave it " forum otherwise nobody would be suggesting any changes for anything. Thanks.

As above they are related, and it's about balancing as a whole not just Engineering. Thanks.

 

[khalismur]

I agree. The icourier is one of my favorite ships in the game. I've tried to bring highly engineered small ships to CZ; On high intensity ones I had a real hard time and little to no success. The only chance is to play smart, stay with the pack and god forbit if one of the spec op wings locks onto you. On medium and low intensity CZ you indeed can kill stuff, but the DPS is so low that you run out of ammo after few kills. Or equip lasers and take 5+ minutes to kill anything

Regarding missions they are quite limited too, as you simply don't have enough Optional Modules space for all the stuff needed for the high paying ones.

In PvP? Well while it's possible to down a large or even medium ships with a small one, the clear lack of attack and defense has to be compensated by better outfitting or player skill. Otherwise there's not much of a chance for small ones to be useful. Simply not enough DPS. (maybe the vulture can somewhat compete with some medium ships toe-to-toe?)

While I understand the game needs a progression, I don't see why there couldn't be specialized missions for small ships. Like fitting through narrow gaps, or flying at very high speeds, or being super sneaky around a capital ship for some sabotage ops maybe. I believe Odyssey presents a very good opportunity to revamp this, as foot combat with small ships involved as aerial support is more plausible than say a Corvette destroying a whole base in seconds with massive weapons.

 

[Cohen the Worrior]

Another way to make smaller ships more attractive and usefull:

• Struggling outposts with their medium pad out of order for about half an hour
• Booming outposts with their medium pad occupied for about 15 minutes

 

[CMDR Big Mike]

Another way to make smaller ships more attractive and usefull:

• Struggling outposts with their medium pad out of order for about half an hour
• Booming outposts with their medium pad occupied for about 15 minutes

No, I don’t like this idea. This game is tedious enough without extra arbitrary wait timers to do things

 

[Kenneth McGrew]

does anyone else feel like small ships are often, generally, overlooked?

I like them for their agility and speed & ability to dock at outposts. What i'd really like is more small-ship specific content. Maybe missions than needed you to visit an outpost, or even planets where the gravity effectively prohibited large vessels. Something to encourage people to fly them as they're great, but often overlooked by people desperate to fly the "best" ship they can.

How about..... Missions that COME with a ship? - encouraging people to try different models because when they accept that mission, that's what they're given to complete it in.

all the time, all my beef with FDev is small ship related.

 

[exarp]

Small ships shines as Material Farmer
There a 3 different Material Trader near Shinarta:

1 Enc. - Messerschmied Orbital - near to: Jameson Crash Side
2 Manu. - Wiberg Hub - theres so good as always grade 5 Materials between these 3 Systems
3 Raw - Schachner Dock - Near to Selenium 4,9% CPD-51 3323 1 D A. our fly outside the Bubble to the Hip 36601

Fleet:
1 Hauler - build: Longrange, Scanner.
2 Diamondback Scout - build: Shieldless, Cargo, Drones. (very fast Collector with only 2 Drones)
3 Diamonback Explorer - build: Longrange, 2 Buggys, Scanner.

Suicide after work (rebuy is cheap)
Resurrection at Material Trader