Porous asteroids with cave systems. (Small ship raison d'etre)

[Bloodsign]

I notice a lot of discussion about the irrelevance of small ships these days. FDev helped us out a good bit here with the new slots, for which I am quite grateful, and other things can be done also.

One solution is to add new game mechanics or locations that favor small and maneuverable craft. (Silent running, anyone?)

One mechanic could be new porous asteroids riddled with caves and tunnels and featuring rare elements within. While these should be possible to mine with large ships, this task would greatly favor small ships, and add some fun ambush potential as well.

 

[Lestat]

This could be Astroid that already been fractured and refused together over time. I like it.

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

+1

That'd be good fun.

Although a spinning asteroid would be very difficult to navigate. Lol

As for small ship gameplay, y'know those tunnels in the CQC assets?
Why not make them a bit smaller, (because a Python fits through. Lol) and then make networks of these tunnels in giant space POIs, like the CQC assets, with various goodies or objectives inside.
Big ships aren't entirely excluded though, because you can park outside and deploy your SLF to go in.
Objectives can be scan data cores with the DLS, or pick up cargo, or disable generators.
The latter would switch all the lighting to emergency mode, so getting out again will be fun. While being shot at from turrets, or even drones.
Basically a space version of a surface base assault. And indoors. Lol

 

[Bloodsign]

+1

That'd be good fun.

Although a spinning asteroid would be very difficult to navigate. Lol

As for small ship gameplay, y'know those tunnels in the CQC assets?
Why not make them a bit smaller, (because a Python fits through. Lol) and then make networks of these tunnels in giant space POIs, like the CQC assets, with various goodies or objectives inside.
Big ships aren't entirely excluded though, because you can park outside and deploy your SLF to go in.
Objectives can be scan data cores with the DLS, or pick up cargo, or disable generators.
The latter would switch all the lighting to emergency mode, so getting out again will be fun. While being shot at from turrets, or even drones.
Basically a space version of a surface base assault. And indoors. Lol

Accessways on the inside of megaships and starports would be cool. What if you could hack internal station datapoints for better buy/sell prices (limited use per hack) or to circumvent anonymous protocol mode?

 

[CMDR Cosmic Spacehead]

Accessways on the inside of megaships and starports would be cool. What if you could hack internal station datapoints for better buy/sell prices (limited use per hack) or to circumvent anonymous protocol mode?

Yeah, that'd be awesome too.

A starport (rotating) would be incredibly difficult to access, but in return, you can hack the system to allow your new few dockings to go straight to normal procedures.
But get caught and you're barred from the station for X amount of time. And shot.

Then you can pre hack your destination target for smuggling and whatnot in a larger ship.

 

[Stabby_Dave]

Can't see a downside. Like it.

 

[MadDogMurdock]

Try it on a station - this guy makes it look much easier than my efforts.

 

[KylePanarid]

Sounds pretty cool!

 

[cheesenbiscuits]

The poor lonely asteroids have been quietly floating around for years. Maybe this is their time to shine!

 

[CMDR Yates]

Yeah, agreed.

Doesn't have to be this, exactly, but just, in general, more tight spaces in the game, to give occasional contrast to the wide open vacuum, and reasons to navigate into them.

 

[Daynen]

Adding slots to small ships was never the answer to keeping them relevant. That's just dancing on the buff/nerf fence until something tips the balance too far one way. Adding gameplay that CALLS FOR small ships was always the answer. The game seriously lacks reasons to fly a small ship when you can afford a bigger one. Stealth, evasion, confined spaces, hell even swarm tactics don't have much place when you have only small groups of players available...and they all have large ships anyway. The new mining mechanics offer a decent reason to fly small since you don't need a whole array of lasers to mine opals, but that's just yet another way to make tons of cash and get your massive ship anyway. It's something, but not nearly enough.

 

[space voyager]

Cool! Also caves on planetary surfaces, some real SRV fun.

 

[Jmanis]

I've made similar suggestion in the past, also outpost/capital ship "hulks" which you need to navigate through.

In those suggestions, I've basically suggested getting to the core is a maze, requiring use of your headlights because light doesn't permeate.

In the center of an outpost you might find some expensive item (2-3m credit in value) but it's behind a containment field/secure vault hatch running off a powerplant, and some active turrets. You can either use a recon limpet to hack the field/vault while you tank the turrets, or you blow the powerplant. Former carries some risk in a small ship, latter is quick, but causes a core overload resulting in "heat zone" like inside damaged stations, or a radiation blast causing corrosive damage a-la Thargoid death cloud. You scoop up the goods, then it becomes a race to get out of the hulk before you pop from the heat/corrosion.

Conversely, a cavernous asteroid might have some sort of crackable asteroid surface for some of the high-end minerals. Problem is maneuvering means you need to be really close to the asteroid when it pops... or similarly the asteroid could release some sort of damaging cloud a-la the "safe" ice clouds when you pop ice asteroids.

 

[Lestat]

Thinking about this. You could not take your Anaconda or type 9 Into it or even medium ships. But would require Small ship or SLF ships while your large ship sits outside.

But reminds me of a classic game called Descent