Buff Orca & Beluga Passenger cap

mdmaniac44

mdmaniac44
These three majestic beauties are supposed to be the game's premier passenger ships. They're sleek, beautiful and probably jam-packed with dancing girls, champagne and caviar. However, they just don't carry enough passengers!
Ship | Hull | pad size | Econ Pax | Business Pax | Lux Pax | Shield size (minimum possible)
Dolphin | 140t | Small | 38 | 22 | 12 | 3
Type-6 | 155t | Medium | 52 | 32 | 18 | 3
Python | 350t | Medium | 142 | 77 | 51 | 3
Type-7 | 350t | Large | 150 | 81 | 54 | 3
Orca | 290t | Large | 92 | 52 | 33 | 3
Anaconda | 400t | Large | 194 | 106 | 72 | 4 (no class 3 slot)
Type-9 | 850t | Large | 154 | 82 | 54 | 5
Beluga | 950t | Large | 168 | 92 | 36 | 5
Cutter | 1100t | Large | 172 | 93 | 63 | 6

There's just no good reason that the Anaconda carries more passengers than a Beluga Liner that's twice its size.
The medium-pad-landing Python compares more closely to the Type-7 than to the Orca.
The Type-6 is close in hull mass to the Dolphin but carries 1/3 more economy passengers

The passenger capacities should be buffed either by applying a 1.6x passenger capacity bonus when installing a passenger cabin module on one of these ships or by adding "restricted" passenger cabin slots. This would give us a reason to buy and fly these ships other than they look pretty (and can equip the useless Luxury cabins), without making a new meta cargo-carrier or otherwise disrupting the balance.
 

Burke

B
Luxury missions are the way to balance this. Let the numbers remain the same but put some sensible high paying luxury missions in. Do it in such a way that a specialised ship can run mostly or even completely specialised missions. Better thought out long range cruises along the lines of taking people to sag A and other far distant landmarks would also be a way to tempt people out of the bubble. All about the moneys tho.
 

baqar79

baqar79
Kind of a different take on the idea, but I've been having a blast refitting the Dolphin & Imperial Courier now with the additional 2 small slots. Naturally despite being small ships they are still fairly large and I found myself comparing even the small Imperial Courier to the Runabout in Star Trek DS9.

Found this fan-made 3D tour rendering of the inside of the runabout:
Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=inGNzs01rMI

You can see at the start of the video that the runabout has 4 x "Economy" sleeping accommodations despite it being smaller than the Imperial Courier:
trVpfsx.png
I think I would like to see all ships get a limited amount of built-in passenger and cargo space automatically.

For example, perhaps this could be done simply by class:
Small Ships: 4xEconomy Passenger, 2T Cargo
Medium Ships: 8xEconomy Passenger, 4T Cargo
Large Ships: 16xEconomy Passenger, 8T Cargo

The Passenger ships could be special in that they swap the Economy Cabins for Luxury ones giving them more flexibility with passenger types:
Dolphin: 4xLuxury Passengers, 2T Cargo
Orca: 8xLuxury Passengers, 4T Cargo
Beluga: 16xLuxury Passengers, 8T Cargo

I don't necessarily think the above numbers would be quite right (16 luxury passengers is equivalent to 2x6B Modules!), but I like the idea of passenger focused ships having either more built-in capacity than other ships, or a better class of accommodation. Optional slots then are just an added bonus.

Much better payouts on luxury passenger missions (and more frequent luxury passenger missions) would work, I'm just pretty keen on seeing all ships get some built in capacity without needing modules.
 
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Burke

B
Thats the thing, it doesnt really matter if a cabin take 10 passengers or 100. Whats important is how much you get paid for that mission balanced up against how far you have to travel.
 
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