>would give ~900T of cargo space.
Not enough space. I would never switch from my 728 Cutter to the Panther then while the cutter is highly combative.
If we had a real solo game all this would not have to be discussed by the way.
Anyway: I would love to have at least 1500+ cargo. Maybe even a special gimmick only the panther has like an extra second shield generator or a separate transport/landing ship inside the panther.
The maneuverability should be the lowest. Far worse than anything we have right now.
And if you decide to make the Panther secure via shields and armor your maneuverability should be even worse.
The main problem is that Frontier entirely neglected the trading aspect and all profit still ranges to a maximum of 6000 no matter where you trade and what you trade. And since rare or valuable goods are available in only minimum quantities we gonne need a bigger ship now.
I'm going to say it now, 1500+ tons of cargo will not happen. The best you could do in FE2 and FFE was 1400 tons before fuel, shields, weapons, etc....
I'm still not sure what you are talking about when you mention how "open game ruined solo gameplay". What do the three modes have to do with with the slot based outfitting in ED vs the volumetric outfitting in FE2 and FFE? Could you please enlighten me here?
I agree that the Panther Clipper should have the lowest speed and maneuverability. Adding shields in most cases will actually improve your speed and maneuverability with a full load of cargo, since shields are lighter than cargo (the notable exception is prismatics). Adding more armour (bulkheads) will add more mass, but adding HRPs/MRPs will actually make you lighter with a full load. The trade off with adding shields and HRPs/MRPs is not mass, it is capacity. If you want to have more shields or armour, you need to be prepared to sacrifice some cargo for it. That is the trade off in ED.
I don't know how true what you are saying about trade profits is, but I'll take your word on it for now.
Personally, make it around 250M, give it a 1200 cargo with a shield (C7 should be a minimum size) and give it a ton of smaller hardpoints (Mostly C1/2) Make it feel like a tanker/carrier. Maybe even a special gimmick that means that you can have 2 fighter bays and two pilots, who knows? Should feel like a carrier- Incredibly heavy (90 m/s max speed and 120 boost?), slow, dull, but with a massive payout if piloted properly. Not a true multipurpose, but we all know those people who try and manage to troll in combat T9s, so give it huge negatives for huge positives!
1400T hull would insure that a size 7 shield generator is the minimum. Given that the mass of A-rated bulkheads is given by 15% of the ship's hull mass, military/reactive/mirrored bulkheads would have a mass of 210T.
1200T of cargo for 250M seems reasonable, especially when you consider the lack of speed compared to the ~200M Cutter.
Having a ton of hardpoints is more or less what I was going for, but I went with size 2/3 instead of size 1/2 because the damage output of small turrets is so pitifully bad. If you are making a ship as slow and sluggish as the Panther Clipper, turrets become a necessity if you want to do any meaningful amount of damage, especially if your opponent is capable of not flying in a straight line. Small turrets are just about useless here because of their poor damage output. They really only become useful with engineer special effects (I'm not even going to touch that can of worms), but these could just as easily be added to medium or large turrets and be just as if not more effective.
I disagree with giving the Panther Clipper a 'special gimmick', be it a second fighter bay, second shield generator, etc... simply because it would increase dev time and likely create a whole slew of balancing issues.
As for the people who troll in combat T9s, if they want to try the same thing in the Panther Clipper, more power to them. It will likely be a lot trickier to do, but the potential of landing a full salvo of PAs would probably make up for this. As you said, "a massive payout if piloted properly"
