Imperial Explorer What if?

Sylow

Sylow
Noobilite said:
Then they just have to add better AI and maybe teamworks to zones to make them harder.
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Hmm. Exactly my point. The hard work you did, they'd just have to do the easy things like upgrading the AI, make it understand teamwork, etc. Sounds great, hmm?

Matter of fact, we at some time had stronger AI. It wasn't shooting or dodging fire better than now. It didn't have better pip management. (Matter of fact, elite AI seems to have extremely fast, albeit of course still reactive, pip management. To make it any better, it would have to be fully intelligent to predict situations in advance. Something not all players are able to. )

The one thing the AI was "better" at was that it retreated when taking too much damage, recharged its shields out of range, then returned to fight again. Within a fight, that created a rather credible "wing tactics" scenario. Unfortunately it also lead to very boring fights when you were not in an extremely fast ship. Long range weapons were what many people switched to, anything else was not worth it any more. Yet at the very same time, that AI was above and beyond what many people were able to handle. And that's why the AI was quickly culled again. For a really experienced pilot (with all engineers unlocked) it just required a bit of adoption of his setup, but for a beginner pilot it was a massive threat and close to impossible to defeat any more.

That's something you always have to keep on your scope: the full range of the playerbase. For us experienced players, these big and expencive ships you propose would be pure power creep. We would take our spare change and buy some of them, engineer them up and laugh how weak and puny the old god-mode ships were. It would also add no new challenge, as we'd again have the same ship as the enemy. Effectively, as the enemy would still also have all the other ships, fights on the average would even get easier. At the same time, for a new player (no matter if using a "get credits quick" scheme or not), it would be yet another level of "you have no chance". Pilot experience matters.

If anything, for the health of the game, the power gap of the game needs to be reduced, not increased even more.
 
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M00ka

M00ka
Sylow said:
Hmm. Exactly my point. The hard work you did, they'd just have to do the easy things like upgrading the AI, make it understand teamwork, etc. Sounds great, hmm?

Matter of fact, we at some time had stronger AI. It wasn't shooting or dodging fire better than now. It didn't have better pip management. (Matter of fact, elite AI seems to have extremely fast, albeit of course still reactive, pip management. To make it any better, it would have to be fully intelligent to predict situations in advance. Something not all players are able to. )

The one thing the AI was "better" at was that it retreated when taking too much damage, recharged its shields out of range, then returned to fight again. Within a fight, that created a rather credible "wing tactics" scenario. Unfortunately it also lead to very boring fights when you were not in an extremely fast ship. Long range weapons were what many people switched to, anything else was not worth it any more. Yet at the very same time, that AI was above any beyond what many people were able to handle. And that's why the AI was quickly culled again. For a really experienced pilot (with all engineers unlocked) it just required a bit of adoption of his setup, but for a beginner pilot it was a massive threat and close to impossible to defeat any more.

That's something you always have to keep on your scope: the full range of the playerbase. For us experienced players, these big and expencive ships you propose would be pure power creep. We would take our spare change and buy some of them, engineer them up and laugh how weak and puny the old god-mode ships were. It would also add no new challenge, as we'd again have the same ship as the enemy. Effectively, as the enemy would still also have all the other ships, fights on the average would even get easier. At the same time, for a new player (no matter if using a "get credits quick" scheme or not), it would be yet another level of "you have no chance". Pilot experience matters.

If anything, for the health of the game, the power gap of the game needs to be reduced, not increased even more.
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Well said but unfortunately I think your comments will fall on deaf ears here. Going by zero reaction from the OP to my comments at least, I suspect I have been blocked and since he hasn't responded to any of your comments …..

I do agree with you in that the OP seems fixated on creating the biggest, most overpowering ships in the game that will add nothing to the game. They won't even be a credit sink - that's the role of the Fleet Carrier apparently - and credits are nearly meaningless anyway. Hell I have enough trouble getting enough missions to fill my 400T capable Corvette, I got rid of my 704T T-9 because for me at least, it was totally worthless as it was too big.
 

Sylow

Sylow
Noobilite said:
I meant add more interesting scenarios like more of those group ships in CZ's who actually fight together.
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Which by itself might be a reasonably good move, when done properly. It would kind of be "new thing to do", although it'd still be just "the same, now a bit harder". But it has to be watched closely to be sure that it doesn't break the game for those who are not on the top end of the player scope yet. Yet i stick to my baseline: we don't need more power creep. All the ships you suggest are that, very openly and bluntly.

In my eyes we already have a good scope of ships, we don't need anything which is even bigger, even better and more expencive (no matter how little credits matter by now) in the game. Any new ship should be an alternative to what we have by now, no direct upgrade. (While engineering effects should actually be nerfed, but that's outside of the scope of this thread. )
 

Sylow

Sylow
Noobilite said:
Would the imperial trader fit that?

Imperial Trader - Elite Wiki

wiki.alioth.net wiki.alioth.net
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I feel that the Clipper is supposed to be the new imperial trader. That being said, i wouldn't mind a ship somewhere between Clipper and Python. In the old games, the pylons were retracted when you activated the landing gear, so landing pad size could be handled by the same retraction mechanic. My worries would be that the ship, if not retracting the pylons, might be rather hard to get through the mailslot. (And most people only deploy the landing gear on the last meters, to avoid the speed limitation. )
 

Noobilite

Noobilite
Updated with new stats and figured out the potential shields/hull and speed etc of a full combat build!

Imperial Explorer combat 1500t <- 38.15ly @6.25jumps; Minimum Thrust: 209-211m/s; Top Speed: 289-293m/s; Boost speed: 417-422m/s; Shields: 3029.84; SEHP: 24k/28k; Armor: 3075.48; AEHP: 4768; Cost: 2.50 billion; Rebuy: 125 million

The Imperial Explorer can get as low as 1.6million with 80million rebuys with very cheap scoop for this combat build. I think with a B scoop it comes to around 1.8 billion with a 90 million rebuy. This is without discounts applied. But it's a step above the high end cutters.

I think one aspect of these ships is the potential cost is getting so high that you will need one of the new ships to mine for enough resources or keep it as sheap as possible without sacrificing abilities. Plus trying to make it use higher end abilities to make money as efficiently as possible, particulary if the higher hulls drastically raises the repair costs if you don't carry a repair limpet.
 
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