Making small ships relevant - Carriers

[Chaffers]

Racing, non existent spying, combat against low end opponents and Eve related content all have one thing in common.

They aren't really core content or don't even exist.

And I would argue that the stage of development violates the vision which Braben set out in his interviews. Also the idea that small ships are only for poor players doesn't hold any water, you can buy a medium ship for the time taken to map a single planet and return the data. Buy and equip a medium for a single interesting system mapped. Max an exensive medium for a few hours of whatever the latest goldrush is.

It is indeed quite the opposite to your poor player argument, small ships are used by those who either enjoy the aesthetic or who seek a challenge.

And it isn't uncommon for game designers to abandon or obsolete their own game design through power creep, though if there is a reasonable mechanism by which it can be revived then this should be applauded what?

 

[Boff'in]

I routinely fly my adder.

I like the aesthetics and the bare-bones, lo-tech, underdog challenge

Engineered and on a diet, the Adder is one of the fastest ships in the game,
If you kill the speed, (remove the performance module), you can juuuuuuussst about get 50Ly on a jump.

That the performance modules give the boost - but fully laddened the Adder's flight performance landed in a fully laden Cobra (engineered).

So you then sort of ask, why even bother, the cobra is a small ship and can has the same sensor profile as any other small ship. Also Small ships overheat and are sussceptible to heat attack from PvP

All the buffs the small ships offer in terms combat, smuggling, exploring, with fast speeds long jump ranges, small sensor profiles,
are nerfed when tooled up to take advantage of the buffs.

good jump range dissapears when tooled for exploring.
Smuggling an engineered fast light-ship (iCourier not included), disappeared when fully ladened to slightly better than un-laddened "stock" performance of the same ship.
Similarly Combat, the small ships are fast, but you nerf that when armoured and tooled with weapons.


here is the kicker with the aesthetics vs gameplay.

Tbe adder - She's got wings and a ridiculous amount of thrusters on the flat underside.
visually, this thing has "smooth" planetary flight mechanics written all over it, regardless of Gravitational pull.

Similarly with the Keelback. When I first saw those rotatable engine vents like a Jump Jet Harrier, I thought, that thing could "hover" super effectively on even Hi-G planets - nope.

But going back to the conversation at hand.
The ADDER has Wings that fold, so it can fit on Carriers - according to the bio.