New Ships badly Needed in Mid-Range with No Rank

[Bdragon4]

Having faction-tied vessels is cool, but unless you start working for rank from the start, you get them far too late (Why buy a dropship if you can afford an Anaconda?). Currently, the game has 6 Ships available in the 10-50 Million credit range, but 4 of them are rank/faction restricted and the remaining two are the type 7 and the Orca. No combat, multi-purpose, or exploration ships are available in that range. While things open up again after the 50 Million Credit mark, the area around 20-30 million credits becomes very stagnated and your options for ships become slim if you haven't received a naval rank mission or if you missed the rank memo entirely. Its worse if you like using fighters. The only option below 50 Million credits is the Keelback and you don't have a chance to upgrade until you reach the 76 Million Type-9, which is hardly combat worthy.

My suggestion is to add 2 Mid-ranged ships in the 20-30 Million credit price range: One multi-purpose ship and one long-range exploration ship. It would help add some options to that price range without overshadowing the military capabilities of the rank-locked ships.

 

[Teh Smoo]

Medium pad passenger vessel. IMO, the Orca should always have been a medium pad boat, instead of a large-pad.

Something that out-explores an Exploraconda, for more money than an AspX, would be very interesting to me. Lots of smaller slots for limpets of various sorts, SRV, scanners, etc. I'll point out that an explorer doesn't really NEED a fighter, but any future toys might need the attach points. And doesn't need huge weapons, either.

 

[Bdragon4]

I've got some ideas, and one might help the size-up the imperial ship lineup too.

Saud Krugar Atlantic
"With the rise of Thargoid presence and an increasing interest to explore the galaxy, Saud Krugar has used its attractive design aesthetic to build a more capable exploration vessel. Designed to transport entire research groups, the Atlantic has an oversized FSD, large fuel tank and a reserved compartment for multiple SRV's to facilitate longer trips into deep space."

Price: 26,813,300 CR
Hardpoints: 3 small (1 top, 2 side)
3 Utility Mounts
Core Internals
- class 4 Power Plant
- class 4 Thrusters
- class 7 FSD
- class 4 Distributor
- class 4 Sensors
- class 4 Life Support
- class 5 Fuel Tank (32T)
Internals:
- 1x reserved class 6 (Planetary Vehicle Bay)
- 1x class 5 (1 stock cargo bay)
- 2x class 4 (1 for stock shield)
- 2x class 2 (1 basic discovery scanner)
- 1x class 1 (planetary approach suite)

FSD: 15LY laden/17LY unladen
Manueverability: 3/15
Speed: 120 2 pip/ 300 boosted
*Requires a Medium dock.
*2 additional multicrew seats.

Gutamaya Carrack/Imperial Carrack
"In an effort to expand the Imperial Fleet and improve its readiness, Gutayama has created the Carrack, a medium-sized combat class ship. While the civilian version of the craft offers Imperial styling to the public, the Military version lives up to full Imperial standard by making radical changes to the chassis that allow for greater combat capability and speed."

Civilian Version
Price: 31,715,648 CR
Hardpoints: 3 small, 2 Med (1 small top, 2 small front, 2 med sides)
3 Utility Mounts
Core Internals
- class 6 Power Plant
- class 6 Thrusters
- class 6 FSD
- class 6 Distributor
- class 6 Sensors
- class 6 Life Support
- class 4 Fuel Tank (16T)
Internals:
- 2x class 6 (1 stock shield)
- 1x class 5 (1 stock cargo bay)
- 3x class 3 (1 for stock shield)
- 2x class 2 (1 basic discovery scanner/ 1 planetary approach suite)
FSD: 9LY laden/10LY unladen
Manueverability: 3/15
Speed: 185 2 pip/ 320 boosted
*Requires a Medium dock.
*1 additional multicrew seat.
*Fighter Bay Compatible.

Imperial Version
Price: 58,645,778 CR
Hardpoints: 3 Med, 2 Large (1 Med top, 2 Med front, 2 Large sides)
4 Utility Mounts
Core Internals
- class 7 Power Plant
- class 6 Thrusters
- class 6 FSD
- class 6 Distributor
- class 6 Sensors
- class 6 Life Support
- class 4 Fuel Tank (16T)
- class 5 Military Module
Internals:
- 1x class 7
- 1x class 6 (1 stock shield)
- 2x class 5 (1 stock cargo bay)
- 3x class 3 (1 for stock shield)
- 2x class 2 (1 basic discovery scanner/ 1 planetary approach suite)
FSD: 10LY laden/11LY unladen
Manueverability: 3/15
Speed: 170 2 pip/ 370 boosted
*Requires a Medium dock.
*1 additional multicrew seat.
*Fighter Bay Compatible.

 

[Teh Smoo]

A reserved size 6 SRV bay is about the most useless module slot that I can think of.

And I've been looking. I really can't think of a more useless module to have such a large slot dedicated to.

 

[Nero Tacitus]

While I'm all for new ships, I think you're overestimating the effort to get the lower ranks with either navy. You can get rank 3 for the Fed Dropship in literally one night, and when you look at the amount of time it takes to farm up the credits to purchase (and A fit it), the rep is a small part of its requirement. I skipped the dropship entirely and went straight to the FAS, took about 3 nights of missions, and that was before I knew how to do it efficiently.

I don't really agree that you have to get in on the navy rank early, you can always go back for it, and the grind will be easier/faster the better your ship.

Like I said, decent point that the area between Vulture and FDL is a little sparse compared to the area between Viper and Vulture. But I think the rep requirements for FDS/FAS really aren't really prohibitively difficult to attain, and as your ship improves, your credits per hour increase also, so the gap is relative to a degree.

 

[Bdragon4]

A reserved size 6 SRV bay is about the most useless module slot that I can think of.

And I've been looking. I really can't think of a more useless module to have such a large slot dedicated to.

I think I saw that it holds 4 SRV's or something. Just a thought, though.

I don't really agree that you have to get in on the navy rank early, you can always go back for it

That's essentially my point. You're always going back for the naval ships and very rarely going up to them. Doesn't help that rank promotion missions seem to take decades to spawn these days.

 

[Nero Tacitus]

That's essentially my point. You're always going back for the naval ships and very rarely going up to them. Doesn't help that rank promotion missions seem to take decades to spawn these days.

Again, I think it's your approach that is leading to that outcome, not an inherent flaw in the system. I went from the Vulture to the FAS (an upgrade) and from there to the FDL. I didn't go back for the FAS, I farmed the rep in my Vulture because I wanted a Federation ship and it was faster to grind the extra 2 ranks than the extra 100m to fully A-fit an FDL, it was a nice stop-gap. I'm currently working my way up to the Corvette which, IMO, is an upgrade over all other ships for combat pilots.

Like I said, if FDev were to make a 50m combat ship, cool. If you managed to farm up the credits for an Anaconda before you looked toward navy ships, that was your decision. Plenty of people upgraded to a navy ship through a bit of planning and choosing to engage in the rep grind.

As for the rank ascension missions, while I refuse to say "the system is fine because it worked for me", they've been buffed multiple times in regards to their prevalence, so Fdev are atleast giving them attention.