No I DON'T want to see new ships B4....

[PhazonAran]

Federal Dropship is supposed to carry Troops.

You leave the starport in your Dropship loaded with troops. You immediatly head for the planet, big ball of rock right in front of you. As you enter the atmosphere, you keep an eye on the temperature in the "troop hold". While descending, a few DCA begin to target your ship. You engage light evasive manoeuvers, they're still far away. You try to use the relief to avoid enemy fire as you close in your designed landing zone. You are not alone, a few other Dropships are flying in formation with you. You finally see the LZ, and land as a few other Dropships start to take off. You unload your troops fast, you're a vulnerable target. As you start to take off, one of your comrades get blown up in the sky. You pop a chaff and you quickly get away. As you're escaping, you can hear many distress signals from the ground troops. Things are not looking good. As you are starting a U-turn, you deploy your hardpoints. Time to put those class 3 lasers to use...

DO WANT !

 

[medwyn]

Very good points.
After all the hype around community goals and wings are set down I would be happy to see FD focusing on these problems and give a nice and meaningful background for the ships with missions and progression.
Now if the only role I have to fit a ship in is trading and shooting, it's like trying to repair everything with a screwdriver - it may be ok for some sort but will definitely loose the game in most.
(I didn't mention exploring or mining because there are a good sorts of ships available for explorers in different price ranges and mining is just not an activity I consider as possibility in the game right now.)

 

[Cmdr Pli55ken]

If more ships are released b4 taking care of the already playable ones, the "unfinished" product that some ppl whine about will further gonna be boosted.

You have to think of it from a game developer/game selling company point of view: 'Finishing' the Orca to carry passengers will make it popular with X (additional) gamers. Introducing the Fer-de-lance will make it popular with Y gamers.
If Y is greater than X (which I'd wager large sums of credits on it is) then the decision is already made what to do first.

 

[Fost]

It might not be so simple to add passenger missions unless they have character model generation in place.

E.g: in theory the Cobra can carry one passenger but you would be able to look at them.

 

[Darkfyre99]

I agree that those ships, except the Clipper that does a fine job at trading, do not serve any purpose since passengers are not implemented yet. And passengers missions better have good rewards since it is the sole purpose of the Orca and Dropship.



Until Wings are released, such a module would be pretty useless I think. But I fail to see what this docking module would bring that Wings won't. Ability to repair and reload those Sideys maybe ?

If you could bring a sidewinder or other small ship with you while exploring, it would make bringing a larger ship exploring worthwhile. You can use the large ship as a mothership, and take the small ship out to scan planetary bodies, or even jump into potentially risky systems. The expensive large ship would have the range, while the cheap small ship would take the damaging risks.

 

[PiLhEaD]

I'd really like more variety/style of ships in the middle price-range.

I get limited time to play EliteD, so buying an expensive ship is a long way away for me - so in the mean time can we have a few more in the 5 - 11 M range, without stupidly expensive upgrades and associated fuel costs, ...pretty please...?

 

[Clawhammer]

Until Wings are released, such a module would be pretty useless I think. But I fail to see what this docking module would bring that Wings won't. Ability to repair and reload those Sideys maybe ?

FOR THIS FEATURE WE NEED MULTICREW! So Friends can land on our conda and assit us on der bridge. Or can get back into the sidey to protect the anaconda.

Without multicrew there are more then 3 ships unfinished, every ship is unfinished with more then 1 seat because you cannot put your friends in.

 

[Blake_Dragon]

about sideys and 'condas... check out this thread i started a while back (click here for the link) it really highlights the size of the ship compared to the Sidewinder and potentially where the hangar could be.

 

[HoshiQaVam]

You assume that carrying a smaller ship would be for a second player only. As I understood it, this feature is on hold because they want to make it possible for YOU to get up from your chair on the bridge, go down to the hangar, climb into a Sidewinder and launch, while the Anaconda is just hanging out in space, waiting for you.

There are a number of uses for this. Maybe you want to scout ahead without risking your big, expensive ship. Or maybe you strip out everything on your Sidey and use it as a mining shuttle. The 'Conda has expansive cargo bays, is well protected... but it sucks for mining. Too big and slow. Well, a mining Sidey would be just a perfect match for that.

Not to mention the Sidewinder could be an NPC ship that you can launch. Effectively a perminent NPC wingman. I think that actually makes the most sense, and frankly it would make sense if the bigger cargo ships like the T9 and Panther had fighter docks as well, even if it's just some kind of external latch.

 

[Iskariot]

You assume that carrying a smaller ship would be for a second player only. As I understood it, this feature is on hold because they want to make it possible for YOU to get up from your chair on the bridge, go down to the hangar, climb into a Sidewinder and launch, while the Anaconda is just hanging out in space, waiting for you.

There are a number of uses for this. Maybe you want to scout ahead without risking your big, expensive ship. Or maybe you strip out everything on your Sidey and use it as a mining shuttle. The 'Conda has expansive cargo bays, is well protected... but it sucks for mining. Too big and slow. Well, a mining Sidey would be just a perfect match for that.

You make me drool. I want that.

 

[Quineloe]

Couldn't disagree more. The vulture is badly needed at this point.

 

[Rhonda]

the ships are:

Orca
Imperial Clipper
Federal Dropship
Anaconda

Orca as well as Clipper are suppose to be able to carry VIPs with special missions within systems.
Federal Dropship is supposed to carry Troops.
Anaconda, as read in the description can take a special module in order to have sidewinders (and similar small ships) being able to dock on it.

I'd like to add the Asp to that list, which is by its description "marketed heavily at customers looking for their first multi-crewed ships." This is bland false advertising by Lakon and law-suits all over the galaxy should sue the hell out of them. In gameplay terms it is just another totaly misleading flavor text.

 

[Serpentstar]

As far as docking, that would make them capital ships and that wont happen yet .

Apparently you haven't read the description of the ship. The docking module is actually listed there (or was).

 

[Monk]

I think you will continue to see that the ship release schedule is not in line with other features that would support them. Why? Because there are different teams working on each part of the game.

There is probably a big push on the ship design and development teams to get the original set of ships released. Damn everything else. We could debate the merits of that decision, but I think all teams should be banging on all cylinders. Sure, this means we get oddly imbalanced gameplay and obvious missing features, but it also means that we will get to see the big picture sooner.