No new ships conspiracy thread

[Moriarte]

Sometimes I wonder why the flow of new ships suddenly stopped 4 years ago. Sure, we have some, but then again they’re not That hard to make and they bring a lot for us “mechanic” types. I am sure releasing a new ship will bring back some people (and their friends) to try it out, maybe to pit it against the well tested legends in pve and pvp, fly it to Colonia and back, or fight the thargoids. It’s mystifying, why such an obvious low hanging fruit isn’t used to stir up interest. The odyssey and the whole bug fixing aside, isn’t it important to periodically produce new space ships in a game about flying a space ship? NMS does it, SC does it, but we don’t anymore.

What’s your theory when it comes to no new ships policy that FD seems to employ for quite a while now?

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Cue in the "we don't need a new ship if we already have a ship filling it's role, don't make ships obsolete/redundant" crowd shortly. I'm with you though, more variety is good and keeps interest in the game up. The only reason I can come up with why we haven't seen new ships for so long is ship interiors. Should those be in the works for maybe the next DLC if there ever is one, then every new ship adds to the already considerable workload. FDEV know that copy&paste interiors like we have them for stations/carriers won't do for ships, every single one has to be unique.

 

[varonica]

isn’t it important to periodically produce new space ships in a game about flying a space ship? NMS does it, SC does it, but we don’t anymore.

What’s your theory when it comes to no new ships policy that FD seems to employ for quite a while now?

That's not something that bothers me at all.

They are concentrating resources in other areas and it's not a policy, just a matter of efficient application of effort.

They’re not That hard to make

Glad to hear that!

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

Either cost vs return or simply availability of resources. Assuming a model of paying for ships with paint jobs then you've got to predict to sell enough of them (paint jobs). Ships need interior (cockpit) and exterior modelling, flight characteristics and sound design etc. And all that needs to be tested.

Ship interiors compound this problem as you have to plan to retrofit everything. This, again, could be funded with internal customisation. I am really surprised that we haven't seen any internal customisation options for fleet carriers though.

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Ship interiors compound this problem as you have to plan to retrofit everything. This, again, could be funded with internal customisation. I am really surprised that we haven't seen any internal customisation options for fleet carriers though.

Since we got 3 color schemes to choose from, I'm pretty sure there will be more eventually.

 

[avow555]

Pure incompetence has brought us here.
Four years without new space hardware tells the story itself.

A minimum of 2 chassis per year should be the standard.

 

[HappyMoonMonkey]

Since we got 3 color schemes to choose from, I'm pretty sure there will be more eventually.

I'd hope so! Either FDev are making so much money from Elite that they feel guilty about taking more from us (I don't believe that for an instant). Or they're missing a huge opportunity here. Let me put some plants around the place. Or actually, to make exobiology more worthwhile, let me place the plants that I find on planet surfaces in my carrier! Some of them are really cool and they have the models already!

 

[St0rmFury]

Medium Gutamaya when?

Medium Saud Kruger when?

 

[varonica]

Pure incompetence has brought us here.
Four years without new space hardware tells the story itself.

You mean, not including Fleet Carriers right, because they do actually count as space hardware!

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Medium Gutamaya when?

Medium Saud Kruger when?

Panther LX when ?
Large Explorer (Imperial Explorer ?) when ?
Constrictor when ?
The list could be extended pretty much endlessly

 

[babelfisch]

FDEV know that copy&paste interiors like we have them for stations/carriers won't do for ships, every single one has to be unique.

I am pretty sure that ship interiors will be copy & paste if they ever come. Each manufacturer will have their own style and there will be different variants for each size. There probably will be a cargo bay, airlock and cabin. That's all I expect from it and I would be very surprised if FDEV comes up with something different.

 

[Disemboweled Ego]

Ships are probably way harder to make than people realize.

Making a ship that flies well and feels different from other ships in a meaningful way probably requires tweaking and testing dozens of variables.

The lack of new game mechanics, combat encounters, weapons or modules means there's no new roles for ships to make ships that are like ship X but better at activity Y (where Y is a new thing).

When odyssey launched with no new ships I thought it was due to not being able to merge odyssey/horizons - any new ships would be created with the new materials system and would take extra effort to backport to horizons. Unlike the new SRV where you can get forced to reset to orbit logging into horizons with an odyssey-only ship would be more troublesome to resolve. Even if this is the case and they have new odyssey exclusive ships all ready to go it'd probably take at least another year (optimistic) of fixing other stuff before we'd get hints of it.

 

[Astaran]

Sometimes I wonder why the flow of new ships suddenly stopped 4 years ago. Sure, we have some, but then again they’re not That hard to make and they bring a lot for us “mechanic” types. I am sure releasing a new ship will bring back some people (and their friends) to try it out, maybe to pit it against the well tested legends in pve and pvp, fly it to Colonia and back, or fight the thargoids. It’s mystifying, why such an obvious low hanging fruit isn’t used to stir up interest. The odyssey and the whole bug fixing aside, isn’t it important to periodically produce new space ships in a game about flying a space ship? NMS does it, SC does it, but we don’t anymore.

What’s your theory when it comes to no new ships policy that FD seems to employ for quite a while now?

I don't understand this either. Adding new ships to a space game should be a no-brainer, especially if you can use them to cash in on paintjobs and ship kits. That being said, I don't understand why FC interiors didn't come with cosmetic options in the Arx store either. I mean, for the first time since Odyssey release I was willing to throw some money at FDev, and yet...nada.

It's not really a question of "needing" new ships. We don't "need" 95% of the ships ingame, since everything can be done (and has been done) in a Sidewinder. I would only need one ship for exploration, yet my FC is filled with various different ships fitted for exploration that I all use depending on the "flavor" I'm looking for at a given date. Sometimes I take my AspX, sometimes I take the Imperial Courier etc.

I would really, really like to see a bunch of new ships of all sizes. They don't need to reinvent the wheel. A large Federal ship that can compete with the Imperial Cutter in terms of cargo hauling and an Imperial ship that can compete with the Corvette in terms of combat prowess. Small, Medium and large ships that come with "restricted industrial module slots" which push them into the direction of specialized mining vessels. How about ships and modules tailored towards planetside Odyssey gameplay? A dropship or a gunship? I don't need some fancy Guardian-Human-Hybrid ship with fancy lights and sparks and lightnings and stuff. Just gimme a good old human spaceship to play around with.

As for the theories for the draught: At first it was probably the focus on Odyssey and later fixing Odyssey. We will see what the future holds.

 

[Yuri John]

A little off topic here. How about a new Kickstarter campaign for Odyssey on consoles or for new spaceships.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

I wouldn't have called it a "flow"... more like a stutter. We'd get a couple then nothing for a good while, then another one or two.

But we do have more ships than we really know what to do with anyway, so its not as pressing as many other things that could be added.

Still, there are rumours of the mini-FdL (or is it mini-Mamba?) and of course the Panther.

 

[Agony_Aunt]

Panther LX when ?
Large Explorer (Imperial Explorer ?) when ?
Constrictor when ?
The list could be extended pretty much endlessly

Gecko!

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

Still, there are rumours of the mini-FdL (or is it mini-Mamba?) and of course the Panther.

mini-Mamba. These two ships are actually a bit less of a mere rumour, since players have actually managed to spawn the unfinished models of both into the game and to show them off. So those two are fairly certain to be in development. If that development is still ongoing or halted or even scrapped, no one knows.

 

[BigBANGtheory [VR]]

I wouldn't have called it a "flow"... more like a stutter. We'd get a couple then nothing for a good while, then another one or two.

But we do have more ships than we really know what to do with anyway, so its not as pressing as many other things that could be added.

I feel that way also.

More ships and indeed ships interiors in themselves simply pads out what there already is, or simply put its another way to experience exactly the same. Elite needs more to do, more interaction, more cause and effect imho. I'd like to steal a ship, hack into one whilst its docked, fill it full of explosives and explode it inside a station, enter it into a competition for time trials, have it autopilot me to the centre of the galaxy, include an on-board laboratory to analyse flora and alien sites...

 

[WeComeInPeace]

Sometimes I wonder why the flow of new ships suddenly stopped 4 years ago. Sure, we have some, but then again they’re not That hard to make and they bring a lot for us “mechanic” types. I am sure releasing a new ship will bring back some people (and their friends) to try it out, maybe to pit it against the well tested legends in pve and pvp, fly it to Colonia and back, or fight the thargoids. It’s mystifying, why such an obvious low hanging fruit isn’t used to stir up interest. The odyssey and the whole bug fixing aside, isn’t it important to periodically produce new space ships in a game about flying a space ship? NMS does it, SC does it, but we don’t anymore.

What’s your theory when it comes to no new ships policy that FD seems to employ for quite a while now?

I have a couple of thousand hours in the game, and I'm a mechanic type as you. Contrary to many CMDRs I like building and engineering ships in the game, and even though I definitely would to see new ships (I'll gladly pay for new ships as DLC if the price is reasonable), the possibilities with the ships we already have is almost endless. The meta builds are only really needed for PvP, and even in PvP I don't fly metas, because they don't suit my fighting style.

I'd much rather see new modules relating to new stuff to do in the game. Like the core mining leading up to release of FCs. I have no beef with the Thargoids, but the whole AX thing as another example.

As mentioned the ships we have now have way more possible combinations than I have been able to plough through (yet). Just changing the HPs for something else often results in a quite different "optimal" build. Then there are the crazy builds, like trying to build a ship that can travel to Colonia without a fuel scoop. Lately, because I've become slightly better at keeping myself out of the firing line, I've started building light weight ships (agility is fun), instead of the tanks I used to build. Try and challenge yourself into builds you haven't done before, and a "whole new" galaxy emerges. Now if only there were more things to do in those spaceships...

 

[Moriarte]

In my mind there is no such thing as enough ships. As I understand it SC makes a living off selling ships and there are 170 already. Creating new ships for commanders to play with finances further development of the game world, while creating a stream of toys. Makes sense too - what else could you sell to someone who likes traversing space? Well, one could sell space stations and surface industry, but that’s the next step in evolution of space genre. Digitalisation of various types of value, perhaps in the future. It will take money, technology and development to get there. I’m sure with complexity rising one day we’ll be able to manage orbital cities and surface industry. In the mean time ships can be created and sold. Through ships itself, paint jobs, external mods, whichever suits the community better.