Poll: Implement Ships and Equipment up to Destroyer Class. C5 Weapons and Tier 10 Modules

[Sunleader]

just realised, wouldnt the Panther cliper kinda run into the 'Frigate' catagory?

I think that depends alot on how they are Planning to Implement it.
Going by Description. The Panther Clipper is Significantly larger than the Federal Corvette. But there is no actual Size Announced so far.
(At least I dont know it)

Currently. The Anaconda is 150m long. The Fed Corvette 170m and the Cutter almost 200m Long.
The Panther Clipper is a Cargo Ship and current estimates put it actually Shorter than the Cutter but much Bulkier.
So it would still run in the Corvette or Auxilliary Ship Category.
If it became an 240-250m Long Ship it might actually count as an Frigate. Albeit its a Cargo Ship so its only a Frigate in terms of Size. As it would not fit any Frigate Weaponry.

If I had to make a Guess. I would say this Picture might be what this Discussion is about.

The two smallest Enterprise Ships of 280-300m would likely be what could be Considered a Frigate.
The one above that with 360m should make a Good Destroyer.
The Upper two Enterprise Ships 680-730m likely being what could be considered a Cruiser if we ever Plan to go this far.
The Farragut is 2km Long by the way.

I'm pretty sure that the Cobra engine can handle it. The question is whether it should. Maybe eventually, but bigger ships certainly shouldn't be a priority for several years, in my opinion.

I would Disagree on that.
Right now Elite Dangerous has more or less squeezed out whats possible from having only Small Ships in the Game.
Combat is pretty 1 Dimensional (not in the literal sense) because every Ship essentially works exactly the same in Combat.
Multi Crew has no real meaning right now anyways. Not only thanks to their messed up System which Punishes Player for using it. But also because there is not really any Ships around that would actually get any Profit from Multicrew. Much less any profit that would outweigh just having a Viper along instead.


If Elite Dangerous wants to get any Bigger than they are. They need to Increase the Scale of Players.
This can be done by different things of course.
They could Allow Players to actually own Stations and Manage them. Which would Greatly Increase the Options of Players.
They could Allow Players to actually Join Factions and thus actually Participate in Politics and even Wars as well as Powerplay. Rather than just doing Missions for some Faction which has no real Effects on anything anyways.
They could Tremendously Increase efforts to Create Worlds with stuff to Discover including Space Legs and Planets which have Life of some sort as well as Caves and other Stuff to Explore.
Or they could Allow Players to have Bigger Ships which actually allow Multi Crew beyond the Virtual Presence but instead by someone actually Docking with his Ship on another Player.


Its not like they got just a few Options.
But I think Granting Players. Bigger Ships would draw alot more Players to this Game than many other Options they got
People like to Fly Big Ships after all.

 

[Sunleader]

What class of ship is a Sidewinder? How about a Cobra MkIII? A Cutter... is that a cutter then, and a Clipper a eh... Clipper?

I don't think Elite really does traditional ship classes like sea born navies, and to be honest I don't think it should. I'm opposed to the idea of bigger ships that dock external to stations or only on land however.

Also, three superfluous 'so's in the OP. That may be a new record.

The Size of the Ships in ED does not Fit Traditional Values.
But the Weapon Setups are actually fairly Traditional WW1-WW2 Setups.

If you think of T1 Weapons as 8mm-13mm MGs. T2 Weapons as 15-20mm Cannons. T3 Weapons as 30mm-50mm Cannons. And T4 as 75mm-150mm Cannons.
You notice that the Setups of Elite Dangerous Ships are using Setups of WW2 Aircraft and Boats.
2xMGs +2x20mm Cannons? Sounds alot like what most Bf109s got.
Honestly said 1 Nose Cannon and some Wing MGs etc etc. All of that is Extremely Similar to how Fighters Worked.
Stuff like the Federal Gunship etc which got several smaller Guns Frontally are pretty much Identhical to how WW2 Attacker Aircraft were Outfitted.
And 1x or 2x Larger Frontal Mounted Guns with several Smaller Weapons Mounted in the Sides and Rear. Are Pretty much the Setup that Patrol, Torpedoboats and Corvettes.
The Freighters having several smaller Mounted Weapons all over them. Are Pretty much the exact Equivalent to WW2 Bombers with their Defensive MG Turrets


So right now Elite Dangerous is effectively following WW2 Classes.
Except that they Combined WW2 Aircraft and Naval Classifications.


AlSo.
So you dont think So ? ^^
I think So to speak that your entitled to your own So opinion. However So it is

 

[NeilF]

So.
Wanted to do this for a while.
But always only Posted Suggestions.

Now I would like to actually Post a Poll to it to see what People think of this rather than Suggesting something.


So very General Poll with a very Basic Question.

Would you guys want to See Frigates and Destroyers in the Game as Playabale Vessels in the Game as the next step after the current Largest Playable Vessels of Corvettes.

Corvettes currently are using C4 Weapons and Tier 8 Modules.
So to also give you an idea where these would be grouped in terms of Power. Frigates and Destroyers would increase this to C5 Weapons and Tier 9 and Tier 10 Modules
Which means that the Curve is the same as with earlier Ships
Meaning the Frigate Ships Compared to the Federal Corvette should have a similar increase of Power as from Fer de Lance to Anaconda.


Edit:
Pls note if your exact Answer is not in the Poll. Pls simply Choose whatever comes closest.
Unfortunately we are all Humans. And my Grandfather already said. There is as many Opinions as there is Humans on the Planet. So I cant add every single Answer someone might give to the Poll.

Greetz Sun

And do what? Farm RES?

We need more stuff to actually do in the game... More involved and interesting stuff, not bigger pew pews... If/when we have nice involved more tactical combat scenarios, then let's consider more ships etc. But we're a long way from that yet.

So, it's a no from me...

 

[Sunleader]

And do what? Farm RES?

We need more stuff to actually do in the game... More involved and interesting stuff, not bigger pew pews... If/when we have nice involved more tactical combat scenarios, then let's consider more ships etc. But we're a long way from that yet.

So, it's a no from me...

The General Idea is that it gives Multi Crew an actual Reason to be there.
And also Adds new Encounters and Options.

An Frigate or Destroyer would Fight Differently than the current Ships which are all attempting to Engage Frontally.
They would also bring in an Element of Longer Range and Minimum Range as their Turret Arcs would mean Enemies below 1km for example might just be to Close to Engage them effectively.

So it would Add an New level of Combat Options, An new level of Missions as Squads of Fighters could Band together to Attack a Destroyer Sized Ship in a Mission.

As well as a Reason for Torpedoes to Exist as they currently have no real reason to be there either

 

[NeilF]

The General Idea is that it gives Multi Crew an actual Reason to be there.
And also Adds new Encounters and Options.

An Frigate or Destroyer would Fight Differently than the current Ships which are all attempting to Engage Frontally.
They would also bring in an Element of Longer Range and Minimum Range as their Turret Arcs would mean Enemies below 1km for example might just be to Close to Engage them effectively.

So it would Add an New level of Combat Options, An new level of Missions as Squads of Fighters could Band together to Attack a Destroyer Sized Ship in a Mission.

As well as a Reason for Torpedoes to Exist as they currently have no real reason to be there either

Understood... But the point still stands surely?

Let's assume multi-crew is ramped up to give these bigger ships more controls/options. And then do what with them?

Surely we need more complex/involved scenarios to make the PvE and PvP interesting for such mechanics? eg: Depending/attacking a location or ship being repaired. Escorting/attacking a convoy of ships through an asteroid field to a base? Full blown blockade mechanics and trying to run/enforce it? NPC Wingmen to give orders to (attack that, defend this)? Combinations of all the above? Incorporating such mechanics into Powerplay, CGs, missions (for PvE and PvP)...

Surely until we actually get more involved scenarios, mechanics and gameplay you can have all the shiney toys you like on your ships, but if there's nothing particularly interesting and challenging to do with them?

 

[RamirezKurita]

I think that depends alot on how they are Planning to Implement it.
Going by Description. The Panther Clipper is Significantly larger than the Federal Corvette. But there is no actual Size Announced so far.
(At least I dont know it)

Currently. The Anaconda is 150m long. The Fed Corvette 170m and the Cutter almost 200m Long.
The Panther Clipper is a Cargo Ship and current estimates put it actually Shorter than the Cutter but much Bulkier.
So it would still run in the Corvette or Auxilliary Ship Category.
If it became an 240-250m Long Ship it might actually count as an Frigate. Albeit its a Cargo Ship so its only a Frigate in terms of Size. As it would not fit any Frigate Weaponry.

Frigates historically weren't that much larger than corvettes though (looking at WWII, anyway), with frigates generally having about 50% greater displacements than corvettes, they could almost be considered to be the largest and smallest members of the same class (in fact, the US equivalent category, the Destroyer Escorts, ranged in size between corvettes and frigates). Corvettes and Frigates were both auxiliary ships at the time, with the fully fledged destroyers being the smallest actual combat vessels at 2.5-3x the displacements of the corvettes. Likewise, frigates generally carried much the same weapons as corvettes, just in slightly greater numbers - the same motley crue of AA guns, ASW weaponry and a very small amount of the smaller dual-purpose cannons.

Applying the same dimensional differences between the Flower class corvettes and the River class frigates to the Fed'Vette actually gives overall dimensions of 246.5 x 95.8 x 32.3 meters. This is notably longer than even the Beluga (which may put such a vessel outside the size of a large landing pad), however it is notably narrower and not as tall as the Beluga; overall, making the design slightly boxier would more than allow such a frigate class vessel to fit into dimensions of a large landing pad. Keeping the roughly same mass ratios would also give such a Federal Frigate a loaded mass of about 3000 tonnes to the Corvette's 2000 tonnes, which sounds like a lot of mass but it is like comparing an Asp Scout to an Asp Explorer - enough to be different in capabilities but not enough to be an entirely new category of ship. As an added bonus, a vessel of 3000 tonnes laden mass also has a similar jump range with a class 7 FSD as a Corvette with it's class 6 FSD and fully laden mass of about 2000 tonnes, keeping the Federal Fleet at a fairly uniform jump range (which makes great logistical sense for fleet operations, as fleets are limited by the speed of the slowest vessel so the only ships that benefit from greater speeds are those that are designed for operating independently).

 

[Dialectic]

What class of ship is a Sidewinder? How about a Cobra MkIII? A Cutter... is that a cutter then, and a Clipper a eh... Clipper?

I don't think Elite really does traditional ship classes like sea born navies, and to be honest I don't think it should. I'm opposed to the idea of bigger ships that dock external to stations or only on land however.

Also, three superfluous 'so's in the OP. That may be a new record.

It does in the books....

Most of the ships we fly are fighters or multi role fighters. The conda, vette, and cutter are like interceptors designed to probably take on enemy frigates.

Frigates are in real life and in elite books screening protection for the big guns. The frigates provide anti projectile defense and anti fighter defense to the fleet as well as harass enemy ships. Destroyers and cruisers, while varied, make up the bulk fighting force as a solid balance between weapons, armor , and maneuvers. Battleships are prohibitively expensive but typically the idea is they pack the firepower to take out several ships. The carrier we all know. In the elite world the battleship and the carrier are combined into the capital ship.

I'd love to get a frigate. The current big 3 don't appeal to me. They aren't big enough for me to care to spend money on them

Edit: More to the point, this is a game about flying ships in space and some of you are arguing against adding ships just cause they are big? Ridiculous. I want more ships. More and more. And then more.

 

[Crank Larson]

I would Disagree on that.
Right now Elite Dangerous has more or less squeezed out whats possible from having only Small Ships in the Game.

Um, really?! No, it hasn't, not by a long shot. There are many features that haven't even been implemented yet, and these features are far, far more important than simply having bigger ships!

 

[yodajedifishmaster]

no but not for the reasons most people think.

true capital ships (the corvette isnt one - its essentially an escort level ship not of true military spec in the hands of players) will need more than one or two or 10 people to crew them. but thats not what the reason is for not having them.

i couold say EVE sounds a hell of a mess and i believe because they allow such capital ships to be built by groups of players - but then those players i think actually run a nation or area of space although i could be wrong on that. that game seems more a warfare sandbox than a space sim like ELITE.

no the real reason is, capital ships, (frigates are not really capital ships either they are just bigger corvettes and escort capital ships rather than convoys or transports) can only be built by the powers, and they will NOT be handed over to any player no matter his or her rank in the auxiliary naval force. nation states keep those ships for themselves. i dont recall disney building themselves an aircraft carrier, just liners and other civilian ships. its too lore breaking to suggest players can ever have capital ships of cruiser class and above, or military spec escorts. and you would need both. and likely they would be vulnerable to a large fleet of players in heavy fighters and the right missiles anyway, without a large fighter force to defend against it.

so it wont happen. and i just dont see FD doing it. BUT what they might do if war with the thargoids kicks off, is offer missions (well give orders) to players who have rank in the aux naval reserve to grab their federal ship and report to a naval carrier type ship. that ship will then depart for one of the massive interstellar battle zones and i think FD could fit a mini campaign to defend certain sectors of the bubble by having players launch from capital ships to attack thargoid capital ships and defend their own. thats a standard campaign. and once you do a campiagn you can either sign up for a second tour or are allowed to leave having done your duty with a few medals and maybe a promotion and some military spec (think grade 5 mode with no downsides for something non weapon such as an ecm that actually causes the missiles targetting you to self destruct instead of just lose lock). i think that might be possible.

 

[Kaltern]

Um, really?! No, it hasn't, not by a long shot. There are many features that haven't even been implemented yet, and these features are far, far more important than simply having bigger ships!

Have you considered there might be a reason why said features have yet to be added? It's not like they've not had the development time.

 

[bigity]

Can we balance the ships we have first?

 

[Miklos Atreides]

If Elite Dangerous wants to get any Bigger than they are. They need to Increase the Scale of Players.
This can be done by different things of course.
They could Allow Players to actually own Stations and Manage them. Which would Greatly Increase the Options of Players.
They could Allow Players to actually Join Factions and thus actually Participate in Politics and even Wars as well as Powerplay. Rather than just doing Missions for some Faction which has no real Effects on anything anyways.
They could Tremendously Increase efforts to Create Worlds with stuff to Discover including Space Legs and Planets which have Life of some sort as well as Caves and other Stuff to Explore.
Or they could Allow Players to have Bigger Ships which actually allow Multi Crew beyond the Virtual Presence but instead by someone actually Docking with his Ship on another Player.

Sorry, but disagreeing to most of this part because
allowing players to own the space increases options for a few group of players not all players. Therefore it will rip the galaxy apart rather than have the effects you want to have.
(nevertheless a station manager game I proposed qutie some time ago that is linked to the universe. Don't expect to have it happen this decade.)

Allowing factions to take charge in politics is already possible by BGS, Missioning, Powerplay... Ok if you have control of a station I already admitted in the past you should have some
switches that gives an overall direction to this station. But prerequisite will be to have the option ot pledge on any minor faction. (Maybe one day... earlier than the station game)

Bigger ships for pilots are limited because they will not be able to land at starports. Hence you will need NPC fleet to manage shipload, switch ships, repair, restock, etc.
You will need in a lot of things the game is not designed for today which will last in a total different game. Hense mostly unlikely to happen somewhen.

Regards,
Miklos

 

[Crank Larson]

It's not like they've not had the development time.

Yes it is. The development time they have had so far has given us the game we've got so far. Each update extends the game. You clearly have no idea what is involved in game development if you actually believe your comment.

 

[Sunleader]

Understood... But the point still stands surely?

Let's assume multi-crew is ramped up to give these bigger ships more controls/options. And then do what with them?

Surely we need more complex/involved scenarios to make the PvE and PvP interesting for such mechanics? eg: Depending/attacking a location or ship being repaired. Escorting/attacking a convoy of ships through an asteroid field to a base? Full blown blockade mechanics and trying to run/enforce it? NPC Wingmen to give orders to (attack that, defend this)? Combinations of all the above? Incorporating such mechanics into Powerplay, CGs, missions (for PvE and PvP)...

Surely until we actually get more involved scenarios, mechanics and gameplay you can have all the shiney toys you like on your ships, but if there's nothing particularly interesting and challenging to do with them?

Not Really.
Because if you think about it.
How much more and deeper Missions can you actually make with just Fighter Ships?

We could Extend current Missions to have some longer Chains. But thats about it to be Honest. And they would not add any Depth. Just length.
You cant exactly Raid an Pirate Outpost when the Guns and Weapons your Carrying are not going to Penetrate their Shields even if you Attacked with 20 at once.
You wont make much sense to Escort one of the Megaships we got in the Game when neither you nor any of the Enemies available can actually do anything to them in the First Place.
And even with the Cutter assuming you could Load like maybe 10 Marines running an Invasive Action even of some Small Outpost would not make sense either.

Unless we add Bigger Ships. We have more or less exhausted the options for Missions.
It makes no Sense if some Fighter could have any more Influence than they have now in Battles and Missions.

Frigates historically weren't that much larger than corvettes though (looking at WWII, anyway), with frigates generally having about 50% greater displacements than corvettes, they could almost be considered to be the largest and smallest members of the same class (in fact, the US equivalent category, the Destroyer Escorts, ranged in size between corvettes and frigates). Corvettes and Frigates were both auxiliary ships at the time, with the fully fledged destroyers being the smallest actual combat vessels at 2.5-3x the displacements of the corvettes. Likewise, frigates generally carried much the same weapons as corvettes, just in slightly greater numbers - the same motley crue of AA guns, ASW weaponry and a very small amount of the smaller dual-purpose cannons.

Applying the same dimensional differences between the Flower class corvettes and the River class frigates to the Fed'Vette actually gives overall dimensions of 246.5 x 95.8 x 32.3 meters. This is notably longer than even the Beluga (which may put such a vessel outside the size of a large landing pad), however it is notably narrower and not as tall as the Beluga; overall, making the design slightly boxier would more than allow such a frigate class vessel to fit into dimensions of a large landing pad. Keeping the roughly same mass ratios would also give such a Federal Frigate a loaded mass of about 3000 tonnes to the Corvette's 2000 tonnes, which sounds like a lot of mass but it is like comparing an Asp Scout to an Asp Explorer - enough to be different in capabilities but not enough to be an entirely new category of ship. As an added bonus, a vessel of 3000 tonnes laden mass also has a similar jump range with a class 7 FSD as a Corvette with it's class 6 FSD and fully laden mass of about 2000 tonnes, keeping the Federal Fleet at a fairly uniform jump range (which makes great logistical sense for fleet operations, as fleets are limited by the speed of the slowest vessel so the only ships that benefit from greater speeds are those that are designed for operating independently).

Not Really. The Thing is that the Nations often denied Destroyer Sized Ships the Destroyer Title. Because they Equipped them with Torpedoes instead of Guns. And Named em as Torpedoboats. Even tough their Hulls were Effectively Destroyers.
If I check the WW2 Listings which ED is mostly taking its weapon Setups from.
Corvettes are 50-70m
Frigates are 80-110m
Destroyers 120-140m

Its not a 1 to 1 thing. But I think it does work to a Degree

Um, really?! No, it hasn't, not by a long shot. There are many features that haven't even been implemented yet, and these features are far, far more important than simply having bigger ships!

Not Really.
Most of additional Features would really Require Bigger Ships or very Radical Changes to the Games Mechanics.
Feel Free to name some Features not yet added tough which could be added without including Larger Ships or entirely Reworking Game Mechanics. =?

Can we balance the ships we have first?

If we go by that I dont think we would ever go beyond Sidewinder.
The Ships aint supposed to be Balanced anyways.
Why would a Ship that Costs 1000 Credits be as Strong as one that Costs 200 Million ?

 

[NeilF]

Not Really.
Because if you think about it.
How much more and deeper Missions can you actually make with just Fighter Ships?

Seriously? Play X-Wing from 25 years ago...

You can't envisage trying to protect/attack a convoy of ships travelling through an asteroid field? You can't imagine doing this as a Wing, or with NPC wingmen who you can give instructions to (defend this or attack that)? You can't envisage larger scale missions for multi-crew with half a dozen or more fighters (eg: Vipers) to control and for a crew member to have a dedicated tactical view to achieve this? You can't imagine a station being blockaded (requiring a longer flight to the station) with ships having to be escorted in against ships trying to carry out the blockade? You can't envisage all these mechanics working togethor in anyway they can, where ever they can (eg: against the Thargoid when they arrive)?

And then, CQC should have been fighter based missions/tasks/CGs in the game using similar scenarios again where possible. You undertake a mission/task to pilot a fighter for a period of time to achieve a goal (eg: defend a location against other fighters). Or the sort of scenarios above. Imagine a CG offering fighter based combat. Imagine how much more popular that would have been than CQC itself?



And you really cannot envisage anything more interesting for missions/tasks/CGs to offer than we have now?

The last think I want is yet more ships to do the same vapid alpha/beta gameplay we currently have, or yet more weapons/modules to balance (the current ones are in a mess currently thanks to The Engineers)... We need more interesting things to do first...

Once we have more interesting/varied combat scenarios then by all means see if large/alternative ships can bring yet more interest/variety. But please, let's not just bring in bigger ships to farm the current vapid/thin mechanics with.

 

[Crank Larson]

Not Really.
Most of additional Features would really Require Bigger Ships or very Radical Changes to the Games Mechanics.
Feel Free to name some Features not yet added tough which could be added without including Larger Ships or entirely Reworking Game Mechanics. =?

You mean like atmospheric planetary landings, gas giants, etc. ? Nothing that will add to the content of the game will require a larger ship.

 

[RamirezKurita]

Not Really. The Thing is that the Nations often denied Destroyer Sized Ships the Destroyer Title. Because they Equipped them with Torpedoes instead of Guns. And Named em as Torpedoboats. Even tough their Hulls were Effectively Destroyers.
If I check the WW2 Listings which ED is mostly taking its weapon Setups from.
Corvettes are 50-70m
Frigates are 80-110m
Destroyers 120-140m

Its not a 1 to 1 thing. But I think it does work to a Degree

It's harder to generally compare lengths of ocean going ships to our current space ships, as ocean going ships tended to be very long to maintain their hydrodynamics while in Elite the ships are often quite boxy to fit onto the landing pads, which is why I went down the route of comparing mass as the most useful point of comparison as comparing lengths produces quite a few anomalies.

Destroyers in the second world war were notably larger than the torpedo boats. The original ones were little more than gunboats designed to provide a screen against torpedo boats, but they quickly became full fleet assets in their own right; they became undersized cruisers rather than oversized boats. Following the first world war, destroyer sizes increased very rapidly going from 600ish tonnes up to 1500+ tonnes within a decade or so and the London naval treaty codified destroyers at 1850 tonnes. Post treaty, the upper limit for destroyer sizes reached almost 3000 tonnes by the end of the war, just like how most other types of ship saw a ballooning in size after the treaties were no longer in effect (cruisers went from the treaty 10,000 tonnes up to the USN's Des Moines class at 17,000 tonnes as a comparison). The only torpedo boats that neared the capabilities of destroyers were the Kriegsmarine's Flottentorpedoboots ("Fleet Torpedo Boats"), but even they were only half the size of the Kriegsmarine's actual destroyers.

Yes, frigates were larger than corvettes, but their capabilities weren't really in a different league while their role remained exactly the same, while they were still a far cry from the destroyers that served in the actual fleet actions with their much greater capabilities.

Not Really.
Because if you think about it.
How much more and deeper Missions can you actually make with just Fighter Ships?

We could Extend current Missions to have some longer Chains. But thats about it to be Honest. And they would not add any Depth. Just length.
You cant exactly Raid an Pirate Outpost when the Guns and Weapons your Carrying are not going to Penetrate their Shields even if you Attacked with 20 at once.
You wont make much sense to Escort one of the Megaships we got in the Game when neither you nor any of the Enemies available can actually do anything to them in the First Place.
And even with the Cutter assuming you could Load like maybe 10 Marines running an Invasive Action even of some Small Outpost would not make sense either.

Unless we add Bigger Ships. We have more or less exhausted the options for Missions.
It makes no Sense if some Fighter could have any more Influence than they have now in Battles and Missions.

There's plenty of potential depth in missions even without introducing new modules, let alone entire categories of ship. All the suggestions you made were just extra content, more random things to do rather than adding actual depth.

What we need for mission depth isn't more "what", but more "why". There needs to be reasons for things to happen, or a reason for us to prevent things from happening. Add a few layers of "why" and complex mission chains with choices and tradeoffs become easy to work with, as well as offering further depth for manipulating the BGS as every mission would have actual reasons for being issued rather than just being spewed out by the RNG based on faction state and station economy. Obviously, fleshing out the missions in this manner could do with a touch more "what", both for the missions themselves as well as the BGS in general, but it's navigating the layers of "why" that provides the depth and keeps players thinking and investigating.

 

[Sunleader]

Sorry, but disagreeing to most of this part because
allowing players to own the space increases options for a few group of players not all players. Therefore it will rip the galaxy apart rather than have the effects you want to have.
(nevertheless a station manager game I proposed qutie some time ago that is linked to the universe. Don't expect to have it happen this decade.)

Allowing factions to take charge in politics is already possible by BGS, Missioning, Powerplay... Ok if you have control of a station I already admitted in the past you should have some
switches that gives an overall direction to this station. But prerequisite will be to have the option ot pledge on any minor faction. (Maybe one day... earlier than the station game)

Bigger ships for pilots are limited because they will not be able to land at starports. Hence you will need NPC fleet to manage shipload, switch ships, repair, restock, etc.
You will need in a lot of things the game is not designed for today which will last in a total different game. Hense mostly unlikely to happen somewhen.

Regards,
Miklos

Allowing Players to Own Stations in this massive Size Universe would not do all that much to be Honest.
Dont see a Problem with that. Especially because it would be in the best Interest of Players to not close these Stations to other Players if they dont want Run a Negative with the Upkeeps they would cost.
And I would not want this as an Extra Game. But as an actual Feature of this Game.

Lol no. Seriously BGS allows you to do nothing. Because lets face a Fact here.
Nothing really changes from it. So you manage to make Factions go to war by putting weeks of work into it. Then they go to War and well. Fact is you got no Influence on the other Faction. So even if it Wins nothing really changed.
In effect the BGS only allows you to switch some Names around. But thats about it.
You dont really affect anything in the Big Picture.
Even more True for Powerplay. Cause well yeah you can Conquer a System for your Powerplay Faction. And lets be honest. Nobody Cares. Its been 2 Years that I even bothered checking which Power Controls the System I am usually staying in.
Because it makes no difference either ways.

And thats a Minor problem Mate.
No Offense but even I. And seriously Even I cause I SUCK at GFX Works... Could Model this in a few Hours.
Its not that hard to have External Docking Ports.

Seriously? Play X-Wing from 25 years ago...

You can't envisage trying to protect/attack a convoy of ships travelling through an asteroid field? You can't imagine doing this as a Wing, or with NPC wingmen who you can give instructions to (defend this or attack that)? You can't envisage larger scale missions for multi-crew with half a dozen or more fighters (eg: Vipers) to control and for a crew member to have a dedicated tactical view to achieve this? You can't imagine a station being blockaded (requiring a longer flight to the station) with ships having to be escorted in against ships trying to carry out the blockade? You can't envisage all these mechanics working togethor in anyway they can, where ever they can (eg: against the Thargoid when they arrive)?

And then, CQC should have been fighter based missions/tasks/CGs in the game using similar scenarios again where possible. You undertake a mission/task to pilot a fighter for a period of time to achieve a goal (eg: defend a location against other fighters). Or the sort of scenarios above. Imagine a CG offering fighter based combat. Imagine how much more popular that would have been than CQC itself?



And you really cannot envisage anything more interesting for missions/tasks/CGs to offer than we have now?

The last think I want is yet more ships to do the same vapid alpha/beta gameplay we currently have, or yet more weapons/modules to balance (the current ones are in a mess currently thanks to The Engineers)... We need more interesting things to do first...

Once we have more interesting/varied combat scenarios then by all means see if large/alternative ships can bring yet more interest/variety. But please, let's not just bring in bigger ships to farm the current vapid/thin mechanics with.

1.
Nope. Because it would make no Sense.
Why would a Convoy try to Travel an Asteroid Belt in a Game where they can just Jump into Range of a Station ?
Even if its an Asteroid Station the Asteroid Rings etc are so Thin that its not a problem to just land right at them.

2.1
Nope that neither. Cause allowing a Player to take Control of Several Ships and use a Tactical Interface would not only Require massive Changes to the Game and massive Improvements to the AI. But would also never happen cause this type of thing just is too much to Handle for a Server Sided System.

2.2
And no I also cant Imagine it with all being Players cause this Game would first need to add Basic Multiplayer Capabilities before we can even think about Bigger stuff like that. And even then chances are nobody would do it. Cause why would you ?
I dont need an Tactical Officer to Coordinate some Fighters lol.
This sort of thing might be interesting if we are talking about Attacking a Capital Ship with some Destroyers.
But for a Fighter Wing I see no reason to make things so Complicated.
Especially when I know that in such MMOs I either got People in Teamspeak thus not needing any extra Interface. Or got Random People which will Ignore Commands anyways lol.

3.
Nope.
Again because we just Jump onto Stations anyways.
Blockading already Exists and is pretty Inefficient.
To begin with it would make no Sense that Ships which stand no Chance against the Station would be able to Run a Blockade.
They cant Threaten the Station itself. So the Station would just call System Security in and would Bash the crab out of the Enemies.
So this would just kill Immersion.

4.
Defend what ?
The Fighters cant really Attack Stations or such stuff. There is no real requirement to Defend things. And no amount of Players can Stand against System Security Forces.
Even if you assume Defends of some Random Location thats not a Station. There would be the Issue of this ultimately not really making any Sense.
CQC was a Deadbirth because most Players dont want PvP in the First Place. Much less Fair PvP. The few PvPers we got are unfortunately more Griefers and Pirates and dont want to Fight but to Raid People.

5.
Oh dont get me Wrong. I could surely Envision tons of more Interesting Things. But they make no Sense in this Game due to this Games System.
The Game being Instanced heavily and generally not having any long Travel Ways in Normal Space were Combat happens. For most Part does not allow for anything beyond what we got now.
Cause Sorry but as I said above. Most of the Ideas you got would simply make no sense and would feel completely Generic and Kill Immersion of the Game.
Unless we Increase the Scale we aint getting anywhere.
It just makes no Sense for mere Small Fry Fighters to Run anything beyond what they are doing now.

You mean like atmospheric planetary landings, gas giants, etc. ? Nothing that will add to the content of the game will require a larger ship.

These are Features already in the Works. They are not new stuff.

 

[Sunleader]

There's plenty of potential depth in missions even without introducing new modules, let alone entire categories of ship. All the suggestions you made were just extra content, more random things to do rather than adding actual depth.

What we need for mission depth isn't more "what", but more "why". There needs to be reasons for things to happen, or a reason for us to prevent things from happening. Add a few layers of "why" and complex mission chains with choices and tradeoffs become easy to work with, as well as offering further depth for manipulating the BGS as every mission would have actual reasons for being issued rather than just being spewed out by the RNG based on faction state and station economy. Obviously, fleshing out the missions in this manner could do with a touch more "what", both for the missions themselves as well as the BGS in general, but it's navigating the layers of "why" that provides the depth and keeps players thinking and investigating.

Wont happen.
Simple reason being that this Game is too big to Handcraft content on a scale that would fill the World.
And Generated Missions simply wont work in such Details.

The Size of the Universe of Elite Dangerous is its own Enemy in this case.
Cause they cant possibly fill this Size with Handcrafted Content.
Meaning they have to use Automatic Generated Content.
But Automatic Content can only work with the limited Variables it got.
So you.ll not get it into Deeper levels.

Especially not in the levels of actually making sense and meaningful Stories.
Because such stuff "Creativity" is unfortunately a Trait limited to Living beings. They cant be Auto Generated.

 

[RamirezKurita]

Wont happen.
Simple reason being that this Game is too big to Handcraft content on a scale that would fill the World.
And Generated Missions simply wont work in such Details.

The Size of the Universe of Elite Dangerous is its own Enemy in this case.
Cause they cant possibly fill this Size with Handcrafted Content.
Meaning they have to use Automatic Generated Content.
But Automatic Content can only work with the limited Variables it got.
So you.ll not get it into Deeper levels.

Especially not in the levels of actually making sense and meaningful Stories.
Because such stuff "Creativity" is unfortunately a Trait limited to Living beings. They cant be Auto Generated.

I too never want to see handcrafted missions in Elite, half of the problems I see with the current "story" stem from how FD are writing it, rather than crafting the necessary code such that the players and the galaxy writes the story.

You would be surprised at what procedural storytelling is capable of these days, how well crafted AIs interact with each other to produce emergent stories (this is highly notable in many 4X games). Going even further, perhaps the current king of procedural storytelling is the Indie game Dwarf Fortress, which generates interesting enough worlds and histories such that players will spend significant amounts of time reading up about the happenings that the game generates - an impressive feat for a game made by a single coder.

Obviously, to generate an interesting story the BGS would have to be revamped to the point of being almost unrecognisable from it's current form. Vast enhancements to it's overall capacity to influence the galaxy would be needed to allow the factions to have workable goals and purposes, as otherwise any hopes and dreams the factions have will just be hollow and worthless. Going below the surface, dozens of variables would be needed to differentiate the factions from each other (both cultural as well as practical variables), combined with making current variables such as wealth and security matter more. This could be enhanced further by persistent NPCs to represent influential figures within each faction, each of which would bring their own skill set, management style and goals to the factions, giving the possibly of intra-faction conflicts due to internal power struggles while also geometrically increasing the complexity of the system. With just a few layers added, every mission would have a reason rather than RNG, every chain would be a part of a story rather than a simple A->B, every faction a personality rather than just yet another name. For people who skim the surface without reading too much into it, they would enjoy the seemingly unconnected events coalesce into pivotal moments as factions and NPCs succeed at what they are trying to do and try to work around the "unexpected" spanners thrown in while they help, while players who want the depth will have all the hooks required to get involved at a much deeper level to manipulate the galaxy.