SLFs are possibly one of my favorite features of the game for letting a friend telepresence in and play remotely without trying to meet up somewhere, especially for friends who are outside of the bubble or friends who want to learn the ropes of combat without risking their own ship. Could we get some updates to SLFs? Engineering would be welcome to introduce some more variety and depth, but at a minimum I feel like the AX SLFs need a way to deal with caustics - caustic sinks, high corrosion resistance to give them time to receive decontamination limpets, just something to prevent the frustrating cycle of deploying, grazing an acid cloud, dying in 20 seconds, waiting 30 seconds to redeploy, deploying again, grazing acid again, repeat. I feel like non-combat SLFs could be interesting as well - maybe a mining SLF fitted with mining scanners to let CMDRs scout out for the mother ship? A customizable chassis that lets you fit 1-2 Class 1 weapons of choice with a single utility slot?
Great ideas
And having the SLF's engineerable (specially for anti-caustic) will bring them inline with ship engineering.They need to make it so you can launch two SLF's at the same time ... with either two NPC pilots or You and an NPC, with another NPC piloting the mothership. THIS is the only thing I want in this game lol ... I have been asking for it for years now.
A potential nightmare for anyone trying to rank up in combat as deploying two SLF pilots would mean they got no combat XP themselves.
Perhaps ... or it could just be actually fun ... which is another reason to play
Indeed but many do seem to be focussed on gaining rank in as little time as possible.
I simply don't see a problem with this assessment. Using SLFs is a choice. If you wish to gain combat XP, just launch one or none at all. After all, the only reason to gain rank is to access ShinDez, and exploration or trading will get you to Elite faster than grinding NPCs. If you want more muscle in combat, you should pay for it in both XP and credits.
The bigger issue with launching 2 NPC SFLs is balance, and the new player experience. Anybody who can buy and fit an Alliance Crusader (cheapest ship to fit a C6 hangar) will now gain access to 2 NPCs basically doing the fighting for them. I don't think the PVE experience is balanced around such a thing, and if it was rebalanced to accommodate it then it may cause problems for those who fly solo combat. It would funnel newer players towards an "optimal" choice, with potential frustration for those who pick the "wrong" one. The same can be said of proposing to engineer SLFs - they're quite balanced as is, with the exception of the AX Taipan.
I do agree the AX Taipan badly needs to be reworked, or removed entirely and replaced with a dedicated AX fighter. I'm completely baffled with the AX Taipan having no utility slot - not a caustic sink, not even a normal heat sink (which, as anyone with a taste for the AX meta knows, is all but essential). The pitiful shield does nothing against the piercing attacks and is stripped away in seconds owing to the heat and making yourself a bigger target. Also it has no way to target hearts since it has no Xeno scanner and the fixed AX multicannons are completely hopeless against Tharg scouts, which is pretty much what AX MCs are designed to counter. I think this entry goes second on my list of WHY ships.