She's a beauty! (New ship revealed--Mandalay)

So theory crafting elsewhere and I noticed something that stood out.

Zac said it's been designed for flying in atmospheres, but there's currently no difference between tenuous and non atmospheric planets.
So...

View attachment 400403

Flaps?

Slightly thicker atmospheres on the way..?
By the way, a denser atmosphere will give grounds for introducing seas and oceans to the planet.
 
when it's used in a weaponised fashion to unilaterally mean "bad", "anti-consumer", "abusive" or any other negative argument people want to come up with for not wanting to pay for things
Well, is there anything "pro-consumer" in having to buy fake currency in inconvenient packs to get access to a ship that's arbitrarily delayed?
As I've said before, as a LEP I would've been fine buying a new DLC with the ships attached to it (without the whole infinitely respawnable, no rebuy cost stuff), just like I was fine buying cosmetics before FDev introduced ARX.

Almost everything has more than one definition. Anyway, most of them for P2W are about "clearly superior advantage".
I use the term defined in the Cambridge dictionary, it's the most credible source there is before a legal definition. And the only legal definition unfortunately concerns lootboxes, not direct purchases.
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
I really would like to see a video how you use ship with 'better view' in your opinion (probably phantom, or aspx, dbx?), because I can't imagine how it really is so important, if you see just a litte more on the left and right side of your legs.
Just a picture I grabbed off the internet because I'm not near my Asp at the moment.

rESwGc0.jpeg


It's not a little more :) You can see completely to both sides too.
 
For ten years its been in my brain and thats not bad for my 200 back in the KS days....
Perceived value, isn't it?
I bought ED (& NMS / SC on the same day) for £20 or thereabouts, bought the Beta for EDO (£40?) and several other copies of ED/O over the years.
Spend around £50 a year on cosmetics over the accounts
So probably 'invested' as much as the average KS / LEP holder (more possibly) and have no expectations of what the game 'should' deliver.
I do wonder if I'm better off than those early backers, I'm happy with the direction the game has gone since 2017!
 
Just a picture I grabbed off the internet because I'm not near my Asp at the moment.

rESwGc0.jpeg


It's not a little more :) You can see completely to both sides too.

Ok, and I can see what is in the 50% of the view in the middle....but I know... if you put nose of the ship down on 45 precent degree you will see twice more than that....
 
Perceived value, isn't it?
I bought ED (& NMS / SC on the same day) for £20 or thereabouts, bought the Beta for EDO (£40?) and several other copies of ED/O over the years.
Spend around £50 a year on cosmetics over the accounts
So probably 'invested' as much as the average KS / LEP holder (more possibly) and have no expectations of what the game 'should' deliver.
I do wonder if I'm better off than those early backers, I'm happy with the direction the game has gone since 2017!
At least you are more valuable customer, and Frontier is the company not charity...so...
 
Ok, and I can see what is in the 50% of the view in the middle....but I know... if you put nose of the ship down on 45 precent degree you will see twice more than that....
I know people, they're looking for biology from the camera, from the top of the ship. I just don't like it.
 
I know people, they're looking for biology from the camera, from the top of the ship. I just don't like it.
If I have been logged out of the game while landed on a planet I will do a look around using the camera as it lets me check to see if there is anything within walking distance without having to move the ship. Never considered using it in flight to do that.
 
Just a picture I grabbed off the internet because I'm not near my Asp at the moment.

rESwGc0.jpeg


It's not a little more :) You can see completely to both sides too.

I did like the view from the Asp - although the engine noise drove me nuts! - and it wouldn’t have spoiled the aesthetics making the Mamba canopy wrap around the front too. But I’m pretty adept at flying with the nose at 45° to the ground.
 
That thing on landing gear out, by height, gonna be one of highest in that field, and very wide (mandalay the wide), if not widest of all mediums, unless wings gonna fold up somewhat, I cant see how this thing gonna be fit into medium landin pad. Only odd part I can see its "Boxy" belly, and with long landing gear, makin it more bit wierd looking, but if its gonna ends up with better range than conda, I am gonna grab one, neverless.

Cockpit wise, its gonna be very good, since mamba already have very good visiblity, and only its front parts of "wings" block some view, while this ship aint gonna have such issue, as there is no part of it that obscure view in anyway. It seems if even landed and beigh "high" by desgin, it almost apparent that by looking left ot right, its still might have decent view. Central seat its also always nice, and its certainly gonna be two-seater, and I really hope, that pilot seat would be placed bit higher than in mamba, like 0,5 meters higher, to have even better view, becasue most of ships thier seats are bit too low, and certianly could use some height adjust, for better visibilty.

Now question is... how fast its gonna be, and what kind of internals gonna be have. Depend on internals number and quality, and also what kind of hardpoints and how many, and how are these placed, question is, its gonna be viable to combat or not, or just another meme ship if someone makes PVP bulid out of it. It might be end up one of weakest mediums in terms of its combat potential but only good at flying around(if ends up as even better how its mauverable than FDL - now thats qonna intersting) and jumping far (since its explorer - that fine), but even orca wich is not "advertised" as combat ship, it does that preety well (as specialized gank bulid), so fingers crossed about this one. Its almost certain that atleast one internal will be sized 5 or even 6, for fuel scoop alone. I really hope there will be no DBS issue where its a ship with high jump range but not enough internals to fully support it in exploration role (yep, undersized fuel scoop its main issue at that one).

I wonder if that ship gonna have distro sized 5 atleast, but something tells me thats gonna be sized 4 for balance reasons, so it would be not fit too much for combat. In end, explorer ships never needed higher sized distro, save for thier weight.
 
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Well, is there anything "pro-consumer" in having to buy fake currency in inconvenient packs to get access to a ship that's arbitrarily delayed?
As I've said before, as a LEP I would've been fine buying a new DLC with the ships attached to it (without the whole infinitely respawnable, no rebuy cost stuff), just like I was fine buying cosmetics before FDev introduced ARX.
As I said, sliding scales. I'd personally argue that it's less consumer friendly than just handing it out for free, but the fact that it will be available in-game without any more money changing hands after an "arbitrary delay" makes it more consumer friendly than simply charging money for it full stop, as you'd have been happy with. We all have our own idea of how we'd prefer it done, and I'd prefer direct purchases like you but Steam policies make that harder for publishers so they use intermediatory currencies instead. It doesn't help that players are more and more reticent to buy larger DLC's these days either, I miss the days of true expansions like Bloodmoon for Morrowind.

I view early access ships-for-ARX as a way to make a donation to the company, with a minor, mostly temporary reward. For some people the fact I'm willing to pay the price of a burger and chips for some fun three months earlier than they'll get it for free is the literally end of the world, as are all other P2W practices, which as you've pointed out include many other things. Horses for courses I guess, it's a murky grey area of monetisation, in a murky grey area of hobbies, in a murky grey area of human civilisation on a mostly murky grey planet within existence.

None of it is objectively right or wrong, it's all subjective, and that's the point that's trying to be made; the term P2W just doesn't allow for the level of granularity that these complex subjective debates need, especially when it's used in a purely negative way. I'll accept things you won't, you'll accept things I won't, that's a given with any two people on most subjects. Neither of us are wrong or right, and we're all free to buy or not buy based on our personal opinions on the situation. The fact it's P2W or not is largely irrelevant to that discussion.
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
Ok, and I can see what is in the 50% of the view in the middle....but I know... if you put nose of the ship down on 45 precent degree you will see twice more than that....
And then if you want to land you have to level out and you can't see anything. You can see what's in the 50% because that's where the static picture is taken from, but when landing you're looking around checking your surrounding. If you point the nose 45 degrees down you don't see twice more than that because you still can't see out of the bottom in a normal ship and the Asp and T cockpits wrap around the top.

You want to be deliberately not taking the point for the hell of it then fine, but I can't be bothered with it any more to be honest.



Also why put spotlights on the underneath of the ship if you can't see the ground? I hope there's lots of cameras and monitors in the cockpit at least then.
 
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And then if you want to land you have to level out and you can't see anything. You can see what's in the 50% because that's where the static picture is taken from, but when landing you're looking around checking your surrounding. If you point the nose 45 degrees down you don't see twice more than that because you still can't see out of the bottom in a normal ship and the Asp and T cockpits wrap around the top.

You want to be deliberately not taking the point for the hell of it then fine, but I can't be bothered with it any more to be honest.

I am just talking about my experience, it is not about missing the point.
I get you have other way to do the same things, just want to say that is not the most important thing for everyone.
I use radar for landing, not the beautiful view around... you need to use sensors, that's totally enough for me. That's why I asked about the clip how you land, because maybe I could learn something interesting?
 
Also why put spotlights on the underneath of the ship if you can't see the ground?
I would guess "for being outside". On the dark side of a world, of course.

Having used a Phantom for basically all my exploring (Asp's ridiculous[ly stupid and nerve grating to the point of insanity] engine sound made me use it once and never again), I'm used to just spotting a suitable-ish area and seeing what the landing holo tells me about the spot I'm trying to go down on (because that's what it is for). Normally I don't try to land directly on those bios anyway, so needing to see them is not a particular requirement or judging factor for me. The fact that I only recently returned from an exploration run, however, is.
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
I use radar for landing, not the beautiful view around...
How do you see where the Biologicals, or rocks are in relation to your ship on the radar? If you don't care about where you land then I guess a completely blacked out cockpit would be fine for you, and that's fine.

But I'd suggest if you're designing a brand new ship for an activity where looking at/for things is the major part of it, then as much cockpit view as possible would be a good idea. Which is exactly what I said however many pages ago it was now.
 

Ozric

Volunteer Moderator
I would guess "for being outside". On the dark side of a world, of course.

Having used a Phantom for basically all my exploring (Asp's ridiculous[ly stupid and nerve grating to the point of insanity] engine sound made me use it once and never again), I'm used to just spotting a suitable-ish area and seeing what the landing holo tells me about the spot I'm trying to go down on (because that's what it is for). Normally I don't try to land directly on those bios anyway, so needing to see them is not a particular requirement or judging factor for me. The fact that I only recently returned from an exploration run, however, is.
That makes sense about the lights if they're on while you're not in the ship.

Maybe I've just spent too many years combing planet surfaces for Guardian stuff, Geologicals, and Biologicals. What makes sense to me obviously doesn't make sense to others. I thought all explorers would want a better view, but I guess not.
 
That's what I mean... it is individual, not common for all. Of course, better view is better, but the valuable how important it is are subjective. Just that.
 
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