Ship "classes".

[LeadEye]

Ok, I love this game, I mean, space simulators are REALLY lacking these days and Elite: Dangerous really gets that itch.

Now my itch used to be taken care of by EvE:Online but the community kind of got me off of it. Can't fly solo and really annoying people all the time. Anyways, that's beside the point.

One thing that I find is lacking in Elite: Dangerous are ships, HOWEVER, I feel like there's no need to actually add ships but just add classes kind of like what they did in EvE:Online.

For instance, my favorite ship is the Eagle, sadly you can't really bounty hunt properly with an Eagle, I mean you can but you feel like a mosquito most of the time. A simple solution to this would be to add ship classes, civilian, mercenary, military and so on, exactly like in EvE:Online.

Of course, a military class Eagle won't be as cheap as a civilian one, and a mercenary one wouldn't be as expensive as the military one. Kind of like tiers for ships, which would maybe add hardpoints for weapons, gear and so on.

I don't know, this is just a suggestion, it might get shot down , it might be held as a great idea , and it might have already been talked about :S.

I find also that there's a certain lack of weapons and utility to be added on a ship but I'm confident you guys are working hard on getting more gear to us.

I love this game, I really do, sadly my pals don't have it so I usually fly solo which can get kind of boring at times, but I'm always happy to jump back in and kill some pirates.

Thanks again for a great game.

 

[RadimentriX]

hmm, would be interesting. i wonder what a military Asp would be like maybe 4x medium weapon slots and 2x light? stronger shield?

 

[LeadEye]

hmm, would be interesting. i wonder what a military Asp would be like maybe 4x medium weapon slots and 2x light? stronger shield?

Pretty much, I mean if you look at EvE:Online, usually the difference is in weapon slots and utility slots. Also they usually have better speed, better power supply and so on, for instance a military Eagle would cost about 5 to 10 times more but have maybe 3xmedium weapon slots, 1.5times the speed and twice as much armour and shields. Something around those lines.

Here's an example of what EvE:Online does.

The first is the normal one the second is the Navy class ship (military class)

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Brutix

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Brutix_Navy_Issue

There's also a commander version of it which in ED could be the mercenary/pirate version.

http://wiki.eveuniversity.org/Astarte

It's an easy way to add ship variations without having to get new models.

 

[LeadEye]

Just bumping this.
Recently got back into E : D and wondered where this thread was at.
Even with the new ships I still think this is a good idea!

 

[YinYin]

I think the concept of elite is fitting your ship for these 'classes' though rather than having variants readily available ...
Like there are even military grade bulkheads.
You can fit turret beams, rails and torpedos on any ship.
Really don't have to feel like a mosquito if you specialize and excel at what you do.
(assassinations, general bounty hunting and combat zones for example all requiring very different specializations)

 

[goemon]

Just bumping this.
Recently got back into E : D and wondered where this thread was at.
Even with the new ships I still think this is a good idea!

while i like it as an idea generally, i see two problems:

a) money is not really a balancing factor in e:d (for various reasons)
b) i think a similar effect can be done via outfitting (my exploring dbs doesn't have weapons for weight, while my combat zones dbs has military bulkheads).

but the ships basics are very much fixed in e:d, so that's why they introduced variants (like dbe/dbs, eagle/imperial eagle, ...). i hope we will have more variants soon.

 

[G in the Fl]

A great ship is the cobra. Cheap and variable, it would be what your looking for. I've taken on anacondas in single combat and won in that ship, but only because I knew my ship and how to equip and use it.

 

[LeadEye]

I think the concept of elite is fitting your ship for these 'classes' though rather than having variants readily available ...
Like there are even military grade bulkheads.
You can fit turret beams, rails and torpedos on any ship.
Really don't have to feel like a mosquito if you specialize and excel at what you do.
(assassinations, general bounty hunting and combat zones for example all requiring very different specializations)

I agree that E: D is about fitting your ship, but the thing is, some ships are limited right out of the shipyard.
Look at the Eagle closely, it lacks so much to be even considered a bounty hunting ship (like the sidewinder).
Those ships have no real use apart from being threshold ships. Why would I fly an Eagle when I have money to fly a fully combat decked out Vulture, Cobra MK.III,Diamondback Scout or even a Viper?

Now if there was a Pirate/Mercenary Eagle, that would cost <1Million credites, that was tweaked to be more viable, you'd see people flying them later in the game.

while i like it as an idea generally, i see two problems:

a) money is not really a balancing factor in e:d (for various reasons)
b) i think a similar effect can be done via outfitting (my exploring dbs doesn't have weapons for weight, while my combat zones dbs has military bulkheads).

a) Decking out my Diamondback Scout for full on bounty hunting and heavy fighting cost me close to 5Million, now maybe I'm doing something wrong but that 5million took me some time to get.

b) That's not the issue really, I used the Eagle as an example because it really doesn't have any other use than being an intermediate ship between a Sidewinder and an Adder/Viper.

but the ships basics are very much fixed in e:d, so that's why they introduced variants (like dbe/dbs, eagle/imperial eagle, ...). i hope we will have more variants soon.

Those aren't really variants though, the DBS is made to fight more than explore, the DBE is made to explore. Just look at the power plant, same size, which means using the highest DPS weapons (Beam Lasers+Auto-Cannon) would drain your energy as fast as the DBS (with the same fittings) with a loss in DPS. Not only that, you lose maneuverability and speed. However, if you want to explore, you can go further and have more fuel for exploring. So it's not a variant as much as an independent exploring ship that could defend itself.

For instance, you wouldn't buy a Type-6 Transport to fight, however, if there were a Type-6 Military Battle-Barge, that sacrificed all of its cargo hatches to become a Turret boat, the Type-6 Ship class would have a viable fighting tier ship.

 

[YinYin]

Those ships have no real use apart from being threshold ships. Why would I fly an Eagle when I have money to fly a fully combat decked out Vulture, Cobra MK.III,Diamondback Scout or even a Viper?

Because you enjoy flying it (sound, look, size, ...?), because you like flying with the highest possible agility, because you want to take part in an elite station race, ...

Now if there was a Pirate/Mercenary Eagle, that would cost <1Million credites, that was tweaked to be more viable, you'd see people flying them later in the game.

Either that's a new ship/variant (like the imperial eagle or the new viper and cobra), which wouldn't help out the normal Eagle at all ... or that still entirely defeats the purpose of outfitting your ship.

I mean in what category would you buff the variant of the Eagle to be more viable for whatever you prefer to do in larger ships ...? And why wouldn't that buff be good for the eagle itself.

For instance, you wouldn't buy a Type-6 Transport to fight, however, if there were a Type-6 Military Battle-Barge, that sacrificed all of its cargo hatches to become a Turret boat, the Type-6 Ship class would have a viable fighting tier ship.

Please search for the T9 battle cow. You can fill all the internals with scbs and stack that thing with beam turrets all over. Do it.

 

[zxaber]

I think that, in a way, the different ships themselves represent the classes you're trying to add. The Type-6 is a cargo vessel. I guess theoretically one could exist with turrets ducktaped all over it, but isn't that what the Python is for? You could take an Eagle, add some extra armor and weapons and cargo space with a small hit to maneuverability, but then isn't that just a Cobra?

Also the current Eagle can get you surprisingly far with two burst lasers and a gimballed multicannon.

 

[goemon]

a) Decking out my Diamondback Scout for full on bounty hunting and heavy fighting cost me close to 5Million, now maybe I'm doing something wrong but that 5million took me some time to get.

you are not doing something wrong, definetly not - i flew a 12 mio dbs or something (7 million for a class 3a fsdi....) - but elite "suffers" a lot from balancing between players playing once or twice a week, players playing daily 2 hours, and people playing 40 hours a week. this is what i mean by "credits don't balance ships" (i'm no game designer, and i played mostly strategy games the last 20 years, so i have no idea how to tackle it).

i would love if the outfitting would be more free (as you described: a t6 getting a turrett ship), but as zxaber has described: that's probably what the different ship types are for in elite....

 

[newman1702]

I wouldn't mind being able to retrofit ships - sort of like turning a regular F-16A to an F-16 block 60. You'd need a shipyard to do it, it'd be costly, and most importantly, a retrofitted Eagle like that still shouldn't outperform ships like Vultures, etc, but it might be more capable and therefore viable.

However, I think Eagle's probably the ship that needs this most, mostly due to the fact it dies when you look at it wrong. And this problem has been somewhat alleviated with the addition of the much more capable Imperial Eagle.

 

[Psycho Romeo]

The eagle has its place. For many it's a stepping stone. For some it's a personal challenge. For me, it's my ship of choice when I want to run out there and do something stupid, which is extremely fun. Remember this game is a large part simulation - fun is just as important as credit generation.

Smaller ships benefit from using small landing pads and having more stealth with regards to smuggling. At medium to long ranges, an eagle is almost impossible to hit with tracking weapons because of the wobble.