This is an old topic, and there is no simple solutions here. We used to have lots of locked slots in Passenger ships (Orca, Beluga and Dolphin), and this was followed up with the military slots. and the military slots was restricted to avoid buffing the multi-role ships to be even better than their combat oriented peers. So that is why not all ships have those military restricted slots. The restriction on the Passenger ships got removed. We have also had suggestions to add other locked slots, like exploration only slots on "exploration" ships for example, and mining slots on "mining" ships, which I have no idea which ships are considered to be that...
So we know we have unbalance between ships, so this is about how to balance this, restricted slots was not the magic solution, so what is?
So this suggestion appears to be about giving a small bonus to balance this, so how "small" bonus are we talking about here?
Lets take a Python a well known multi-role ship and compare it to all other medium ships. In how many aspects does other ships win over a Python in the following activities?
- Combat
- Trading (moving cargo)
- Passenger missions
- Exploration, or more precisely, long range travel.
So on overall, the Python is best or on par with the best the ship for most of these tasks. Then lets figure out how much worse are "specialist" ships? 1% 5% 10%, more?
So lets start with something that is not bound to much to pure skill, moving cargo. It is a relatively simple task, move cargo from A to B, the more cargo you move, the bigger the profit... The same goes for Missions, the more you can move, the more missions you can do.
We all know that Type 9 is one of the better ships when it comes to moving Cargo, but it is a large ship, we have Type 7, that is also a large ship, and then we have Type 6, a medium ship. So a Type 6 with no shields have a cargo capacity of 114T, that is a far cry from the Python's 294T cargo capacity. But then again, the Python is like 56 times more expensive to buy...So it looks more like the Type 6 is a cheap entry level cargo hauler.
So lets see what other medium ships that can rival the Python. The closest ship in regard to cargo capacity is the Krait Mk II, 230T, another multi-role ship that for the most part is the main rival for the Python. And the 3rd best cargo capacity we have the Krait Phantom at 190T. So we are now down to 2/3 of the Pythons max cargo capacity, so what kind of bonus would need to give to make other ships more "competitive" against a Python or even the Krait Mk II?
Python is also better than two of large ships in this regard, the Orca (194T) and Imperial Clipper (230T)...
So we are not talking about a small bonus here, as we would need to give atleast 30% bonus to make up for the difference... and that is not what I would call a small bonus...
So how would this bonus work? would you be able to stuff 30% more cargo in the Krait Phantom to make it "competitive"? that would make make more ships better suited to run missions in, as we can now stuff more mission cargo, but this makes no real sense, in how can a ship with smaller hull fit more inside?
So the other way we can add a bonus is to give it to us when we are selling stuff. , so if you run cargo with a Krait Phantom, you will get 30% better price. These kind of mechanics can of course be abused in various ways... So prone to be exploited.
Buy and store on a Fleet Carrier, repeat until enough cargo is stored, move Fleet Carrier and then fly back and forth to sell the cargo. The longer the distance between buy and sell the bigger the profit will be, as you can make so many shorter trips to/from your Fleet Carrier.
Use a second account, buy in small ship, drop off for big ship to pickup, when big ship is full, fly to destination, and repeat in reverse. and enjoy a hug pay bonus for the smaller ship selling the cargo. And this is make even better if we do not track that you bought it with the smaller ship to begin with.
And if we nerf the bonus if you swap ship, or it is transfered, then this would also have it its issues, lets say you are in your Krait Phantom, and a friend asks for help, and you just happens to have your combat trader Cutter, that is more than enough for the task, and have the needed cargo space, you swap ship, help your friend, swap back to the Krait Phantom and and now you bonus is lost! what! and not to mention what happens if your cargo is stolen by a pirate, hatch breaking limpet and then you manage to steal it back? There are so manyu issues with trying to track the cargo for the proper bonus to counter abuse, so it is more likely that it will fail anyway and thus be heavily exploited.
How would this look for Combat? Where player skill definitely comes into play, so how do we calculate the relative power of a "specialised" ship vs a ship like the Python? I would think that the Federal and Alliance ships are specialised combat ships. and yet, not even those ships are on equal footing with each other, just look at the Federal Dropship, Federal Assault Ship and Federal Gunship, they are not the same, as from a pure weapon power, the Federal Gunship has the best of these and it can also have a Ship Launched Fighter.
But we also know that Federal Assault Ship have been very popular becuase of its handling. So here is a ship with less firepower more popular, then its siblings. how do we rank handling? Some player with good skills can do amazing things with badly handling ships for example. So if we base any kind of bonus on these players, regular players would be better off using the "best" in class ship any day of the week. and if we base this bonus on the regular player, good players would get huge bonuses from this...
So I am very curious about this "bonus" and how it would work, as I would expect this be very abused...
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