So... Does ship technology development come to a screeching halt in the future?

SurrenderOrHAHA

SurrenderOrHAHA
So what am I talking about here?
Well, the ship description says the Viper mk III is based on a 2762 year design. And this is the mark 3 now. Ok, the year in the game is 3300. That's 568years later, and all they managed was 2 major revisions? And we're not talking about a hauler or heavy lifter that could possibly remain useful even after such a long time. We're talking about the state of the art fighter craft here. :eek:
In the age of human colonization and ongoing wars between factions for centuries would normally spawn incredible advancements in technology. Logically, the Viper concept should be as obsolete as a hot air baloon going up against an F22 Raptor :D
I have not read any of the novels that describe the Elite universe but this paint a picture of astonishingly slow development cycles at the Faulcon deLacy shipyard. :D
 

Cmdr Fremen

Cmdr Fremen
SurrenderOrHAHA said:
So what am I talking about here?
Well, the ship description says the Viper mk III is based on a 2762 year design. And this is the mark 3 now. Ok, the year in the game is 3300. That's 568years later, and all they managed was 2 major revisions? And we're not talking about a hauler or heavy lifter that could possibly remain useful even after such a long time. We're talking about the state of the art fighter craft here. :eek:
In the age of human colonization and ongoing wars between factions for centuries would normally spawn incredible advancements in technology. Logically, the Viper concept should be as obsolete as a hot air baloon going up against an F22 Raptor :D
I have not read any of the novels that describe the Elite universe but this paint a picture of astonishingly slow development cycles at the Faulcon deLacy shipyard. :D
Click to expand...

There were point releases. Besides, the new model is a Beta. :D
 

Tettric

T
SurrenderOrHAHA said:
So what am I talking about here?
Well, the ship description says the Viper mk III is based on a 2762 year design. And this is the mark 3 now. Ok, the year in the game is 3300. That's 568years later, and all they managed was 2 major revisions? And we're not talking about a hauler or heavy lifter that could possibly remain useful even after such a long time. We're talking about the state of the art fighter craft here. :eek:
In the age of human colonization and ongoing wars between factions for centuries would normally spawn incredible advancements in technology. Logically, the Viper concept should be as obsolete as a hot air baloon going up against an F22 Raptor :D
I have not read any of the novels that describe the Elite universe but this paint a picture of astonishingly slow development cycles at the Faulcon deLacy shipyard. :D
Click to expand...

Nah, the combat ships private people get to own are not state of the art. Secret military craft are, the Viper is the secret military craft of yesteryear!
 

Unfluffydave

U
SurrenderOrHAHA said:
So what am I talking about here?
Well, the ship description says the Viper mk III is based on a 2762 year design. And this is the mark 3 now. Ok, the year in the game is 3300. That's 568years later, and all they managed was 2 major revisions? And we're not talking about a hauler or heavy lifter that could possibly remain useful even after such a long time. We're talking about the state of the art fighter craft here. :eek:
In the age of human colonization and ongoing wars between factions for centuries would normally spawn incredible advancements in technology. Logically, the Viper concept should be as obsolete as a hot air baloon going up against an F22 Raptor :D
I have not read any of the novels that describe the Elite universe but this paint a picture of astonishingly slow development cycles at the Faulcon deLacy shipyard. :D
Click to expand...

Not as bad as the pace of technology in the Star Wars universe, that hasn't moved for thousands of years :)
 

SurrenderOrHAHA

SurrenderOrHAHA
Tettric said:
Nah, the combat ships private people get to own are not state of the art. Secret military craft are, the Viper is the secret military craft of yesteryear!
Click to expand...

Still, where is the healthy corporate competition? Market economy? Supply / Demand... Is the entire galaxy run by a communist government now? :)
IRL: In old communist states it was quite common to only sell... say.. one model of a car and have zero R&D and sell it practically unchanged for 20 years. But everywhere else in the world, the car models are renewed and improved each year.
Even if the Viper was a mark XXX (30) it would still be slow development from a military perspective (although a far more realistic one with revision about every 20 years)
 

RifleMan

R
There you go again getting all logical & analytical on us. Why would you expect development of fighter craft from the same people who are still using 20th century gatling guns in space and collecting space cargo with doors that open to the cargo hold like the retired Space Shuttle? I'm sure by then (3000), if we really are still around, we will have equipment that will do all this for us. So we can sit around playing video games, that are much more fun than RL. ;)

Maybe that isn't so far from reality after all.
 
Last edited:

SurrenderOrHAHA

SurrenderOrHAHA
RifleMan said:
There you go again getting all logical & analytical on us. Why would you expect development of fighter craft for the same people who are still using 20th century gatling guns in space and collecting space cargo with doors that open to the cargo hold like the retired Space Shuttle? I'm sure by then (3000) if we really are still around we will have equipment that will do all this for us, so we can sit around playing video games, that are much more fun than RL. ;)
Click to expand...

Its one thing to throw in world war 1 airplane physics and and a bunch of other unrealistic stuff to balance and preserve gameplay, but to change the background story or ship names is "free", meaning it doesn't affect anything, doesn't really cost anything, its just there, up for grabs.
Not that this is a real problem, this whole thread is not to be taken too seriously, for obvious reasons. :) I'm just nitpicking here in the same way people nitpick the story in a movie looking for plot holes and such. ;-)
 

Hawkmoon

H
The Basic hull has not changed much as it really doesn't need to, if a Cobra hull has the right layout in 2750 it's still gonna be good in 3300. But all the systems are right up to date, so you might be flying the same hull as your great granddad, but the FSD only came off the drawing board in five years ago.
 

Darkfyre99

Darkfyre99
SurrenderOrHAHA said:
So what am I talking about here?
Well, the ship description says the Viper mk III is based on a 2762 year design. And this is the mark 3 now. Ok, the year in the game is 3300. That's 568years later, and all they managed was 2 major revisions? And we're not talking about a hauler or heavy lifter that could possibly remain useful even after such a long time. We're talking about the state of the art fighter craft here. :eek:
In the age of human colonization and ongoing wars between factions for centuries would normally spawn incredible advancements in technology. Logically, the Viper concept should be as obsolete as a hot air baloon going up against an F22 Raptor :D
I have not read any of the novels that describe the Elite universe but this paint a picture of astonishingly slow development cycles at the Faulcon deLacy shipyard. :D
Click to expand...

Don't make the mistake the popularity of certain classic hulls with a lack of advancement. The overall shape may be familiar, but what's inside is loads different.

Let's look at the advancements in the last 50 years, shall we?

I served my apprenticeship aboard an old Cobra Mk III, a couple of years before the new hyperdrive improvements became widespread. It was fitted with a massive hyperdrive, and was capable of a blistering 1400c between stars, and its frame shift drive permitted a real-space equivalent acceleration of nearly 200 m/s^2 within a stellar system. It took days to travel from system to system, and more days to travel from a system's Kuiper Belt, to any place interesting.

These days, a similar hyperdrive can travel at speeds orders of magnitude greater than that, jumping between systems in less than a minute. And furthermore, frame-shift technology permits FTL interplanetary travel. In my lifetime, the longest part of a journey from one planet to another is the shuttle ride to and from the surface, not the light years between the stars.

Furthermore, FTL communication of any kind is a recent invention. Yes, the bandwidth is very low, and requires expensive hardware, and the Pilot's Federation has a monopoly on the technology to boot, but this simply wasn't possible 50 years ago. Information had to be carried on a ship to travel between the stars, or travel at the speed of light.

And that's just in my lifetime. I grew up on the world of Emerald, in the Cemiess system, a world on the Federation/Imperial border, which wasn't settled until 3055, less than 250 years ago. Why? Because shield technology is a recent invention! Cemiess has no gas giants, and until shield technology permitted hydrogen scooping from Cemiess itself, it was deemed too impractical to do any large-scale mining or terraforming.
 

Mal604

M
If it was good enough for your grandpa, it is good enough for you. :)

US Air force flies B-52's still, that's 60 years on airframe, and private citizens fly P-51 Mustangs, which are 70 years old... If a design is good, I can see it operating for well over a century.
 

Scrat

Scrat
I agree that the fsd is a huge technical improvement. Before it was a combination of Hyperdrive, interplanetary drive and stardreamer device which can slow down time inside your ship. Imagine how disturbing it must be to see your beloved ones get older 10000 times faster than you.
 

Morbad

Morbad
SurrenderOrHAHA said:
So what am I talking about here?
Well, the ship description says the Viper mk III is based on a 2762 year design. And this is the mark 3 now. Ok, the year in the game is 3300. That's 568years later, and all they managed was 2 major revisions?
Click to expand...

The hammer I bought yesterday has analogues that would work just as well that are 3,000 years old.
 

LukeP

LukeP
SurrenderOrHAHA said:
Still, where is the healthy corporate competition? Market economy? Supply / Demand... Is the entire galaxy run by a communist government now? :)
IRL: In old communist states it was quite common to only sell... say.. one model of a car and have zero R&D and sell it practically unchanged for 20 years. But everywhere else in the world, the car models are renewed and improved each year.
Even if the Viper was a mark XXX (30) it would still be slow development from a military perspective (although a far more realistic one with revision about every 20 years)
Click to expand...

Given that all economic activity have this very strong Communist whiff to it, you might be on something there. Down to hunting common parts in odd places instead where you expect them to be.
Basically all described factions run on some kind of centrally planned economy. Centrally planned economies do not do change. (Given data scrubbing was deemed to destabilising to in-game economy <- that is also a trait for typical centrally planned system that cannot cope with change -> black swan events)

Does not explain why those supposed little bastions of free economic thought does not show serious deviation from galactic mainstream.

Also- as far as I understand it- most ships use some kind of "common parts system". Like kit cars. You should see major local variations to those too - and yet they are all the same (hope that's a beta thing)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom