I'd expect quite a lot tweaking in balance between various ships to happen during the various Beta phases. What we now have in Alpha are 0.0x versions of the ships IMHO.
Starting with the Sidewinder seems like a winner
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I actually hope ships will get a whole lot more durable in general in the final game... with a complete damage model, that is. Right now it's more like: FINE>DAMAGED>POOF.
They go down quicker to 2 fixed class four beams lasers than gimbled ones. You just have to be accurate. ;-)
How effective 5 cargo slots will be at trading really depends on what the average bounty cost will be, and what the average cost of a single item of commerce will be.
Also keep in mind that if you're trading, you'll have a much lower maintenance cost compared to someone regularly going into battle, so even if the cost of selling 5 items doesn't equal the money gained from killing in the same amount of time, it probably still evens out.
It would probably take an ace pilot who rarely dies to make an advantage there - but then an ace trader could probably find a good deal to make money out of just 5 slots as well.
Personally I always played Frontier as a trader, and always started with the fighter. Even if there is a low level cargo ship in ED I'd probably still do the same.
Also keep in mind that if you're trading, you'll have a much lower maintenance cost compared to someone regularly going into battle, so even if the cost of selling 5 items doesn't equal the money gained from killing in the same amount of time, it probably still evens out.
It would probably take an ace pilot who rarely dies to make an advantage there - but then an ace trader could probably find a good deal to make money out of just 5 slots as well.
Personally I always played Frontier as a trader, and always started with the fighter. Even if there is a low level cargo ship in ED I'd probably still do the same.
I wouldn't worry about the sindwinder as a starter ship for the non-combative player; there are at least 20+ ships out there in the game last time I heard, some have to be cheaper than the sindwinder to trade in for to get a more efficient starter trader etc.
I always liked to start Frontier in an Eagle and work my way up from there and can see myself doing something similar in E D once it goes live for what its worth
I always liked to start Frontier in an Eagle and work my way up from there and can see myself doing something similar in E D once it goes live for what its worth
Worth remembering that the Gecko and Adder were roughly the same price and within a 20-30,000 cr of the Sidewinder in FE, and both had more cargo space.
I could see it being possible to get a small surplus when buying a second-hand Adder with rubbish Hyperdrives when you trade-in your Sidewinder.
Half the jump speed, half the straight-line speed, but twice the cargo capacity. Seems fair to me
I could see it being possible to get a small surplus when buying a second-hand Adder with rubbish Hyperdrives when you trade-in your Sidewinder.
Half the jump speed, half the straight-line speed, but twice the cargo capacity. Seems fair to me
As I said though, even ignoring other ships in the game, trading in the Sidewinder will likely balance out vs doing combat in it simply due to the huge reduction in maintenance costs (assuming you're not already an ace pilot, of course).
Personally I like to do a little mix of both combat and trade, so it'll be fine for me!
Personally I like to do a little mix of both combat and trade, so it'll be fine for me!
100% agreed. That will help maintain the feeling of piloting a space ship rather than a fighter jet.
If there is a large range of goods with a huge price scale, rather than increasing amount of goods you can carry you could increase the value/ton to make more profit. Start selling food -> liquor -> robots -> computers. Also is ton the basic unit of purchase for gemstones etc? Will have to dig in the trading ddf proposal.
The price of goods is event dependant, so I expect there will be quite a broad spectrum of costs even for the simple things like water, so even with 5 slots a savvy trader can probably still make enough money to upgrade quickly.
And, of course, there is contraband. "Trading" contraband is probably better in a ship like the sidewinder.
And, of course, there is contraband. "Trading" contraband is probably better in a ship like the sidewinder.
It's not really related to gimbals. Fixed weapons burn them almost as fast. The Cobra just can fit a massive amount of firepower compared to the SW, it has twice the amount of hardpoints, and two of them can fit bigger size weapons than anything on SW. In addition to this the shields and hull are much stronger and it moves significantly faster too.
The only thing that is better for SW is turning speed, but that doesn't even matter if the Cobra just flies in reverse and keeps the enemy in its front - since the SW is slower, it can't hope to force a close range dogfight or reliably stay in the six. The AI doesn't do this, which is why it looks like the SW can compete against the Cobra in single player. That's entirely based on cheesing the AI, and won't work against a human pilot.
However, DB has stated that PC encounters are going to be pretty rare, compared with NPC encounters. In alpha 3, only 3 out of 202 kills are human (and two of those were by mistake
); only 2 out of 12 deaths were by other people. Furthermore, if you stick to safe areas, you'll probably not even have much NPC trouble.A sidewinder can take out NPC cobras fairly easily (at least the ones we've met so far).
