The problem with the Panther Clipper

[Vasious]

Isnt this the one they were talking about adding to the game all thise yeare ago?

Seemed like they were going to pull a Krait MKII on us if anything

Indeed, that is the Panther as we have seen in concept art and it is the Large Pad that is the true limit of a ship landing not the docking portal.

Other than a few bits of art, we don't know anything else about the Panther, so hard for people to think up issues with it.
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[RamirezKurita]

The Cutter is only better in speedl and shield strength when compared to the other members of the big four. It has less firepower than the others, turns slower, drifts all over the place, costs 3-400 million more than the next cheapest when fully outfit and is tied with the T-10 for highest MLF at 26.

I doubt the Panther would have less firepower if it has a C8 distributor and could have stronger shields and hull.
It would also suprise me if the Panther didn't have a MLF of at least 27, one higher than both the T-10 and Cutter.

I'm guessing the Panther will be~250-300 million stock with C8 core internals, have comparable hardpoints to the Anaconda or T-10, have at least 1000 cargo when shielded and take up nearly the entirety of a large pad.

It's more than just speed and shield strength that its good at, its also got reasonably high jump range and vast internal capacity. Weapon-wise it is relatively weak compared to the others, although an argument can be made for its large numbers of medium mounts being an advantage for missiles (particularly pack hounds) and torpedoes.

You are right about the cost though, which does make me feel that the Cutter suffers from being a bit of an in-between ship. It's definitely a notch above the other large ships in terms of cost and capabilities, but its not that much higher in performance. If we use the Boa as a hypothetical entry to the "bigger 3/4/5" with its FFE doubling in cargo capacity as a benchmark to arrive at about 900-1000 tonnes of cargo capacity when shielded, then the Cutter's 700-750ish places it right in the middle of the regular big ship 400-500ish capacity and the bigger generations 900-1000 capacity. So - is the Cutter meant to equal the Anaconda, Corvette and T-10 (because it distinctly outmatches them currently), or is it meant to be compared to the hypothetical Boa, Frigate, Type Whatever and Panther?

 

[Lightspeed]

What would be cool : have the ability to link two or three big ships with a rigid connector for that "Big Cargo Haul" .... getting through the slot would be easy enough, but parking them all might prove a challenge.

 

[Kamiyoda]

What would be cool : have the ability to link two or three big ships with a rigid connector for that "Big Cargo Haul" .... getting through the slot would be easy enough, but parking them all might prove a challenge.

A Type 9 being dragged along by 2 Cutters!

 

[Hooplah]

Current Elite Dangerous ships
Type-9 Heavy 788t
Imperial Cutter 792T

Frontier Elite II ships
Panther Clipper 2100t
Boa 1200t
Puma Clipper 825t
Anaconda 650t
Imperial Trader 525t
Python 400t

Not player accessible (but can be flown)
Lynx Bulk Carrier 6,000t
Long Range Cruiser 15,000t

Obviously the numbers from the previous games don't match up to the current versions in ED. Also a Type-9 and Cutter takes up most of the station mailslot when passing through. Still a Panther Clipper at 2100t would have to be 2.6 times longer than an ED Type-9 or Cutter. OK we are through the mailslot but no way would it ever fit on a large landing pad.

So the Best ED could do is design the Panther Clipper in the 788-792t range and maybe a little more just per the tradition of the games to put it on the top with the largest cargo hold. 1000t would be great if possible.

But it was also about the art of the game with those four rotating engine nacelles that smoothly combined into two powerful thrusters in forward flight and pretty cool watching all four used for landing. So with cargo limitations a Panther Clipper is still possible in ED if it has the four rotating engine nacelles. Without them it is just another new ship. No big deal for past players who flew hundreds of hours in the Panther Clipper and loved it.

 

[Tarman]

I think its biggest issue is that of non-existence.

That's not an issue for me personally; I don't even care about the big ships we have now.

 

[Cosmo]

Panther shouldn't be dockable. It should have various limitations and cargo shuttles. Basically whilst it could load loads of cargo, it should be pain in the butt to run. Yeah, you can make far more money with it, but it should be hard.

I think the Panther shouldn't have been brought in until they had a way to handle it differently. If ever.

Seconded. It really should be a huge cargo ship that cannot dock in a station.

 

[RamirezKurita]

Current Elite Dangerous ships
Type-9 Heavy 788t
Imperial Cutter 792T

Frontier Elite II ships
Panther Clipper 2100t
Boa 1200t
Puma Clipper 825t
Anaconda 650t
Imperial Trader 525t
Python 400t

Not player accessible (but can be flown)
Lynx Bulk Carrier 6,000t
Long Range Cruiser 15,000t

Obviously the numbers from the previous games don't match up to the current versions in ED. Also a Type-9 and Cutter takes up most of the station mailslot when passing through. Still a Panther Clipper at 2100t would have to be 2.6 times longer than an ED Type-9 or Cutter. OK we are through the mailslot but no way would it ever fit on a large landing pad.

So the Best ED could do is design the Panther Clipper in the 788-792t range and maybe a little more just per the tradition of the games to put it on the top with the largest cargo hold. 1000t would be great if possible.

The Panther could quite feasibly be beyond the 800 tonne mark even without having ridiculous density, as the Cutter isn't actually that close to maximising the large landing pad size (the Beluga is significantly longer and wider, while the T10 is taller) and has a lot of wasted space in its design (the wide engine nacelles leave a lot of empty space between them and the main fuselage). Also of note for the Cutter is that it has an unusually large internal capacity relative to the in-game model's actual volume, I seem to remember a figure of about 600 kilos per cubic metre while most ships were closer to 300-350 kg/m^3. A simple Anaconda scaled up to match the dimensions presented the Beluga without changing its aspect ratio would allow for about double the internal volume as the current Anaconda, while said ship with the internal space usage efficiency of a Cutter would quite easily go past 1000 tonnes of optional internal capacity. A maximum large landing pad size ship with Cutter levels of space efficiency would quite easily push far past 2000 tonnes of cargo. The idea of the physical dimensions precluding ships with larger capacities than the Cutter is very much a myth.

That being said, I don't think that 2000 tonnes of cargo would be overall useful for the game and wouldn't present a healthy progression unless some other intermediate was to be added as a 3x jump in capacity is a pretty big one. It's also not a healthy state of balance for a single ship to be the overall king of a particular activity as it renders all other options objectively bad, so introducing the Panther as the generic best freighter of the space lanes would be counterproductive for overall choice as the "choice" would simply be to always pick the Panther rather than considering all the variables of the situation. Instead, adding the Panther in at 1300-1500ish tonnes of optional internal capacity would both present a smoother progression as well as opening up more choices for the introduction of ships to rival it in terms of effectiveness (such as the Boa having Anaconda-like jump ranges, making it a better long-distance trader but worse for shorter hauls).

 

[Patrick_68000]

Also a Type-9 and Cutter takes up most of the station mailslot when passing through. Still a Panther Clipper at 2100t would have to be 2.6 times longer than an ED Type-9 or Cutter. OK we are through the mailslot but no way would it ever fit on a large landing pad.

Maybe do special locations like for the Airbus A380 ?

 

[Patrick_68000]

I think its biggest issue is that of non-existence.

Indeed it is very relevant.

The Panther Clipper is a legend in the Elite series, like the Cobra Mk III

 

[Cmdr. Numa]

I've been wanting that ship for over two years now. It was among the earliest concept arts ever shown and still hasn't turned up. I'd be perfectly happy if it's just a big freighter, barely fitting slot and large pad with 1000-1200t cargo capacity. That's all I want from it, a freighter that is king of cargo instead of a multirole. I don't want it only externally dockable, I don't want it only able to land planetside. Those are all mighty fine ideas, but please reserve those for a possible distant new expansion with entirely new ships and give us the damn ship already. The leak of the Panther coming in 3.3, fake or not, has me hyped more than everything else in that update so far.

 

[SAB380]

I've been wanting that ship for over two years now. It was among the earliest concept arts ever shown and still hasn't turned up. I'd be perfectly happy if it's just a big freighter, barely fitting slot and large pad with 1000-1200t cargo capacity. That's all I want from it, a freighter that is king of cargo instead of a multirole. I don't want it only externally dockable, I don't want it only able to land planetside. Those are all mighty fine ideas, but please reserve those for a possible distant new expansion with entirely new ships and give us the damn ship already. The leak of the Panther coming in 3.3, fake or not, has me hyped more than everything else in that update so far.

This.
People have all sorts of bizarre fantasies about the Panther.
Make it the biggest trader in the verse but still able to go through the slots and land on a large pad, as the landing pad gif showed it doing all those years ago.

 

[Askorti]

I think the best idea would be to just keep it simple. Make it a flying brick, that fits on a large pad, but just barely, using the length, width and height of the hangar to the max. To avoid it being a no-brainer for freight, make it an absolute pain to fly. Slow, unwieldy, expensive. Perhaps buff the T9 again, and make the T7 a medium while you're at it. There's plenty of simple ways to go about the issues without coming up with completely new outlandish mechanics like cargo shuttles and such.

 

[krusty23]

It could be the perfect storm for a large cargo ship as when the new mission server goes live apparently missions are going to get a 10% credit bump.
Where I have been based for a while in times of boom I can get 4 x 180t haulage missions at over 10 mil credits each and on occasions I have to leave some on the board as my T9 cant carry them all, the new depot feature is helpful but I still prefer a single trip.
If a Panther has at least 1000t of cargo space then I could theoretically carry 5 180t mission or more 120t missions, meaning around 50mil credits per trip.

If it was undockable and used a shuttles to deliver cargo then it could be used at outposts.

Of course this is all conjecture.

 

[McDark]

I think the best idea would be to just keep it simple. Make it a flying brick, that fits on a large pad, but just barely, using the length, width and height of the hangar to the max. To avoid it being a no-brainer for freight, make it an absolute pain to fly. Slow, unwieldy, expensive. Perhaps buff the T9 again, and make the T7 a medium while you're at it. There's plenty of simple ways to go about the issues without coming up with completely new outlandish mechanics like cargo shuttles and such.

Just imagine trying to evade an interdiction in something this unwieldy. It's hard enough with a T9. Unless it's an absolute impenetrable tank, this could only practically be flown as part of a wing.

 

[Askorti]

Just imagine trying to evade an interdiction in something this unwieldy. It's hard enough with a T9. Unless it's an absolute impenetrable tank, this could only practically be flown as part of a wing.

I do agree that it should at least have a lot of HP and good shields. But flying it should not be a walk in the part. It should be high risk high reward kind of thing.

 

[TheSisko]

Seconded. It really should be a huge cargo ship that cannot dock in a station.

Thirded. As I've said in another thread, I'd like the Clipper to be dockable on those spinning arms some stations have, (docking computer mandatory).

It should make the T9 look small(er). Such a beast wouldn't be docking at stations.

 

[Askorti]

Thirded. As I've said in another thread, I'd like the Clipper to be dockable on those spinning arms some stations have, (docking computer mandatory).

It should make the T9 look small(er). Such a beast wouldn't be docking at stations.

And what about stations that don't have those? Unavailable? You want FD to introduce a ship that is only usable on a fraction of the big stations? AND work out a new mechanic especially for that? Yea, lets be real, that's absolutely not happening.

 

[Nadreck]

Given the fact that this ship (in previous versions of Elite) has always been able to pass through the mailslot and land on a standard pad, I don't see why it should lose that ability.

And given the amount of space wasted by the Beluga's fins and the Cutter's outriggers, a "chunkier" ship with similar dimensions could easily be 2 or 3 times the volume.

The problem is that it will suddenly make lesser trade ships obsolete. I suppose one solution would be to rank-lock it to your Trade rank, so you have to work your way up to Tycoon or Elite before you get to operate one of these.

 

[Krash]

Thirded. As I've said in another thread, I'd like the Clipper to be dockable on those spinning arms some stations have, (docking computer mandatory).

It should make the T9 look small(er). Such a beast wouldn't be docking at stations.

Why only the arms? Coriolis stations have vast external surfaces that can be used for docking huge ships.