ED is sending a RED HERRING, just HYPE for a dying game... HERFED TO DEATH...
The problem with the Panther Clipper
- Thread starter Dagwit
- Start date
Im not sure if this is a joke post too, but theres bound to be someone out there that gets hyped, so..
ED didnt hype this, a spoof video raised the issue & we're muckin about with ideas (most of which are pretty cool)
Personally im running at about 47.2% interesting discussion, 50% havin a laff, and the remainder (whatever that figure might be) is doubt & hype.
That's a fairly good ratio for a DD thread, really.
Wish I could get that kindve ratio at home or work tbh
You're not going to get bigger landing pads. They aren't going to redesign all of the station interior and surface installation bits for the sake of one ship.
If it was as long as Cutter but fatter, like the flying brick it was in FE2, then it would be fine, I think. Maybe lots of hull space, lots of armour, but fairly poor weaponry and flies like a cow.
If it was as long as Cutter but fatter, like the flying brick it was in FE2, then it would be fine, I think. Maybe lots of hull space, lots of armour, but fairly poor weaponry and flies like a cow.
You do realize the full cargo capacity difference of a Cutter and a Type-9 is all of 4 tons, right?
792 if you go nothing but cargo for the Cutter.
788 if you go nothing but cargo for the Type-9.
For the Panther to truly upset either of these, it would have to exceed 796 tons. Even weighing in at 800 tons would hardly be an upset, except perhaps to those who bought one.
Realistically simply having 3 class 8 slots would give a 768 ton capacity, which could easily leave room for a number of smaller slots and still provide for a significant cargo capacity - perhaps a maximum all-cargo capacity of 1072.
This would allow the Cutter to return to its real role - that of a large multi role ship, akin to the Anaconda. The Type-9 would remain the highest-capacity economical freighter, while the Panther could step up as the six-figure freight heavyweight champion for those with deep pockets.
792 if you go nothing but cargo for the Cutter.
788 if you go nothing but cargo for the Type-9.
For the Panther to truly upset either of these, it would have to exceed 796 tons. Even weighing in at 800 tons would hardly be an upset, except perhaps to those who bought one.
Realistically simply having 3 class 8 slots would give a 768 ton capacity, which could easily leave room for a number of smaller slots and still provide for a significant cargo capacity - perhaps a maximum all-cargo capacity of 1072.
This would allow the Cutter to return to its real role - that of a large multi role ship, akin to the Anaconda. The Type-9 would remain the highest-capacity economical freighter, while the Panther could step up as the six-figure freight heavyweight champion for those with deep pockets.
That was already well possible with the T9 back in year one. Today collision damage has been nerfed a lot, it's no longer really relevant.
I'm in the wait and see camp. The previous 3 Chieftan.Challenger, Crusader, were nothing more than bodies on which to sell paint packs. The Krait is a good ship, but still, over-shadowed by the Python in my opinion. I'd like to think, we'd get a new Explorer or a new 'big' ship. We'll see soon enuf.
Rendering other ships obsolete isn't a problem as long as there is still a choice at whatever price point you are operating at, doubly so at the final endgame loadouts where any balance issue can't be overcome by simply upgrading to the next generation of ships.
Other than the Cutter and before the T-9 buff, the top ships were actually relatively balanced as far as trading goes. The Anaconda had long jump range but sacrificed cargo capacity, the Corvette had the largest capacity but abysmal range while the T-9 was in the middle in terms of jump and cargo. Players wishing to trade couldn't go far wrong with any of these three ships, as their relative differences made them all the "best" for trading under different scenarios.
Obviously, the Cutter removed any semblance of choice from all this. Having the largest capacity by a significant margin and pretty solid jump range meant that it beat out the shorter range traders in every respect while the extra cargo meant it was better for long-range hauls than the Anaconda. Now, FD then decided to try to power creep the problem away by buffing the T-9 rather than nerf the sole outlier, so now we have a choice between the T-9 and the Cutter for trading; from my point of view though a better solution would have been to nerf the Cutter until its capacity/range values bring it in line with the others, such as by converting one of its class 8s into a class 6, leaving it with a jump range and laden cargo capacity somewhat between the Corvette and the Anaconda as such a change would have given us 5 viable late game traders rather than 2, however that ship has already sailed and outside of power creeping both the Anaconda and the Corvette up to the standards of the T9/Cutter it is a difficult situation to salvage.
They could quite easily make the Panther a similarly performing transport to the Cutter despite having wildly different performance characteristics by playing around with the variables until it is balanced. If we roughly use the formula jump^0.5 * shielded cargo as the performance metric for a trader's effectiveness (I'm using unmodded ships, but as basically the only engineer mod traders currently care about is jump range it affects all traders equally), it gives us 2627 root-ly tonnes for the T-9 and 2828 root-ly tonnes for the Cutter, with are both relatively similar to each other. Using this formula for the Panther if we were to allow for a cargo capacity of 1200 tonnes and a trade value of 2800 then we would be looking at a laden jump range of about 5.5 light years (which is difficult to work with, but engineer modding would be able to lift that number up to almost 9, which is workable but tedious). Obviously, the formula I suggested wouldn't necessarily be the best performance metric, it might be good to include the built in fuel tank in the calculations, while for the jump range itself it might work better using different power or a logarithm instead; but the point is that it is quite possible to have an incredibly high cargo capacity but have that capacity counterbalanced by sufficient flaws to the point where it isn't universally the best freighter.
Alternatively, they could accept the Cutter and T-9 as weird inbetween tier traders, better than the Corvette, T10 and Anaconda but worse than the Panther. This, however, would require the introduction of a whole slew of Panther-equivalent traders to allow for player choice, each balanced against each other such that there is no truly dominant ship - only individual preferences and niche scenarios that promote discussion and choice rather than simply unanimously pointing to the obvious best choice. Fortunately in this regard, the older games had a whole set of ships notably larger than the Anaconda, such as the Boa, the Griffin, the iExplorer to name just a few that they could use for inspiration to create a "bigger 3/4/5" to provide a step beyond the current set of big ships. An easy starting point would be for each of the main manufacturers to produce a rival to the Panther, immediately giving us a set of 4 or so viable options at this top tier, each with their usual manufacturer specific twists.
A heavy freighter?
Would not work and be needless effort. Most people would still use the one ship that effectively gave the best cr/h, which would be the one with the best mix between capacity, speed and jumprange. Panther being the top cargo brick and Cutter being the top combat capable freighter is just fine.
You seem to have either misunderstood what I was saying or simply selectively ignored half of my post - the whole point is to balance ships such that the credits/hour is pretty consistent outside of edge case scenarios (which will often reduce balance to a single variable). Tweak and tweak until the whole thing is on a knife edge. Make it so that the maximum credits/hour is close enough that any slight changes in scenario or player skill set changes which one is "best".
If there's a single ship that has this "best mix", then nerf it, simple as that. Nerf it until this "best mix" becomes "pretty good mix, but other more specialised options are usually comparable depending on circumstance". If the general purpose trader is going to stay, then look into how much extra capacity needs to be given to the short range traders and how much extra range the long range traders need to become competitive.
Of course, this would require a long period of beta testing, combined with both systematic general data gathering and players deliberately trying to min/max their trade profits, followed by continued performance monitoring and regular balance tweaks post-release. Unfortunately, these are things that FD haven't proven to be great at so far; sometimes I wonder if they actually have a proper balance team or whether they just throw numbers together in Alpha and get an intern to fiddle values if we complain too much.
My idea for such a ship:
Massive cargo space.
Massive fuel tank (bigger than the Beluga).
Good Jump range.
Good shields.
8 medium weapon mounts
8 utility slots.
Slf capable.
Capable of flying to Maia from Sol on a single tank with a well plotted route.
It's USP would be as a long haul bulk trader.
Can you imagine something like that in the hands of Operation IDA?
I'd say we need a ship like this now.
IDA has restored 16(?) of 40 something damaged stations. With more attacks happening every week a bulk trader and resupply ship has it's place in the game.
Massive cargo space.
Massive fuel tank (bigger than the Beluga).
Good Jump range.
Good shields.
8 medium weapon mounts
8 utility slots.
Slf capable.
Capable of flying to Maia from Sol on a single tank with a well plotted route.
It's USP would be as a long haul bulk trader.
Can you imagine something like that in the hands of Operation IDA?
I'd say we need a ship like this now.
IDA has restored 16(?) of 40 something damaged stations. With more attacks happening every week a bulk trader and resupply ship has it's place in the game.
The only thing I'm interested in the Panther Clipper for is the new game play it might open up.
If Frontier just made a bigger freighter at this point that would be a fail in my opinion.
The Panther Clipper has to be something like a poor man's carrier which can launch small ships (not SLFs) which are at least for the purpose of shuttling cargo when the Clipper is too large to land.
I'm hoping for other game play reasons too.
If there aren't new game play reasons, other than making more money, for the Panther Clipper, I'd rather not see it.
If Frontier just made a bigger freighter at this point that would be a fail in my opinion.
The Panther Clipper has to be something like a poor man's carrier which can launch small ships (not SLFs) which are at least for the purpose of shuttling cargo when the Clipper is too large to land.
I'm hoping for other game play reasons too.
If there aren't new game play reasons, other than making more money, for the Panther Clipper, I'd rather not see it.
Well there's more rapid repair of damaged stations as I mentioned above.
It keeps the lore lovers and 'i' word obsessives happy. It'd make me happy to get rid of the Cutter I use for bulk trade as I also don't like flying the T9.
I love how people say this and ignore the Anaconda still has the best mix, and Frontier certainly won't nerf it. The panther clipper, if we follow typical Frontier design, will launch with problematic thruster authority or mass, jump range will be average at best, and it'll not actually meet the objectives of it's design and require remediation because as of today, none of the mechanics required, exist.
Balance is a different thing, from one person to the next. This is where consistency in delivery is important, but Frontier are effectively against consistency in practice. They are fond of ships that have no consistent comparison point, so I can't see that changing.
Yes, I agree. However it's never that simple.
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If it can't dock at a station; it can't repair it. Perhaps before we put the cart before the horse, maybe adding support structures so it's a usable asset, might be the more relevant approach? Work smarter, not harder, as it were.
There is zero capability or support in game at present for 'berthed' ships beside the static captical class facilities (ie docks rather than pads) and there's no in-game mechanics to support any form of official "tea-bagging" which is the colloquial term for a small ship servicing a large ship. I'd go into more detail, but I'd prefer to not be banned or receive moderation censure to be fair. So.. use your imagination (just don't tell me what that looks like).
As usual, there is a desire for a ship that requires supporting structure that isn't present and the belief that that can be done later, which ignores that it likely will not be. Frontier, rightly, haven't added Panther Clipper because a really big Type-9 like giant brick that is (lore wise) extremely hard to kill, with planetary bombardment armaments (that don't exist), that ostensibly can't dock anywhere at all (berthing doesn't exist), has no supporting missions or structure (there are no mission types yet) - is the very definition of a duck out of water. Cart before the horse. Etcetera.
Not sure where the medium hardpoints come in? PC is basically a flying fort knox, with a lot more gun. We're talking city levelling capability. Planetary bombardment. This is not your uncle's rusty beat up Type-9. It's a flying death machine with more armour than a battleship and enough cargo capacity to make an Imperial trader in a Cutter blush and feel inadequate.
You will buy my stuff, so help me, or I will level your entire outpost and the one next door; what's that? Why yes, I do accept AMEX. Ahh, a pleasure doing business with you.
There's a reason people ask for supporting mechanics to exist before the thing being supported. It's required for the thing to function in a meaningful fashion. A huge ship with no purpose, is still a huge ship with no purpose; ask Frontier to add the purpose, so the ship has an actual reason for being. IDA is an example, and a good one; but can't really be the only one. A lot of structure is needed.
Sometimes, what you actually want is the things that will make the big ship matter (indeed this is often the case in general; the concept of if you build it, they will come doesn't actually work in principle because it's not that simple). Get the mechanics in, and we can use those today.
The rest? IE big honkin' ships like Panther Clipper? Credit sink gravy.
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Best mix? The best mix for trading currently is in the hands of the Cutter by a fair margin, the Anaconda is notable for its high jump range but its cargo capacity is relatively poor compared to all comparable ships. Compared to the Cutter, even for ultra-long distance trading where effectively all your journey is spent jumping, the Anaconda is still not as good as a Cutter. It can't have the "best mix" if it is literally worse than a certain competitor in every scenario. For trading, the Cutter is definitely the "best mix" currently and I wouldn't oppose any nerfs to its trading performance (although care must be taken to ensure that the T9 doesn't become the new best trader).
Similarly, for combat the Anaconda is arguably the weakest of the multirole large ships (note I said arguably, not quantifiably). It has a reasonable blend of different traits, coupled with some notable weaknesses (relatively weak shields as a key one, particularly if SCBs are used). In terms of combat, the Anaconda is actually in a pretty good place right now as it is pretty comparable to the others, with differences in player familiarity, situation and loadout choices more than overcoming the small differences in absolute performance except at the very top of the competitive end. If you want to go on the combat nerfpath, the FDL should be at the top of the list.
Exploration is difficult to judge as its moneymaking potential maxes out with a Hauler, anything larger is just as a safety measure, for pure vanity or to reach distant stars.
![BigBANGtheory [VR]](https://forums-cdn.zaonce.net/data/avatars/m/71/71385.jpg?1644873788){kind=avatar}
Can't we just leave it parked somewhere and take a shuttle or SRV to the port/dock/station for ourselves and loading/unloading cargo?