The ship lineup is stale

[Stealthie]

Don't need a rebalance, every ship has different benefits and quirks, it gives them flavor. Balance them as many would see fit and we have many ships all the same. BORING

It's not a case of balancing so they're "all the same".
It's about balancing them so each one performs consistently based on it's components.

A light ship should be faster than a heavy ship with the same thrusters.
A small ship should have better defences than a larger ship with the same shields.
A light ship should have lower integrity than a heavier ship of similar size.
Similar sized ships should be similar weights.

Once you've done that, then (if necessary) you could give ships unique features by allowing them to fit better modules.

That's got to be preferable to making certain ships superior as a result of magical statistical pixie-dust.

 

[acg515]

Stale for other people maybe, especially the people who used the exploits heavily and gotten a few billion to play around with. I've flown the Sidewinder, Cobra Mk 3, AspX, iCourier, iClipper, and Python. I still have quite a few ships to go, and I really have no desire to fly anything other than my AspX at this point which I've flown now for a couple years. But I welcome the addition of more ships to play with, the Chieftain and other Alliance ships should be cool. I do feel there should be a dedicated exploration ship and more to exploration than there is, but the AspX, Diamondback Explorer and Anaconda are all fine at exploring so I have no real issues. If they did come out with a dedicated exploration ship I probably wouldn't even bother with it because I like my AspX for exploring so much since I'm used to it. So I disagree that the lineup is stale, stale for other people maybe, but it's fine for me.

 

[Jukelo]

Nonsense, games like War Thunder and World of Tanks do this constantly, because there's money in it for them. I'm not suggesting using their model of premium ships, although I wouldn't rule it out either, but the fact is that any gaming company that devoted the energy to the enterprise could come out with a few new ship models in any given year.

Their entire business model relies on a regular stream of new tanks and planes to entice people into paying to fast track their way into the latest content. If they stop churning out new vehicles, their playerbase stops paying.
I'm sure there's plenty of people suffering from addictive personality disorders playing ED, but I certainly hope Frontier doesn't tap into that source of easy money.

 

[Skip Rockbounder]

Stale? You obviosuly have never flown a Saud Kruger ship!

Every Saud Kruger ship comes fitted with gold plated toilets as a standard. And the Orca and Beluga sport zero G swimming pools. Seriosuly, stop flying other ships. Don't accept less than the best. Fly Saud Kruger!

Yeah, yeah, but gold is cold and if you've ever sat on Gazorian sandbeast hide you'd know that it's the only seat to have on that throne. I'm thinking about getting a ZG pool though with a bevy of Mirandian Mermaids... just worried about coming up for air...[yesnod]

 

[Watcher]

I don't think we need new ships quite that regularly.
Differentiation is a thing here and I think there is some trouble making meaningful distinctions between ships.
FD have promised a series of new Alliance ships with Beyond and it will be interesting to see how those slot in to the existing line up.
I think I'd prefer fewer more distinct ships than many very similar ones.

That said I like the idea of strong per ship variations. I would have liked to have seen this tied to ship kits (non-paid) that provide variation in ship performance while also having visual differentiation. Things like having a sensor pylon/bridge thing that provides 1 class one slot locked for use with discovery scanners and/or surface scanners would be fun. Then you trade off ship mass power draw and perhaps some other adjustment to ships handling and speed... Alas we do not have this. Maybe something like this in future.