Things needed for Passenger ships

[Ao Shun]

I'll admit I'm relatively new to the game, which is probably why this bugs me: There is no point to buying passenger ships when you are ranking up passenger missions.

They don't carry the most passengers (My Dolphin is at a whopping 20 people with no shields and no scanner -sure, that's a lot for a "small" ship, but there's no "medium" liner, making this a rather pathetic amount), they don't have the most modules (which would enable them to take the most I-want-a-cabin-to-myself missions), they are expensive, and they don't have a medium pad ship.
They have luxury cabins, true, but those are only something that comes into play well after establishing your passenger stations -likely with a T-6, T-7, T-9, Python, or Anaconda.


There needs to be a reason -apart from looks and role play- to have these ships when you are building your passenger credibility -it's 80 million to buy an Orca, and 70 million to buy a T-9, which carries more than double the passengers. Any one of the following would more than cover this:


1) "Liner emplacements"
Something akin to military module placements, they provide basically 1-2 more of the ship's larger modules, but can only be outfitted with a passenger module.

2) "Cargo Emplacements"
Similar idea, but not "additional", and instead replaces 1-2 modules on cargo/multi-role craft. A module that CANNOT fit passenger modules, thus reducing the number of passengers that cargo ships can carry to be more on par with what passenger ships carry.

3) "Passenger ship rewards" for passenger missions
A second set of rewards with higher pay and faster rep increase for doing passenger missions with passenger ships. After all... you showed up to transport Miss Elenore Maria Zanavitch III in a nice, shiny Orca instead of a creaky, oil-covered T-7... she'll be thrilled.

4) "First class needs windows"
Restrict First Class and Business Class modules to passenger ships. These guys are paying a lot of money for their trip, they want windows and your Hauler doesn't have any. Besides.. what are you going to "see" on a "sightseeing" tour with no windows?

5) Reduce FSD jump degradation
A lot of passenger missions are a couple hundred LY in length. Make passenger liners able to make these missions in far fewer jumps by reducing the rate that they lose jump range ex: A fully-loaded T-7 can still jump 15-18LY -down from a max of 25ish. Enable a fully-loaded Orca to do double that. Now that 500LY mission is 20 jumps in the Orca (because you don't go in a straight line from A to B in multi-jump missions), but the T-7 will need 46 jumps... that Orca's looking much nicer now.

6) a "shield emplacement" added to them.
Something that frees up the big compartment that shields invariably take up to enable them to carry more passengers. On the Dolphin, for example, the smallest shield you can have if you put in as many passenger compartments as you can fit, is a grade 3 shield... a Dolphin only has ONE grade 3 slot... having to put the shield there is costing a lot of potential passenger capacity.

7) "Double deck passenger modules":
Akin to "luxury modules" in that only passenger craft can use them. Enables them to make the most use of their "long, thin and tall" shape by adding another deck for seating to increase carrying capacity of economy and business passengers.


Any ONE of these would make passenger ships much more useful and practical for the purpose of doing passenger missions compared to non-passenger ships.


....also... a medium passenger ship -even if it's just 2 hollowed-out Dolphins strapped together by a wing with a canoe for a control cabin in the middle- would be nice to have... since passenger ship options are a 1 million small ship that can't carry large numbers of people, an 80 million large ship, or a 120 million large ship, meaning any large-number passenger missions heading to a medium pad MUST be done -currently- by a non-passenger vessel... and really.. having passenger missions that CANNOT BE DONE by passenger ships is just ... bogus.

 

[Hetork Tesser]

I like some of your points.

#3 is very good. If passengers can travel really "in style" with a real passenger ship it should be added a Bonus on delivery (maybe 5 to 10%)

partly #4 - no first clas cabins to non passenger ships goes ok with me and maybe -5 to -10% to the payment for business class in a non passenger ship.

not really #5 because you get with an engineered Orca about 35+ LY jump range (unengineered and light build ~24LY) i think that is ok.

Yes, there is kinda lag of the shipsize in having no M-Sized passenger ship and the way from Dolphin to Orca is very far. In the good old times where you could make a good money with normal passenger missions (the time the dolphin was released) it took me not too long from Dolphin to Orca and then to the Beluga. Today i would say you do not need a fouth passenger ship but if i were a newer player with not much money and just started my galactic passenger transport company i can fully understand the need for a medium passenger ship.

 

[Ao Shun]

Like I said.. any one of them would be enough to make passenger ships useful for something besides Role Play when building passenger routes.

I'm not asking for all of them.. just one thing to make buying and owning a passenger ship a reasonably logical idea.

Personally.. I'd prefer the fourth (and third, if I could pick 2) one, myself.

"We have 400 refugees"
"I have a T-9 you can all cram in"
"Okay"

"I'm a rich business owner. I and my entourage of 14 guards are heading to a meeting of super-wealthy to discuss how to further increase our holdings"
"I have aT-9 you can-"
"Pass"

 

[PauloG01]

I like your point, but i think that it could be made more easily.
The modular system means that we waste ship space, what if we could "engineer" the modules removing the possibility to change them but with that we gain cargo space or passenger capacity.

 

[Ao Shun]

You'd still have T-9s hauling more passengers than Orcas... not to mention it would mean you'd need a different passenger ship for each passenger mission type -multi cabin, all first class, all economy, all business, mix business and first class, mix economy and business, all luxury, mix first class and luxury... this kind of system would benefit cargo haulers a lot and make passenger missions borderline intolerable unless you were already well-off financially.

 

[Cmdr Nemo]

Then again, why do liners have weapons? I mean, a passenger is just sitting there drinking their tea looking out the window, when, the pilots engages a wanted ship because he needs more cr's. He jerks left, he jerks to the right he does the hully gully and turns himself around and in the process, the passenger spills his tea all over, getting scalded in the process. Who wants to ride in a ship built for comfort but driven by a combat vet who is moonlighting as a cmdr of a liner and accepts combat mission to offset their spenable income while in route to a passenger objective.

I mean in real life one can obtain passage on a luxery liner or a banana boat. They have dramatically different prices; But not in ED. I mean, if one paid for a ticket for a luxery liner and then found out it was a banan boat, one would generally demand thier money back or a heck of a refund.

 

[Ao Shun]

When pirates roamed the waters more openly, freighters, passenger ships and even whalers had weapons on board to ward them off.

Pirates and piracy in ED is far more common, so it makes sense that a passenger liner would have guns to protect their ultra-wealthy tourists from pirates -they shouldn't be as heavily armed as a caft of equal size that is designed around combat, but having defenses for those times that speed alone doesn't make the cut makes sense.

 

[Joe deCharlotte]

Things needed for passenger ships:
Cantina, chief, stewardess, theatre

 

[Ao Shun]

Those would also be cool, yes.

...it would also be nice for the liners to be cheaper, given they are usually outperformed by cargo and multi-role craft.
For example, the Dolphin, a small ship, is more expensive than a T-6, which is a medium ship with almost similar speed, agility and jump capabilities, and far greater armor and carrying capacity.

 

[Teh Smoo]

I don't quite "get" a lot of ED players.

If someone wants anything that increases jump range, people go nuts and say that ED is about grinding movement and watching jumps activate.

And then, even for the long-range ships, people should be doing exploration in micro-hops.

 

[Ao Shun]

I can understand some of the hesitancy.
Exploration can make money.
Jump range restriction -making things take a long time to get around- is part of the "balance" of ships.
I wasn't asking to increase jump range, though, I was stating that having the jump range decay less for passenger ships would make them more viable than cargo ships for passenger missions.

 

[cmdr milesred]

You do realize that the 3 passenger class ships are all about Luxury cabins, right?

As for medium size passenger ships to use for economy, business or 1st class, something wrong with either the Python, AspX, DBX?
The Python is a beautiful ship, and depending on tastes, so are the other 2. Beauty, after all is in the eye of the beholder.
And these 3 ships can defend themselves better than the actual passenger ships as well.

As for the credits for certain missions, keep on looking, you will find in numerous cases pay is dependent on cabin class. And the diff between Luxury and 1st class pay isn't big enough to choose buying a ship for just luxury vs a ship that can do all but luxury.

I can't argue the point about using an actual freighter for cabins, but then I don't anyway, I use Conda, Vette, Cutter, Clipper, AspX, DbX.
I do own the 3 actual passenger ships, but rarely use them, I don't see them as money makers, just as ships with a specific purpose, which is they can contain Luxury cabins, so for actual use the Orca and the Dolphin are useful, the Beluga is simply a nuisance to everyone elses flight path even though it does more Luxury cabins than the orca.
Like many ships, its all a matter of what a person wants to use them for and why they are doing what they are doing.
I do most of the things I do for BGS reasons and for that, I use the conda, Python, AspX mostly - passenger-wise. The only way I see that changing is if there is another big change to passenger missions making Luxury passenger missions more useful than the other 3 types.

 

[Ao Shun]

As stated, the "luxury cabin" aspect comes far too late in the game (as it were) to really make sense (especially for the Dolphin).
By the time you have luxury missions, you've already maxed out your rep in the area.

No, nothing is "wrong" with using the Python as a passenger ship.. but... as stated.. it would make sense for there to be a medium passenger ship.

I did all my passenger missions in T-7s and T-9s -from shoving them full of refugees, POWs and prisoners, to transporting Olivia Gloria Damimarichgirl IV in her personal first class cabin... but it just makes no sense that these cargo ships are the ships of choice for passenger missions. Looking at them in the shop, I can see no economical reason to purchase one of these passenger ships. The cargo ships carry more people, and can also be outfitted to carry cargo (the passenger ships can as well, but they can't carry as much), the speed and agility doesn't matter since everyone goes the same speed in supercruise, the cargo ships cost less, and you make the same money off the missions regardless of what ship you use.

All I'm trying to do is give a decent logical reason (beyond "looks", or "role play") for a starting pilot that wants to do passenger missions, a reason to buy a Dolphin instead of a T-6... and a reason to buy an Orca instead of a T-9.

 

[Chrystoph]

I am hoping that, with things like the promised Q4 expansions, we'll have more "passenger" restricted modules. Things like laboratory modules come to mind where the ship can only take them on if has the restricted space.

The logic for this would be that those restricted spaced are designed for high capacity energy/consumables(life support management, etc) requirements whereas a normal Internal Compartment would be too Jerry rigged to support.

That would give those ships more diversity and specialization at the same time, making them more inclusive.

 

[BradHann]

The Orca has that Fasten Seatbelts "ding" when you boost. Why would you ever want to fly anything else?

 

[Ao Shun]

Wouldn't know... when I had 80 million I bought a T-9 and some upgrades because it fit more passengers and more first class seats than the Orca.

 

[Limoncello Lizard]

What passenger ships desperately need more than anything else, is a gym that doesn't keep breaking down.

 

[Strangepork]

I'll admit I'm relatively new to the game, which is probably why this bugs me: There is no point to buying passenger ships when you are ranking up passenger missions.

They don't carry the most passengers (My Dolphin is at a whopping 20 people with no shields and no scanner -sure, that's a lot for a "small" ship, but there's no "medium" liner, making this a rather pathetic amount), they don't have the most modules (which would enable them to take the most I-want-a-cabin-to-myself missions), they are expensive, and they don't have a medium pad ship.
They have luxury cabins, true, but those are only something that comes into play well after establishing your passenger stations -likely with a T-6, T-7, T-9, Python, or Anaconda.


There needs to be a reason -apart from looks and role play- to have these ships when you are building your passenger credibility -it's 80 million to buy an Orca, and 70 million to buy a T-9, which carries more than double the passengers. Any one of the following would more than cover this:


1) "Liner emplacements"
Something akin to military module placements, they provide basically 1-2 more of the ship's larger modules, but can only be outfitted with a passenger module.

2) "Cargo Emplacements"
Similar idea, but not "additional", and instead replaces 1-2 modules on cargo/multi-role craft. A module that CANNOT fit passenger modules, thus reducing the number of passengers that cargo ships can carry to be more on par with what passenger ships carry.

3) "Passenger ship rewards" for passenger missions
A second set of rewards with higher pay and faster rep increase for doing passenger missions with passenger ships. After all... you showed up to transport Miss Elenore Maria Zanavitch III in a nice, shiny Orca instead of a creaky, oil-covered T-7... she'll be thrilled.

4) "First class needs windows"
Restrict First Class and Business Class modules to passenger ships. These guys are paying a lot of money for their trip, they want windows and your Hauler doesn't have any. Besides.. what are you going to "see" on a "sightseeing" tour with no windows?

5) Reduce FSD jump degradation
A lot of passenger missions are a couple hundred LY in length. Make passenger liners able to make these missions in far fewer jumps by reducing the rate that they lose jump range ex: A fully-loaded T-7 can still jump 15-18LY -down from a max of 25ish. Enable a fully-loaded Orca to do double that. Now that 500LY mission is 20 jumps in the Orca (because you don't go in a straight line from A to B in multi-jump missions), but the T-7 will need 46 jumps... that Orca's looking much nicer now.

6) a "shield emplacement" added to them.
Something that frees up the big compartment that shields invariably take up to enable them to carry more passengers. On the Dolphin, for example, the smallest shield you can have if you put in as many passenger compartments as you can fit, is a grade 3 shield... a Dolphin only has ONE grade 3 slot... having to put the shield there is costing a lot of potential passenger capacity.

Any ONE of these would make passenger ships much more useful and practical for the purpose of doing passenger missions compared to non-passenger ships.


....also... a medium passenger ship -even if it's just 2 hollowed-out Dolphins strapped together by a wing with a canoe for a control cabin in the middle- would be nice to have... since passenger ship options are a 1 million small ship that can't carry large numbers of people, an 80 million large ship, or a 120 million large ship, meaning any large-number passenger missions heading to a medium pad MUST be done -currently- by a non-passenger vessel... and really.. having passenger missions that CANNOT BE DONE by passenger ships is just ... bogus.

I’m on a quest to find unique roles for each of my ships, and recently heard of a low temp diamond hunting dolphin.

my Orca is painted black, best looking ship in the game, and is stripped down for long range exploration and passengers... it clears 45 ly.

the beluga is fitted for secure bubble based sightseeing and transport, it is fully weaponised and my only passenger ship with weapons.

 

[Ao Shun]

Alternatively -and I'll add this to the opening thread as well- there could just be a "double-decker" passenger module (akin to a luxury module) that passenger ships can use.
I mean looking at the proportions, the passenger ships must not be making the best use of their space, what with how the other ships are shaped. They are not as wide as cargo haulers, they fit in a class 4 item where a wider ship probably fits a class 5.

 

[Chrystoph]

Volume plays no part in the design of ships in the game. It is all game balance and the model, and the model is more about hardpoints than anything else.