Type-10 Balance Discussion - How to make the battle cow viable

[lenna]

Ships last longer in the game than a quick fix. If this was the actual rationale, then no one would own it after the Chieftain line, and Guardian weapons came out.

Not quite - the ideal placement of the L hard points for turret usage on the T10D does not become any less pertinent with the release of the Chieftain line of ships.

As for comparing the T10D's performance with the others - I have found it to be at an appropriate level of ability given it's cost. I have personally found it superior to the Anaconda in many respects. The Corvette and Cutter arguably beat both the other two but none of them eclipse the others in the universal sense of the term.

Ultimately, it is moot how many people fly any given ship - every single ship in ED has it's positive and negative points and it would be insane if they did not and were all effectively made to be clones of each other. That is effectively what threads like this head towards, no true choice - just different shades of horse armour.

 

[Exiledkhallisi]

The type 10 needs something to make it stand out.

I 100% agree that everything it can do. other ships can do better and that makes the type 10 useless.

I propose 3 solutions that would make the type 10 worth flying.

Increase the speed to a more reasonable level... it makes sense, look at the physical size of its engines.

Allow the type 10 to deploy 2 SLF... this would be a game changer. It would fix its inability to catch targets and give it something to stand out.

Allow the type 10 to use more than 4AX weapons, so it can actually do the job it was designed to do. Kill Thargoids.

 

[Exiledkhallisi]

Not quite - the ideal placement of the L hard points for turret usage on the T10D does not become any less pertinent with the release of the Chieftain line of ships.

As for comparing the T10D's performance with the others - I have found it to be at an appropriate level of ability given it's cost. I have personally found it superior to the Anaconda in many respects. The Corvette and Cutter arguably beat both the other two but none of them eclipse the others in the universal sense of the term.

Ultimately, it is moot how many people fly any given ship - every single ship in ED has it's positive and negative points and it would be insane if they did not and were all effectively made to be clones of each other. That is effectively what threads like this head towards, no true choice - just different shades of horse armour.

It costs more to outfit than the conda. it is only cheaper as a base model.

 

[Captain Willard]

It costs more to outfit than the conda. it is only cheaper as a base model.

Peeps still fly annies? How sad is that.

 

[Exiledkhallisi]

Peeps still fly annies? How sad is that.

Best goid farmer in game... strongest hull tank.... Jump range that isnt aids. Why wouldnt they lol

 

[lenna]

It costs more to outfit than the conda. it is only cheaper as a base model.

Depends on how you outfit them both... Turreted weapons cost significantly more than the equivalent fixed variant for starters.

Ultimately though, it still does not change the validity of my point

 

[SpaceScania]

What about adding 1 more Type-7 slot? It would still carry 128t less cargo than the Cutter/Type-9 but that may make it a decent armed trader vis-a-vis the Anaconda?

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

Huge hardpoint for T7 when

 

[Morbad]

Huge hardpoint for T7 when

Right after my Hauler gets one.

 

[CMDR Cknarf]

Nonsense, that would be too hard on the distro.

Spoiler

Hauler huge hardpoint WHEN?

 

[lenna]

Huge hardpoint for T7 when

Would not make sense to do so.

 

[The Black Pearl]

I will start this off by admitting the amount of T-10 Pilots out there is going to be small but that shouldn't devalue what could be a very good ship and one that with a few tweaks could be even PVP viable.

This post will be broken down into a few key sections that I think describe what the intention with the T-10 was meant to be and how it could be buffed a little to help it into its own section of the big ship tree, Currently the T-10 struggles in anything other than looking damn cool. The cool kids club love spoilers.

What is the T-10 designed for?
The T-10 is from my view a ship designed to fill in the support role of the big ship line up with some added firepower while being slow as the name of the ship suggests... its designed to defend its space and do it well.

Currently however the T-10 struggles with this due to its extremely low speed and poor defense, the T-10 compared to the rest of the big ship line up is worse in every way other than hardpoint count but can never get in range or stay in range long enough to use those extra hardpoints. The anaconda is the closest of the big ships with a defending/support role though the Anaconda focuses on jump range over defenses and agility, this is fine as the Anaconda fills its role as a long range defense ship.

The T-10 seems to be just like the Anaconda but with a higher focus on combat vs exploration, though lacks all of the main components that make a ship better for combat, so how do we fix this?

Speed
First off the speed of the ship is downright too slow, even when using long range weapons. its slower than ALL of the big ships and vs a Imperial Cutter the T-10 is slower by 175m/s this is insane given larger ships have a much lower acceleration and turn rate than Medium or Small ships. the T-10 will never catch an Imperial Cutter for more than a few seconds during a fight unless the Imperial Cutter pilot decides to fit in front of the T-10, and can just boost once to move out of the range of the T-10.

My suggestion to fix this would be to reduce the mass of the T-10 to 1,000 tons down from 1,200 tons, a T-10 would still be much slower though the window the T-10 would have vs other larger ship would be increased to a much more suitable range considering the main target for this ship is larger ships itself. Another option could be to also add the option to fit Class 8 Thrusters as the Imperial Cutter has.

Defenses
Defenses where always going to be an issue with such a large ship and its no surprise this ship suffers from a shield that is far to weak given its size and speed, a prismatic T-10 with all the boosters in the world will only reach 5,000 MJ of shielding and while this does sound like plenty of shielding for most ships, keep in mind the sheer size of the T-10, its shield is simply far to weak for such a large combat focused ship, for comparison the Imperial Cutter can get upwards of 9,000 MJ of shield, the Federal Corvette can get upwards of 7,000, all three ships are considered combat military ships though the T-10 has less shielding than a Anaconda clocking in at 6,500 MJ.

My suggestion to fix this one is super simple, raise the base shielding to 500 from 320, this would give it more shielding than a Anaconda but less than a Federal Corvette allowing the Corvette to maintain its shield advantage.

Masslock
Most players do not consider masslock when looking for their next ship, masslock is something used to prevent escape or deny an enemy from jumping out and dropping back in for a better position, given the name of the T-10 being a ship meant for defending it would make sense that this ship be given a much higher masslock than other large ships, something it DID have when it was first released but was removed with no patch note detailing why.

My fix for masslock and something I would be very keen to see is a ship outright worse than other larger ships but possessing a higher masslock than even a Imperial Cutter, this would reinforce its support role acting as the anchor for the group the T-10 is with.

Super Cruise
Lol is this broken? its faster to drop and turn vs turning in super cruise... no other ship needs this?! will post a comparison video soon.


I am interested to see what others think about this ship, its fun to fly and could be a competitive large ship to combat the annoying Imperial Cutter spam due to it being outright better.

Time for a much needed necro.

I am a die hard Type-10 CMDR.

let me start by sharing my specs

Coriolis EDCD Edition

A ship builder, outfitting and comparison tool for Elite Dangerous

s.orbis.zone

My ship is quite litterally, a floating fortress. If you can manage to take down my shields, you're only going to be facing a MASSIVE hull.

All of my hardpoints are multi cannons, and all of them are turreted. Wether I'm hitting your shields, or your hull you are severely over heating. Once your shields go down, you're going to be taking bonus damage from corrosion. Which will be fairly quickly as all but one Multicannon deals bonus thermal damage.

My top speed, with boost is a whopping 289. But that doesn't matter, PVE they are constantly trying to close in on me and that's fine because I fly full reverse. PVP, your best bet is to try to get behind me, but good luck with that because the type 10 has virtually no blind spots and if you are in range, you are going to be hit by atleast 4 out of 9 guns at all times. Not to mention my Plasma Cannon Taipan with an elite npc in the cockpit.

9/10 players are running from me trying to escape, rather than sticking around to fight. But I keep them mass locked pretty much most of the time and as they are trying to run, Terra Savage is chipping their shields down with her plasma cannons.

My combat rank is a measly Expert, yet with this Beastly Machine of death, I can stack multiple Elite Rank assassination missions and fight 2 to 3 wings of the 1FDL and 2phasing laser vultures combo, at a time and usually never see my shields down.

This ship was intended for long duration combat with little to no need to to dock for resupply ( as I carry enough iron, sulphur and nickel to resupply my Multicannons mid combat )

I can turn my turrets on to fire at will, order Miss Savage to attack at will in a hazres with report crimes against me turned off and go watch a full length movie, to come back to my shields never have gone down. Completely out of ammo and Terra still wrecking pirates, synthesize all my turrets and go watch another movie.

This ship is highly highly underrated because of it's base stats.

Take the time to nurture your cow, and she'll surprise you

 

[The Black Pearl]

To save a few more credits go to a Li Yong-Rui system. You get a better discount iirc. I've only had mine since the last beta (where I test drove it) and I'm getting to like it more and more. Its my first big combat ship and its fun.

GL HF Commanders

I've spent over a billion credits on my Cow. Not including rebuys

 

[Radixbase]

I keep coming back to the same weapon loadout, (LARGE) 4 Overcharged MC 3 auto loader 1 corrosive. I vary between gimballed and turrets because boost turning I can usually get a bead on anything long enough to hit, but turrets just hit more often. (MEDIUM TOP) 2 double barrel frag cannon turrets with screening shot) and 1 Med (bottom) and 2 small railguns, long range, with super penetrators and one freedback cascade in a nice tight triangle. it takes apart elite anacondas in short order and for those pesky little ships that fly over you, when the shotguns fire, they're usually wreckage by the time they get to the other side. I keep trying other builds but this one seems to take things out, for me, the fastest.

 

[Radixbase]

By the way, for everyone saying it's useless, it's not. It's not the best at anything. But I, personally, love it.

I took it to Beagle Point and Semotus Beacon, the farthest point any ship can reach in game. I have about 45L jump with it and you just can't beat the view for exploring. Plus I was fitted out with repair and fuel limpets. I repaired many dedicated explorer Phantoms and AspXs on DW2 as a Hull Seal.

I reached Triple Elite in it, and against thargoid scouts it is fantastic if you put 2 large and 2 med AX MC turrets on top, the scouts pop in seconds. I put 3 rails ( the lower med and 2 small) on it just to give me something to do while the turrets did their work. Against interceptors.. you have to be really really good. I can take out Cyclops consistently, you just don't fight them the way you normally do, there's no running. You sit there and slug it out, and you need to take out the swarm fast. But it's doable, it's just not EASY.

I do painite strip mining with it. I make about 300million a run (2 hours usually).

Do I want changes? yes. I want them to fix supercruise to bring it in line with the other large ships like Conda or Cutter or Beluga, there's no reason for the horrible response in supercruise. I would love them to fix the convergence, but don't expect that'll happen.

For the T10 to be the top Thargoid interceptor killier, it would need a speed of over 450 and 4 hardpoints that have a tight convergence. This won't happen. FDev obviously doesn't care about the T10 anymore. Or, remove the arbitrary 4 hardpoint limit on AX weapons and see what a T10 can do with 9 AX weapons

It's not the best ship at anything. Neither was the Millenium Falcon. The T10 is my millenium falcon, I have more fun in that ship than any other ship in the game, all your min max numbers be damned

 

[Bigmaec]

By the way, for everyone saying it's useless, it's not. It's not the best at anything. But I, personally, love it.

I took it to Beagle Point and Semotus Beacon, the farthest point any ship can reach in game. I have about 45L jump with it and you just can't beat the view for exploring. Plus I was fitted out with repair and fuel limpets. I repaired many dedicated explorer Phantoms and AspXs on DW2 as a Hull Seal.

I reached Triple Elite in it, and against thargoid scouts it is fantastic if you put 2 large and 2 med AX MC turrets on top, the scouts pop in seconds. I put 3 rails ( the lower med and 2 small) on it just to give me something to do while the turrets did their work. Against interceptors.. you have to be really really good. I can take out Cyclops consistently, you just don't fight them the way you normally do, there's no running. You sit there and slug it out, and you need to take out the swarm fast. But it's doable, it's just not EASY.

I do painite strip mining with it. I make about 300million a run (2 hours usually).

Do I want changes? yes. I want them to fix supercruise to bring it in line with the other large ships like Conda or Cutter or Beluga, there's no reason for the horrible response in supercruise. I would love them to fix the convergence, but don't expect that'll happen.

For the T10 to be the top Thargoid interceptor killier, it would need a speed of over 450 and 4 hardpoints that have a tight convergence. This won't happen. FDev obviously doesn't care about the T10 anymore. Or, remove the arbitrary 4 hardpoint limit on AX weapons and see what a T10 can do with 9 AX weapons

It's not the best ship at anything. Neither was the Millenium Falcon. The T10 is my millenium falcon, I have more fun in that ship than any other ship in the game, all your min max numbers be damned

View attachment 142646View attachment 142647

I love the T10 for it looks and the cockpit, but FD messed it up too bad to be useful imho.
If it hadn't that miserable supercruise turning rate I'd use it as an explorer too, but I tend to overshoot things due to forum posting...

 

[lenna]

For the T10 to be the top Thargoid interceptor killier, it would need a speed of over 450 and 4 hardpoints that have a tight convergence. This won't happen. FDev obviously doesn't care about the T10 anymore. Or, remove the arbitrary 4 hardpoint limit on AX weapons and see what a T10 can do with 9 AX weapons

I think the overall point is such a balance change would arguably make the T10D OP given how the rest of the ship is (and how other ships are) balanced.

As for removing the 4 Hardpoint limit on AX/Guardian/Experimental weapons, I think they have kept that limit for balancing reasons across the board.

The T10 was clearly designed in accordance with and kept in line with the lore that resulted in it's introduction. If people are expecting any balance revisions beyond minor then effectively we are talking about introducing a new ship. Like it or not, the T10D is fairly balanced as-is - FD did not mess up, lore wise: the T10D was released as a stop-gap design with the Chieftain/Challenger/Crusader ships being the long term answer.

If any serious or significant update to to the T10D design is in the offing, then we are most likely talking about something along the lines of a T11 Avenger (or something like that) - essentially a totally new ship design based on similar core principles but perhaps trading off at least some of the current benefits of the T10D for the kind of things some are asking for. The price tag would notionally be updated appropriately too.

 

[Swordpunch]

I think the overall point is such a balance change would arguably make the T10D OP given how the rest of the ship is (and how other ships are) balanced.

As for removing the 4 Hardpoint limit on AX/Guardian/Experimental weapons, I think they have kept that limit for balancing reasons across the board.

The T10 was clearly designed in accordance with and kept in line with the lore that resulted in it's introduction. If people are expecting any balance revisions beyond minor then effectively we are talking about introducing a new ship. Like it or not, the T10D is fairly balanced as-is - FD did not mess up, lore wise: the T10D was released as a stop-gap design with the Chieftain/Challenger/Crusader ships being the long term answer.

If any serious or significant update to to the T10D design is in the offing, then we are most likely talking about something along the lines of a T11 Avenger (or something like that) - essentially a totally new ship design based on similar core principles but perhaps trading off at least some of the current benefits of the T10D for the kind of things some are asking for. The price tag would notionally be updated appropriately too.

shut up and take my money. (type 11 sounds sexy)

 

[IndigoWyrd]

The best solution to the Combat Type-10 I’ve come up with:

Park the Type-10 and fly an Anaconda.

 

[JamesonIX]

I tried the T-10 as a Thargoid scout "killer" very recently, but abandoned it as a bad idea and went back to the Krait Phantom. It may be the same problem I had with it in PvE combat - poor manoueverability:

but fit a SLF and the T-10 becomes very effective at PvE, assuming the weapons are sufficiently engineered for efficiency, etc. etc. It is like a massive weapons base supporting the SLF.

Presumably, this was the idea for it to be a Thargoid killer, but I can't see it working against Scouts on its own, which are just too fast for it, and SLFs are no match for the bigger Thargoids (are they any good against scouts?). But then, as OP has said, it is intended to fight as a defender with other ships.

Unless someone has got it to work on its own against Thargoids ? ..............

Meanwhile, it's a splendid Explorer But, yes, supercruise handling really needs a review.

Sorry to resurect this, but I was going to try a T-10 against scouts myself after seeing this post on Reddit:

https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/em9una Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerous/comments/em9una/triple_elite_finally_1813_scouts_have_been_harmed/


After reading your post, I'm having second thoughts. What weapons did you fit? Did you try 4x large turreted AX MCs firing at will?

Thanks!!