Mediums would probably be better - packhounds are much, much more fun than ordinary seekers. They may not be the meta, but watching your enemy disappear behind a cloud of missile trails is glorious.
Unfilled Vehicle Niche: High-end Small Ships
- Thread starter DemiserofD
- Start date
With that I've finally found use for the Sidewinder. A smaller footprint cannot be had. The ship isn't good for much, but a guardian fsd booster, a vehicle hanger, a fuel scoop, a shield, a DSS and an exobiologist pilot, yep that it can carry and move it swiftly around on enhanced drives.
The geometry of cramming a huge onto a small ship frame might not work at all. But if it did, this would force some interesting decisions. Do you fit a huge plasma gun that can only fire once a minute and you have to turn off the FSD to save power? Or do you learn to use a fixed cannon?
Re. hardpoint size on smalls:
I can't remember the chronology of it exactly, but damage scaling for smaller mounts vs larger hulls was increased around the same time as engineering massively ballooned healthpools. Charge enhanced distributors also exponentially increased the performance of larger distributors, meaning in most mediums and larges you can now pretty much perma-boost and perma-shoot with many setups, whereas smalls generally need 4 pips to permaboost and can't sustain their (already weaker flat and post-hardness calc) guns for very long. (edit: competitivity aside, this also affects how fun ships are to fly)
I think this is kind of unfair, them being handicapped in multiple ways at once in an ecosystem where healthpools look like this - Source: https://i.imgur.com/PZdy3ol.png
... plus small ammo clips for kinetics.
Really just limiting them in one of these categories would've been enough - an Anaconda is already capable of putting out wildly more DPS than a Viper 3 without factoring in distro and hardness calculations. Putting a huge hardpoint on a small ship is vOv but its ability to sustain damage while still manoeuvring is more important than size of mount. If the game needs to have a strict, linear power spectrum it could at least stand to be narrowed somewhat.
I can't remember the chronology of it exactly, but damage scaling for smaller mounts vs larger hulls was increased around the same time as engineering massively ballooned healthpools. Charge enhanced distributors also exponentially increased the performance of larger distributors, meaning in most mediums and larges you can now pretty much perma-boost and perma-shoot with many setups, whereas smalls generally need 4 pips to permaboost and can't sustain their (already weaker flat and post-hardness calc) guns for very long. (edit: competitivity aside, this also affects how fun ships are to fly)
I think this is kind of unfair, them being handicapped in multiple ways at once in an ecosystem where healthpools look like this - Source: https://i.imgur.com/PZdy3ol.png
... plus small ammo clips for kinetics.
Really just limiting them in one of these categories would've been enough - an Anaconda is already capable of putting out wildly more DPS than a Viper 3 without factoring in distro and hardness calculations. Putting a huge hardpoint on a small ship is vOv but its ability to sustain damage while still manoeuvring is more important than size of mount. If the game needs to have a strict, linear power spectrum it could at least stand to be narrowed somewhat.
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One advantage that small ships ought to have is the ability to be carried by larger ships.
But currently there's a big gap between the smallest ship that can carry a fighter (the Keelback), and the smallest that can carry a Sidewinder (the Fleet Carrier) - and that one can carry big ships too.
If there was a ship that could only carry Small ships (but several of them), there would be a reason to prepare a "toolkit" of Small ships for various tasks.
But currently there's a big gap between the smallest ship that can carry a fighter (the Keelback), and the smallest that can carry a Sidewinder (the Fleet Carrier) - and that one can carry big ships too.
If there was a ship that could only carry Small ships (but several of them), there would be a reason to prepare a "toolkit" of Small ships for various tasks.
I would rather "fix" existing small ships, and start from changing boost interval on max engineered distributor to medium ships standarts, so 3sec instead of 6, maybe also allow more boosts per distro used similarly to krait, and of course i would also greatly increase base cost of all small ships above courier level. Adding any new mediums in small frames for extra price in game where money matter little and players are unkillable in pve and pvp is optional makes no sense. btw, after odyssey small ships gained some utility, as settlements generate like 70 missions for faction we work, and sometimes we are limited to only small pads. Small ships are much better for planetary missions, faster and easier landings, better performance on meaningfull gravity worlds too. btw, thx to pp weapons and things like adv missile rack, small hardpoints are better than pure math indicate
That's an interesting point.
For me, exploring is currently limited to the Anaconda. Biggest ships, everything I want can be built in while having the necessary jump range. I would love to have an imperial eagle on board
But technically, it will be impossible, since normal ships can only land on fixed platforms like stations, carrier or bodies.