We are going to need a bigger ship

[aRJay]

Hi



I have a Cutter with an SCO drive....I find piloting it helps with my training as a Rodeo Rider.

Jack

So do I.
Rodeo riding is not on my to do list.
Doing 130Kls runs with cargo is and it would be nice to be a little less concerned about bursting into flames or losing the Fuel Rats number than I am when flying it.

 

[SteveWW57]

A bigger ship would just mean something like a T9 with more cargo space and much worse performance imo.

What is important I believe about colonization cargo hauling is having a reasonable supply source about a jump away and a ship that handles well. Yesterday I built an outpost using Trailblazer Faith as the supply source, 3 jumps there, 5 back in a Cutter with a Titan drive SCO. That was grindy. This morning, I am building a space farm sourcing the metals only a jump away. So much easier.

 

[SteveWW57]

So do I.
Rodeo riding is not on my to do list.
Doing 130Kls runs with cargo is and it would be nice to be a little less concerned about bursting into flames or losing the Fuel Rats number than I am when flying it.

130 kls, carrier time baby!

 

[Spartan Panda]

 

[aRJay]

130 kls, carrier time baby!

The carriers were elsewhere doing other things.

 

[Ydiss]

I don't think even 1500t cargo solves the issue.

I'd rather they applied alternative methods. Even better, new game loops. This game can often rely a touch too heavily on hauling as a key game play component. It's easy, I know. But it would have been awesome to have had new activities introduced, not just a destination that requires more of the game's oldest activity.

Given new game loops (like EVA, a new ship module used for building, more on foot stuff, etc) are unlikely, I'd settle for a new function within carriers that allows, at least, transference of commodities to a colony if based locally (ie the same body). It can take time, mores so than doing it manually, even, and it can cost credits. It'd just be nice to divert some of the repetition elsewhere.

I'd prefer more game play though.

 

[Ameeleean2]

I do colonization solo and I'm quite satisfied I do not need group for it. Without this ability I would simply login once per week to get my ARX limit on main then do the same on alt and maybe unlock/engineer ship.
1k cargo or even 2k cargo won't solve it. I kind of feel like we need update related to carrier and it should happen before colonization. Simple ability to transfer cargo in/out of FC using market/construction site interface would do the trick. I'm playing long enough to know that ANY kind of automation is not welcomed here (lack of autopilot for example) and I'm fine with this- if I need such features I'm moving to different game.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

Personally I'd be against reducing the amounts we need because realistically any of these structures are huge, but gearing this towards tier one being completable by individual players and tier 3 being the pure squadron gameplay seems reasonable.

Tier 1 is currently completable within the deadline by someone making a single T-9 trip a day, which doesn't seem unreasonably high for what an individual might be able to do.

Tier 3 is definitely well into the "either a really ED-focused individual or a more normal mid-sized squadron" territory.

(I wouldn't object if they made T1s a little cheaper and T3s a little more expensive, if that was the way they wanted to go)

I don't see an approx 1000t capacity cargo ship harming that.

I think the problem is not so much that it speeds up the hauling all that much - an extra 25% is neither here nor there - as that there are currently at least three viable haulers: the T-9 and Cutter for large pads, and then the T-8 where you give up raw capacity for speed and medium-pad access.

Once a 1000t large pad ship comes in, the T-9 and Cutter are instantly out of contention, and the T-8 probably can't keep up either if it has to do almost three trips for every trip the new ship does, so the variety of options goes way down.
(And of course, all hauling activity then gets rebalanced around the new maximum pace, so the next hauling-based activity assumes everyone is using a 1000t hauler)

What I'd like to see if Frontier adds another ship to the "huge freighter" space is something that hauls maybe 650t large pad - but is a fair bit more agile (especially in supercruise) than the T-9 or Cutter (while not up to T-8 levels, of course). That adds a fourth option for bulk hauling, rather than taking away the three existing ones.

 

[Pville_Piper]

I started with the T-9, it took a while to master landing in it. There's a cadence and flow with the T-9. Keep ahead of it and she rewards you, get behind and she can deal some pain. At worse case, if you get tired or distracted on approach and have botched the approach, you can boost loop and come back around as she bleeds speed really fast. Side thrusting is very controlled because she bleeds energy quickly.

I saw some brain dead youtuber demonstrating how much faster it was to fly the cutter. Carry more, fly faster, what's not to love? So me, wanting a bit more, I finally finished off the last rank and a half to get one... Oh boy...

First off, the youtuber was flying station to station, NOT to a ground installation. The drift on the cutter is awful. Yes, it has better speed and super cruise handling, but you loose a tremendous amount of time when landing on a planet.

I found the only way to guarantee a decent landing on a nearly 1 g planet is to drop in as far away as possible so that you can approach the pad in a level attitude. The ship will not stop if the nose is pointed down. Boosting away from a bad approach is comically bad. Landing on planets slows down the run so much that there is no real speed advantage to the cutter and a bad approach absolutely kills any advantage.

I ffinally gave in and bought a docking computer, this made landing on planets tolerable, but took all the joy out of it. The T-9 is more fun to fly, more controllable than the cutter and better visabilty making approaches challenging, yet fun. I'm going back to the T-9, the extra 42 tons that the cutter carries is not worth the aggravation.

If the next big ship drifts like the cutter they can keep it.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Tier 1 is currently completable within the deadline by someone making a single T-9 trip a day, which doesn't seem unreasonably high for what an individual might be able to do.

Tier 3 is definitely well into the "either a really ED-focused individual or a more normal mid-sized squadron" territory.

(I wouldn't object if they made T1s a little cheaper and T3s a little more expensive, if that was the way they wanted to go)


I think the problem is not so much that it speeds up the hauling all that much - an extra 25% is neither here nor there - as that there are currently at least three viable haulers: the T-9 and Cutter for large pads, and then the T-8 where you give up raw capacity for speed and medium-pad access.

Once a 1000t large pad ship comes in, the T-9 and Cutter are instantly out of contention, and the T-8 probably can't keep up either if it has to do almost three trips for every trip the new ship does, so the variety of options goes way down.
(And of course, all hauling activity then gets rebalanced around the new maximum pace, so the next hauling-based activity assumes everyone is using a 1000t hauler)

What I'd like to see if Frontier adds another ship to the "huge freighter" space is something that hauls maybe 650t large pad - but is a fair bit more agile (especially in supercruise) than the T-9 or Cutter (while not up to T-8 levels, of course). That adds a fourth option for bulk hauling, rather than taking away the three existing ones.

I think you mentioned that larger ships would destroy the trading system. This is probably why they won't let us use NPC's, either.

 

[Ian Doncaster]

I think you mentioned that larger ships would destroy the trading system. This is probably why they won't let us use NPC's, either.

Yeah - NPC hauling would basically need to cost so much that it didn't instantly become the meta to e.g. scan exobio (or whatever the top credit earner happens to be) and use that to pay for the hauling. So you'd end up with multi-billion prices just to build a single T1 outpost ... and T3s being a lot more than a FC despite being less obviously useful.

Alternative routes - give the Building Schematics a use, maybe? - where the player directly does stuff and it takes about the same amount of time as the hauling but a different activity, I think would be very helpful. But using credits as an intermediary is probably a non-starter because the credit balance of activities is so non-existent.

 

[marx]

While I would like a somewhat larger cargo ship, and I'd prefer the Griffin from FFE instead of the Panther Clipper LX (what concept art and leaked WIP models we've seen doesn't really look anything special, and the old Griffin does have a much more distinct shape to work with), but launching it alongside the colonisation "live beta" would have been a bad idea.
After all, Trailblazers launched with plenty of serious bugs, and has many still, so if they added a hauling-focused paid "Early Access" ship while colonization and its errors aren't ironed out, that would have likely had a pretty poor reception. Things like Frontier launching a pay-to-win ship (because it can complete constructions faster) while the update has severe issues, and so on.
They can wait with that until colonization and the BGS becomes stable (enough), and deliver other ships in the meantime. Even after the Corsair, they do have more than one planned, after all.

 

[Ralph Vargr]

Yeah - NPC hauling would basically need to cost so much that it didn't instantly become the meta to e.g. scan exobio (or whatever the top credit earner happens to be) and use that to pay for the hauling. So you'd end up with multi-billion prices just to build a single T1 outpost ... and T3s being a lot more than a FC despite being less obviously useful.

Alternative routes - give the Building Schematics a use, maybe? - where the player directly does stuff and it takes about the same amount of time as the hauling but a different activity, I think would be very helpful. But using credits as an intermediary is probably a non-starter because the credit balance of activities is so non-existent.

A gameplay option would be best.

 

[Stealthie]

There's an old Zen parable about how somebody visits hell and finds that everybody has to eat using 5ft long chopsticks so it's almost impossible for them to get food into their mouths.
The person then visits heaven and is surprised to find everybody there is also using the 5ft long chopsticks to eat.
The only difference is, in heaven people are feeding each other.

I wonder if FDev thought that Colonisation (as implemented) would encourage co-op play?
After the palaver with Fleet Carriers, you'd think they'd be aware how stubbornly independant the average ED player is, and design the game accordingly.

I suppose the irony is (given how unpredictable ED players also tend to be) if FDev did design Colonisation to suit individual players, we'd decide to team-up and get things done super fast.

 

[SlickPBW]

soul-crushing

and that’s where I stopped reading.

 

[Jinx Chrome]

There's an old Zen parable about how somebody visits hell and finds that everybody has to eat using 5ft long chopsticks so it's almost impossible for them to get food into their mouths.
The person then visits heaven and is surprised to find everybody there is also using the 5ft long chopsticks to eat.
The only difference is, in heaven people are feeding each other.

I love the parable it is spot on!

I wonder if FDev thought that Colonisation (as implemented) would encourage co-op play?
After the palaver with Fleet Carriers, you'd think they'd be aware how stubbornly independant the average ED player is, and design the game accordingly.

I suppose the irony is (given how unpredictable ED players also tend to be) if FDev did design Colonisation to suit individual players, we'd decide to team-up and get things done super fast.

The challenge is that there is such a broad range of players and play styles: from the lone wolf who wants to colonise a system with 48 bodies over the small groups (2-4 players) to the really big ones like Cannon. I'd say that no matter how fast and easy colonisation could be adjusted to, we will hear the complaints because it is about the monotony of its mechanics. So, let's say that one can build a single orbis with 4-5 hauls. Will the player stop after achieving this goal? Probably not, they want to build more stations in more systems because the ultimate motivation is to shape the galaxy and leave their footprints (i.e. names). The complaints will go on and on.

The solution is (like others have suggested), to include more game loop varieties beyond hauling. However, this would lead to a much bigger development effort and postpone any other planned features.

 

[Sublime]

I started with the T-9, it took a while to master landing in it. There's a cadence and flow with the T-9. Keep ahead of it and she rewards you, get behind and she can deal some pain. At worse case, if you get tired or distracted on approach and have botched the approach, you can boost loop and come back around as she bleeds speed really fast. Side thrusting is very controlled because she bleeds energy quickly.

I saw some brain dead youtuber demonstrating how much faster it was to fly the cutter. Carry more, fly faster, what's not to love? So me, wanting a bit more, I finally finished off the last rank and a half to get one... Oh boy...

First off, the youtuber was flying station to station, NOT to a ground installation. The drift on the cutter is awful. Yes, it has better speed and super cruise handling, but you loose a tremendous amount of time when landing on a planet.

I found the only way to guarantee a decent landing on a nearly 1 g planet is to drop in as far away as possible so that you can approach the pad in a level attitude. The ship will not stop if the nose is pointed down. Boosting away from a bad approach is comically bad. Landing on planets slows down the run so much that there is no real speed advantage to the cutter and a bad approach absolutely kills any advantage.

I ffinally gave in and bought a docking computer, this made landing on planets tolerable, but took all the joy out of it. The T-9 is more fun to fly, more controllable than the cutter and better visabilty making approaches challenging, yet fun. I'm going back to the T-9, the extra 42 tons that the cutter carries is not worth the aggravation.

If the next big ship drifts like the cutter they can keep it.

Cutter is indeed better at hauling than a T9. It’s faster and it can get you there quicker but what you’re describing is not the fastest way to land it. Its drift is irrelevant, simply slam into the landing pad and you have an instant stop.

 

[[VR] Mad Mike]

There's an old Zen parable about how somebody visits hell and finds that everybody has to eat using 5ft long chopsticks so it's almost impossible for them to get food into their mouths.
The person then visits heaven and is surprised to find everybody there is also using the 5ft long chopsticks to eat.
The only difference is, in heaven people are feeding each other.

I wonder if FDev thought that Colonisation (as implemented) would encourage co-op play?
After the palaver with Fleet Carriers, you'd think they'd be aware how stubbornly independant the average ED player is, and design the game accordingly.

I suppose the irony is (given how unpredictable ED players also tend to be) if FDev did design Colonisation to suit individual players, we'd decide to team-up and get things done super fast.

which is precisely why we need npcs who could act as a ... let's say slightly below average player to help. that way it can be balanced with a wing of 4 in mind for the larger T3 installations.

 

[Pville_Piper]

Cutter is indeed better at hauling than a T9. It’s faster and it can get you there quicker but what you’re describing is not the fastest way to land it. Its drift is irrelevant, simply slam into the landing pad and you have an instant stop.

To get more cargo you have to go shield less, slamming it on the pad is a good way to hit the rebuy screen.

 

[aRJay]

which is precisely why we need npcs who could act as a ... let's say slightly below average player to help. that way it can be balanced with a wing of 4 in mind for the larger T3 installations.

But those NPCs can be used by groups and the like to accelerate them just as they would individuals so things would remain out of balance.