I have only ever sold one ship. I bought a second cutter by mistake and didn’t need it in the end so I sold it.
I have kept every ship. Including the original sidewinder and “freegle” that came with the game in 2014.
Why Do Players WANT to Keep Old Ships
- Thread starter CMDR Voron
- Start date
I have kept every ship. Including the original sidewinder and “freegle” that came with the game in 2014.
I started flying it again fully engineered to the gills with penetrator railguns. It’s a hoot. More like a Memewinder now.
I want to keep my Asp Scouts just in case one day FD tweak it into a totally OP bad boy beast machine.
Funny as it seems I like my old ships, Plus I've spent far too much time and materials engineering them, and I like the way they fly as a result. but I did buy a mamba when it first came out, mainly as a racing ship.... then noticed how fast and cold it runs..... the AX cannons followed with the pulse neutraliser, enginered the drives, added caustic ressitance etc etc.
Makes an ideal ship for doing runs into the teeth of a titan's defences aiming to take down the exposed heart.
But mostly I'm to be found buzzing about in a beat up old AspX with 200 000 ly on the clock..... oh and does 50 ly jumps while fully armed and laden.
Bill
<,managed to type all this with the help of the furry co-psifgskg;lgjkle ilot
Makes an ideal ship for doing runs into the teeth of a titan's defences aiming to take down the exposed heart.
But mostly I'm to be found buzzing about in a beat up old AspX with 200 000 ly on the clock..... oh and does 50 ly jumps while fully armed and laden.
Bill
<,managed to type all this with the help of the furry co-psifgskg;lgjkle ilot
I recently engineered the CM5 for combat and its a very OP ship. I actually find it less fun to fly than my older ships for that reason.
I like to play games, not have them pander to me. Ive complained for years that ED has become way to easy, the new ships are just another example of that.
Older ships have character, the New ships are for 'Gimme' players.
I like to play games, not have them pander to me. Ive complained for years that ED has become way to easy, the new ships are just another example of that.
Older ships have character, the New ships are for 'Gimme' players.
Kind of in the same boat... but arrived late to the party.
The P2 and the T8 were already available when I returned to ED.
Soon as I saw the Mandalay I just properly wanted it.
After that I just automatically bought the CM5 and the Corsair.
CM5 is just bonkers-good so I don't regret buying it but the Corsair is parked at Jameson Memorial because it isn't better enough (is that proper grammar?) than my Python.
Even though the next ship is the legendary PC I'm probably going to hold off on buying it unless it's game-changingly better than any other cargo ship.
Basically, if it can carry 2,500t of cargo, FDev get my money.
If it can't, they don't.
People 90 years ago: "OMG, The Ford Model A is totally OP. It's faster, safer and carries more than the Model T I paid good money for."
Three votes for "New ships, as long as they are worse than the old ships" on just the first page.
You guys should have loved the Cobra Mk IV.
Three votes for "New ships, as long as they are worse than the old ships" on just the first page.
You guys should have loved the Cobra Mk IV.
At the risk of stating the obvious, the whole "car" analogy thing really doesn't work because it's related to real-life where we obviously DO want everything to be as cheap/reliable/efficient/impressive as possible.
A game (of any type) involves an artificially limited environment with atrificially limited equipment and actions, which is why nobody thinks it'd be a good idea if Football allowed players to put the ball in a sack and then use a motocross bike to transport it to the goal while half a dozen MMA fighters prevent the other team from attempting to intercept it.
About the closest you can get to an accurate "game" analogy involving cars is to look at motor-racing, where racing circuits have stayed the same for decades while cars have evolved radically and we've reached a point where a lot of smart people DO think it'd be better if the cars weren't as good as they are because they have, effectively, outgrown the environment where they're intended to be used.
Also, as an added bonus, it might also be worth considering that where people have attempted to revise the environment (by building new racing circuits) to accomodate the newest cars, those circuits are often considered bland or boring and simply don't possess the "magic" of the old circuits.
I’d like to hear you describe a new ship that frontier could add to the game. If I understand your position, you’d have to start by articulating a niche that the new ship could fill …which would necessarily cut an older ship out of that niche (because the newer ship would be better else why add it?) …while leaving a niche for the older ship (because otherwise the older ship is obsolete)
So, let’s say the niche is exploration. The new ship has to be better than the AspX and DSX otherwise why add it. But having added it, you have to leave something for the AspX and DBX to do, else it’s bad game design.
I’d love to hear how you propose to untangle this.
Maybe the niche is combat. Maybe we focus on small ships. The new ship has to be better at combat than a vulture, else why add it … but it also has to leave something for the vulture to do, else bad game design.
Please walk me through it. It sounds like it’s not possible to add new ships.
Yes but you understand why there are stars and planets in orbits, and such. Right? It’s a game but it’s pickleball - a game where there’s a score and that’s really all that matters. It’s a game where you pretend to be a Han Solo-type character. You’re not playing it to get a high score. You’re playing it to pretend to be in that world.
…and in that world there are obsolete ships.
It's called good game design, something FD really don't have underpinning their vision for the game.
You untangle this by having a cohesive vision for all your game functions, something FD doesn't have. It's bolt- on functions, just like colonization, just like sco's, just like new ships.
Exploration. Why don't USS matter more when exploring? Why aren't interactions with the sampleable space life relevant? Why is exploration so hung up on just looking at things, rather than engaging, rewarding, procedural engagements with things.
The fact a "good" exploration vessel is the most bare bones thing you can get, rather than something packed to the brim with sensors, limpets and other utilities to interact with the various things you discover, shows how little design there is here.
so i would absolutely gear a ships base configuring around USS discovery, if that mattered. I would gear a base ship around specialist interactions with giant asteroid or derelict mining superstructures, if these existed. I would have a ship specialised in taking readings and navigating hostile environs in supercruise, if these activities existed.
Thargoid AX fields were a great first start. Instead of building on that, FD removed them. Bad design. Instead of capitalising on the megaship/ outpost interactions the game surfaces, they're underexploiyed and disincentived. Bad design. Instead of remote/ situational uss that warrant investigation, they languish. Bad design.
And now we're making ships which were made in the game for a purpose, obselete. Bad design.
Which, to that very last point, is bad design.
That's not what any of the posts you quoted were advocating.
Looks like you didn’t answer the question.
It’s easy to be vague and say “do something different “ but when I challenged you to be specific you didn’t answer
Probably I am one of the players you're addressing in your opening post.
I guess it comes down to preference why you enjoy playing the game. For some it might be the excitement of trying out new ships, engineer them etc. For me, my ship is more a tool that enables me to do fun things in the game, e.g. exploring, fighting pirates, discovering the ingame story tidbits (e.g. generation ships), working the bgs. There is no lack of stuff to do in ED - the grindy engineering process to upgrade modules for different roles is definitely not at the top of that list (especially to repeat it for each new ship).
Perhaps a fitting analogy are cars in real life - some love cars and collect them, tune them etc. For others it's just a tool to get to nice places and do fun things.
I guess it comes down to preference why you enjoy playing the game. For some it might be the excitement of trying out new ships, engineer them etc. For me, my ship is more a tool that enables me to do fun things in the game, e.g. exploring, fighting pirates, discovering the ingame story tidbits (e.g. generation ships), working the bgs. There is no lack of stuff to do in ED - the grindy engineering process to upgrade modules for different roles is definitely not at the top of that list (especially to repeat it for each new ship).
Perhaps a fitting analogy are cars in real life - some love cars and collect them, tune them etc. For others it's just a tool to get to nice places and do fun things.
Last edited:
I get that the appeal is 'any ship can do anything it wants if you engineer it right', but at some point design creep should re-balance things, else the creep will continue.
I don't know exactly how I'd design it, but just 0 thought put in tossing ideas into the hat... maybe a primary/secondary/everything else. You get Exploration ships that are good at exploring, but one ship has a free slot for limpets while another has that exploration/mining SLF bay that people can't stop talking about. Maybe another gets a slot that only takes scanners, so ideally you stick the DSS in, but you could choose a wake scanner if you really want. Fuel Scoop Only slot... or better, Explorer-only fuel tanks that incorporate the fuel scoop into them already, so you aren't wasting slots on it.
(I really want to overhaul modules in general, so this is just a lazy idea instead of full on proper idea).
I don't know exactly how I'd design it, but just 0 thought put in tossing ideas into the hat... maybe a primary/secondary/everything else. You get Exploration ships that are good at exploring, but one ship has a free slot for limpets while another has that exploration/mining SLF bay that people can't stop talking about. Maybe another gets a slot that only takes scanners, so ideally you stick the DSS in, but you could choose a wake scanner if you really want. Fuel Scoop Only slot... or better, Explorer-only fuel tanks that incorporate the fuel scoop into them already, so you aren't wasting slots on it.
(I really want to overhaul modules in general, so this is just a lazy idea instead of full on proper idea).
Gees alot of cmdrs said some really good things about the topic, makes me wish my brain would have come up with a better response.
Hahahaha! Thats awesome. A few weeks ago I dusted off my cobra mk3, it had been sitting in Achenar from summer of 15 or 16 until then. I kitted it all up bought a blue paint job for it, engineered it, and installed a thargoid fsd, and what a blast to fly! Jumps like crazy, fast, it's not a murder machine like yours ( ), eats fuel like a ravenous honey badger, not practical, but man is it fun to fly.
Hahahaha! Thats awesome. A few weeks ago I dusted off my cobra mk3, it had been sitting in Achenar from summer of 15 or 16 until then. I kitted it all up bought a blue paint job for it, engineered it, and installed a thargoid fsd, and what a blast to fly! Jumps like crazy, fast, it's not a murder machine like yours (
), eats fuel like a ravenous honey badger, not practical, but man is it fun to fly.
I've seen that movie, it's called Rollerball. Honorable mentions - Salute to the Jugger and the Speedball game.
The 2014 Ford Mustang GT had 302 horsepower… the 2025 has 486. It’s more unreasonable to expect players to pay money, real or in universe, for a ship that only has parity with the ones built in 2014.
It’s not reasonable in universe or out of universe. I want Elite to thrive, I want them to make money.