Would Elite Dangerous Be Better If You Could Only Own One Ship At A Time?

[CMDR Harada]

I could agree to that, but there would have to be a lot of changes to the game to accommodate it.

As it stands now, if you changed from a Python to a Vette, you'd have to hunt for the proper modules all over the bubble.. and then engineer them. If you had access to Jameson, you'd just have to engineer it all. Considering MATs hunting, visiting MATs traders, and hopping around the bubble to visit the engineers, it makes my soul weep.

That is a HUGE undertaking and not something I'd support. It would affect players in Colonia, for sure. At a minimum, ED would have to make it a lot easier to engineer/purchase modules so swapping hulls wasn't a monstrous challenge. That would change the flavor of the game, at least for new players. I remember hunting for large beam lasers all over the bubble to outfit my pre-pre-nerf Python.

So, yeah, if ED changed the game so I could buy everything everywhere, made hi-grade MATs rain from the sky, and engineers opened franchises all over the galaxy, then... maybe.

What I MIGHT support is rental fees to store unused ships. I haven't taken my Cutter out in ages, and I'd sell the darn thing if it wasn't such a PITA to re-outfit it. That whale has got to be taking up massive parking space. It makes sense for a station to charge a small fee to keep it stored there and maintained. Marinas do that now. Or maybe letting me 'rent' it out to an NPC. That might stop CMDRs from leaving unused ships all over the galaxy like trash.

 

[Sylow]

Just like others said, i also doubt that it would be any improvement. It would just remove even some more ships from the list of "viable" options, as they are useful in only a very limited role.

 

[Windscreen Smudge]

No. This would just exacerbate the trend of going straight from Sidewinder to type 6 to Anaconda.

 

[Chase Quinnell]

Absolutely not.

 

[Ethaidan]

Yes.

With the option of temporarily hiring (or hiring onto) a different ship while yours is being repaired / upgraded.

 

[photomankc]

No, not as the mechanics are currently set where every role requires vastly different outfitting and capacity to succeed.


No, The best part of the game for me right now is that after I worked for my fortune I can now pretty well decide what I want to do hour by hour and have a ship at hand to do it with.

 

[Maximillian Forrest]

In Elite you could only own one ship, a Cobra MkIII. In Frontier Elite II and Frontier First Encounters, you could own any number of ships, but only one at a time. If you wanted to fly a different ship, you had to part-exchange the ship you were flying.

In Elite Dangerous we can buy a number of ships and own them at the same time, still only flying one ship at a time (we can't be in two places at once, obviously). So would Elite Dangerous be a better game if we could only own one ship at a time, like the previous games in the series? And for this discussion, let's leave Fleet Carriers out of it, because you can and can't fly them, in a manner of speaking.

That might have been the case when it was first released on the BBC.B in the ‘80s, but the game has evolved well beyond its original concept. Therefore, I don’t believe just having one ship would improve the game.

 

[thelion]

Yes

I would only like to add that your starting ship should be missing all components and rotting in a garbage heap. You have to dedicate your first twelve years of play to sifting through refinery hoppers and being an indentured servant.

Once you have paid off your betters and thanked them for allowing you to work sixteen hour shifts, you can start working for real money so you can start repairing your own ship.

Standard module costs apply but the maximum you can earn in any 24 he period is five creds.

Tatty bye

 

[Alien]

Yes

I would only like to add that your starting ship should be missing all components and rotting in a garbage heap. You have to dedicate your first twelve years of play to sifting through refinery hoppers and being an indentured servant.

Once you have paid off your betters and thanked them for allowing you to work sixteen hour shifts, you can start working for real money so you can start repairing your own ship.

Standard module costs apply but the maximum you can earn in any 24 he period is five creds.

Tatty bye

So ... Hardspace Shipbreaker then

 

[Old Duck]

Yes

I would only like to add that your starting ship should be missing all components and rotting in a garbage heap.

Sounds like No Man's Sky.

 

[Cmdr Esteban]

In Elite you could only own one ship, a Cobra MkIII. In Frontier Elite II and Frontier First Encounters, you could own any number of ships, but only one at a time. If you wanted to fly a different ship, you had to part-exchange the ship you were flying.

In Elite Dangerous we can buy a number of ships and own them at the same time, still only flying one ship at a time (we can't be in two places at once, obviously). So would Elite Dangerous be a better game if we could only own one ship at a time, like the previous games in the series? And for this discussion, let's leave Fleet Carriers out of it, because you can and can't fly them, in a manner of speaking.

Yes, I think so.

The only ship I own is an engineered multi-role Krait Phantom for the past couple of years. That’s how I play. I keep it set up just how I like it and it’s become my ‘home’ in game. I’m simply not interested in fiddly fleet management.

 

[Quantis Trap]

This Elite is all about ship building and playing the way you want at a moments notice. It's also about playing with friends online unlike the old games and that requires being able to switch a ship quickly for a short time. That's not how the old games were played.

 

[zarrazee]

OP. No thanks. It would be micromanagement hell having to constantly sell, buy and outfit everytime. To the point the game wouldn't be fun.

 

[Brrokk]

For me, no. Tinkering with ship builds and engineering for specialist roles is the most interesting part of the game IMO.

I also suspect it would end up with a monoculture. We'd almost all fly Anacondas until we could get Cutters.

 

[Starshot_Jigawatts]

For me, no. Tinkering with ship builds and engineering for specialist role is the most interesting part of the game IMO.

I also suspect it would end up with a monoculture. We'd almost all fly Anacondas until we could get Cutters.

Yeah exactly! People complain about that enough as it is. With this the only ships you would even see used would be FDL, Anaconda, Corvette.

 

[Just Paul]

 

[Triptych]

LOL, no. It's not even a question.

 

[Lysette]

I've got a different take on this. If ED was a game that focused on players owning the SAME ship, say the Cobra Mk III like original Elite, then it might be a better game today. Why? Because then Frontier could focus on making the game around that one ship - including a very detailed ship design with a customizable (think Sims) interior with operational panels, tweakable engines, ship repair (using a welder and our beloved space legs), a full damage model, etc. Missions offered to the player could be more specifically targeted that specific ship, compensating for the "1000 mission types require us to own 1000 different ships" situation we have now. In other words, instead of being a mile wide and an inch deep, it could be an inch wide but a mile deep. For me personally, I think I'd prefer that. I fly a pretty minimalist fleet as it is.

Perhaps this approach is more appropriate for a single-player game than an MMO, since different "character classes" are an important part of an MMO. Though I suppose we could express our uniqueness in our loadouts and paint jobs and other customizations..

That one ship fits all philosophy was why X:Rebirth failed massively - despite of the X series being a hit overall, that one was just not good because one could just fly a single ship - not one at a time, but one all the time - terrible. And the argument that one could cater around this ship better - an originally tiny company like CCP could handle their game EVE online with hundreds of ship types and thousands of modules - if they can do that, so can ED, if they would decide to go that route. But as I see it ED wants to expand Elite to something greater - if well done, Odyssey will be exactly that what was missing - but it is not an easy task, which FD took on with it - if they can pull it off, it would be amazing - we need more options overall, not less.

 

[Old Duck]

we need more options overall, not less.

I don't think anyone is actually suggesting that Frontier REMOVE but one ship. I read the OP as just thinking out loud, "What if?" You know, like what if Peggy Carter took the super soldier serum instead of Steve Rogers. After all, any of us can chose right now to just own one ship, so there's no actual need to remove anything from the current game.

 

[badibeat]

We are all ephemeral products and part of a process we call Evolution, which essentially creates variety and pits that against itself.
Extremely successful on Sol - Earth. Maybe that's why I and probably many others like variety.