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.
noIn 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.
Well 40+ ships is nothing - that is where ED failed - look at EVE; there are 10-times as many ships with a much higher variety due to much more and more diverse modules to fit. We need more stuff, not less.
Yeah, the stiyle of combat is totally different - the only time one gets that near to another ship in EVE is when bumping a target out of alignment that it can't warp away or maybe in a belt mining - otherwise it is handling modules most of the time. ED on the other side is hands on flying in combat.Agreed. Though Eve's gameplay has the variety and depth of design to allow for such a large variety of ships. ED combat is limited to dogfighting circa WW2.
it is never just one man and his ship - a ship of that size has staff on board - engineers, service personnel, officers, crew men, chefs to cook for them and so on. I see "transfer of ships" much like one can do it in rl with sailboats for example - buy it wherever on earth and hire a skipper to bring it to wherever one wants to use that yacht. This is a job the youngest solo sailor who circumvented the globe has done for some years - Laura Dekker - for example. Transferring sailing yachts across the oceans for their owners.Well, if at least the Transfer Ship option was removed it would feel more realistic, again one man and his ship.
As it stands it is kind of god-like mode. That's the worst thing about the current Elite, that sandbox feeling.
[Edit: Also, for example, bring back the fee for having parked your ship(s) for a long time at stations]
I was swapping between ships just as much before transfers came in as I am now, in fact probably more due to all the disposable taxis used to get to the ship I wanted.Well, if at least the Transfer Ship option was removed it would feel more realistic, again one man and his ship.
As it stands it is kind of god-like mode. That's the worst thing about the current Elite, that sandbox feeling.
[Edit: Also, for example, bring back the fee for having parked your ship(s) for a long time at stations]
Or this.With the option of temporarily hiring (or hiring onto) a different ship while yours is being repaired / upgraded.