You know what I want? (What I really, really want)

Noddie

N
J.States said:
Tell me what you want, what you really really want! ...Oh wait, you just did.


Yep, because mass lock is based on... mass, not size. A super dense, small ship could theoretically have a high mass lock factor.

Back in the old MS-DOS days, there was a very difficult game called Epic. Basically in the far future, the aggressive Raxxon race is trying to exterminate humans, and the sun is about to go supernova. Humanity's only survival option is a mass migration through hostile Raxxon space to the nearest habitable world.

To accomplish this, humanity uses their entire stock of... well, a super-rare meta-alloy, basically, to engineer three heavy superiority fighters, which you, as humanity's best pilot, must pilot and safely see the convoy through to their destination in a variety of harrowing deep space and planetary combat missions. Great game, never did beat the final battle where you have to save the human fleet from literally hundreds of enemy spacecraft.
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I had EPIC on the Amiga. It was quite impressive in some ways, but could be bloody frustrating. I recall it being rather buggy. But it was basically battlestar galactica in game form!
 

Bloodsign

Bloodsign
Schmack said:
So if you want a ship with super high mass lock factor, meaning it's constructed of very dense material, then you'll also need a different type of drive unless you think a 4A drive can push the mass of the Anaconda as fast as you'd want the new ship to go. Then, with that much mass, you'd need to stop it somehow. You'd need reverse thrusters that are about the size of the ship.

If there were exclusive drives to power a courier size ship that has the mass of the anaconda and the speed of the iEagle, they'd need exclusive power plants and an exclusive FSD to jump that silly thing. You'd have to use solid fuel or have the nuclear option of replacing your reactor every year or so unless there's some magical race yet undiscovered that can do all of that with the current modules.

But yeah, it would be fun to fly through a corvette at 1000m/s like a .50 cal bullet then jump 1000 LY and eat a yogurt.
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Yeah, everything would have to be balanced with some serious downsides to compensate. I guess in our super-dense imaginary ship, its survivability would be great, but its maneuverability not so much. :)
 

Bloodsign

Bloodsign
Noddie said:
I had EPIC on the Amiga. It was quite impressive in some ways, but could be bloody frustrating. I recall it being rather buggy. But it was basically battlestar galactica in game form!
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Did you ever beat the darn thing? That last battle was insane, I don't think there was enough ammo resupply to actually win it... ;)

I got really good at completing all the missions without losing any Epic fighters, but that last fight, man. The whole aura of the game was that of an inescapable impending doom though, so I guess it was meant to be super hard.

It ran pretty well on MS-DOS with the exception of the briefing sequences, which were pretty fast. I'll have to see if I can get it running with DosBox one of these days... :)
 

Noddie

N
No, I never completed it. I have a personal policy (if such a thing exists) of stopping playing a game when it stops being fun. Epic was one of those games that stopped being fun long before I was anywhere near completing it. To be honest I don't think I played it all that much.

From what I recall it was quite buggy with entire space fleets suddenly flipping through 90 degrees randomly and it being quite easy to get simply "stuck" on scenery. I can recall thinking that with less than 10 missions it wouldn't take long to complete, but then discovering a frustrating and tedious gameplay that appeared to be trying to spin a 5 hour game (which I'm fine with, incidentally) out to 30 hours
 

Kamiyoda

Kamiyoda
J.States said:
Yeah, everything would have to be balanced with some serious downsides to compensate. I guess in our super-dense imaginary ship, its survivability would be great, but its maneuverability not so much. :)
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I doubt it as Mass lock factor has never been about the ships actual mass and is entirely a gameplay mechanic wifh some lore explanation slapped onto it.
So really they can do whatever they want as long as the 400 ton Anaconda can Masslock the 950 tone Beluga.
 

Noddie

N
Kamiyoda said:
I doubt it as Mass lock factor has never been about the ships actual mass and is entirely a gameplay mechanic wifh some lore explanation slapped onto it.
So really they can do whatever they want as long as the 400 ton Anaconda can Masslock the 950 tone Beluga.
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There are a few oddities. The Diamondback Explorer has a ludicrous MLF for it's mass, for example. I'd say MLF is related to mass, but not absolutely dependant on it.
 

DDastardly00

D
I'm in the process of re-engineering my Cobra MkIV, this is being done as a side project right now as I just bought and am engineering a Crusader. The Cobra is currently at 35.5ly unladen with hull and shield both over 800, hull is at 871 integrity I believe. Still need to reconfigure and engineer the hardpoints. I point this out because there's options right now. I too would like to see more small ships.

Small ship combat is still one of the best things about Elite. I jumped in my Cobra Mk3 over the weekend because I hadn't flown it in quite awhile, took a one jump data courier mission because the reward was Specialized Legacy Firmware and I was fresh out of them. On the way to the station I was interdicted by a Viper mk II. This time I decided to submit and fight because it sounded like fun, and oh what fun it was. I got into a great battle with it and eventually won, made me realize how much I miss small ship combat.

So I agree with the overall sentiment of wanting new small ships, however I disagree that they need to be super expensive. 10 million should be the max.
 

Eckee

Eckee
You can’t have tough, high mass-lock factor ship with a good jump range, agility and maneuverability.
 
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