Why is Discovery Freelancer focused on VHFs?

[Jinx]

explanation:

The usual progression of players went like that ( there actually were threads that discussed that progression )

1) player is new, has no money and is flying a cheap freigther

2) player made some money and buys his first snub - fully equipped with the good stuff ( AU8 and lvl9 weapons - and/or the occasional codename )

3) player sells some stuff to trade some more - gets a big transport and starts making serious money

4) player saves up for a capital warship - often letting his character progress in "rank" to use that ship

5) player fully equips the capship - with CAU8, and spends a lot of time optimizing his weaponry

6) player drifts away from the capital warship RP ... often the char starts to fly a snub again

7) player dedicates most of his RP to a snub again - a sort of "back to the roots"

the motivation is similar to RL wealth and money. - you start poor, you make money, you get rich, you show money - and you end up "not needing to show money" anymore - you are a vet.

end) you fly a snub because you WANT to - not because you do not have the money for more.

The above explains how it comes that snubs were for a long time in the past considered "better roleplay". The reason is that many vets who had transcended their time with cap-ships were flying snubs again. And while they still often HAVE capships their "main" chars are usually flying smaller ships.

In terms of skill curve.. i do not think a capship pvp is much simpler - it is different. More time must be spent to assess a when and how to engage than in a snub. - Many capship pvp are already "over" before they fired the first shot - because they simply chose the wrong time to engage.

Snub combat requires more hand-eye-coordination, capship combat requires a little more foresight (call it strategy) - you cannot rush into a brawl, because unlike a snub - you cannot leave it easily anymore. But once a cap is shooting and is being shot at - yea - the skill level is not that huge anymore ( with TZ enabled that is )

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