Transports

[RParade]

Whatever they do I hope they don’t mess with the Transport and Large Transport ships they are fine just as they are.
I’ve fought off inexperienced VHFs with mine but I’d rather hire escorts to do that work when it’s needed.

This place is about RP and what better way to RP a trader than to hire protection for your cargo ships?
INTERACT with other players instead of running trade alone!

It's more than that.

Some of these ships are specifically designed to survive while trading alone, yet they tend to fail at it miserably. A Luxury Liner should be hiring an escort for his trade routes, whereas something like a Bumblebee/Armored Transport or a Pirate Transport should be able to "lonegun" it. This has little to do with Transport balance or anything of the sort, but it's more about point and purpose of a ship. Some of these ships as a concept simply assume that you're going to be flying alone, and their abilities should reflect that.

Nearly everyone's using Advanced Trains, Luxury Liners, and so on because there's absolutely no incentive to use anything else. The bigger ships survive better (even when they probably shouldn't, honestly) AND they make you more money. Most of the other transports are just "goto" ships, ships that you buy and use to get the next best ship.

Adding torpedoes n' such to certain Transports wouldn't be overpowering, I don't think. Torpedoes on a transport are generally only going to be useful against other transports/GB's/ships your size or larger than you, it'll be rather difficult to hit a Bomber or a Fighter with a torpedo when you're flying something that has the agility of a Gunboat (or worse). It's hard enough to torpedo Bombers with a VHF, doing it with a Transport is going to be stupidly difficult.

Yeah, I'm aware that some of these Transports do have CD slots, but they're all but pointless mostly. What would a Royal Liner use a CD for? Since when does a commercial Liner chase down it's foes? The same is true with other ships like the Bumblebee, which has only 5 turrets.. You're not going to take down another Transport with it if it's larger than you, more than likely.

What I'd like to see is more pirates converting to heavily armored "rigs" that're designed solely to hijack other ships of their cargo. This is how it's supposed to be in the Freelancer setting.