4.95.0 Patch 9

[Haste]

1. I was hoping for something a bit more with Freighters. I feel like it's a bit of a shadow-nerf but they were a touch on the overpowered side where weapons were concerned. The engine change is where I feel like it's a slight nerf. I feel like adding the option for a 425 or 450 engine would've been better than nerfing the standard engine to 350. The cargo change is fine too, but again, 350 for standard engines? We're supposed to be able to outrun those trying to stop us with illicit cargo (if using them as smuggling ships).

Stat-wise, we've mostly nerfed the strongest and buffed the weakest freighters. They're not too far off in terms of performance from where they used to be, although their sustained DPS is not quite as off-the-charts as it used to be for the ones with large powercores. The dual mines - especially with Swatter setups which I expect people to realize any minute now - can make them harder to chase than before, too.

The cruise engine nerf is mostly the balance team "planning ahead". We're looking into ways to make freighter smuggling highly profitable and an actual viable method of making money. With that taken into consideration, allowing them to outpace almost every ship that might try to catch them makes for relatively poor gameplay. And still, you can opt for a 400 m/s engine, sacrificing cargo speed, if you really want to and are willing to take the hit in income. If those engines were even faster we're circling back to my previous point, however, of ending up a class of "trader" with very little counterplay.

---