Some Freighter/Transport Questions

[alance]

Cargo ships are most valuable for their cargo space. There's no way you can make them more used with higher-level players, other than increase the cargo capacity many times.

This is where tradeoffs between cargo space and survivability come into play. It is entirely possible to set stats on a 2000-unit transport so that it is more desired in certain situations than a 4000-unit transport. i.e. make it much more agile and significantly better defended than its big brother. I don't see the current drawbacks being big enough on the large transports, or the current benefits being high enough for the smaller transports. The skew toward everyone flying the biggest transports is because they currently have no serious drawbacks in the vast majority of trade situations.

Freighters are basically transport ships for lower-level players. Yes, sure, many people who start playing get starting bonuses from factions. But what if they don't want to? Then they'll need a cheap old Rhino, as well as other low-level freighters. More sophisticated freighters are well-defended and can withstand dangerous routes even in a hostile environment. But they are still for relatively low-level players.

A transport shield on a Freighter makes it very survivable, yes, but like you say the hold is too small to be of use to expereienced traders. This is only half of the equation though. Because the monstrous transports are also very survivable, they will of course be more used with their larger cargo bays.

My objective is to see transport stats adjusted to where smaller traqnsports are better armored and shielded and more maneuverable and faster than their 4000-unit brothers. This imparts choice for the pilots; fly a huge ship in safer areas or fly the armored and maneuverable ship for dangerous trade routes.

Likewise, those who would like to fly a Camara should be able to out-maneuver and outfly a Behemoth in every way... but they can't. Ships like the Camara are solid, but they bring absolutely nothing to the table that a Behemoth doesn't bring.

Freighters still won't have cargo capacity above 500 - simply because of their size.

Here is an argument I didn't expect. Many ship models are odd in size compared to their class and capability. If the 500-unit limit on freighters is simply to help match physical size with cargo hold, I have no argument directly against that. I do feel, however, that balance and usability of ships is more important than physical model size comparisions with cargo hold size.

Transports are superior in size, larger, less maneuverable, and capable of carrying more goods. Also, we'll be getting more transports with 4.84, which will allow more factions to use their own transports.

Yep, and I'd like to see the trade-off between cargo hold size and all other flight characteristics exaggerated so that there is a real decision to be made between 'larger' and 'more survivable' when choosing a trade ship.

500 restriction is used only for making the rules more clear. One of the most important points is that Neutral ID cannot be used for any ships above 500, which means that factions cannot deploy sort of "neutral traders" to collect money while being immune to any player attacks.

Can't that just be handled with the Neutral ID wording of "can't fly any ship with cargo hold greater than 500" instead of cutting the definition of a freighter in half?

Now, about the ID restrictions. What factions are not allowed to use transports, can you specify more precisely? I do believe that more factions should be allowed to use transports. However, pirating will be restricted to unlawful IDs anyway.

Junkers is a big one. These guys are scrap haulers and scavengers, and a sub-500 unit hold is too small for them. I don't have access to my faction ID spreadsheet here at work to check others, I will have to get a list together next chance I have time at home.

To clarify something... I'm not wanting to see MkII transports and freighters; I'm working for across-the-board adjustments of hold size vs flight/combat characteristics to make the smaller ships more valuable. I want a pirate to be tempted to fly a modified Camara or Kushan Freigher or a Turanic Raider Freighter that has been adjusted to 500-600 cargo units, given more bots/bats, and had a cruise disruptor mounted. I want a merchant on a dangerous trade route to seriously consider flying a 1500 cargo unit armored trader with a stiff shield, thick armor, good maneuver, and a rear-firing cruise disruptor.

The goal for me is more variety and choices for both the trader and the pirate. Not variety by adding more ships, but variety by making the currently ignored ships more tempting to fly.

And thanks for responding Igiss.

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"To gain a hundred victories in a hundred battles is not the highest excellence;
to subjugate the enemy's army without doing battle is the highest of excellence."