Freighter class.

[Venatacia]

Forgive me if I'm not up to speed with the game. I'm looking to play this game as a freighter captain more than a fighter captain which I hope is posable. In previous games that I have played, the cargo freighter class normally is always lacking in fire power, I know this sounds strange but if you have the power to run a big cargo ship and the space to add guns/protection, then surely it would be wise to protect yourself against pirates shall we say. More so to protect that precious cargo.

I noticed while I was at a station there was a freighter ship with larger cargo capacity but it had only two gun slots. Personally this has always disapointed me and I think its an old fashioned way of thinking/doing thngs. Because we have big cargo ships on our sea's that have no protection in real life, fantasy space games seem to follow this same weird logic. Maybe I'm wrong but I do hope new space games will change this.

I did notice you can purchase ships to fly with you - I think. Haven't really looked into it or tried it yet as I have no cargo ship and no funds to buy anything as of yet. Maybe this is how a rich freighter captain protects his ship and valuble wares. Still, i would like freighter ships to brake the mold or am I alone on this?.

[Chris]

From what I've read and seen in most sci-fi spaced based universes, it comes down to just one thing, cost. The improved reactor, redundant systems as well as the loss of cargo space to the weapon/protection systems cuts into the profit ratio. You have to remember they're mostly commercial ships, not military(tho there are military transports with better defense/attack, still way below a true warship).

Now there is a sort of hybrid type, the Q ship, which is either a commercial refitted to be a sort of poor mans warship (but again loses a ton of cargo space & isn't as effective as a hauler). Or ships built from the keel up as a military vessel with better protection/arms yet again doesn't have as much cargo space.

Mostly they go in convoys to help protect themselves and hire mercs or follow military ships around certain routes so they're closer to protection.

[ronniejw2002]

You may want to take a look at the Smugglers Mod. It has better armed freighters and a few that are vanilla freighters with cloaking added. The mercenary’s you can hire have not yet been implemented. Also, the trading menu isn’t complete yet. They will be adding a system for tracking prices from stations you have visited and a best buy/sale system I believe.

Edit: I should also add that they may need to balance trading at some point as well.

[danijel]

@ronniejw
We definitely have to rebalance trading. I'm hoping it will be on the table soon :).

@Venatacia
We plan on adding MKII versions of some ships, so I'll add your suggestion to the wish-list to include freighters/freightliners.

[Venatacia]

Originally posted by danijel:

@ronniejw
We definitely have to rebalance trading. I'm hoping it will be on the table soon :).

@Venatacia
We plan on adding MKII versions of some ships, so I'll add your suggestion to the wish-list to include freighters/freightliners.

Thanks for looking at my suggestion. I think some of the confusion with guns vs cargo space comes from when I'm looking at my starting ship, some of the guns look like they are on the outside of the ship taking up no extra space or thats the impression I get. So you naturally think adding guns/weapons to a cargo ship would be no problem.

I appologise if I'm looking to deeply into this and should instead just go with the flow but my imagination runs wild when I start dreaming of what could be in a space game. Anyway, MkII ships sounds good.

[Jakesnake5]

A typical freighter will have weaker power plants than a warship, as they are not MEANT to go into battle. Armed Merchants usually have only defensive systems and weapons, meant to back down any typical light weight pirate.

SG2 merchies are just for cargo transport, or for whopping loads of mined materials. Even a MKII version isn't going to be able to cut it against anything bigger than a corvette.

While at PTE, the most you'll probably encounter are Gunboats or Corvettes, which the merchant ships systems can deal with well enough.

You should just consider the immersion aspect. You either want to be a kick butt combat captain, or a captain of commerce. :)

[TheDude1972]

Maybe for a far away future or even DLC(yes, I'm for DLC if it adds something completely new to a game)

More customizalbe ships. not on the outside as you buy the hull design of course. But maybe sacrifice cargo space/speed/other for weapon hard points. of course only light as heavy weapons would mean even more lost space for ammo. And even the other way around, loose some hardpoints for added cargo space.

Other variant would be to buy certain versions of models, with less/more hardpoints/space. (would be easier to implement into the game).

Of course each hull would have a min/max hardpoint limit so not to get ridiculous battleshiplike cargovessels with no cargospace.

Just a thought :)

edit: more submodels would also mean you could have attack styled vessels(only guns in front and/or side) or defence styled vessels with harpoints spread around. sorry, just had a little brainstorm due to this thread :p

[fivemilesmile]

Well...at first I thought this: a cargo ship is no warship, end of. Look at the past: you had either a slow lump of wood packed full of goods or a warship, packed full of troops, cannons,provisions and ammunition. There you are, you can't have both, your ship is simply not big enough and it makes no sense for a trader to haul a lot of troops sacrificing the cargo space and give up on additional profit.

Then I thought, hey, that was the past: we had all sorts of shortcomings, ship design, material, technology..In the far future, where the space is full of colonies, pirates and space faring civilizations a cargo captain would definitely want to ensure that the huge cargo vessel under his/her hands would arrive safe.
A freighter would be big, very big indeed: it won't make sense to cross the interstellar space for a few rations of food, it will have millions of metric tonnes space for all sort of things and the profit on one trade run would be colossal. Also it will be the sweetest cake for pirates I can imagine, naturally a trade ship will have a huge arsenal to defend itself and it will be the safest place in the universe, apart from a military installation.

So what i think would be fitting is this:
- have small trade ships for beginners which will be literally defenceless, these ships would indeed trade fire power for cargo space as they offer small profit and won't be a real target for pirates having low value and being too much trouble if - when attacked at a wrong place - requesting and receiving aid from nearby ships
- have huge trade ships, and I mean HUGE, 5000+ cargo space, with the most weapons possible, in fact these ship would be even stronger than most battleships. Because it all make sense: a rich trader captain will want the best defence money can buy, it is the sort of long term investment that will pay off greatly. And - to have some real challenge - sometimes these flying freighter fortresses would be attacked by an entire pirate faction, dozens of ships at once, because they are too strong, so need to be attacked in an organized fashion and too sweet a prize to miss out.

So here it is: the current ship layout/class system is good, just add a super-freighter to the top: these will be the sort of ultimate ships that everybody fears and the most expensive to buy. Make them non-boardable too: they could have an anti-bio shield generator that only stations can power. You will have to buy one, and work for it hard.

[Venatacia]

Originally posted by TheDude1972:

Maybe for a far away future or even DLC(yes, I'm for DLC if it adds something completely new to a game)

More customizalbe ships. not on the outside as you buy the hull design of course. But maybe sacrifice cargo space/speed/other for weapon hard points. of course only light as heavy weapons would mean even more lost space for ammo. And even the other way around, loose some hardpoints for added cargo space.

Other variant would be to buy certain versions of models, with less/more hardpoints/space. (would be easier to implement into the game).

Of course each hull would have a min/max hardpoint limit so not to get ridiculous battleshiplike cargovessels with no cargospace.

Just a thought :)

edit: more submodels would also mean you could have attack styled vessels(only guns in front and/or side) or defence styled vessels with harpoints spread around. sorry, just had a little brainstorm due to this thread :p

It's good that we can talk about these things. I like what everyone has to say and it's good to hear other peoples opinions. Thats why I opened up this topic.

[TheDude1972]

Yes, and I really know how you feel. In these kind of games I usually end up more trading then fighting. :p

I do see a lot of trading potential as the universe is big with lots of different factions. Also the number of goods is large enough for a good trade and being able to mine the asteroids is also a nice way to live in peace and still make cash for a new ship :) Sandbox games should be diverse enough to please every kind of player.

[Venatacia]

Originally posted by longstar:

Well...at first I thought this: a cargo ship is no warship, end of. Look at the past: you had either a slow lump of wood packed full of goods or a warship, packed full of troops, cannons,provisions and ammunition. There you are, you can't have both, your ship is simply not big enough and it makes no sense for a trader to haul a lot of troops sacrificing the cargo space and give up on additional profit.

Then I thought, hey, that was the past: we had all sorts of shortcomings, ship design, material, technology..In the far future, where the space is full of colonies, pirates and space faring civilizations a cargo captain would definitely want to ensure that the huge cargo vessel under his/her hands would arrive safe.
A freighter would be big, very big indeed: it won't make sense to cross the interstellar space for a few rations of food, it will have millions of metric tonnes space for all sort of things and the profit on one trade run would be colossal. Also it will be the sweetest cake for pirates I can imagine, naturally a trade ship will have a huge arsenal to defend itself and it will be the safest place in the universe, apart from a military installation.

So what i think would be fitting is this:
- have small trade ships for beginners which will be literally defenceless, these ships would indeed trade fire power for cargo space as they offer small profit and won't be a real target for pirates having low value and being too much trouble if - when attacked at a wrong place - requesting and receiving aid from nearby ships
- have huge trade ships, and I mean HUGE, 5000+ cargo space, with the most weapons possible, in fact these ship would be even stronger than most battleships. Because it all make sense: a rich trader captain will want the best defence money can buy, it is the sort of long term investment that will pay off greatly. And - to have some real challenge - sometimes these flying freighter fortresses would be attacked by an entire pirate faction, dozens of ships at once, because they are too strong, so need to be attacked in an organized fashion and too sweet a prize to miss out.

So here it is: the current ship layout/class system is good, just add a super-freighter to the top: these will be the sort of ultimate ships that everybody fears and the most expensive to buy. Make them non-boardable too: they could have an anti-bio shield generator that only stations can power. You will have to buy one, and work for it hard.

"Then I thought, hey, that was the past"

This is exactly what I was thinking too. The future and space would be different - size of ships as you said, would be huge/enormous. Space is big and distances vast. I like everything you said and agree. Of course we would start off with a small freighter ship and then work our way up to what you discribed.

Nice to hear other people thoughts on this subject. Of course it depends if this fits in with the devs plans. What we would like and what they have planned is or could be two different things but no reason not to have a good old natter about this.

[danijel]

Originally posted by TheDude1972:

I do see a lot of trading potential as the universe is big with lots of different factions. Also the number of goods is large enough for a good trade and being able to mine the asteroids is also a nice way to live in peace and still make cash for a new ship :) Sandbox games should be diverse enough to please every kind of player.

I couldn't agree more :).

[Venatacia]

Originally posted by TheDude1972:

Yes, and I really know how you feel. In these kind of games I usually end up more trading then fighting. :p

I do see a lot of trading potential as the universe is big with lots of different factions. Also the number of goods is large enough for a good trade and being able to mine the asteroids is also a nice way to live in peace and still make cash for a new ship :) Sandbox games should be diverse enough to please every kind of player.

I agree. Never been one for all out combat either, though fun at times it's still nice to play a game a different way.

"Sandbox games should be diverse enough to please every kind of player." You hit the nail on the head there. I always get disapionted when most games only come down to fighting/combat/PvP and that becomes the main focus of game makers. Leaves the rest of us out in my personal view.

[TheDude1972]

of course. They could also implement a form of escort in this game. Which would motivate traders to still buy warships even if all they want is to trade. If you could hire captains for them and order them to protect you (like fighters now for carriers), you would get a nice (space) trade caravan going.

Of course to balance this would be difficult. As you would somehow need to make this have costs so you wont end up with a single trader flying in a fleet of 21 battleships forever safe from players who like to play the pirate.

But expanding on the trade side of things would also add and improve the game for those "pirate" players who would have bigger and harder targets to raid for bigger loot. Meaning expanded gameplay for them as well.

A win win situation as they say :p

[danijel]

Originally posted by TheDude1972:

of course. They could also implement a form of escort in this game. Which would motivate traders to still buy warships even if all they want is to trade. If you could hire captains for them and order them to protect you (like fighters now for carriers), you would get a nice (space) trade caravan going.

Of course to balance this would be difficult. As you would somehow need to make this have costs so you wont end up with a single trader flying in a fleet of 21 battleships forever safe from players who like to play the pirate.

But expanding on the trade side of things would also add and improve the game for those "pirate" players who would have bigger and harder targets to raid for bigger loot. Meaning expanded gameplay for them as well.

A win win situation as they say :p

Well we do have mercs to implement. And the idea, besides having larger fights was to allow traders to haul cargo with freightliner while mercs take care of potential security issues :).

[TheDude1972]

Oh nice, can't wait to see that implemented :)