Yes, you can only fly 1 ship(but command many). Heres some reasons why.

[tooonz]

I'm going to start witha bit of a rant so bear with me =P

Everywhere this game is mentions you see people asking this question, if you take 20 seconds to scan down the list of forums topics youll see multiple posts asking this question both here and on the egosoft forums. Every youtube video has a ton of people asking the same thing. Seriously people, read a little bit, it's stated repeatedly. And for those of you that read that there will only be one ship, and still then post a question about flying multiple ships. What, do you think, the devs were lying?

You can only fly 1 ship that you can upgrade modules on(such as engine, reactor, guns, etc.) and you can launch and fly drones from it through a VR helmet. You can however still own massive fleets and build giant stations like you could before.

OK, now that I got that off my chest heres some info that might shed some light into why.

Egosoft is a small team(roughly 20 people) working on a huge game. They have to prioritize what they want to do. They wanted to create more depth to how the ships work. So they decided to make this a priority over allowing you to fly different ships. Also, I'm not quite sure but the Skunk is also somehow tied to the main story, which is another thing that Egosoft says will be greatly expanded.

In previous X games ships basically had between 1 and 6 turrets(front, top, back, etc.), with each turret having between 1 and 8 guns. For the most part they could all have the same type of upgrades but were limited in what weapons they could carry by race and other factors. Essentially what made them different was thier size, turrents, speed, size, shields, energy amount and hull. The rest was just looks. Even the strafe drive was the same for all ships, which allowed you to dance an M2 around like an M4. For the most part the reason to get different ships was to get different stats and weapons. So in Rebirth they give one ship (The Albion Skunk)that you can upgrade all the different stats and weapons, essentially giving you the same abilities of a different ship. Unfortunately we won't be able to add more turrets to it or change the looks(at launch at least). They also wanted to add the abiltiy to move around within your ship. So if they gave you the ability to fly any ship they would have had to mddel the interior of all of the ships, which for the number of people they have is just about impossible for the time being. Long story short, one ship that can be made to act like any ship, rather than multiple ships with different stats.

That covers the smaller ships, now about capitals.

In order to create more depth and choices they made it so that capital ships are very customizable. The stations in Rebirth are built from a blueprint that you can add onto. Capital ships are similar in that you get a blueprint and then choose the modules and weapons to put on them. The old M class designations are gone. Also they got rid of the universal strafe drive
so you can't dance them around. They are big slow and tough with lots of individually tracking turrets(instead of haveing all 8 guns fire the same way at once). They also have surface elements that can be individually targetted and destroyed. (for example, to board a ship now in Rebirth you have to blow the jumdrive and the engines then launch your boarding pods). They also cannot go through the highways and rely on jumprdrives to travel long distances. They will also have to have crew aboard, some of which you hire(at least the captain) that have thier own strenghts and weaknesses. They don't dock at stations and require drones and small ships to move things back an forth between themselves and stations.
So, the way that Egosoft has made Rebirth with the abiltiy to walk around your ship and the need for them to have crew and all the new modularity creates a huge list of things they would have to do for you to sit on the bridge and command it. This again creates a lot of work that thier small team didn't have time for.

I am really looking forward to X Rebirth. It seems that they have really expanded a lot of areas in this game and they truly have expanded a lot into what makes up the core of X games. Unfortunately, the cost of that is they didn't have the time to model the cockpits/interiors of all the many, many ships that are in the game.

I hope I didn't confuse anyone with this into thinking I don't want to fly more ships, because I really do. I especially want to command a capital ship now that theyv done all the customization. The point I want to make here is that whether you agree with it or not, that there was very sound reasoning behind the "one ship" decision. The good news is that it has been stated that if the demand is high enough(which I'm sure it is) they will add multiple ship pilotting later.

Editted the title to be a little more clear

[mP3+Z]

it's good enough to me if there's command order other ships to do something.
thanks for info

[Kulnar/Fallen]

I love your post man :) you tell ppl what 50 - 100 post in here are asking about. great work :)

[tooonz]

Thanks, I get tired of seeing the same questions repeated ovr and over so answered them as best I could. I've been keeping up with everything about this game since shortly before the release date was announced and I've noticed the same questions asked everywhere there is any information about it. Not that I expect the idiots to read it but at least the people that are looking for answers will get a few.

[Darkstatus]

thank you, very nice rant.

[Sentient Entropy]

Personally I think the VR drone rig is a brilliant way to have purpose-built craft without the hassle and slowdown of piloting massive trading or combat vessels. Having to pick M1, M2 and TL ships based on speed rather than stats was always aggravating, as was having to comb the universe for specialty weapons to fill turret slots on those rare ships you would wind up accumulating. Plus, we get to have the awesome cockpit view back, which I haven't seen since X2. I'm really stoked about X Rebirth, and all the developer videos I've seen recently have only hightened that anticipation.

[tooonz]

Originally posted by Sentient Entropy:

Personally I think the VR drone rig is a brilliant way to have purpose-built craft without the hassle and slowdown of piloting massive trading or combat vessels. Having to pick M1, M2 and TL ships based on speed rather than stats was always aggravating, as was having to comb the universe for specialty weapons to fill turret slots on those rare ships you would wind up accumulating. Plus, we get to have the awesome cockpit view back, which I haven't seen since X2. I'm really stoked about X Rebirth, and all the developer videos I've seen recently have only hightened that anticipation.

Same here, One of the biggest problems I had with the previous X games was all of the tedious stuff you had to do to equip your ships.

[The.InXe]

Do you guys think they will offer an expansion of the game where another ship(s) will be available? Or mods? Or this is to unlikely?

[tooonz]

I sort of mentioned in the post that Egosoft said they will if there is a big enough demand, and I think there is. Personally, I think flying more ships would be nice, and I would like to be able to command some sort of big flagship, but I would like to see them get the rest of the universe right first. X games have always been more than just a space flight sim.

[Makenshi]

I am not going to lie, even though the videos made me change my mind to support the single ship idea, I am going to miss piloting my Orca ;.;
It may be slow as hell but it's got ridiculous capacity and act as a mobile phq, charming little thing....

[Blue Magnolia]

The big deal is is that most people forget exactly how powerful you are in these kinds of games. This isn't an MMO where your ship is measured and critiqued in battle by other players. This is more like fallout where by the end of the game you have a massive fortune, a gun that an rip a hole in the Hoover Dam, and armour that could withstand the Moon falling to earth. The Abion Skunk is THE BEST SHIP IN THE GAME. Because it is driven by the PLAYER. The PC is what makes it all happen, human ingenuity and strategy can trump a computer any day. Even flying a itty bitty drone, the difference in intelligence makes it able to take on any large ship, piece by piece.

[tooonz]

Originally posted by Makenshi:

I am not going to lie, even though the videos made me change my mind to support the single ship idea, I am going to miss piloting my Orca ;.;
It may be slow as hell but it's got ridiculous capacity and act as a mobile phq, charming little thing....

I;m guessing thats an eve reference, but aplicable to X games because I used the Teladi Frigate(can't remember what the name was) in the similar capacity as players used the orca in Eve. The good news is that while the Albion Skunk doens't have a jumpdrive, you can dock with you capitals then have them jump, so there is some of the same capacity at least.

Originally posted by Jake_Shifter:

The big deal is is that most people forget exactly how powerful you are in these kinds of games. This isn't an MMO where your ship is measured and critiqued in battle by other players. This is more like fallout where by the end of the game you have a massive fortune, a gun that an rip a hole in the Hoover Dam, and armour that could withstand the Moon falling to earth. The Abion Skunk is THE BEST SHIP IN THE GAME. Because it is driven by the PLAYER. The PC is what makes it all happen, human ingenuity and strategy can trump a computer any day. Even flying a itty bitty drone, the difference in intelligence makes it able to take on any large ship, piece by piece.

I agree, except from what I've seen the ability to upgrade your ships also will make yours the best in the game, in it's class at least, and not just because it's piloted by the player.

I would like the ability somehow get a big ship that you can use as a command ship to lead your fleet into battle, fleet vs fleet. Also, one thing that you wont be able to add to your ship is additional turrets, which would be nice. Other than that I generally don't have a problem with one ship as long as it is upgradable enough.

[vanzi]

I only hope that this "ship interior" will not end up as something similar to the EVE's "walking in stations". Nobody in EVE community wanted this, they pushed it anyway and failed miserably, scrapping it in the very end.

And unfortunately it seems to be so if the actual reason for us not being able to pilot multiple ships are indeed time/money constraints. I (and probably a lot of people, looking back on how this feature was received in EVE) really don't need to be able to walk around the ship or stations. There's Mass Effect for that.

[tooonz]

Yeah, i am still a little skeptical about the interior stuff myself. However there was a video from from a guy on youtube named OperastionDX1. He had been given a copy of the Gamesom demo to show and he showed several minutes of moving around in the station and it looked pretty good. Unfortuanatley that video was taken down within a few days of it being posted so maybe he wasn't supposed to show that part. He has a few other X rebirth Videos up that are worth watching. Theres aslso a few videos up buy a guy named Scott Manley that goes through the demo as well, but he doesn't show any interiors.

[Oldhammer]

Was a little worried by the 'One ship' part at first till I realised that most of my time in X was spent flying just the Chokaro with a couple of fighters docked in case of need. One multi-useable ship should work out pretty good.
Egosoft have been very clear that they didnt want to simply make another episode of the same thing like they had been doing and wanted to take a very different direction this time. The quality of their games leaves me with a great amount of faith they can deliver.

X has always had some NPC interaction so the station interior could become a useful sideline. Didnt work in Eve I think because its all about the players and they dont always hang out in stations like a civilian NPC would.
Orca's are in both Eve (mining command ship) and X (Boron TL) by the way.

Thanks tooonz, Scott Manley does some great Eve videos too so i'll check him out when I can for the X info.

[tooonz]

Originally posted by grafta503:

Was a little worried by the 'One ship' part at first till I realised that most of my time in X was spent flying just the Chokaro with a couple of fighters docked in case of need. One multi-useable ship should work out pretty good.
Egosoft have been very clear that they didnt want to simply make another episode of the same thing like they had been doing and wanted to take a very different direction this time. The quality of their games leaves me with a great amount of faith they can deliver.

X has always had some NPC interaction so the station interior could become a useful sideline. Didnt work in Eve I think because its all about the players and they dont always hang out in stations like a civilian NPC would.
Orca's are in both Eve (mining command ship) and X (Boron TL) by the way.

Thanks tooonz, Scott Manley does some great Eve videos too so i'll check him out when I can for the X info.

Yeah, a lot of the comments on here and on the egosoft forums seem to think this game is just going to be X3.5 or something. The truth is if youv read up on this game and watched the videos you should realize that you need to throw pretty much everything you know about the X series games out the window and think of it as a completely new game.

Also, would you guys please stop bringing up Eve online. I had to quit that game for reason! =P