Are bigger ships worth the difference?

[Taipan]

Hey guys

New to the game, so have patience. Is it really worth upgrading to middle ships if you start small? Because it seems to me that after you upgrade to your liking the first ship you pick, the bigger middle class ones aren't really worth the monetary effort. Am I missing something or are the incentives too small and everything relates to your first pick and then maybe, very late, upgrading to another ship, maybe a top notch one?

Cheers

[Bariel]

Personally I upgrade my starting ship a bit, and then wait until I can afford a top end ship plus upgrades.

However, there are plenty of people who swear by highly upgraded small ships and stay in them throughout.

My advice would be to find what works for you, what you enjoy, and match that play style to a suitable ship - of course, what a suitable ship is may well vary from play through to play through, depending on what you are focusing on that time around.

[Taipan]

For now I am just testing, gave me money and just creating ships and comparing stats and costs until I learn what's better for what. After that I will start a normal game with no cheats. Given the investments required to grow the initial ship and the cost to do the same with a middle ship + the cost of the new ship, it doesn't seem to be worth to upgrade to a second tier, only to top tier like you do.

Also, the incentives to upgrade to a middle tier ship seem to be moreover downsized by design pluses and minuses, it's never 100% worth to upgrade to a middle tier because of those. Like with a car for example. My first car was a Hyunday Accent. The second car I got was better all around, in terms of "hull", speed, set up, etc., the third will most certainly be even better. Here, ships seem to try to give you a headache :)) You will get better something, but worse something else, etc.

The ships are not using the classes air planes use, where a second tier fighter will always be better than an older model, but won't do the job of a bomber. A newer version of a bomber will be way better than the previous version, etc. So middle ships in STF seem to be just a bland choice, if you can afford it just spend the money.

[Lapo]

It depends on what you want to do with the ship?
Bigger ships have more modules and weight available but are slower, less agile and more expensive to buy and to upgrade integrated components like the bridge or the engines. Speed affects how much time goes by when you travel so slower ships can accomplish less overall.

If the job you have in mind can be done with a smaller ship then the bigger one isn't better. Then again, more available slots mean more navigation/pilot dice so bigger ships ARE better than the smaller ones, at least for combat. The question is if you actually need that extra edge and if you are willing to pay for it with credits and time lost.

[cadfan17]

I assume you’re talking about the million credit ships.

Faster and more agile ships have multipliers on evasion and accuracy when fighting slower and less agile ships. This means they will usually scale into the late game if you keep your crew alive and highly leveled. It also means that a big vessel needs more crew to achieve the same accuracy and evasion as a small one.

Big vessels also cost more in maintenance due to higher fuel costs and a larger crew.

That said, they hold enough extra crew to make up the difference plus some. Big vessels can do more, or do the same things better.

The only way they’re objectively worse is in mission completion time and fuel costs. They’re slow and expensive to run.

[Seswatha]

Speed actually doesn't affect your travel speed on the global map, but the fuel costs for traveling are generally much higher for big ships, I assume medical and repair costs too as more crew gets injured and more components can get damaged.

Particularly combat wise, so far I haven't found a big ship that's better than small ships due to engine bonuses for evasion/accuracy/range change. Some can come close, but most of them are actually trash, if you think you'll get a BC and will be dominating combat you're most likely up for a disappointment. A properly upgraded small ship is perfectly capable of defeating BCs without even taking a scratch.

I'm not sure what's the best one for mining and hauling cargo, ideally you want more than 3 flexible L slots.

[Trese Brothers]

Originally posted by Seswatha:

Speed actually doesn't affect your travel speed on the global map, but the fuel costs for traveling are generally much higher for big ships, I assume medical and repair costs too as more crew gets injured and more components can get damaged.

Particularly combat wise, so far I haven't found a big ship that's better than small ships due to engine bonuses for evasion/accuracy/range change. Some can come close, but most of them are actually trash, if you think you'll get a BC and will be dominating combat you're most likely up for a disappointment. A properly upgraded small ship is perfectly capable of defeating BCs without even taking a scratch.

Yes, Void Engine Speed DOES affect travel speed! Your Speed rating reduces Turns spent to travel distance. Void Engines with 30 Speed cross distances in significantly less Turns than Void Engines with 10 Speed.

[Seswatha]

Originally posted by Trese Brothers:

Originally posted by Seswatha:

Speed actually doesn't affect your travel speed on the global map, but the fuel costs for traveling are generally much higher for big ships, I assume medical and repair costs too as more crew gets injured and more components can get damaged.

Particularly combat wise, so far I haven't found a big ship that's better than small ships due to engine bonuses for evasion/accuracy/range change. Some can come close, but most of them are actually trash, if you think you'll get a BC and will be dominating combat you're most likely up for a disappointment. A properly upgraded small ship is perfectly capable of defeating BCs without even taking a scratch.

Yes, Speed DOES affect travel speed! Your Speed rating reduces Turns spent to travel distance.

Oh, nice to know, never noticed that visually. Even more reasons to stay small. You can do more = level up faster and earn more money.

[Trese Brothers]

Sorry, .. this is where everyone seems to get confused.

1. The visual animation speed of the ship does not increase by Void Engine Speed attribute. If you want your ship to fly faster, go into Options > Double Travel Speed. We are not trying to make players who want to play faster play with small ships. It's just a game option.

2. One of the effects of Void Engine Speed is that as you travel, less Turns are consumed. This is just about the game turn / game date. If you crossed 100 AU with a Speed 30 ship and 100 AU with a Speed 10 ship you'd see 2 things:
- the RL clock time (seconds elapsed) of the travel would be exactly the same
- the Turns consumed by the travel would be different, the 30 Speed ship would use less turns

[Seswatha]

Yeah, I know about the animation speed, changed it to Fast long time ago, it's just not very intuitive how much time traveling takes as you see distance but not the time on UI. Do you get more tests when traveling the same distance in a slow ship? (in other words, is it per turn or per unit of distance)?

[Taipan]

So, here is what I understand from what I read here, in other threads, and what I play tested in my small adventure ( plain testing, no gameplay :P ).
Small ships vs Big ships
A. Speed - Small ships are always faster than big ships, with the same upgrades ( maybe even with different engine upgrades ).
1. Missions have deadlines, so if you do missions and follow the eras, go small.
B. Crew maintenance
1. Always cheaper to maintain smaller.
C. Ship maintenance.
1. See B.1.
D. Cargo
1. It seems that bigger ships have the advantage of being able to carry more merchandise. Big wins. Always?
E. Crew fighting
1. Doesn't really matter since fights involve 4 vs 4 people. Or 5 vs 5? :P
F. Time
1. You get the small ships at the start of the game, for the big ships you need to invest time to make money for them. Not mission ( I mean story! ) friendly, since missions have deadlines, again.
G. Fuel costs
1. Small ships always better.
H. Ship combat
1. If I am not mistaken, agility, evasion and accuracy help a small ship with a good setup avoid hits. So it's more of nobody wins.
I. Dice?
1. The wiki has very little information about dice mechanics, so this one is out of my league.

So it seems to me that big ships are not worth it, especially if you are doing missions and following the story. Maybe I am awfully wrong, but it seems to me that they need more incentives.

[Lapo]

Yeah, dice mechanics should be explained better in the game since its how everything is decided. This is the wiki page that explains ship combat and dice https://startraders.gamepedia.com/Ship_Combat

[Bariel]

One thing that I don't think has been said here is that with a decently outfitted big ship you can be pretty good at everything because they support more modules and more crew.

A small ship tends to have to focus on being good in one or two areas, a big ship doesn't have to do this, and can be an all rounder.

In terms of the running costs, by the time you get to the part of the game when you can afford to buy a big ship, running costs should be trivial - there comes a point where money is a non issue.

It all comes down to personal preference - running a tight, small ship can be a lot of fun - flying around in an all purpose, heavily shielded and armoured tank, can also be fun :)

[Seswatha]

I'm afraid an "all round" big ship is gonna be terrible in combat on impossible, but you do get a bit more leeway in terms of crew and officers and their talents. The components build would be extremely strict if you hope to be anywhere even remotely near optimal in combat though.

[cadfan17]

Larger crew helps in two ways.

In crew combat a larger crew gives you a second and third line as your crew get injured. You can board more effectively or explore longer if you have a backup or two available for everyone who gets injured.

In ship combat it’s true that big ships don’t get evasion multipliers. But big ships carry more crew and more modules which means base values are higher. Plus they can take more hits for when evasion doesn’t work, and dish out damage faster with larger guns.

Remember that the game isn’t PvP. Sure, an Aeturnum Vindex with everything stripped down to max piloting and command is going to dodge really well. But you’re not shooting at that, and you’re not evading it’s fire. You’re dealing with the actual enemies the game throws at you. So the question is, if you swap out of that Vindex for a million credit ship with two more officers, twelve more crew, and twice as many components most of which are medium or large, can you make up the difference in evasion and durability and accuracy between the two hulls.

I’m pretty sure you can.

[Seswatha]

You do get more modules on big ships, but the difference is not near enough to make up for the speed/agility difference. I can fit like 6-7 assists on Vindex or more if I go pure boarding and skip guns. I cant fit 18-21 assists on Sword BC. Not that I think that a BC should be as evasive, the actual problem is that taking hits with your hull is too damn expensive. You lose a lot of money and what's worse potentially experienced crew. Ground combat has both dodge and armor builds, I think space combat should be the same. Another problem is that S slots rule because gunnery is pretty weak and there's no point in redundant guns or having more guns in M and L slots, except to free up S slots.

In crew combat, I always run builds that are optimized for exiting every combat at max hp and morale. Theoretically it should be nice to have a backup or two but I never need it past earlygame.

Overall, I sometimes like bigger ships to have a more diverse officers (like 2 non combat ones and 4 for combat) and bit more crew talents, but they're not better in space combat and as I just figured out they are also slower for doing missions which means less income unless you just farm one system for something without moving around much.

Yes, this isn't PvP but a big ship is more expensive to maintain, will incur higher risks in combat and in many cases the advantages are moot if exist at all. And no, I don't think you can actually make up for the difference in accuracy/evasion with more crew and components, just try possible layouts and do the math. The best option would be having a ton of high level commanders as your crew, but you need ~3 times as many to compete with a m2400 ship.

You can get to a threshold where a big ship would be "good enough", for a 9 speed BC that's probably 200+ total command score, pilot pool actually matters a lot less at this point, but tbh I just don't see a need for this.

And you do need to optimize quite a bit on certain difficulties and for some playstyles. Try fighting military ships and xeno early on on impossible with a GI or a dragon cruiser, you'll go bankrupt or die.