My Fleet: OK Guys, I think I'm finally satisfied.

Dirtbag_Leader

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I'm not convinced I will need a fighter early game with those two.
Yeah but unless something changes drastically, neither of those will fit in your BMM or Polaris hangar! So I still thing you need a little Gladius or Hornet or even a 300er or something like that to carry along for local use in those big ships. And I agree LTI be damned for a little thing like that, and even planning to earn one in-game with UEC is probably fine, I'm just saying to make sure it's covered in your overall plan!
 

Shadow Reaper

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I went with the Polaris not only because I loved it as soon as I saw it, but I love the concept of it. The many turrets and add-on fighter gives it a high edge over ships of it's size and lower. Plus it has those hard hitting torpedos. I think in the right hands with a solid crew this ship can hit well above it's weight and slap around most small groups of fighters.
The trouble with this has always been the Polaris was slated for a single Large shield instead of Cap class. However, first analysis of the Odyssey already has players wondering of CIG won't need to upgrade the Polaris shield since it is bigger than the Odyssey and is a dedicated military ship. That may be true. Likewise i would not be surprised if the Polaris chin mount doesn't go to S6 with a flack/canister launcher as proposed back several years ago, to shoot down missiles, torps and small fighters.
 

Aramsolari

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The trouble with this has always been the Polaris was slated for a single Large shield instead of Cap class. However, first analysis of the Odyssey already has players wondering of CIG won't need to upgrade the Polaris shield since it is bigger than the Odyssey and is a dedicated military ship. That may be true. Likewise i would not be surprised if the Polaris chin mount doesn't go to S6 with a flack/canister launcher as proposed back several years ago, to shoot down missiles, torps and small fighters.
Everything is subject to change...even after a ship is released.

The Carrack expanded in size. Likewise the Merchantmen received quite the boost in terms of size and capabilities. I'll expect CIG to revisit the Polaris as well based on the game's needs and how the ship will fair to it's competitors.

I do agree. At the very least, it must be more powerful than similar sized ships like the Carrack and the Odyssey. I expect the Polaris to be equal to the Merchantman defensively and it's superior offensively. Otherwise what's the point when the other ships probably have more utility?

We'll definitely know when the ship leaves White Box stage and moves on to the next stage of development.
 

Bambooza

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Jeez, I personally would think so! IMO Explorer has a lot more intersting going for it than the silly Touring variant, but hey just one Testie's opinion!
Not sure the 600 Explorer is better than the Corsair for exploring and even if it was there is no point in the overlap. Not sure the touring is going to be useful in the verse (still not selling mine) but it has the potential to have its own game loops.
 

Thugari

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I really like the perceived possibilities with a ship like the Medivac. I'll start by assuming players are able to respawn in it.

Now we're assaulting a a key location, trying to hold a point (Something like Battlefield game play) and take over a strategic resource or something. It's become mostly a land battle as it would realistically. We're taking losses. Your Medivac on the front lines dodging blasters and missiles while you're "filling up" with members that are respawning. Then touching down to drop off fresh troops and switch out roles by picking up the injured and allowing them to be treated.

Or situations where you have to seek out the other teams Medivac and destroy them to cripple their progress.

I look at alot of these ships as traditional MMO rolls. Medivac and the like are the Healers.

My imagination runs wild over the gameplay possibilities. As I almost always play a support role in MMOs. Usually a Healer or Tank.
My question about a medivac ship is this. You have these people respawning on your medivac, are they able to call a ship from it? or are they grounded till you get to port so they can call one?
 

Blind Owl

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My question about a medivac ship is this. You have these people respawning on your medivac, are they able to call a ship from it? or are they grounded till you get to port so they can call one?
That sir, is a VERY good question.

For that matter, ships with docks/pads, like the Kraken, will you be able to spawn ships there?

We're going to have to have some way to spawn ships in the dark reaches of space, aren't we? Or will we need to plan enough in advance that if something horrible happens, we have redundancy with us?

The questions . ..
 

Talonsbane

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I'm thinking that When I have my Medivac in game & I'm using it to help heal or resurrect TESTies during combat activities, that I'll require them to store at least a case of beer in the ships storage for themselves before they can log into the beds, because hangovers suck & I wager waking up from being dead has to be a bit like a massive hangover. Hair of the dog saves others from dealing with you bitching because of hangover healing symptoms. Cheers!
 

Bambooza

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My question about a medivac ship is this. You have these people respawning on your medivac, are they able to call a ship from it? or are they grounded till you get to port so they can call one?
Calling of ships like we currently do is going away. They have said that everything is physicalized the only exception seems to be with public ports where they do not physically have the size needed to store everyone's ships and so it's going to act sort of like it does now in that you can summon ships that exist at that port and they will be placed in a hanger for you. What is not known is if the personal hanger will grow/shrink to fit all of your ships or will act like the ports hanger in that you can spawn a ship into your hangar that is stored there. They have talked about ships with hangars having a spawning option but it's unknown if it's a temporary enhancement to work around current limitations within the game or if they want it to be a feature to allow you to place ships that are within the same area to be quickly added. In some ways it goes against the design docs of everything being physical and thus is the source of confusion. As for out in space, ships like the Kraken, Idris and Endeavor in theory would only have the ships that someone parked in them and would not be spawning / despawning ships. This does get messy when you think about another player landing their ship on yours then logging out in their bed. When they come back into the game where would they spawn in. The final takeaway would be while it's not known I would bet that ships parked in/on other ships landing pads will remain physicalized in-game as long as the parent ship does and will be tied to that ship until it's unlocked. That I will not be able to wake up on your Kraken and summon my Gladius that I had last parked in Lorville. But my Hornet that I had parked on pad 3 will still be there tieing up pad 3 since you didn't want to ditch it yesterday when I logged out. But you're frustrated as it was preventing another player from using the pad to land their Mustang before joining you on a mission.

Another topic of consideration is if tier 2 beds will always act like spawn points or if that feature will move to tier 1. I have a feeling that tier 2 can act as a spawn if another player drags your body back to it.
 

Ploeperpengel

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As @Dirtbag_Leader said, I think you'd want to pick up a fighter. Personally, I think something like a Hornet might be just perfect, a medium fighter with decent damage output that can handle those situations where you're going solo against lighter fighters, possibly during some more beginner missions and whatnot. Also comes with an option for taking a second player with you, so it's pretty neat, but without any gun sitting idle when you don't.
I've been flying it around this IAE and man, it's just so satisfying to fly.

Also, compared to everything else in your fleet, Hornet costs like a peanut and a half.
All big ships come with loaner fighters for Arena Commander. He currently should have Arrow, Buccaneer, 325a, Vanguard Harbinger and Defender. Don't see how a Hornet could add much to that ;)

Edit: oh and Cutlass Red but unsure whether that will stay after release of the medivac
 

FZD

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All big ships come with loaner fighters for Arena Commander. He currently should have Arrow, Buccaneer, 325a, Vanguard Harbinger and Defender. Don't see how a Hornet could add much to that ;)

Edit: oh and Cutlass Red but unsure whether that will stay after release of the medivac
I didn't realize that arena commander was the end goal here...
As for the universe side of things, you don't get to keep your loaners, so relying on them is not a viable strategy.
 

Ploeperpengel

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I didn't realize that arena commander was the end goal here...
As for the universe side of things, you don't get to keep your loaners, so relying on them is not a viable strategy.
Arena Commander loaners are flyable in the persistent universe. I know of no plans to abolish AC anytime soon if ever - they even improved it right now after all. Even a "finished" game needs a tutorial and since you can't play the tutorial which is AC in a Caterpillar i.e. it's quite likely a Caterpillar owner get's to keep his Buccanner loaner for the foreseeable future.

Loaners as replacements for concepts is a different thing to secondary loaners that enable you to play all game modes. If or how that will change we don't know.
 

FZD

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Arena Commander loaners are flyable in the persistent universe. I know of no plans to abolish AC anytime soon if ever - they even improved it right now after all. Even a "finished" game needs a tutorial and since you can't play the tutorial which is AC in a Caterpillar i.e. it's quite likely a Caterpillar owner get's to keep his Buccanner loaner for the foreseeable future.

Loaners as replacements for concepts is a different thing to secondary loaners that enable you to play all game modes. If or how that will change we don't know.
I think it's safe to say that those loaners will go away in time, the only thing we don't know is whether it's next month, next year (which is also next month. Ermh) or later. Yes, you can take loaners into account while planning an interim fleet for this patch or the next, but you shouldn't do any long term plans around them.
 

Ploeperpengel

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I think it's safe to say that those loaners will go away in time, the only thing we don't know is whether it's next month, next year (which is also next month. Ermh) or later. Yes, you can take loaners into account while planning an interim fleet for this patch or the next, but you shouldn't do any long term plans around them.
There is a possibility that some might change or go away in the sense they might only be available in AC but not the PU anymore at some point - or maybe not. But I won't be severely handicapped if I don't buy a small ship even then. Because you can simply buy them in game if you need them with just a couple of trade flights with a Cat i.e.

It's even less necessary with ground vehicles. You can buy a cyclone in game for less than 30K AUEC. No point to buy one for money other than to use it as an LTI Token maybe.

A Cutlass Black is a mere 1.3mil atm. You can rent a cutlass for allmost nothing and earn it relatively fast - unless bugs destroy your profit. With a big ship it's almost effortless.

My long term plan is to avoid the hard grind. Therefore I really only need a couple of big ships I don't want to work hard for to own them (I probably won't need most of them in game as well because I can't really make use of them on my own anyway).
 
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FZD

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There is a possibility that some might change or go away in the sense they might only be available in AC but not the PU anymore at some point - or maybe not.
No, there is definitely no 'maybe' about it.

But I won't be severely handicapped if I don't buy a small ship even then. Because you can simply buy them in game if you need them with just a couple of trade flights with a Cat i.e.
But where will you get the money to do the trade runs with the cat? aUEC gets definitely wiped before the game goes live. And a number of times even before that.

It's even less necessary with ground vehicles. You can buy a cyclone in game for less than 30K AUEC. No point to buy one for money other than to use it as an LTI Token maybe.
I don't think anyone is advocating for buying a ground vehicle. They're not very good at making money on their lonesome, though maybe this'll change in the future. Nevertheless, a ship is a far better choice.

A Cutlass Black is a mere 1.3mil atm. You can't rent a cutlass for allmost nothing and earn it relatively fast - unless bugs destroy your profit. With a big ship it's almost effortless.
We don't really know if aUEC == UEC. My guess would be that aUEC is something like 0.1 UEC or 0.01 UEC, what with specifically being a different currency and starter packages coming with mere 1k UEC or so, I mean, otherwise you could just fly around in a Hornet for like an extended weekend or so and buy a 600i. Hmm... I don't really know if that's a bad thing, actually. But the reason 80% of my pledges are large and capital ships is because I'm kinda assuming it'd be a bit more difficult than that.

My long term plan is to avoid the hard grind. Therefore I really only need a couple of big ships I don't want to work hard for to own them (I probably won't need most of them in game as well because I can't really make use of them on my own anyway).
Stuff like building up rep can be really tiresome with a larger ship, trust me, I've tried. If you absolutely refuse to go under a medium, something like Cutlass black isn't a bad option either, though having flown that extensively I'm still planning on getting a hornet.
 

Sky Captain

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Everyone has fine points on the fighter. In the end I can always pick one up as a stand alone. (I still think it would be an LTI waste though.) But as I just watched @Montoya 's IAE Drake video I have to agree with him completely about the Corsair. I don't see why I'd have to even step foot in a fighter if I have one. The Corsair should handle most missions I would come across and will likely be my "every day carry". Or even the Redeemer. I'm not convinced I will need a fighter early game with those two....
I tend to feel the same. But how they balance gameplay in the end will be the key. My hunch is fighters ultimately get more yaw (turn rate) stats that consistently are better than even-slightly-heavier 'multicrew' vessels. That may give enemy fighters an edge in a dogfight, sans missiles, if turrets (especially auto-turrets) on the multi-crew ship cannot keep up. Fighters may also come with the benefit of a little lower signature / more surprise. CIG almost has to balance fighters this way to keep them relevant vs. a multi-crew ship bristling with more guns. Else, I agree, why fly them.
 
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