Firstly its probably long since been answered but as I was away here goes:-
It is a mistake to try and own all ships imo and there are enough of us that you can experience the other ships probably whenever you want. The main advantage of the carrack is land exploration so far only the carrack and Aquila have the land rover. Whilst it has range cargo capacity etc you can experience the space exploration mechanics with cheaper ships. There will undoubtedly be a cheaper salvage ship and that may even be an option on the caterpillar (but it wont be free). So I would have the one whose play style most appeals to me.
The caterpillar is beautifully designed ship (looks) but you only have a limited capacity cargo hauler of the bat (without extra expense). It's advantage over hull ships is its armour and defense capabilities which it gives up a lot of cargo capacity for but unless there is a significant redesign the extra armour does not seem enough to enable the caterpillar to go into dangerous space on its own. If you need escorts you might as well take more cargo on a hull ship. That being said I haven't converted mine yet because actually you do not have to be optimal to have fun (for a non combat designed ship anyways).
I have my own similar issues but I wont spend anymore on the game so accept my limited capacity fleet and know I can buy other ships in game or crew with others.
Yeah, I never wanted to own all the ships. Just a few that I could play on my own plus one big one. Things got a bit out of hand, haha. My thought process was always that I can only fly one at a time. That being said, I've got a few smaller ships, but none of those smaller ships are industry oriented. Le sigh.
I'll get that sorted eventually. Haha.
The Cat isn't going anywhere. I feel like she will become more eventually. I have hope.
As for having too many large ships now, well, there are many TESTies. I'm sure I'll be loaning out ships.
Blind Owl,
I agree with some of the others. The Reclaimer makes more sense right now based on the little I know of what you want to do (btw, you should explain that in a little more detail)
Go out with IRS. They blow stuff up, you reclaim it. Everyone wins. You make lots of money and buy that Carrack.
That said, Test has a TON of multi-crew ships. Probably more than we can crew at this point. So...find a friendly person who has a Carrack they can loan out to you for operating costs plus a SLIGHT bit of profit (2% standard). If they are out in their Orion during that time, you can be the captain or some other officer (captain if you are paying the freight)...they can invite you along and you can crew up for them...this way you are not even paying for it.
What do I want to do. Well, I want to try everything g to see what I like. That being said, what I think I want to do when the game releases:
- Privateering. First and foremost. Not outright piracy, but in that grey area. Hired by this group or that corporation or some government to do their dirty work. They had it in Freelancer, I'm convinced it'll be in SC. Hence being in IRS.
- Salvage/treasure hunting. I want to find those hidden, relic wrecks with weapons, components, etc on board. Also nom nom nom enemies in combat. Because nothing says Fuck you like combat salvage. "Just because you think you're not scrap, doesn't mean you aren't." Hence IRS
- Exploration. I like finding shit. Places, things, stuff. I want to find those relics, wrecks, scrap fields, asteroid fields, etc. Then I want to exploit what I can. Hence Rock Raiders.
-Smuggling. Let's get a shipment of weapons to those mining colonists who are being blockaded by the big bad Evil Corp. Or food to those poor starving Vanduul.
-Combat in support of the above mentioned types of operations.
I honestly have the hardest time realizing that I'm in a big, awesome org. I mean, I'm on here every day, chatting with y'all, having a laugh. In the context of game play, however, I've never been in an org before. I've never had buddies to play with in any MMO before, with the exception of
@CrudeSasquatch. So I keep loosing sight if the fact that I will probably never be alone when flying through the 'Verse.
I know it's weird to here someone say that, given the activity level of our org. It stumps me too, and it's my mind. Haha.
