Sanity Check: Fleet Construction

[littlej0e]

What approach and/or thought process did you guys use to build your fleet? CCU or purchasing ships directly?

I built most of my fleet via CCUs with LTI tokens (dragonflies) instead of purchasing ships straight away. In my mind, this seemed like the much more flexible approach as I can always melt and change whatever I need to and don't have to worry about sacrificing LTI. I obviously missed out on perks like ship name reservations, posters, skins, extras, etc., but this still seemed like the more sane way to go given the unpredictable nature of active game development. Also, with CIG recently releasing a slew of "multi-role" ships (see Vulcan, Star Runner, and Corsair), it appears the snake is starting to eat it's own tail and flexibility is now more important than ever.

What say you? CCU, direct buy, or something else?

 

[Bruce]

It is relatively easy - I recommend to combine both . When you see rare to "extremely rare" ship first time - it would be good idea to buy it using real money to get LTI (and melt right away) ... for others - you already have time proven strategy of upgrades to cheap LTI tokens

 

[Mich Angel]

I used every conceivable way you can do from CIG store and then some... ha ha CHEERS!

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I don't understand enough about NPC pilots to know what ships to own. I'd love to be able to sit second seat in a Sentinel, with a pair of Hoplites and three Harbingers all flying as one unit, but we still don't know much about what NPC pilots will be capable of. Likewise with carrying several Razor EX in a Polaris--can you program NPCs to fly specific search patterns or is the best we can hope that NPC pilots can escort the player? I don't get it, but I see huge utility in owning several of the same kind of ship if indeed we can hire NPCs for simple tasks like flying search patterns in a Razor or terrestrial stealth recon on an X1 Force. Would be great if the same NPCs could be used for both roles and leave the really demanding jobs as bridge crew for the players.

 

[littlej0e]

I don't understand enough about NPC pilots to know what ships to own. I'd love to be able to sit second seat in a Sentinel, with a pair of Hoplites and three Harbingers all flying as one unit, but we still don't know much about what NPC pilots will be capable of. Likewise with carrying several Razor EX in a Polaris--can you program NPCs to fly specific search patterns or is the best we can hope that NPC pilots can escort the player? I don't get it, but I see huge utility in owning several of the same kind of ship if indeed we can hire NPCs for simple tasks like flying search patterns in a Razor or terrestrial stealth recon on an X1 Force. Would be great if the same NPCs could be used for both roles and leave the really demanding jobs as bridge crew for the players.

This is a hell of a good point and one I hadn't considered. If ship loadouts will indeed be static, it might make sense to carry multiple ships of the same type for a specified role.

As for NPC AI, your guess is as good as mine. But I do think NPCs will ultimately be limited by the complexity of programming AI in the first place. Elite Dangerous is a perfect example. NPCs can basically fly and flight by themselves, but anything that requires actual decision making (or the illusion of it) ends up being complete garbage. Kind of hard to avoid it though.

Similarly, I suspect we will get more "human-guided" AI with SC. Maybe something like a command and control submenu with a handful of options such as: "Passive" "Defensive", "Fire-at-Will", etc. This type of AI should get the job done. It would be exceptionally difficult for CIG to program anything beyond this. So much so that it probably wouldn't be worth the time and effort to try. OTOH, simple AI should work perfectly with something like voice attack...

 

[Michael]

My approach is:
I like having LTI on my ships, also it has been stated several times that its not of a big deal.

Whenever i had fun in the PU and see progress i virtually put a little cash aside (10-20$). Thats why my budget for SC is limited and my approach is buying some cheap LTI tokens and ccu my way up, to the ships i like.
So currently even if i wanted, i "couldn't" buy those expensive concept ships with LTI (which would require warbond).

I prefer having low crew demands and also don't expect having really smart NPC. They are probably good for turrets but i don't expect them to do smart tasks.

Next approach is: Earning ingame cash over rest. So whatever you think, you'll like to do to earn money should be the ship you invest the most. Also i expect to you will more likely want to modify your combat ship and most likely loose it. Which is limiting the effect of LTI. (as you'll have to reinsure the upgraded parts)

 

[Printimus]

Just buy whatever ships you think you will play with most in the verse.

 

[Mich Angel]

My approach is:
I like having LTI on my ships, also it has been stated several times that its not of a big deal.

Whenever i had fun in the PU and see progress i virtually put a little cash aside (10-20$). Thats why my budget for SC is limited and my approach is buying some cheap LTI tokens and ccu my way up, to the ships i like.
So currently even if i wanted, i "couldn't" buy those expensive concept ships with LTI (which would require warbond).

I prefer having low crew demands and also don't expect having really smart NPC. They are probably good for turrets but i don't expect them to do smart tasks.

Next approach is: Earning ingame cash over rest. So whatever you think, you'll like to do to earn money should be the ship you invest the most. Also i expect to you will more likely want to modify your combat ship and most likely loose it. Which is limiting the effect of LTI. (as you'll have to reinsure the upgraded parts)

Yeah they say LTI is not a big deal, well I agree if you have one two or three ships but how much deal does it do when you have 25-35 or even more...
I see LTI as one less UEC less to pay one more to insurance for stuff that don't get comvered by LTI... Cargo for one example...
So IMO LTI can make a shit load of difference..

CHEERS!

 

[Michael]

Yeah they say LTI is not a big deal, well I agree if you have one two or three ships but how much deal does it do when you have 25-35 or even more...
I see LTI as one less UEC less to pay one more to insurance for stuff that don't get comvered by LTI... Cargo for one example...
So IMO LTI can make a shit load of difference..

CHEERS!

I agree to that opinion. I just repeated the official statement. :)

Also we know that ships bought with real money won't get lost if they get destroyed without an insurance.

 

[Gr33nh0use]

I'm going the one ship upgraded slowly route. started with a Aurora to Avenger then to a Kor and now a Cutlass. No LTI as of yet but thinking i'll keep the Cutlass as my small ship and purchase a bigger ship for larger cargo jobs, possibly with LTI in the future.

 

[Bruce]

Also we know that ships bought with real money won't get lost if they get destroyed without an insurance.

I hope it applies to CCU-ed ships as well

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Also we know that ships bought with real money won't get lost if they get destroyed without an insurance.

However we also know that components lost when a ship goes boom will be expensive to replace. One of the things I like about the Razor EX is that although it may be worth replacing the shield or reactor, it is very serviceable as is. It seems would be nice to have a bird you enjoy stock, just so you can hone your skills at virtually no cost.

 

[littlej0e]

Yeah they say LTI is not a big deal, well I agree if you have one two or three ships but how much deal does it do when you have 25-35 or even more...
I see LTI as one less UEC less to pay one more to insurance for stuff that don't get comvered by LTI... Cargo for one example...
So IMO LTI can make a shit load of difference..

CHEERS!

Great advice and perspective here. LTI is a pretty damn good idea if you intend to manage a fleet. 1 UEC is still 1 UEC.

 

[BUTUZ]

Hmm....you sure it's a good idea asking advice from a group of people that have collectively wasted millions of dollars on pixels? ;) :D

 

[Shadow Reaper]

This is a hell of a good point and one I hadn't considered. If ship loadouts will indeed be static, it might make sense to carry multiple ships of the same type for a specified role.

Yes, it often makes good sense to use multiple ships of the same kind or closely connected kinds, like the Vanguard variants; in groups. One of the benefits of the Vanguard is it has very high speed for a ship with such great range. If you combine it with ships that are slower, or that have shorter range, then you reduce that important benefit substantially.

We're all accustomed to considering what individual ship we'd like to fly, but the NPC pilot issue opens up a whole new can of worms. If NPC pilots deliver what one suspects CR would like, then I can certainly see myself owning a fleet of Vanguards and simply adding to that fleet over time. Likewise one could specialize in stealth troop landing by running multiple Prowlers. One can only begin to imagine all the use such a strike group could have, all of which would be lost if you were mixing and matching various transports.

Similarly with scout craft. If in order to fly a complete grid search you need X number of ships to accomplish this in reasonable or required time, your choices are between PC and NPC pilots. I've been instrumental in very large, complex survey operations at both Alion Nova Guard and The Wraiths at SWC, and I can tell you no one enjoys them. Players will participate, but they would almost always rather be off doing other things. So given effectiveness in the SC universe is likewise predicated upon cooperative play, and that some sorts of play will require significant periods of time on the part of many players; it only makes sense to optimize as many such future operations with similar class craft using as many NPCs as possible. Given CIG ever delivers on the exploration claims for SC, there will be a day when the gates are flung open and a limited resource of unexplored space will be offered. That offer can only last as long as it takes the players to explore it, and IMHO, we'd want to run point on that since as the largest player org, we'd stand more a chance to win that gambit and have more to gain than anyone else. So lets talk exploration fleets. . .

We don't even know what the stakes of the game are yet, in exploration. Its not even on the current roadmap, so gotta be 4.0 or later. However, if it were to turn out that players and their organizations actually take possession of planets they discover, their resources, jump gate control, gain special limited access to ancient alien technologies through artifacts, etc., then TEST is certainly in the best place to form the most efficient survey forces, and I think we'd have to hope to make extensive use of NPCs. If each player can become an entire fleet, searching entire sectors in record time, effectively multiplying our numbers by a large factor, seems we'd be mad to not do that.

 

[August]

Ships are like (insert your gender preference)friends. Just get the pretty ones.

 

[maynard]

spending RL money for Internet Spaceship Pixels isn't a rational process

all the rationalising happens after the fact

 

[Sirus7264]

every anniversary sale i check out whats coming out for that year using the tracker and decide which will increase in value and i purchase and hold those CCUs for the year. Then when extremely rare ships come out i normally buy them and just hold them. I have 2 ships i need to buy back in this next year but cant until i get my house construction finished.

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

I joined the project in 2015, so was too late to be able to grab the things I liked the look of at concept so the allure of LTI had to be got by CCUing from other LTI ships.

I started with the Aurora Game Package which was and still is my only non LTI ship. I made the rookie mistake of CCUing that ship - I eventually via an Avenger Titan, to Avenger Warlock, ended up with it being a Hornet Ghost...

Then I discovered LTI. So in a very fraught couple of minutes I melted my game package and then bought it back with credit, freeing up all of that credit that had turned the Aurora into a hornet ghost. I then got an LTI token and CCU'd that into a Constellation Taurus with the credits.

That should have been that, one small ship, one big ship. I was happy.

Over the years CCU's came and went, a few LTI tokens to try various rides that performed well at the time. I have owned and melted an Avenger Warlock, Hornet Ghost, Saber, all CCUs, all melted and gone. I had a herald, liked it, melted it. Had an Aurora LX, liked it, melted it, rebought it, had that cycle enough times the ship is now called "the wicked witch of the west", current status is melted but she will return... But ships like the 350R that i found to be genuinely special and especially fun to fly I got and kept hold of with an iron grip, ships like that are my go-to and will never go...

One day, someone here on TEST said "The smart pledging goes on the bigger ships - get yourself a Capital and you won't have months or even years of grind in the finished game to get one". They had a point. They had a good point.

I looked at the capital ship options and noticed the Endeavor, ignored and languishing sad and alone out in the cold. It held two major advantages which at the time no other capital could come close to: At $350 for the Base version, it was well within reach of my CCU/melt credit pool, and at that time it was the only ship with a hangar that you could park other ships in. Why put up with flying one ship at a time, when you can pack your ship with your other ships and tour the 'Verse without all that tedious mucking about shuttling ships to new ports or wasting time and money getting NPC's etc to do it. The Particle Collider for overclocking also caught my attention.

So now I have not just a capital ship, I have a Mother Ship which will be my home in the 'Verse, because with 100 systems eventually at my feet, why would I put down roots and settle in just one?

 

[littlej0e]

I joined the project in 2015, so was too late to be able to grab the things I liked the look of at concept so the allure of LTI had to be got by CCUing from other LTI ships.

I started with the Aurora Game Package which was and still is my only non LTI ship. I made the rookie mistake of CCUing that ship - I eventually via an Avenger Titan, to Avenger Warlock, ended up with it being a Hornet Ghost...

Then I discovered LTI. So in a very fraught couple of minutes I melted my game package and then bought it back with credit, freeing up all of that credit that had turned the Aurora into a hornet ghost. I then got an LTI token and CCU'd that into a Constellation Taurus with the credits.

That should have been that, one small ship, one big ship. I was happy.

Over the years CCU's came and went, a few LTI tokens to try various rides that performed well at the time. I have owned and melted an Avenger Warlock, Hornet Ghost, Saber, all CCUs, all melted and gone. I had a herald, liked it, melted it. Had an Aurora LX, liked it, melted it, rebought it, had that cycle enough times the ship is now called "the wicked witch of the west", current status is melted but she will return... But ships like the 350R that i found to be genuinely special and especially fun to fly I got and kept hold of with an iron grip, ships like that are my go-to and will never go...

One day, someone here on TEST said "The smart pledging goes on the bigger ships - get yourself a Capital and you won't have months or even years of grind in the finished game to get one". They had a point. They had a good point.

I looked at the capital ship options and noticed the Endeavor, ignored and languishing sad and alone out in the cold. It held two major advantages which at the time no other capital could come close to: At $350 for the Base version, it was well within reach of my CCU/melt credit pool, and at that time it was the only ship with a hangar that you could park other ships in. Why put up with flying one ship at a time, when you can pack your ship with your other ships and tour the 'Verse without all that tedious mucking about shuttling ships to new ports or wasting time and money getting NPC's etc to do it. The Particle Collider for overclocking also caught my attention.

So now I have not just a capital ship, I have a Mother Ship which will be my home in the 'Verse, because with 100 systems eventually at my feet, why would I put down roots and settle in just one?

Thanks for taking the time to respond. Your post has everything: informed opinion, a good story, honesty, wisdom, humor, and eloquence. I wish I could mark this thread as "solved by NaffNaffBobFace".

I'm of similar opinion regarding capital ships. I was actually looking at a few when I read your post. If you had to do it all over again, and knowing what you know now, would you still go with the Endeavor? Complete self-sustainability is an enormous draw...