Hull series price speculation thread

[FZD]

The hull series was originally the $34 million stretch goal, and we know that these really old ships usually go up in value quite a bit. This has yet to happen to the hull series.
So, with Hull A, B and C arriving possibly as soon as at the end of the year, I was thinking of having a fun round of speculation.

So let's hear everyone's "how much and why," I'll start:

Hull A:
With 48 SCU of cargo currently planned, and that's not a game breaking amount mind you so it might hold true, and a current price of $60 it does seem somewhat undervalued.
The closest comparison I can think of would probably be the Nomad. Now, Nomad has certainly more firepower, but then again it only has half the cargo capacity. Would you trade 24 SCU for bigger guns? Seems like a fair deal in either direction if you ask me. So, I'd say Hull A would likely end up closer to $80, possibly even $90 if you consider it allows for a clearer specialization than the Nomad.
Now, $20 increase on $60 ship might seem like a bit much, but if even a $20 merlin can go to $25, it's not really that much out of line. Also, the loaner is a $110 freelancer so seems like CIG doesn't think that there'd be a good match for it in the lower price range.

Hull B:
If it indeed keeps it's huge 384 SCU capacity, it's most definitely undervalued at $90. Now, pretty much everything else that has over 300 SCU is valued at well beyond $200, however pretty much everything that has over 300 SCU also does all sorts of other things. Perhaps considering that Caterpillar has 564 SCU at $300ish dollars, but better armaments, while Freelancer MAX has 120 SCU at $150 with again better armaments, would indicate that $150ish would be quite probable, give or take a tenner. The loaner is also freelancer MAX so, seems quite comparable.

Hull C:
The initial concept sale was $200, so it has already gone up $50. However, that 4,608 SCU capacity is where the insanity starts. Need to get downright mathematical here. We've seen a short video of Hull C carrying a load consisting of what appears to be those large SCU containers. (Since these are newer, I think it's likely to be more accurate than those weird old boxes.) In the vid we can see there are 3 containers on top of each other, 8 in a row and maybe 2 in a column. Then 2 spindles with 4 leaves each, if the large box contains 12 SCU cargo (2x3x2) then you'll get... 4608. So hey, maybe! Well. That's basically incomparable to anything else, BMM could have 3,584 but the next one down is Idris with 995. Caterpillar would be 564 but that's almost like 1/10th. Again, it's pretty much pure cargo, but man does it haul a lot. It's loaners are Caterpillar $295 and Reclaimer $400, so I'm going to make a wild guess at $350. I wouldn't be too surprised at $400 either, considering it started $50 behind BMM.

So, what do you guys think?

 

[Montoya]

For the amount of money these ships will be able to make you in-game, for sure there price is going to go up.

 

[Sirus7264]

I'm in complete agreement with this assessment. the larger ones though i think are going to be the largest increase. right now i have all my credits tied up in many ccus so i can't do much but i do plan to get a couple this year.

 

[Vavrik]

Hull C:

I have a Caterpillar I want to upgrade to the Hull C some day, but I haven't done anything about that yet. This is like the Sentinel for me, one of the ships that got me interested in the game. I couldn't quite see myself using anything larger. Every time I looked at them the Hull D and E start to look like big huge mobile targets of opportunity instead of a ship I'd like to fly.

 

[FZD]

I have a Caterpillar I want to upgrade to the Hull C some day, but I haven't done anything about that yet. This is like the Sentinel for me, one of the ships that got me interested in the game. I couldn't quite see myself using anything larger. Every time I looked at them the Hull D and E start to look like big huge mobile targets of opportunity instead of a ship I'd like to fly.

They certainly present a target, though if E and D indeed will have 2 capital shields each (and I don't see why not, they're both capital sized ships that rely heavily on shields and escorts) it'll take quite a few fighters to damage the ships themselves, although as I understand it the cargo might not be protected by the shields. There is no FR-line shield for capitals in game yet, but judging by the difference between Large FR and Industrial A grade shields, and then looking at 890 jump with capital industrial A grade shields, the hulls with overclocked capital FR shields could negate up to 6772/3784*18947= 33908 dps. So you'd need 4 heavy fighters with heavy DPS focus to even think of bringing down the shields. Or, well, a dedicated anti-capital bomber. Or a boarding party. Erm... okey, yeah... But the shields are solid!

And I mean, you'd obviously have a whole bunch of escorts with an E or D, probably couple extra goons inside the ship to fight boarders as well, though this might require you to tweak the life support system or something. The sort of haul an E or D has, I think there is plenty of profits to go around for a larger operation.

 

[vahadar]

My bets for my own upgrade paths :
Hull-A 5$ increase
Hull-B 10$ increase (unlikely 15$ like for Talon)
Hull-C 35-40$ increase (MSR was +35$ in that price range)
Hull-D +40$ (C2 price range)
Hull-E +40-50$

Considering recent price jumps in 2020-21 and assuming concepts will not change, since prices have gone up already.

 

[Bambooza]

The hull series was originally the $34 million stretch goal, and we know that these really old ships usually go up in value quite a bit. This has yet to happen to the hull series.
So, with Hull A, B and C arriving possibly as soon as at the end of the year, I was thinking of having a fun round of speculation.

So let's hear everyone's "how much and why," I'll start:

Hull A:
With 48 SCU of cargo currently planned, and that's not a game breaking amount mind you so it might hold true, and a current price of $60 it does seem somewhat undervalued.
The closest comparison I can think of would probably be the Nomad. Now, Nomad has certainly more firepower, but then again it only has half the cargo capacity. Would you trade 24 SCU for bigger guns? Seems like a fair deal in either direction if you ask me. So, I'd say Hull A would likely end up closer to $80, possibly even $90 if you consider it allows for a clearer specialization than the Nomad.
Now, $20 increase on $60 ship might seem like a bit much, but if even a $20 merlin can go to $25, it's not really that much out of line. Also, the loaner is a $110 freelancer so seems like CIG doesn't think that there'd be a good match for it in the lower price range.

Hull B:
If it indeed keeps it's huge 384 SCU capacity, it's most definitely undervalued at $90. Now, pretty much everything else that has over 300 SCU is valued at well beyond $200, however pretty much everything that has over 300 SCU also does all sorts of other things. Perhaps considering that Caterpillar has 564 SCU at $300ish dollars, but better armaments, while Freelancer MAX has 120 SCU at $150 with again better armaments, would indicate that $150ish would be quite probable, give or take a tenner. The loaner is also freelancer MAX so, seems quite comparable.

Hull C:
The initial concept sale was $200, so it has already gone up $50. However, that 4,608 SCU capacity is where the insanity starts. Need to get downright mathematical here. We've seen a short video of Hull C carrying a load consisting of what appears to be those large SCU containers. (Since these are newer, I think it's likely to be more accurate than those weird old boxes.) In the vid we can see there are 3 containers on top of each other, 8 in a row and maybe 2 in a column. Then 2 spindles with 4 leaves each, if the large box contains 12 SCU cargo (2x3x2) then you'll get... 4608. So hey, maybe! Well. That's basically incomparable to anything else, BMM could have 3,584 but the next one down is Idris with 995. Caterpillar would be 564 but that's almost like 1/10th. Again, it's pretty much pure cargo, but man does it haul a lot. It's loaners are Caterpillar $295 and Reclaimer $400, so I'm going to make a wild guess at $350. I wouldn't be too surprised at $400 either, considering it started $50 behind BMM.

So, what do you guys think?

The prices look good but I have a feeling the cargo space on these ships is going to come way down especially for C, D, E.

My guess would be that A would be 15 SCU given its size as all of the other small ships have a cargo under 10.
B would be half a cat so no more than 300 more like 250 SCU
I can see a C going up to 1000 maybe 1500 SCU
then 3000 for the D
and 5000 for the E.

 

[Vavrik]

I can see a C going up to 1000 maybe 1500 SCU
then 3000 for the D
and 5000 for the E.

A change like that would certainly not make a lot of Hull C, D and E owners happy, that's for sure. But I don't think CIG is going to make a lot of changes to those ships, or the Orion. I think that will also include the large capital ships too. The presence of one or more of these ships in a system is going to means someone is trying to control some aspect of the game, and others are going to take exception to that. I think we'd already see some of those exceptions occurring if trade and mining were much more viable than they are right now.

 

[vahadar]

The prices look good but I have a feeling the cargo space on these ships is going to come way down especially for C, D, E.

My guess would be that A would be 15 SCU given its size as all of the other small ships have a cargo under 10.
B would be half a cat so no more than 300 more like 250 SCU
I can see a C going up to 1000 maybe 1500 SCU
then 3000 for the D
and 5000 for the E.

If the Hull-B Q&A is an indication of potential value for cargo metrics, and considering the change for other ships listed there, I do not see a drastic drop below 50% at all. Those are pure cargo ships after all !

My guess is a max drop of 30-35%, but not more.

Q&A: MISC Hull B - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42

Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.

robertsspaceindustries.com

 

[FZD]

The prices look good but I have a feeling the cargo space on these ships is going to come way down especially for C, D, E.

My guess would be that A would be 15 SCU given its size as all of the other small ships have a cargo under 10.
B would be half a cat so no more than 300 more like 250 SCU
I can see a C going up to 1000 maybe 1500 SCU
then 3000 for the D
and 5000 for the E.

I'm thinking along the lines of @Vavrik and @vahadar here, like the capacities could drop a bit, but I don't think they'd drop that much.

For starters, 315p has 12 SCU of internal cargo, it's fast, agile and has pretty nice firepower and range.
If Hull A got 15 SCUs of external space, well, it'd be just entirely obsolete from the get go.
Besides, the cargo config needs to be something that makes a sensible cargo grid, so for Hull A it'd be 2*(2*2*3) = 24 SCU at least, could be 2*(2*2*4) = 32 SCU, 2*(2*2*5) = 40 SCU or 2*(2*3*4) = 48 SCU
So the cargo capacity could go down a bit, but I think CIG have shown that they'll much rather raise the dollar price by extra 50% or even 80% than entirely nerf the ship. A 24 SCU would then probably mean they're giving it another turret to defend itself (freelancer style), or possibly raise the sizes on the existing turret. Even if it was cheaper than the Nomad the ship should still be viable.

As for Hull B, well with 4 grids the 348 SCU config would probably be something like 4*(4*4*6), it'd honestly be easy to drop that to something like 4*(3*4*6) = 288 SCU, and that 384 SCU is pretty much anyhow, but I'd imagine if they did so the turret would get bigger guns and, well the ship would obviously be much nimbler due to weighing less. Or they could get rid of that bottom grid so the Hull B can still land with full freight, that'd make sense if A and B are intended to ferry from station to orbit.

Hull C, well I mean, we've already seen the designs implemented where Hull C is seen carrying what appears to be exactly 4,608 SCU. I rather doubt they'd make any drastic reductions there. Maybe they could drop a row in each direction (576 SCU) or even two (1152 SCU) but then their thinking would probably be along the lines of "How do we keep this ship from going up in price that much" which I think would be atypical for them.

Hull D is a capital sized dedicated heavy freighter, if it got brought down to half its current SCU, that'd pretty much mean that Javelin, Kraken, BMM and even Idris would also need to see similar reductions, especially since they have internal cargo grids. Like disregarding any dollar value notion, the ship needs to have its place in the verse.

Hull E... well, it's just crazy, and I can't even imagine a ship carrying 98k cargo but, maybe. I got really no idea here.

 

[Bambooza]

If the Hull-B Q&A is an indication of potential value for cargo metrics, and considering the change for other ships listed there, I do not see a drastic drop below 50% at all. Those are pure cargo ships after all !

My guess is a max drop of 30-35%, but not more.

Q&A: MISC Hull B - Roberts Space Industries | Follow the development of Star Citizen and Squadron 42

Roberts Space Industries is the official go-to website for all news about Star Citizen and Squadron 42. It also hosts the online store for game items and merch, as well as all the community tools used by our fans.

robertsspaceindustries.com

Yes and this was from 2015 when they were still working out cargo sizes and converting the old matrix to the new SCU used now. We have seen a lot of ships cargo capacity change from when they were originally concepted prior to this and now when it seems they have a better understanding of where they want each cargo ship capacity to fit. Take for instance the Carrack which had a slated cargo capacity of 1057 and has ended up with half that at 456. The Hornet went from 12 to 2. The Caterpillar did go up from 512 to 576 and the Freelancer max stayed pretty much the same at 123 vs 122.

What I am simply suggestion is that ship concepted before they firmly fixed the expected cargo grids and ship shape metrics can have a huge shift in cargo capacity. A lot of it is going to come down to both trying to keep the ship shape langue as well as make sure its cargo space fits within the expected role and risk/reward profit margin curves they are going for from a game design perspective. Its why the ships the C2 and M2 have such a drastic cargo capacity difference even though they both have the same internal cargo volume.

I'm thinking along the lines of @Vavrik and @vahadar here, like the capacities could drop a bit, but I don't think they'd drop that much.

For starters, 315p has 12 SCU of internal cargo, it's fast, agile and has pretty nice firepower and range.
If Hull A got 15 SCUs of external space, well, it'd be just entirely obsolete from the get go.
Besides, the cargo config needs to be something that makes a sensible cargo grid, so for Hull A it'd be 2*(2*2*3) = 24 SCU at least, could be 2*(2*2*4) = 32 SCU, 2*(2*2*5) = 40 SCU or 2*(2*3*4) = 48 SCU
So the cargo capacity could go down a bit, but I think CIG have shown that they'll much rather raise the dollar price by extra 50% or even 80% than entirely nerf the ship. A 24 SCU would then probably mean they're giving it another turret to defend itself (freelancer style), or possibly raise the sizes on the existing turret. Even if it was cheaper than the Nomad the ship should still be viable.

As for Hull B, well with 4 grids the 348 SCU config would probably be something like 4*(4*4*6), it'd honestly be easy to drop that to something like 4*(3*4*6) = 288 SCU, and that 384 SCU is pretty much anyhow, but I'd imagine if they did so the turret would get bigger guns and, well the ship would obviously be much nimbler due to weighing less. Or they could get rid of that bottom grid so the Hull B can still land with full freight, that'd make sense if A and B are intended to ferry from station to orbit.

Hull C, well I mean, we've already seen the designs implemented where Hull C is seen carrying what appears to be exactly 4,608 SCU. I rather doubt they'd make any drastic reductions there. Maybe they could drop a row in each direction (576 SCU) or even two (1152 SCU) but then their thinking would probably be along the lines of "How do we keep this ship from going up in price that much" which I think would be atypical for them.

Hull D is a capital sized dedicated heavy freighter, if it got brought down to half its current SCU, that'd pretty much mean that Javelin, Kraken, BMM and even Idris would also need to see similar reductions, especially since they have internal cargo grids. Like disregarding any dollar value notion, the ship needs to have its place in the verse.

Hull E... well, it's just crazy, and I can't even imagine a ship carrying 98k cargo but, maybe. I got really no idea here.

That's the thing. These ships are scaled by such a huge factor over any other ship that I am wondering just how much they will have to change so as to make them fit into the cargo ship carrying scale already established from a game design perspective. I am not suggesting I know what they are planning on doing but I do know that ships are balanced based upon their game design which as much as some players don't seem to catch and thus complain about why the M2 doesn't have the same cargo capacity as the C2 when they have the same internal volume. Its with this in mind that I look at the scale of ships currently in game and then look at the projected cargo size of these ships and wonder how that would work from a cargo profit per hour potential. After all if the Hull A and B have such a significant cargo size diff over ships in the same class then it makes those cargo ships irrelevant even if they have slightly more capabilities outside of cargo.

 

[FZD]

That's the thing. These ships are scaled by such a huge factor over any other ship that I am wondering just how much they will have to change so as to make them fit into the cargo ship carrying scale already established from a game design perspective. I am not suggesting I know what they are planning on doing but I do know that ships are balanced based upon their game design which as much as some players don't seem to catch and thus complain about why the M2 doesn't have the same cargo capacity as the C2 when they have the same internal volume. Its with this in mind that I look at the scale of ships currently in game and then look at the projected cargo size of these ships and wonder how that would work from a cargo profit per hour potential. After all if the Hull A and B have such a significant cargo size diff over ships in the same class then it makes those cargo ships irrelevant even if they have slightly more capabilities outside of cargo.

The thing is, we're currently entirely missing the sort of ships that Hull C, D and E are. Like let's say that you have a Hercules, hypothetically how this is going to work is, you land at some mining facility and purchase a bunch of ore for 4 UEC. You can then fly over to the nearest space port and sell it for 6 UEC, let's say this takes 15 minutes roundtrip. Would you fly an hour to reach a system where you could sell it for 10 UEC? You probably wouldn't, it's more profitable for you to do those 15 minute runs. Meanwhile a Hull D captain would probably be quite happy to pay 8 UEC at the station, fly an hour to another system and then sell it all for 10 UECs a piece. What with them being entirely unable to land at a mining facility and the quantities available there would be a waste of time anyhow. Then maybe some other Herc pilot in that system gets a mission to ferry some ore from the station to a mining facility and gets paid for that mission. Or maybe they make an UEC or something buying and selling it.

Anyhow, as you can see, the limitations of not being able to land on a planet put Hull C, D and E in a bit of a different category of ships, which is why you don't have to be too concerned of how something like a Hercules, Caterpillar, Connie, Freelancer, or even Hull A and B, would compare to them.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I think so long as you can count on players with ships like the Herc to haul from orbit to surface, the Hull C should be the number one hauler. For longer routes the Hull D and E make good sense, but you need more players.

The Hulls are supposed to produce greater hauling value than any other ships, but they absolutely NEED escorts and tenders moving from them to surface. The Hercs may easily find they make their best cash hauling orbit to surface, but still less than the vulnerable Hull series.

 

[vahadar]

Yes and this was from 2015 when they were still working out cargo sizes and converting the old matrix to the new SCU used now. We have seen a lot of ships cargo capacity change from when they were originally concepted prior to this and now when it seems they have a better understanding of where they want each cargo ship capacity to fit. Take for instance the Carrack which had a slated cargo capacity of 1057 and has ended up with half that at 456. The Hornet went from 12 to 2. The Caterpillar did go up from 512 to 576 and the Freelancer max stayed pretty much the same at 123 vs 122.

That is exactly why i speculate a max potential drop of 30-35% ;) If you check those cargo charts for the BMM, which is the last concept that has been updated from the list, we have now a cargo capacity of 30-35% of what was written then in that Q&A. This is the case for most other ships cargo change since that Q&A. Of course there can be some exceptions, like the Carrack. Anyway it is only "speculation" so no one knows until released :) But i do hope the Hull-E will still be above the 50k cargo capacity.

 

[Bambooza]

The thing is, we're currently entirely missing the sort of ships that Hull C, D and E are. Like let's say that you have a Hercules, hypothetically how this is going to work is, you land at some mining facility and purchase a bunch of ore for 4 UEC. You can then fly over to the nearest space port and sell it for 6 UEC, let's say this takes 15 minutes roundtrip. Would you fly an hour to reach a system where you could sell it for 10 UEC? You probably wouldn't, it's more profitable for you to do those 15 minute runs. Meanwhile a Hull D captain would probably be quite happy to pay 8 UEC at the station, fly an hour to another system and then sell it all for 10 UECs a piece. What with them being entirely unable to land at a mining facility and the quantities available there would be a waste of time anyhow. Then maybe some other Herc pilot in that system gets a mission to ferry some ore from the station to a mining facility and gets paid for that mission. Or maybe they make an UEC or something buying and selling it.

Anyhow, as you can see, the limitations of not being able to land on a planet put Hull C, D and E in a bit of a different category of ships, which is why you don't have to be too concerned of how something like a Hercules, Caterpillar, Connie, Freelancer, or even Hull A and B, would compare to them.

They still need to fit with in the profit making metric that all game loops will be balanced to. They said it will be far more based upon the risk/reward aspect over the perceived ship tier (outside the starter ships and even then it can be argued they will still have significant purpose) as there is no linear ship progression simply a ship that is best for a specific kind of task.

Until the the Hull series is brought into the game we will not know the cargo capacity. I am simply saying I would not be surprised if the cargo capacity of these ships is significantly reduced from what they were originally pitched at and later updated to a rough guess as to the SCU units.

 

[Talonsbane]

Will the prices of the Hull series ships increase? Of course they will, especially now that ship to station docking is in game, which has been a major hurdle for the Hull series as all of them from Hull C & up can't land while they're loaded with cargo. Will the listed cargo capacities drop, definitely since they were concepted using the old metrics. So I'd wager that they'll drop between 20%-35% when released into the verse for the "pirate" loot pinata vs security whack-a-mole feud to begin. Personally, the largest issues that I'll see them facing for a while will be how limited the supply resources will be from place to place & that as will all cargo / trade hauling in SC, the ship owner has to purchase all of the cargo up front. With how much cargo those will carry, that'll be a massive investment to risk losing to bugs, glitches & crashes.