No more Hercules A2, Orion, or Hull-E Upgrades

Vavrik

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They're still available, but you have to buy a package they're in with other ships... it can get expensive. Nothing bigger than the Connie Aquila seems to be in the upgrade list, and some of the ones they list will tell you "not today buddy"[sic] when you try.
 

Crymsan

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Weird to have orion on list but not reclaimer seems based on size alone, maybe it is the usual server restrictions.
 
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FZD

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Well, at least Carrack isn't on that list yet, might get a CCU for it come next sale, and sit on it until I know whether I want to start with a Gemini, M2, Merchantman or Carrack. (Kinda liking my Gemini so far tbh)
 

Montoya

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I asked this same question a few months ago. I wanted to upgrade my 600i into an 890. They said it was not possible.

Then I argued back and forth for a few more emails, because you know they love these ongoing tickets :D
 

Thalstan

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It make sense in some cases...
The 890, Pioneer, and Phoenix variants for instance, plus the big capital ships like the Javelin, Idris, and Kraken. Those were always meant to be limited production ships, as was the Pioneer.

The Valkyrie Liberator is similar to the gold dragonfly. They will probably re-release it as in a package in the future.

But because they are limiting "skinned ships", I expect that both the Snowblind and the Dunestalker variants of the Ballista will be included in this list in the future as well as these are "limited editions"

The A2...I am wondering if they are re-thinking this ship, or have thought what a griefer might do with the ship. Fly high over the some random joe/jane's base that might be offline or off somewhere on their ship and just bomb them back to the stone age. Or dropping the bombs on Area 18 from outside the armistice zones. You are going to need to have a passive ballistic missile/bomb defense to counter these threats, and I am not sure they want to do that.

I can see why they might want to limit the Hull E. After all, the Hull A-D won't be limited so while they are not limited to the smallest hauling ship, they just can't get LTI on the biggest hauling ship. I still think that they should have done something like a "after this sale, this ship will be limited" rather then "surprise, the ship is now limited"

As for the Orion...hmmm, I think this might mean a medium sized mining ship is on the horizon. Much more in terms of what they originally thought the Orion would be. Unfortunately, they put in lore that the Orion was the biggest/best mining ship. If they had not, they could have left the Orion the size it was an introduced a bigger one, but now they have to grow the Orion and put in a medium one.
I wonder how this trend will impact the big industrial ships of the future. The Starfarer, the Crucible, and the Reclaimer. Each of those might become limited in the future as well. Maybe not the Starfarer, but I can really see them doing that to the Starfarer Gemini.

Something to think about.
 

Vavrik

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The A2...I am wondering if they are re-thinking this ship, or have thought what a griefer might do with the ship. Fly high over the some random joe/jane's base that might be offline or off somewhere on their ship and just bomb them back to the stone age. Or dropping the bombs on Area 18 from outside the armistice zones. You are going to need to have a passive ballistic missile/bomb defense to counter these threats, and I am not sure they want to do that.
This is something I've been watching, because I have an A2 and not likely to trade it in at least for the moment. It's SCM is surprisingly fast for a ship of this type, and it's armament is surprisingly strong. The A2 does have some serious weaknesses though, starting with its surface area, and its armament all points down, and requires team play to operate. As a griefer tool, any ship can be used to deal with offline players. That's a serious risk in this game, if every time you log in you're re-building. Any large ship you have is also at risk when you log out.

But, basically CIG built this game so far, to favor low risk hit and run. The word "griefing" is reduced to a very narrow set of almost circumstances, and I don't think that is going to change. Players who like to play alone and don't understand this are going to be incredibly unhappy. The risk for player owned bases is very high. I have 2 or 3 land claims (I can't remember if I was a dumbass and bought that last one) at least one of them is destined to be a donation to the Squadron, simply because what am I going to do with it? There isn't enough of me to protect that many bases. If there's a third, it's a spare for just in case.
 
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Crymsan

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They didn't need to increase the size of the orion though. If mining is highly efficient but spread out you do not need giant behemoths, it says more about their idea for mining than anything else. As it is it looks like the Orion will be largely inefficient making funds on scale.
 

Crymsan

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This is something I've been watching, because I have an A2 and not likely to trade it in at least for the moment. It's SCM is surprisingly fast for a ship of this type, and it's armament is surprisingly strong. The A2 does have some serious weaknesses though, starting with its surface area, and its armament all points down, and requires team play to operate. As a griefer tool, any ship can be used to deal with offline players. That's a serious risk in this game, if every time you log in you're re-building. Any large ship you have is also at risk when you log out.

But, basically CIG built this game so far, to favor low risk hit and run. The word "griefing" is reduced to a very narrow set of almost circumstances, and I don't think that is going to change. Players who like to play alone and don't understand this are going to be incredibly unhappy. The risk for player owned bases is very high. I have 2 or 3 land claims (I can't remember if I was a dumbass and bought that last one) at least one of them is destined to be a donation to the Squadron, simply because what am I going to do with it? There isn't enough of me to protect that many bases. If there's a third, it's a spare for just in case.
If making a base meant it was destroyed everytime you went offline it would not take long for base building to die out. Still not sure I would build one at the beginning of the game at least of my own.
 
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Montoya

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If mining is highly efficient but spread out you do not need giant behemoths
It comes down to how much material you can mine per hour.

The Orion will be the end-game mining ship, this thing will suck the precious materials out of an asteroid faster than anything else, otherwise there would be no reason for this ship.

My prediction is, if you start playing spreadsheets as many people will, nothing will beat the Orion when it comes to earning EUC/hr in the mining game.
 
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Crymsan

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Obviously but it cannot be efficient what I mean by that is if it was high quality and high volume it would break the economy so we know it wont be. The prospector is designed round higher quality but low volume but you have to run around to find the quality. With the size of the orion and therefore supposed cost of running it, it would make sense to actually have something smaller scout out the minerals. TIme will tell.
 

Radegast74

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Which really sucks because in November I wanted to upgrade my M2 to an A2.
Yeah, some of this is understandable, other parts are perplexing/head-scratching.

I really had no interest in anything like ground stuff...I bought a Pioneer anyway, lol, because I liked the idea about having an outpost & mining, but then thought, how the hell am I going to defend it?

I thought about the A2 and the Tonk, but didn't buy it then, as they didn't seem to really seem like it would be able to really protect an outpost from space ships.

NOW, with VTOL and the Ballista, I can see how it is coming together. I'd like to get a Ballista, but the only ship that can transport it is either the C2, M2,or A2. The A2 would nice, since it is made for combat ops, but now I can't get it? Oh well...I guess I can get a different sort of Hercules, then...
 

DirectorGunner

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The operative word "going forward" If you already purchased A2 CCUs, they are still honoring them as they were legit purchases. I have had a few A2 CCUs, and still have one. It's just from now on, they won't be selling them or unlocking them anymore. But for those that already have A2 CCUs, you should be able to gift them if you don't want them.

P.S.
They've HID the M2 and A2 CCUs in my case from my buybacks and I had to use the actual pledge numbers in links to see them again.
Which is fine for me, as long as they honor the purchases that are legit (they legitimately offered it for sale), it's all I care about.
 

Doyzer

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They've HID the M2 and A2 CCUs in my case from my buybacks and I had to use the actual pledge numbers in links to see them again.
Which is fine for me, as long as they honor the purchases that are legit (they legitimately offered it for sale), it's all I care about.
How did they hide them, mine still show. I also bought an m2 back from buyback list.
 

Bambooza

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I asked this same question a few months ago. I wanted to upgrade my 600i into an 890. They said it was not possible.

Then I argued back and forth for a few more emails, because you know they love these ongoing tickets :D
Wait... They told you no? Or was this just show while ushering you to your private room full of every ship.
 
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Bambooza

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It comes down to how much material you can mine per hour.

The Orion will be the end-game mining ship, this thing will suck the precious materials out of an asteroid faster than anything else, otherwise there would be no reason for this ship.

My prediction is, if you start playing spreadsheets as many people will, nothing will beat the Orion when it comes to earning EUC/hr in the mining game.
Only if you have the friend network to have haulers and guards available. I can see this also takes a great deal of time to set up and needing a sizeable belt to strip mine to be effective. IE if you only have 30 mins to an hour and no friends currently available it would be far more useful to use a prospector. But if you can spend the time to park in a belt with haulers to take the processed ore to market then yes it would be very lucrative.
 

August

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Only if you have the friend network to have haulers and guards available. I can see this also takes a great deal of time to set up and needing a sizeable belt to strip mine to be effective. IE if you only have 30 mins to an hour and no friends currently available it would be far more useful to use a prospector. But if you can spend the time to park in a belt with haulers to take the processed ore to market then yes it would be very lucrative.
Exactly. The Orion requires a supply chain which is why it’s end-game.
 
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DirectorGunner

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How did they hide them, mine still show. I also bought an m2 back from buyback list.
They disappeared from my buyback list. But since I keep all purchase melting emails which list the pledge numbers, I used the pledge number via the standard buyback URL and behold.. my buyback is purchase-able. Just not visible in my list.
 
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