We all have LTI ships yes? Or at least most of us and some of us have fleets of the things. Am I saying LTI is worthless with my title? No in the short term, yes in the long term for most ships. What do I mean by that? Take your favorite ship, it can be a fighter, transport, whatever, even a capital ship. Short term you get a replacement over and over and over again because that's what Insurance guarantees unless you start defrauding the system.
Now lets say a couple years goes by. CIG certainly isn't going to stop concepting ships and putting new ones out that fill niche voids or new ones to make the verse feel more alive. Its just not going to stop happening unless the game is going down. Something Chris has mentioned and it was a fan suggestion was to have new 'models' of ships that manufacturers would produce every so often just like we do in the real world. And he quite liked the idea enough to make a note of it to discuss with the team. We can even see this somewhat with the F7A Mark 2.
Ok so you get the newest bad ass ship from Anvil and its a new Super Hornet. But no LTI. :( Sad. But that's ok, you have the old Super Hornet and its LTI. But the new model performs a bit better. You have insurance for it of course because you're not stupid but it isn't LTI. It means you have to pay upkeep on the insurance and it can run out if you don't renew.
CIG may have let us have 'cheap' LTI ships as upgrade insurance tokens but nothing stops them from completely neutralizing that slight advantage by putting out newer models of ships in game that are slightly better than their old counterparts. We see this in real life all the time not only with cars but nearly everything that we see in our daily lives. People will abandon their old ships for the new ones because they feel they need to stay current and keep their old ones mothballed until they REALLY need to use them again.
However, I feel LTI does have significantly more worth on any ships that are >170 meters. The big ones. Capital combat ships especially since the UEE is probably not constantly decommissioning Javelins and Idris Frigates. Nor can civilians just pop over to the store and buy such a beast. The manufacturers are also probably not going to be producing new slightly different models every year because the military tends to like consistency.
Smaller ships? LTI is probably worthless above 1 or 2 year insurance. More limited ships? Worth more but not much. Rare ships like a Scythe or other # produced ships? Worth a lot but probably won't transfer if sold in game.
Next time you REALLY want LTI think hard on it and beyond the immediate time but to the future. Its probably not it in most cases.
Now lets say a couple years goes by. CIG certainly isn't going to stop concepting ships and putting new ones out that fill niche voids or new ones to make the verse feel more alive. Its just not going to stop happening unless the game is going down. Something Chris has mentioned and it was a fan suggestion was to have new 'models' of ships that manufacturers would produce every so often just like we do in the real world. And he quite liked the idea enough to make a note of it to discuss with the team. We can even see this somewhat with the F7A Mark 2.
Ok so you get the newest bad ass ship from Anvil and its a new Super Hornet. But no LTI. :( Sad. But that's ok, you have the old Super Hornet and its LTI. But the new model performs a bit better. You have insurance for it of course because you're not stupid but it isn't LTI. It means you have to pay upkeep on the insurance and it can run out if you don't renew.
CIG may have let us have 'cheap' LTI ships as upgrade insurance tokens but nothing stops them from completely neutralizing that slight advantage by putting out newer models of ships in game that are slightly better than their old counterparts. We see this in real life all the time not only with cars but nearly everything that we see in our daily lives. People will abandon their old ships for the new ones because they feel they need to stay current and keep their old ones mothballed until they REALLY need to use them again.
However, I feel LTI does have significantly more worth on any ships that are >170 meters. The big ones. Capital combat ships especially since the UEE is probably not constantly decommissioning Javelins and Idris Frigates. Nor can civilians just pop over to the store and buy such a beast. The manufacturers are also probably not going to be producing new slightly different models every year because the military tends to like consistency.
Smaller ships? LTI is probably worthless above 1 or 2 year insurance. More limited ships? Worth more but not much. Rare ships like a Scythe or other # produced ships? Worth a lot but probably won't transfer if sold in game.
Next time you REALLY want LTI think hard on it and beyond the immediate time but to the future. Its probably not it in most cases.