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Author Topic: Superfreighters  (Read 4010 times)

Kaucukovnik

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Superfreighters
« on: November 29, 2016, 03:38:27 AM »

With multiple mods installed, capital-sized freighters feel rather underwhelming. The only reason to use them appears to be the arbitrary 25 ship limit. Their maint&fuel/capacity ratio is inferior to smaller freighter ships, capacity hullmods give pitiful bonus considering their base capacity and OP costs and your entire fleet's speed goes down. If you want to keep your speed up, you can get some tugs, which renders the "fewer ships" point moot.

Furthermore, many big cargo ships also want to be somewhat combat-capable, which is then being offset by turning their maintenance cost and/or fuel consumption up to eleven. This would work a lot better if you couldn't just exclude parts of your fleet from battle most of the time and always had to think about their defenses.

I have noticed this tendency in several mods. Blackrock's Eschaton  carries much less than Atlas, has more than twice the maint cost and consumes just as much fuel. Same for the Imperial Barrus class, at least that one is a bit faster.
On the other hand ASP's Gigantophis is a beast, 750 cargo + flight decks and enough OP for okay weapons, you can have over 2000 cargo plus 6 flight decks for less than Atlas' fuel consumption. Dassault-Mikoyan cargo ships  are very efficient, especially as dedicated haulers with capacity hullmods.

If large freighters are less efficient, why would anyone even construct them? Is the fleet size limit an in-universe phenomena that affects space logistics?
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Deshara

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Re: Superfreighters
« Reply #1 on: November 29, 2016, 05:12:07 AM »

because 25 atlas are better than 25 hounds. The Atlas aren't supposed to be useful for someone concerned with fuel/cargo efficiency, if you're dividing those two numbers it's not the ship for you
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Orikson

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Re: Superfreighters
« Reply #2 on: November 29, 2016, 06:11:13 AM »

I know this http://fractalsoftworks.com/forum/index.php?topic=10430.0 is rather old and doesn't cover mod ships, but it covers a few good points on some shipping efficiency.
« Last Edit: November 29, 2016, 06:13:50 AM by Orikson »
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Kaucukovnik

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Re: Superfreighters
« Reply #3 on: December 01, 2016, 05:54:02 AM »

because 25 atlas are better than 25 hounds. The Atlas aren't supposed to be useful for someone concerned with fuel/cargo efficiency, if you're dividing those two numbers it's not the ship for you

It has damn good stats in vanilla. It's the smaller freighters from mods what breaks it.

And if I was to accept the ship limit being a thing for everyone and affecting shipbuilding industry, what happened then so that no more than 25 ships can travel together, ever?

And let's try to deduce some further lore from UI and gameplay limitations in the current build:
-Like ships, there cannot be too many captains in a single fleet, it's below half the max number of ships actually. Not every ship can a afford a captain these days, you know? Maybe they are all horrible people and bicker constantly if kept in greater concentrations.
-Captains cannot plot automatic course that is not straight, nor can they task another crew member with piloting while they drink their hot Earl Grey. You cannot really trust anyone but yourself. Luckily sleep has been eliminated so that an admiral can personally babysit his fleet 24/7.
-People no longer eat food nor require payment beyond the initial hire. Having a known name and face means you cannot die at all, just like ship captains and station officers. Keeping in contact has become difficult though, you will never meet again a captain you dismissed.
-Planetary conquest is completely forbidden (almost forgot this one thanks to Nexerelin). Despite all the war and misery, people are decent enough that they don't conquer each other's planets or stations anymore. War is waged exclusively to cause annoyance, create trading opportunities and gain experience points.

Wow, the Collapse must really have been something!

You see, I happily overlook gameplay mechanics that don't have an in-universe explanation, unless the world and the way it works is also heavily affected by them. Everything I listed above is silly, but I don't have to be bothered by it. I wouldn't treat my crew different if they died of old age over time. If one of my captains died, I'd probably reload anyway. They are limitations built around the gameplay so that I don't bump into them while weighing my options.

With vanilla cargo efficiency, the need for cost effective cargo space doesn't drive you into the fleet size limit. You don't balance your fleet against, but within the limit. You want the Atlas because it takes only one slot AND has reasonable costs.
With mod freighters you basically pay fuel and supplies for free slots. You get Eschaton to have it take up only 1 slot INSTEAD of reasonable costs.

tl;dr:
If you base a limitation entirely around gameplay balance or scope and disregard in-universe logic, don't make the player work their way around it all the time. It will only make its artificiality more apparent.
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