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Author Topic: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers  (Read 10828 times)

Megas

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #30 on: October 15, 2019, 08:49:11 AM »

Shepherd is a hybrid (and a civilian).  It would be like saying Condor and Drover make Gemini pointless.  As for how fast for a new frigate carrier, at least 80, but no more than 100 (and no mobility system).
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Igncom1

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #31 on: October 15, 2019, 08:51:38 AM »

But the shepherd is only technically a carrier, otherwise it's a civilian mining/salvage kinda vessel.

A one deck landing pad for a squadron, with a engine strapped to the side could make for an interesting ship. Although that IS what the drover is.

Otherwise I don't see the need as the astral is the most carrying carrier that ever carried, it's system best used for bombers be damned. Hightech doesn't need other carriers because any serious fleet is built around a capital like the astral anyway.

Not that the 'tech groups' make too much sense as a scale of time or doctrinal progression anyway. What with ships like the Odyssey and Apogee being completely visually distinct from all the rest of high tech with their blue armour.
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Plantissue

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #32 on: October 15, 2019, 09:00:07 AM »

The Gemini is kind of pointless. I don't think I have ever seen anyone ever advocate putting it in their fleets. But I suppose now that I have written that someone will. A Drover + Buffalo is less DP but better than two Gemini for instance. It's basically bounty bait for pirates. I think I saw Luddic Church have them but I might have been mistaken.

Besides I said "intention behind the Shepherd" not the Shepherd itself. The intention being an introducing frigate to the concept of fighters by using weak fighters. If there was a carrier frigate, the Shepherd will still be useful, but the intention behind it is lost.

Once AI remnant ships can be in your fleet, there will suddenly be a lot of high tech ships available across all the ship hulls. I'm not behind the idea that all tech groups need to have the same representation anyways.
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Megas

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #33 on: October 15, 2019, 10:17:53 AM »

Yes, Gemini is not that great today.  It was decent to good in previous releases.

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Once AI remnant ships can be in your fleet, there will suddenly be a lot of high tech ships available across all the ship hulls. I'm not behind the idea that all tech groups need to have the same representation anyways.
That will require a tier 5 Technology skill.  I do not think assuming player always having that skill should be a given, unless it is overpowered like current Loadout Design 3 (and if it is, will be nerfed to the ground later).  Even if player has it, it might have stiff limits, like one Radiant and nothing else if you do not want them to self-destruct.  Plus, maybe other problems like if Alex does something devious and have patrols demanding immediate surrender of AI ships after a scan.

Also, will there be blueprints for AI ships?  Probably not.  Maybe not for your fleet, but for your colony patrols.
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bobucles

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #34 on: October 29, 2019, 05:06:26 PM »

I spent forever puzzling what exactly a high tech freighter might be, then I remembered we have phase ships. Shielded cargo holds, zero sensor profile, extremely fast getaways? Sounds like high tech smuggling to me!

TrashMan

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #35 on: October 30, 2019, 01:44:19 AM »

Not a fan of player having Remanant ships.
Those are super-advanced designs with powerful AI's. The player being able to control them makes the player a super-genius that knows more about technolgoy than all the scientists in the sector together.
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Megas

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #36 on: October 30, 2019, 04:13:57 AM »

I spent forever puzzling what exactly a high tech freighter might be, then I remembered we have phase ships. Shielded cargo holds, zero sensor profile, extremely fast getaways? Sounds like high tech smuggling to me!
It was brought up before, and Alex seemed to like the idea.  All phase ships have terrible capacity, and having a phase freighter (or at least one with decent capacity like a hybrid instead of almost none) or even the planet-killer hauling cruiser for black-ops raids would be nice.  Hoping for more phase ships next release.
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Scorpixel

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #37 on: October 30, 2019, 06:55:16 AM »

Does the Buffalo(A) count? As far as Vanilla civies go it's the best ship around with a built-in militarised.
Add insulated engines + sensors and you get the closest thing to a stealth cargo.

However it's true that the tanker family is quite sparse, it makes it hard to have themed fleets of midline or high-tech, civilian ships don't exactly need varied choices since the only way for them to enter combat is through a big mistake so them being mostly available through mods is perfectly fine.

But yes stealth and exploration variants would be really welcome (at the cost of reduced holds compared to bare-bones ones of course, with the +2 logistics in consideration) along with the trail and paint to go with it^^
« Last Edit: October 30, 2019, 07:15:23 AM by Scorpixel »
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Vind

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #38 on: October 30, 2019, 06:08:52 PM »

More upped version of tarsus would be cool - it is the only freighter which can survive retreat due to burn drive and some armor/pd.
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Inventor Raccoon

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #39 on: October 31, 2019, 09:19:45 AM »

Not a fan of player having Remanant ships.
Those are super-advanced designs with powerful AI's. The player being able to control them makes the player a super-genius that knows more about technolgoy than all the scientists in the sector together.
The player already can assign alpha cores to control industries or entire planets. A droneship is, by comparison, a walk in the park, it's just that same core slapped into a spaceship that it can control. People in the core worlds don't do it, because, you know, it's grossly illegal under Domain law and the Hegemony and Luddic Church would immediately attack.
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SapphireSage

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #40 on: October 31, 2019, 09:27:36 PM »

If high tech got phase freighters, I would like them to be rare in NPC fleets, or in general, fitting with smuggler ideals of being hard to find.

Back in 0.7 when phase initially got their time dilation mechanic, I was using the Approlight mod to fight against and their phase freighters were the most annoying things because they basically guaranteed that I wouldn't be able to get nearly as much supplies from their fleets as I could from other fleets because aside from targeted overload system on afflictor I couldn't do anything to them and had to resort to using pursuit auto resolve to maximize what I could get from them. Lots of phase freighters might be bad too for those instances where the AI is forced to do battle with civilian ships until it gets its DP low enough for pursuit mode because such an engagement would naturally involve a fair amount of waiting.
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bobucles

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #41 on: November 01, 2019, 08:44:15 AM »

High tech phase freighters would be more fitting of military secret operations. For example Tritachyon sends expeditions into deep space. They generally don't want to be found with a pile of precious tech, so a fleet with insulated engines and phase freighters would make sense. Any faction attempting large scale secret missions would also want some kind of stealthy marine ship, phase transports are an excellent possibility.

It's pretty much impossible to catch a phase ship in pursuit, except by chasing it until it breaks down. The closest in game option is to harry an enemy fleet, until they can't summon the CR to race away anymore. That kind of drama could be very annoying if phase freighters were abundant.

It'd make sense that phase freighters are too rare to be found as ordinary smugglers. Such a ship would only be deployed when the loot is precious and is better off hidden than announcing it with a huge fleet. This does two good things: 1) it reduces the drama associated with annoying, difficult to catch ships and 2) It means that when you do find them, they're guaranteed to have something good. Like a loot goblin or special treasure chest or something.

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auto pursuit
I'm not really a fan of the auto pursuit system ignoring key escape factors such as speed. Phase freighters would get hurt even more because they depend entirely on speed to escape.
« Last Edit: November 01, 2019, 08:50:50 AM by bobucles »
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Plantissue

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #42 on: November 01, 2019, 01:03:35 PM »

Only the 5 biggest sensor profile matters, so unless the fleet is mostly made out of phase ships, it wouldn't affect the sensor profile of the fleet. Phase ships only affect sensor profile if otherwise they would had been top 5 sensor profile. 5 destroyers and 25 military subsystemed Buffaloes are just as stealthy as 5 destroyers and 25 phase buffaloes. I can't see much use of phase frigates but to be able to safely retreat whilst all other freighters get destroyed, or as dedicated smuggling fleet.
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Megas

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #43 on: November 01, 2019, 02:24:04 PM »

High tech phase freighters would be more fitting of military secret operations.
In my case, stealth raiding blueprints from a heavily guarded worlds like Sindria or Culann without a fight.

Re: phase frigates
With hullmods, they become your haulers, either for marines or cargo.  When I wanted to bring a phase fleet to raid Sindria/Culann, I had a bunch of Afflictors built/salvaged for Reaper cheese duty.  As the bulk of my phase ships, they were at hand for instant conversion from Reaper cheese delivery platform to improved marine haulers.  (I need some ground attack power to steal blueprints reliably enough.)

I would like to have the equivalent of phase Mule or Apogee.  Something with respectable if not optimal capacity for black-ops, like blueprint raids.
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JaronK

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Re: Please add high-tech freighters and tankers
« Reply #44 on: November 02, 2019, 04:04:38 PM »

Some high tech support ship options:

1)  As mentioned, a low sensor profile ship like a colossus but with reduced cargo capacity, increased burn rate, and perhaps better shielding.  Notably more expensive, best used for smugglers

2)  An capital sized exploration ship with high fuel capacity, built in surveying and salvage gear, improved sensors, and perhaps a ox style burn rate improver... but with quite high maintenance and limited combat performance

3)  A fuel tanker with less fuel capacity than the prometheus but with both a nav system and a system like the ox, so it speeds up your whole fleet

4)  A ship that slowly generates fuel on the fly.  Not enough to sustain a whole fleet, but enough that you might have it for emergencies, and over time it would pay for itself (but that would take quite a while)
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