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« on: September 25, 2018, 10:59:33 AM »
Something that was brought up with the recent blog post was that currently a lot of the cargo/support ship hulls are sort of wasted assets. They look really cool in the store and then are never seen again as they're essentially passive boosts and serve no real tactical or strategic purpose. Alex mentioned he had something in the works for this, but I've got some downtime so here we are:
First off, flavor- The idea of a trade armada is something we've already seen in mods and it's not really viable right now. Neither is the smugglers ship. Something that would normally be innocuous at first glance but has been heavily modified to murder anything that bothers it (millennium falcon being the popular example). Hell in the Escape Velocity series some of my most fun runs were taking "Cargo" ships and modifying them with as much heavy weaponry as possible (IDE frigate was the easiest to show this off with, but with how that game worked you could do it with almost anything).
Second redundancy- Even as just passive stat boosters, there's little reason other than scarcity to get anything other than the biggest support ship that fits your needs. Speed could technically be an issue, but it's rarely a factor in practice (and honestly the whole navigation aspect of the game is ripe for more gameplay.)
Third, Risk- It's worth mentioning the inherent issue with using combat support/cargo ships, and that's if you DO lose one, you can wind up winning the battle but having to pitch half your cargo. I think this is actually an interesting decision compared to the current all or nothing system of only sending in your military fleet and basically being screwed if you lose, but either way it's something that has to be considered when looking at hulls.
Hulls-
Quick thoughts on each. There's a few that are "ok" but none that I feel you'd ever ideally take to battle. Of note fuel ships not included since you can summarize them with "nope, just passive upgrades"
Frigates:
Hermes- No combat ability to my knowledge. Have rarely touched it though.
Kite- I've been told these can actually be used to great effect, but then whenever I play I forget to test it.
Mercury- A slightly better hermes that's still useless.
Mudskipper- straight up target practice. I don't hate that though as such ships SHOULD exist, but I also like that there's a (very silly) combat variant
Ox- literally just a passive. No point to ever deploy/touch/interact with it again after you've bought it except to lower its sensor profile (another passive do it once and forget interaction).
Shepherd- The game actually starts you with one of these depending on your choices. I love that it gives salvage bonuses (a reason to have it in your fleet), but combat wise there's not much you can do with it. I would like if you could get a modspec or something that would allow you to upgrade the drones (not a full fighter bay but if you wanted to beef this thing up). Either way it's mostly useless in practice with no option to change that.
Wayfarer- hey this one isn't awful. It's hardly great, but it's got enough slots to actually be a threat and it's stats aren't terrible. I feel like this is a good baseline for what's actually worth bringing into combat. As the game's economy is now you still never would outside of the early game, but at least you don't feel punished for it.
Destroyers:
Buffalo- obviously not intended to fight like the mudskipper, and like the mudskipper has a combat variant at least (which is fun if dumb). Also does have a P variant with shielded cargo holds, so there's some interesting choices there.
Gemini- I've actually used this in fleets as a quick and dirty carrier and certainly haven't hated that decision, especially in multiples when I find some good fighters early on but haven't gotten a condor or something else to hold them yet (or are avoiding them just to test). It's still very fragile though which can be a problem.
Mule- Literally designed as a combat freighter in game, in practice it's not awful, but I use it mostly to distract/support. I've rarely had one kitted out to kill anything. The pirate version is flat out worse in almost every way except having shielded cargo and a medium universal instead of medium energy. I suspect they could do ok in mass.
Nebula- like the buffalo not really designed to ever be useful in combat, which really just makes it the occasional eye candy before it explodes.
Salvage rig- Obviously not meant for combat, but only mentioning because I'd again like something that lowers refit times/costs if included in the fleet (a staging base). I understand there's minmax concerns with that, but I think it makes logistical sense that these large fleets might have something to help them swap out weaponry. I'd expect it to come with restrictions though (lowered fleet speed while refitting and different sized/multiple rigs required to swap out larger equipment).
Tarsus- Another pure cargo ship that gets a nod just because it has a combat variant (condor).
Valkyrie- Of note because of the upcoming changes meaning carrying crew will matter again. That said as it stands now it's maybe barely deployable as a support ship.
Cruisers:
Colossus- another "has combat variants" which again makes sense given the hull. Only issue I have is the pirate variant is laughably bad.
Starliner- I don't think i've ever bought/fought this and i'm not sure what it's purpose is. There was a starliner in Escape Velocity Nova which wasn't a terrible ship, in part because it could get special missions that paid well, but I have no idea what the purpose of this is in Star Sector. It certainly looks like glorified target practice.
Venture- I see a lot of people knock this but I think it's a pretty good example of how these ships could work. First off, yes it's a crusier that, power wise, is more on line with a destroyer, but that said it's a pretty serious one. Sabots + Hyperions + expanded missile racks give it serious killing power and it's not going to evaporate under fire if you don't babysit it. It's hardly on par with any other ship its size, but I don't mind bringing them to combat to serve as fire support.
Capitals:
There's only the Atlas and the Prometheus and neither does anyting other than hold some passive mods after you buy it and forget about it. I really think either of these should have a pirate/condor type variant.
Special mention:
Lore wise the mora is a military ship, turned support, turned military again and happens to be my favorite hull in the game. Only pointing it out because it makes sense within lore that larger hulls can be repurposed for combat when heavy military hulls aren't available.
Anyways that's basically my breakdown. I mention all this mostly because playing a trade fleet in vanilla is super unrewarding. Not only do the base mechanics prohibit it even if you bend them to their max (manipulate the market and smuggle), but it doesn't help that the "lore" appropriate fleet would just be terrible compared to a full on military fleet with an atlas. I think this is a huge area where the game already has the framework in place, it just needs some tweaking.
One possible option is to allow players more freedom in refitting their ships. Not full on customization, but a big part of why anything works in EV is because you could convert cargo space to hull space, so the equivalent here might be sacrificing cargo/fuel capacity for more OP. This doesn't solve the terrible weapon selection for most of these ships, but some converted hangers + heavy armor could go a long way towards giving your merchant fleet some bite.
