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[Amoebka]

We all know how important freighters/tankers are. No fleet can really get by without them for long. Sadly, all high-end freighters and tankers are low-tech.

Why is this a problem? Well, the visual design of them clashes badly with the rest of an otherwise fully high-tech armada. In fact, you can't really have a fully high-tech armada, because that would mean no freighters and no tankers!

Even worse, low-tech ships have red engine fumes. This means that on the campaign layer, your "high-tech" fleet won't have the pretty all-blue tail, it will have ugly red stripes in it! Trust me, I know how idiotically petty this all sounds, but for some people, like me, that's a big enough deal to post about it here.

On a somewhat related note, Buffalo is considered a high-tech ship, but has red engine fumes. Almost feels like a scam. That, at least, should be an easy fix.

[attachment deleted by admin]

[Alex]

For the Buffalo, I seem to remember this being intentional, so I don't want to overrule past-me. But! Let me make the Buffalo (TT) use high-tech engine glows; that seems appropriate - there, done.

For tankers, hmm. I could see maybe using a skin, or adding a high-tech cruiser-sized tanker. Will keep it in mind, at any rate

[Amoebka]

Thanks for listening, man. 

In the meantime, can I edit the TT Buffalo myself? In the data/hulls I can see only a single Buffalo file, changing it would change all variants, right? I will just change it myself. Found the skins folder, wasn't worth asking.

[Alex]

In case you haven't figured it out already, add this to the .skin file:

"engineSlotChanges":{
   "0":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
   "1":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
   "2":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
   "3":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
   "4":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
   "5":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
},

[Morrokain]

In case you haven't figured it out already, add this to the .skin file:

"engineSlotChanges":{
   "0":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
   "1":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
   "2":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
   "3":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
   "4":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
   "5":{"style":"HIGH_TECH"},
},

Can you do this with custom engine glows like the Cobra?

[Embolism]

Buffalo (TT) is just superficial markings though. Giving it blue engine glow suggests it's an actual refit like the Buffalo (P) and Brawler (TT)... IMO if Buffalo (TT) gets blue engine glows it should also get Plasma Burn! And maybe Shielded Cargo Holds too, because sneaky Tri-Tachyon.

Way I see it, Midline designs are pretty close to High Tech (e.g. Tri-Tachyon makes heavy use of Midlines, particularly carriers); and in any case why waste High Tech components in a freighter... unless it's the promised Phase freighter.

[Goumindong]

If you were going to give the TT buffalo anything it should be IEM (in addition to blue engine trails)

[Embolism]

If you were going to give the TT buffalo anything it should be IEM (in addition to blue engine trails)

Sounds about right, same as Brawler (TT) (which, incidentally, really needs built-in flux mods, if skins can't modify flux stats).

I don't think a High Tech tanker fits, unless it's a Phase tanker (which, if created, would probably be meant to be a Phase planetary bomber rather than just a tanker). Why make a tanker out of more fragile, more expensive and hard-to-maintain High Tech components? What do you want your High Tech tanker to do that normal tankers couldn't?

Unless it's a tanker specifically made for the aforementioned planetary bombing role.

But if we start making High Tech versions of tankers for the sake of "all blue engine trails" then I'd like to raise the old issue of a High Tech, non-capital carrier...

[SCC]

On one hand, there's no point in making high-tech tankers or freighters, since they already have two tech levels worth of logistic ships: they do already work well enough. Add in to the fact that high tech ships are supposed to be more expensive and individually powerful, for a kind of ships you don't want the former and don't care about the latter...
On the other hand, tech levels should be gone and replaced with more playstyle specific descriptions, to avoid giving people a bad impression, and thus there wouldn't be much of a reason not to have some high tech logistic ships. They could have the niche of "built-in militarised subsystems" (by not getting civilian hull in the first place) at the cost of higher maintenance.

[Embolism]

On one hand, there's no point in making high-tech tankers or freighters, since they already have two tech levels worth of logistic ships: they do already work well enough. Add in to the fact that high tech ships are supposed to be more expensive and individually powerful, for a kind of ships you don't want the former and don't care about the latter...
On the other hand, tech levels should be gone and replaced with more playstyle specific descriptions, to avoid giving people a bad impression, and thus there wouldn't be much of a reason not to have some high tech logistic ships. They could have the niche of "built-in militarised subsystems" (by not getting civilian hull in the first place) at the cost of higher maintenance.

That's how I feel, though I'd say whether tech levels as a game concept exists or not is irrelevant. Players will look at a sleek, blue ships with fancy blue engine trails and blocky, red ships with boring orange engine trails and automatically differentiate ships into tech levels.

IMO 'High Tech' design is all about using very expensive and very fragile parts to build agile warships that can either bully smaller ships or flank larger ships. There's no need for these qualities in civilian ships like freighters and tankers, and even for combat freighters there's no reason for a civilian on a budget to blow money on an expensive, costly to maintain High Tech freighter when Midline equivalents work just fine against your everyday pirate - or hire an escort.

Likewise, for the primary factions a convoy of very fancy High Tech combat freighters is likely more expensive and less effective than cheap Midline freighters with actual warship escorts.

The only reason for High Tech logistic vessels is if they do something drastically different from Midline equivalents, i.e. a phase blockade runner or a phase planetary bomber.

Same goes for carriers, the Heron is perfectly servicable for a High Tech fleet. Another High Tech carrier would have to do something very different along the lines of the Recall Device to justify its existence.

[Amoebka]

I was under the impression that tech levels were time periods, and people would certainly use new technologies if they can. If you've invented efficient shield generators in the high-tech era, you would certainly want them on your tankers so your volatile fuel doesn't explode to a single stray torpedo.

That said, even if high-tech is supposed to be generally inefficient, there are still niches for high-tech logistic ships. Supporting black-ops fleets, deep space exploration and just good old vanity. If Domain officials wasted billions developing overengineered Paragons and Astrals, they might have developed special logistic ships to service them as well.

[Plantissue]

I like the swirl of different colours all mixing together, especially when circling round, but I can recognise that others might want a pure blue or pure red, or even pure white stream of colour. A cruiser sized tanker would be nice. It would fill a hole the same way the Collossus filled a hole.

[SCC]

High-tech isn't strictly about being fast and agile, but about ships being individually more powerful (it's a bit of a circular reasoning — high-tech ships are strong, so they need to have bad/short ranged weapons, so that they can't support one another easily, so they need to be individually strong...). You can make high-tech logistic ships be less individually strong and more about being able to put all those nice logistic mods, at the expense of them being more expensive and less efficient, than low-tech logistic ships.

I was under the impression that tech levels were time periods, and people would certainly use new technologies if they can. If you've invented efficient shield generators in the high-tech era, you would certainly want them on your tankers so your volatile fuel doesn't explode to a single stray torpedo.

Domain abandoned superior ballistic weapons later on, so that was either trends, not actual technology advancements, or the Domain is really, really dumb. I reckon Alex said it's the former.

[Igncom1]

The 14th battlegroup was still operating by the fall was it not?

It does include midline ships that said, with the later hege having wolf frigates as well. But unless some of the irreplaceable ships lost in time included 14th paragons, which would be cool, I'm not sure it's as clear cut as that.

[Yunru]

High-tech isn't strictly about being fast and agile, but about ships being individually more powerful

That said, for a logistics ship, being fast (and maybe agile) is being individually more powerful.
Would I take a higher burn level for a higher upkeep? I'm unsure.