Will there be more player ships in future versions?

[PM]

Currently, the player can play the EI500, Sapphire, or the Wolfen. Will there be more in future versions? The EI200 and Ronin ships are other Commonwealth ships that appear to be suitable alternatives. Later in the game, maybe other ships could be unlocked? I would like to swap ships and pilot an EI7000 or Centurion/X. (I would also like to pilot an Aquila, but I seriously do not expect to, since who in their right mind would sell a military capital ship to some vagabond even if he has military ID.) I know there are mods that allow this sort of thing, but the non-player ships only have 20 facings, which really hurt if I am not using omni weapons. Also, such mods may include other ships that are too powerful and too tempting not to use.

[Androgeos]

I'm sure the upcoming shipyard feature will add new ships along with the ability to change your ship.

George could take some time off to look at the player ships on Xelerus and pick out the ones he thinks looks like part of the game and are quite well balanced for a vanilla run.

[Song]

At present, there's many player ship mods out there...and most likely, the answer to the question is 'Yes, but not right now'

[Prophet]

Changing ships in part 1 will most likely not be added as it would be too unbalancing.

It is officially planned for part 2.

There are mods that add additional starting ships and there will undoubtedly be more mods that add changing ships, possibly even to capships, but it will not be official and quite possibly unbalanced.

[Aury]

For vanilla Part 1 anyways
TX2 may be, likely is, reballancing a whole lot of stuff since ship-changing will be an option there [I'm thinking only single-person ships should be used though; but not for the reason Atarlost mentioned though (Crews - the EV series simply ignored how they got there on your ship. They were like hardware; just there.), it's because the game's engine simply cannot allow the player to use a capship without an astounding number of gimmicks and interface bugs at the moment. We would need: ability to create whole new item types via script, the ability to create custom UI, and the ability to position weapon firing points in-game via scripts (or pre-set the slot positions in the xml)]

[PM]

As for crew, ships could be completely automated, much like the Huygen's Explorer, and the Iocrym probably used a low tech solution (by their standards) to do it. Come to think of it, the Iocrym must have shoddy software for them to be neurohacked by puny humans.

Here is an idea devastating to would-be commanders of automated fleets: give the Sung or some other faction a CyberDeck that hijacks one or more ships piloted by AI. This includes autons, converted Luminous, and (in the case of Prophet's ship purchase mod) any playership controlled by auton AI.

[PM]

As for other ships that could be useful (but not overpowered) as playerships...

EI200: Compared to the EI500, it can haul more stuff, but it is bigger, slower (but not unplayably so), and requires six armor sections (great for solar refueling, bad for anything else). Its equipment would be no better than the EI500. It is just small enough to fit within the Domina shield graphics.

Ronin: This would be similar to a slightly weaker Molotok. It is the middle ground between the EI500 and the other two playerships. It is not as agile as the Sapphire or Wolfen, but more so than the EI500. Its higher mass than the Sapphire or Wolfen lets it equip and carry more stuff before becoming overburdened. As for starting equipment, it could use the Ronin/B setup, except replace the Bolide with fast-fire laser.

[CFG]

I would really welcome the opportunity get new ships while fighting my way to heretic... But sounds like this is probably not going to happen...

When thinking about changing ships, how powerful a ship is depends on how well it can maneuver and what devices and armor/shields/weapons it has installed.

Would it make a big difference if say the player would fly an EI700 instead of an EI500 which maybe has three device slots more and some additional cargo space?
Or compare a Wolfen to a Britannia Heavy Gunship...

No question these ships could potentially do (a little...) more damage or transport more cargo. But would that make the game really unbalanced?

I think anything from small fighters to heavy gunships or freighters up to the EI700 would probably work.

You would have (maybe) some more device slots, the ability to install heavier armor and an additional weapon or so, but take the cost for purchasing the new ship and maybe additional armor segments. That would probably keep players from being able to equip their ships too well too fast.

[george moromisato]

But would that make the game really unbalanced?

The problem is that the current balance between the starting ships (Sapphire, EI500 and Wolfen) depends on keeping the ships until the late game.

The Wolfen is great at the beginning of the game, but suffers somewhat in the mid- and end-game due to slot constraints.

If you could change ships arbitrarily, the best strategy might be to always use a Wolfen at the beginning and switch to a freighter in the mid- or late game.

I think I made a mistake in balancing the ships this way, but fixing it will require rebalancing all of the starting ships--something that I'm not planning on tackling for a while.

Meanwhile, I'm working on designing the Part II player ships so that they have a better balance. Once you get past Heretic you will be able to change ships arbitrarily.

[Atarlost]

But would that make the game really unbalanced?

The problem is that the current balance between the starting ships (Sapphire, EI500 and Wolfen) depends on keeping the ships until the late game.

The Wolfen is great at the beginning of the game, but suffers somewhat in the mid- and end-game due to slot constraints.

If you could change ships arbitrarily, the best strategy might be to always use a Wolfen at the beginning and switch to a freighter in the mid- or late game.

I think I made a mistake in balancing the ships this way, but fixing it will require rebalancing all of the starting ships--something that I'm not planning on tackling for a while.

Meanwhile, I'm working on designing the Part II player ships so that they have a better balance. Once you get past Heretic you will be able to change ships arbitrarily.

I think you overestimate the freighter for the endgame. It has slot limits too. I might do a wolfen-sapphire switch, but the two weapon limit is too restrictive for me. It also steers like a cow.

The big problem I think is that the starting equipment for everything except the Wolfen is pretty terrible in comparison.

[Aury]

Freighter is pretty fragile early on, till you can get some barricades, and sapphire has issues actually killing stuff.

BTW; how do you actually /get/ said Part II ships (after leaving Part I)?

[Atarlost]

Early game:

Sapphire:
Relative to the Wolfen the Sapphire sacrifices having more speed than corsairs to get some cargo space that really doesn't help you survive. The value difference between the shields alone eats up the Sapphire's starting cash. The extra reactor power does let you delay your reactor upgrade a little, but you still can't skip it.

Relative to the Freighter the Sapphire sacrifices a chance to start with a targeting rom to get some maneuverability and speed. The money a freighter pilot saves on a nova-25 is greater than the Sapphire's extra starting cash.

Freighter:
Relative to the Wolfen the Freighter sacrifices speed, maneuverability, and a good shield to get cargo space and a some starting consumables that can include a targeting rom. I don't doubt that many people start scum for one.

Relative to the Sapphirie the freighter sacrifices some speed and maneuverability, but less than relative to the wolfen. In return it gets the ability to start scum for a targeting rom and an omni-weapon that makes up for its poor speed and maneuverability against hornets and corsairs.

Wolfen:
Relative to the Sapphire the Wolfen sacrifices um nothing at all really and gains better shields, a better weapon, and better speed.

Relative to the Freighter the Wolfen sacrifices the ability to start scum for a free targeting rom to get speed, maneuverability, shields, and better weapons.

The Sapphire is terrible in the early game compared to either alternative, but the Wolfen and Freighter both have their merits.

Late-game:

Wolfen:
4 weapons, one slot "wasted" if a DPS/Basebuster/Flyswatter mix is desired. 1 reactor, 1 shield, 2 available nonweapons. Maneuverable and fast. Mid-range armor.

Sapphire:
3 weapons, 1 reactor, 1 shield, 3 available nonweapons. Maneuverable but kind of sluggish. Can trade a nonweapon to be fast. Light armor only.

Freighter:
2 weapons, miss one type, and because of poor manuverability a flyswatter is higher priority than it would otherwise and makes spread weapons less effective as flyswatters than normal. No good DPS/Flyswatters except Akan600, Omni-Thermocannon, and maybe IM90. No good DPS/Basebusters except Xenophobe Lancer. No good Basebuster/Flyswatters except maybe heavy NAMI launcher, which has terrible ammo availability. 1 reactor, 1 shield, 1 drive, 3 available nonweapons. Maneuverability is bad and irremediable, but speed is good. At least you can mount the uber armors on it.

That 2 weapon limit really hurts late game, and the poor maneuverability hurts all game. There are only three real reasons to use a freighter: Worldship Plate, Dwarg Holochroal, and Transuranic armor. Cargo would be a bigger deal if you couldn't recover jettisoned goods.

The Sapphire is okay in the late game, but if never really surpasses the Wolfen because of the armor limit.

So I'd say the Sapphire starts the worst and ends up in an approximate tie for first, the Wolfen is always first, and the Freighter starts in the middle and winds up at the bottom. People who value cargo really highly may consider the freighter to start at the top, but cargo declines in importance once the player's credit account is adequate since the rin stations lack buy limits that can be circumvented by selling large quantities at once.

[namer4]

That's interesting, and to me it speaks to the different approaches people take to the game. My experience has been quite different, and more or less consistent with George's summary that the freighter is at an advantage in the late game. I've never found the freighter's turn rate to be a problem, and drives compensate for the speed/acceleration disadvantages early enough for my taste.

As for weapons, for flyswatters I've had plenty of luck with Akans or omni tev-9s followed by longzhu-enhanced ion turrets, which are easy to find, and a fusionfire for base-cracking -- I'm not aware of any scenario that those two don't handle pretty well, except maybe the last huari mission, but a halo gem settles that for me, and Heretic goes by more comfortably with a lamplighter.

I find the cargo space makes a game go by more quickly, because certain kinds of looting (ferians, teratons) don't require multiple trips, and the non-weapon slots are nice to have -- one can't keep a megadrive, weapon enhancer, jumpdrive, and black market hold in a wolfen at once, IIRC.

Also, empirically, I find that I have a much higher success rate in the freighter: since version 0.97 I've played a handful of games per release and my recent win rate in the freighter has been about 60%, whereas it's less than once per release in the wolfen (more often than not I try once, die, and don't try again in that release), and I feel like the sapphire has little going for it for me so I haven't played it in a while. I knew there was an interaction between play style and the best ship for a given player, but I didn't expect the differences to be so stark.

[CFG]

Another point:

Trying the 'no backtracking' conduct with another ship than the freighter seems a lot more difficult to me since youll have to leave more stuff behind you maby could used later on.

What I personally dont like about the wolfen and the saphire is that the more cargo they carry the more does maneuverability decrease. The freighter's always 'bad' ability to maneuver doesnt surprise the player, yet is good enough to shoot hornet class battle pods circling you

For device slots: I really wouldnt want to sacrifice the drive upgrade and really like a solar panel array till the midgame.
Despite the enormous fuel usage I like the inertialess drive because I could evade an ares lightning turret in one game with it.
By the time I need to have a quantum computer installed I could use an extra device slot.

Hmmm a fixed upgrade path ( example: EI100/EI200 till St.Katherines, EI200 till Jiang's Star and the E700 till Heretic ) or a restriction on ship types (fighter, freighter, etc) the player is allowed to pilot wouldnt probably help much(?) Its actually not what I want, but a compromise.

[CFG]

Actually all player ships are missing at least one device slot from the version on devices for enhancing weapons are available, not just for lasers and cannons (kinetic weapons)...