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Cargo mass reduction for the Marauders
Especially after this last patch when the Mauds' armor got cut, the Marauders have become the least useful of the Nation special ships. Even before their armor got decreased, they were still only decent fighting ships, and for trading the Behemoth or Centaurs were much better.
So right now, the Marauder is supposed to be the UIT's Nation Special ship, which in my mind means it should be a very good ship. But it's not. What I'd suggest, in order to make it fulfill its Nation Special role better, is something that is easiest to describe as cargo mass reduction. Effectively how this would work is that any cargo loaded into a Marauder would have its mass reduced to some fraction of its original mass. The Valent Marauder Rev B, which has the highes license requirement of anything in the game (Trade 13), could have the best mass reduction, say 1/20th. The other Marauders would have smaller mass reductions, closer to 1/10th or 1/15th. This would allow the Marauder to have better acceleration than the Moth or Centaurs, even when the Marauder is fully loaded (currently, a fully loaded Maud handles worse than a fully loaded Centaur, and marginally better than a fully loaded Moth, except under turbo, when the Moth gains a large advantage over the Maud).
This reduction would only apply to cargo, not to any weapons or other equippment that are equipped to the ship.
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Aceleration numbers for reference (higher is better):
Valent Marauder Rev B, empty: a = 40.3846m/s2
Valent Marauder Rev B, 56cu XiRite Alloy, 1/20 cargo mass: a = 34.7682m/s2
Centaur MkII, empty: a = 26.6667m/s2
Moth, empty (non-turbo): a = 18.3333m/s2
Centaur MkII, 48cu XiRite Alloy: a = 13.6054m/s2
Valent Marauder Rev B, 56cu XiRite Alloy, no mass reduction: a = 9.5454m/s2
Moth, 120cu XiRite Alloy (non-turbo): a = 8.3333m/s2
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Psuedo-science explanation: The cargo hold in the Marauders is contained within the ship's gravitic drive engine, which follows a special UIT design that allows it to utilize the additional gravitic force of the cargo's mass to become more efficient as more cargo mass is added. So really, the mass isn't actually reduced, but the gravitic drive is able to produce additional thrust, producing the same result.
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So right now, the Marauder is supposed to be the UIT's Nation Special ship, which in my mind means it should be a very good ship. But it's not. What I'd suggest, in order to make it fulfill its Nation Special role better, is something that is easiest to describe as cargo mass reduction. Effectively how this would work is that any cargo loaded into a Marauder would have its mass reduced to some fraction of its original mass. The Valent Marauder Rev B, which has the highes license requirement of anything in the game (Trade 13), could have the best mass reduction, say 1/20th. The other Marauders would have smaller mass reductions, closer to 1/10th or 1/15th. This would allow the Marauder to have better acceleration than the Moth or Centaurs, even when the Marauder is fully loaded (currently, a fully loaded Maud handles worse than a fully loaded Centaur, and marginally better than a fully loaded Moth, except under turbo, when the Moth gains a large advantage over the Maud).
This reduction would only apply to cargo, not to any weapons or other equippment that are equipped to the ship.
[edit]
Aceleration numbers for reference (higher is better):
Valent Marauder Rev B, empty: a = 40.3846m/s2
Valent Marauder Rev B, 56cu XiRite Alloy, 1/20 cargo mass: a = 34.7682m/s2
Centaur MkII, empty: a = 26.6667m/s2
Moth, empty (non-turbo): a = 18.3333m/s2
Centaur MkII, 48cu XiRite Alloy: a = 13.6054m/s2
Valent Marauder Rev B, 56cu XiRite Alloy, no mass reduction: a = 9.5454m/s2
Moth, 120cu XiRite Alloy (non-turbo): a = 8.3333m/s2
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Psuedo-science explanation: The cargo hold in the Marauders is contained within the ship's gravitic drive engine, which follows a special UIT design that allows it to utilize the additional gravitic force of the cargo's mass to become more efficient as more cargo mass is added. So really, the mass isn't actually reduced, but the gravitic drive is able to produce additional thrust, producing the same result.
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The special increased turbo thrust that the Tung Maud already has looks better. The Maud should not be decent at dogfight when fully loaded; only really big ships should.
The Maud is barely decent at dogfighting right now, when completly empty. And why should big ships be able to dogfight when fully loaded? I would say no ship should be able to dogfight while fully loaded with cargo. And with this mass reduction, the Mauds would not be able to dogfight very well while fully loaded, but they would be better than a fully loaded Centaur or Moth. Which they should be, they're Nation Special ships, not generic ships everyone & their dog sells.
For increasing the turbo thrust, I don't know most of the ships' turbo thrust, but look at the two that I do know:
Tung. Mining Maud turbo thrust: 250kN
Behemoth turbo thrust: 1500kN
For increasing the turbo thrust, I don't know most of the ships' turbo thrust, but look at the two that I do know:
Tung. Mining Maud turbo thrust: 250kN
Behemoth turbo thrust: 1500kN
Actually, Beolach, that's a hell of an idea. That would solve a lot of problems with trading ships - if you give them enough manuevering power to handle a heavy load, then when unloaded they become a beast to fight with. We could do this with atlases and centaurs, too. Any ship that is designated as a cargo/trade ship can have the effective mass of cargo reduced to, say, 1/10th. That way the stats on the ship can stay lower and the ship not become a super dogfighter like the Atlas X has, and still be an excellent trader. I hope the devs are watching. That's a good idea.
No! No do with anything but Marauders! I wanna make them special, like they're supposed to be, not inferior to everything else, the way they are now...
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What has been done for trade ships (most visibly the Behemoth) to deal with this issue, is to give them a poor thrust/mass ratio (which translates as poor acceleration), but large mass and thrust. This makes it so that adding additional mass does not affect the acceleration as much, so the acceleration was poor in the first place, but adding additional mass does not make it much worse.
Actually, that's not too much different in effect than this cargo mass reduction. The only real differences is that with the Marauders & the cargo mass reduction I'm suggesting, is that the Marauder would start out with a better thrust/mass ratio (better acceleration), and the mass reduction would only apply to cargo, not to weapons or other equippment. Which means that as long as the Marauder is only adding cargo mass, its acceleration remains better than the Behemoth or Centaur, but when it adds weapons, it takes a larger acceleration penalty than the Behemoth or Centaur would when they add weapons. This translates to the Marauder being a more maneuverable trading ship, but not necessarily much better in combat. Well, it'll be better than the Moth, but that's not saying much. For the Centaur, the Centaur would probably be a little bit better in combat when both are empty, and the Marauder would be better in combat when both are full. But when full, neither the Marauder or Centaur would be effective enough at combat to match up with anything more combat oriented.
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What has been done for trade ships (most visibly the Behemoth) to deal with this issue, is to give them a poor thrust/mass ratio (which translates as poor acceleration), but large mass and thrust. This makes it so that adding additional mass does not affect the acceleration as much, so the acceleration was poor in the first place, but adding additional mass does not make it much worse.
Actually, that's not too much different in effect than this cargo mass reduction. The only real differences is that with the Marauders & the cargo mass reduction I'm suggesting, is that the Marauder would start out with a better thrust/mass ratio (better acceleration), and the mass reduction would only apply to cargo, not to weapons or other equippment. Which means that as long as the Marauder is only adding cargo mass, its acceleration remains better than the Behemoth or Centaur, but when it adds weapons, it takes a larger acceleration penalty than the Behemoth or Centaur would when they add weapons. This translates to the Marauder being a more maneuverable trading ship, but not necessarily much better in combat. Well, it'll be better than the Moth, but that's not saying much. For the Centaur, the Centaur would probably be a little bit better in combat when both are empty, and the Marauder would be better in combat when both are full. But when full, neither the Marauder or Centaur would be effective enough at combat to match up with anything more combat oriented.
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The main difference between the two is that with the first model weaponry doesn't affect the manueverability either. With your idea, the ship can still be a decent ship, but weaponry weighs it down more than cargo.
With the first model, we got the super Atlas X. It's a medium ship, meaning it follows the medium ship model of mass/thrust/handling. Additionally, it has huge thrust for its weight and a super spin torque to boot. What it has become is the super hog with infiniboost and a huge hold. The perfect midweight pirate ship. It can dodge, it can fight, and it has 38 cu of cargo space.
But with your idea, the atlas would handle like it used to - pretty well, but nothing special. It wouldn't need huge thrust to handle the large cargo loads. Same with the centaurs and mauds. The cargo weight just wouldn't make as much of a difference. But if you put an agt on it, *that* would make a difference. It would mean that a trade ship can be extremely manueverable with large cargos, but not weaponry. It's an excellent idea.
The maud would still be special. It's a light ship, following the light ships' model of flight, but with 44+ cu hold. It would be an excellent trader with this setup. But they can't give it too large of a thrust boost because it's too light. Without cargo it would outperform everything.
Don't feel badly if they take it an apply it to all traders. You came up with a decent solution to the problem of making a good trade ship without making it an uber fighter.
With the first model, we got the super Atlas X. It's a medium ship, meaning it follows the medium ship model of mass/thrust/handling. Additionally, it has huge thrust for its weight and a super spin torque to boot. What it has become is the super hog with infiniboost and a huge hold. The perfect midweight pirate ship. It can dodge, it can fight, and it has 38 cu of cargo space.
But with your idea, the atlas would handle like it used to - pretty well, but nothing special. It wouldn't need huge thrust to handle the large cargo loads. Same with the centaurs and mauds. The cargo weight just wouldn't make as much of a difference. But if you put an agt on it, *that* would make a difference. It would mean that a trade ship can be extremely manueverable with large cargos, but not weaponry. It's an excellent idea.
The maud would still be special. It's a light ship, following the light ships' model of flight, but with 44+ cu hold. It would be an excellent trader with this setup. But they can't give it too large of a thrust boost because it's too light. Without cargo it would outperform everything.
Don't feel badly if they take it an apply it to all traders. You came up with a decent solution to the problem of making a good trade ship without making it an uber fighter.
If you really have a problem with the way the Atlas accelerates, giving it cargo mass reduction would change nothing by itself. The only way you're going to solve that problem is to give the Atlas a worse thrust/mass ratio, which you can do either with or without the cargo mass reduction. I really want my cargo mass reduction to be something special only Marauders have.
If you give all trade ships similar cargo mass reduction, you end up with the same situation we have now - the Marauder is worse than almost anything else. The only way to solve the problem of the Marauder being worse is to, well, make it better. There's three options on how to make it better: First, what I'm suggesting, give it a new, unique feature, that nothing else has, that helps it out, so that it doesn't suck as much. Second, don't give anything a unique feature, but change the existing stats to help the Marauder out, so that it doesn't suck as much. Third, what you suggest, is give everything the new feature, and also give the Marauder better stats so it doesn't suck as much.
The big advantage to the first solution is that it adds variety, and hence is more interesting. With either of the other two suggestions, there is no more variety, because everything has the same features.
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Also, I think you're having the opposite problem most people have. Most people underestimated the Atlas, which is one of the advantages it had, while I think you're overestimating it. It's really not all that hot in combat - maybe better than it should be, but it's nowhere near the best. I'd take a Centaur over an Atlas.
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If you give all trade ships similar cargo mass reduction, you end up with the same situation we have now - the Marauder is worse than almost anything else. The only way to solve the problem of the Marauder being worse is to, well, make it better. There's three options on how to make it better: First, what I'm suggesting, give it a new, unique feature, that nothing else has, that helps it out, so that it doesn't suck as much. Second, don't give anything a unique feature, but change the existing stats to help the Marauder out, so that it doesn't suck as much. Third, what you suggest, is give everything the new feature, and also give the Marauder better stats so it doesn't suck as much.
The big advantage to the first solution is that it adds variety, and hence is more interesting. With either of the other two suggestions, there is no more variety, because everything has the same features.
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Also, I think you're having the opposite problem most people have. Most people underestimated the Atlas, which is one of the advantages it had, while I think you're overestimating it. It's really not all that hot in combat - maybe better than it should be, but it's nowhere near the best. I'd take a Centaur over an Atlas.
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I'll take that fight.
As you said, unlike a light ship, a heavy ship like a centaur or a prometheus has an engine adapted to its own mass. As a consequence, the mass of the cargo hinders its acceleration/maneuverability to a lower extent than a small ship. That is what I meant by big ships being decent at dogfighting.
If you want a fully loaded small ship to retain more agility than a fully loaded heavy ship, you must violate the physics logic of this game.
PS Beolach, re your Tung Maud/Behemoth comparison, perhaps you can add the mass of the ships too and do the ratio :D
If you want a fully loaded small ship to retain more agility than a fully loaded heavy ship, you must violate the physics logic of this game.
PS Beolach, re your Tung Maud/Behemoth comparison, perhaps you can add the mass of the ships too and do the ratio :D
Sun Tzu: The suggestion says the Mauds have a special construct that lets them deal better with cargo. I see nothing wrong in this, and all the UIT factions refuse to share that with ships sold outside UIT. Great idea!
IF (and that's IF) one would introduce this to other traders, do so later. Start with the Mauds since they need it bad. Then one can start tweaking other ships.
Beolach: I'd take on a Centaur in an Atlas. Hitting the Atlas is a lot harder than hitting the Centaur. Add rolling and the Atlas is stupidly hard to hit since your autoaim is all over the place. The Centaur is fat enough that a rolling AGT stream from the Atlas lands more often than I'd lie.
IF (and that's IF) one would introduce this to other traders, do so later. Start with the Mauds since they need it bad. Then one can start tweaking other ships.
Beolach: I'd take on a Centaur in an Atlas. Hitting the Atlas is a lot harder than hitting the Centaur. Add rolling and the Atlas is stupidly hard to hit since your autoaim is all over the place. The Centaur is fat enough that a rolling AGT stream from the Atlas lands more often than I'd lie.
A last word and I'll stop arguing:
This suggestion is not about the Maud dealing better with cargo (improved turbo thrust). It's about the Maud having the ability to fight as if it isn't carrying cargo (cargo mass reduction). If there was an un-magical way to achieve that result, I have no doubt that Beolach would have seen it.
This suggestion is not about the Maud dealing better with cargo (improved turbo thrust). It's about the Maud having the ability to fight as if it isn't carrying cargo (cargo mass reduction). If there was an un-magical way to achieve that result, I have no doubt that Beolach would have seen it.
cant we just pull the same trick on it as the behemoth, as in increase the thrust and mass so that the added mass of cargo is less noticable? this is a great way to achive the EXACT SAME effect, and probably takes much less time.
Sun: No, it isn't about that at all. It's about making the maud a good trade ship without making it an uber fighter with a huge hold. Beolach wants to give it NOT ONLY GOOD TURBO THRUST but also the ability to manuever with that cargo, while at the same time avoiding having to give it a huge thrust so that it handles way too well as a fighter if you don't give it any cargo. Upping the thrust when it only weighs in the 4000-5000kg area would make it a super fighter, like the valk. The maud is supposed to be a light ship with a huge hold, but not an uber dogfighter.
Who?: No, it doesn't. It makes the ship a super figher as well, like the Atlas X is. That's why the idea of leaving it as it is but making cargo not bog it down so much would work so well. It would make it's thrust and manueverability perfect for handling its cargo, but not change its handling in combat in any way.
Who?: No, it doesn't. It makes the ship a super figher as well, like the Atlas X is. That's why the idea of leaving it as it is but making cargo not bog it down so much would work so well. It would make it's thrust and manueverability perfect for handling its cargo, but not change its handling in combat in any way.
Re: Sun Tzu
> PS Beolach, re your Tung Maud/Behemoth comparison, perhaps you can add the mass of
> the ships too and do the ratio :D
Sure.
Behemoth turbo acceleration, empty: 50m/s2
Tunguska Mining Marauder turbo acceleration, empty: 45.4545m/s2
Behemoth turbo acceleration, 120cu XiRite Alloy: 22.7273m/s2
Tunguska Mining Marauder turbo acceleration, 60cu XiRite Alloy: 10.6383m/s2
> This suggestion is not about the Maud dealing better with cargo (improved turbo
> thrust). It's about the Maud having the ability to fight as if it isn't carrying
> cargo (cargo mass reduction). If there was an un-magical way to achieve that
> result, I have no doubt that Beolach would have seen it.
Actually, the cargo mass reduction would be meant more to help the Maud deal better with cargo, but it differs from simply increasing the turbo thrust because it would also apply for normal (non-turbo) flight as well as when turboing. Giving the Maud the ability to fight better while carrying cargo is a secondary effect (although it is intentional). Also I want to be clear that while with the mass reduction the Marauders would be much better at fighting while carrying cargo, the cargo would have a detrimental effect on their performance - just not as much as normal. And I'd like to see it be about where it is now in combat - decent, but only just so. Oh, and it's not "magical", my psuedo-science explanation is just as good as the gravitic anomoly wormholes we use to warp around the universe. ;-)
Re: who? me?
> cant we just pull the same trick on it as the behemoth, as in increase the thrust and
> mass so that the added mass of cargo is less noticable? this is a great way to achive
> the EXACT SAME effect, and probably takes much less time.
It would not be the exact same effect. It would be very, very similar, but there's one distinct difference. With cargo mass reduction, we can allow the ship to have a higher thrust/mass ratio (acceleration), without making too uber in combat. Let's look at an example: in my original post I suggested the Valent Maud have a 1/20th cargo mass reduction. To use the method of increasing the thrust & mass, we would multiply both the thrust and the mass by 20. Now any additional cargo mass we add has 1/20th the effect on acceleration as it did before we raised the thrust & mass. But, any weapon mass we equip also only has 1/20th the effect on acceleration, which means the Maud has the advantages of a heavy combat ship: it can equip the heaviest weapons with very little penalty. Say hello to the tri-flare Maud! With the Behemoth, adding massive weapons has very little penalty to the acceleration, but no one uses the Moth in combat, because its base acceleration (thrust/mass ratio when empty) is already so bad, that even though it doesn't get any worse, it's still not good enough to use in combat.
The cargo mass reduction would only apply to cargo, not to weapon mass, so when the Marauder still behaves like a light ship as far as weapons are concerned - if it equips massive weapons, it takes a big hit to its maneuverability. This means we can give the Marauders a better acceleration than we could if we raised the mass & thrust, without completely unbalancing the Marauders in combat.
> PS Beolach, re your Tung Maud/Behemoth comparison, perhaps you can add the mass of
> the ships too and do the ratio :D
Sure.
Behemoth turbo acceleration, empty: 50m/s2
Tunguska Mining Marauder turbo acceleration, empty: 45.4545m/s2
Behemoth turbo acceleration, 120cu XiRite Alloy: 22.7273m/s2
Tunguska Mining Marauder turbo acceleration, 60cu XiRite Alloy: 10.6383m/s2
> This suggestion is not about the Maud dealing better with cargo (improved turbo
> thrust). It's about the Maud having the ability to fight as if it isn't carrying
> cargo (cargo mass reduction). If there was an un-magical way to achieve that
> result, I have no doubt that Beolach would have seen it.
Actually, the cargo mass reduction would be meant more to help the Maud deal better with cargo, but it differs from simply increasing the turbo thrust because it would also apply for normal (non-turbo) flight as well as when turboing. Giving the Maud the ability to fight better while carrying cargo is a secondary effect (although it is intentional). Also I want to be clear that while with the mass reduction the Marauders would be much better at fighting while carrying cargo, the cargo would have a detrimental effect on their performance - just not as much as normal. And I'd like to see it be about where it is now in combat - decent, but only just so. Oh, and it's not "magical", my psuedo-science explanation is just as good as the gravitic anomoly wormholes we use to warp around the universe. ;-)
Re: who? me?
> cant we just pull the same trick on it as the behemoth, as in increase the thrust and
> mass so that the added mass of cargo is less noticable? this is a great way to achive
> the EXACT SAME effect, and probably takes much less time.
It would not be the exact same effect. It would be very, very similar, but there's one distinct difference. With cargo mass reduction, we can allow the ship to have a higher thrust/mass ratio (acceleration), without making too uber in combat. Let's look at an example: in my original post I suggested the Valent Maud have a 1/20th cargo mass reduction. To use the method of increasing the thrust & mass, we would multiply both the thrust and the mass by 20. Now any additional cargo mass we add has 1/20th the effect on acceleration as it did before we raised the thrust & mass. But, any weapon mass we equip also only has 1/20th the effect on acceleration, which means the Maud has the advantages of a heavy combat ship: it can equip the heaviest weapons with very little penalty. Say hello to the tri-flare Maud! With the Behemoth, adding massive weapons has very little penalty to the acceleration, but no one uses the Moth in combat, because its base acceleration (thrust/mass ratio when empty) is already so bad, that even though it doesn't get any worse, it's still not good enough to use in combat.
The cargo mass reduction would only apply to cargo, not to weapon mass, so when the Marauder still behaves like a light ship as far as weapons are concerned - if it equips massive weapons, it takes a big hit to its maneuverability. This means we can give the Marauders a better acceleration than we could if we raised the mass & thrust, without completely unbalancing the Marauders in combat.