Latest newsletter made a lot of long time VO afficionados very happy so a thank you to GS should be in order, however… I do have some concerns about the direction VO is taking with this latest announcement of playable capital class ships.

From the start VO was about highly original and entertaining twitch combat - something no other space sim game managed to achieve so far.
Light fighters and good piloting skill were the soul of the game and provided endless hours of great entertainment.

Announcement of Capella class capship made me worried quite a bit.
Is VO going the way of EVE?

Are we going to become spreadsheet warriors manufacturing Capella for 2-3 years and then sitting in our invincible huge ships until we get bored and forget about VO?

Will twitch combat become the thing of the past and turn into a “clash of titans” where nobody dies or wins because “tactical retreat” is the way to go.

Also with huge Capships and their, I presume, gigantic cargo space - all of the thrills of running around in a small cargo vessel doing procurement and other missions will become obsolete and everything in VO will turn into a spreadsheet grinding race to get to the biggest invincible Capship - get it, declare yourself the big cahuna just to then find out that you have nothing more to do in the game.
Flying, trading, combat with your “precious” will actually be boring and uneventful.

Are this legitimate concerns or not?
It would definitely help if we could get some insight into your vision of the VO future.

About Goliath

Around 2005/6 there were some suggestions from the community that we should see some kind of a gunship and such suggestions appeared sporadically now and then till today.
Seeing the Goliath and hearing about this ‘test’ variant stats and capabilities, I keep wondering if it could actually become the long awaited gunship we requested long time ago.

As stated in the newsletter - there will probably be a number of variant types and some specific to certain major or minor factions.

This ‘test’ model looks very promising but, at least in my opinion, is a weird mix of an actual assault gunship and heavy freighter and in it’s current state it does not serve either purpose well enough.

As an assault vessel it has the offensive capabilities (3L, 4S ports) but it’s crippled by mediocre speed and manouverability as well as weak defensive capabilities.

As a heavy freighter it’s crippled by weak defensive capabilities (low shield and armor) and offensive weapons do not help it in this role.

My suggestion would be to, as you already announced in the newsletter, introduce at least 2 variants for a start:

1. Assault gunship variant with slightly higher top speed and manouverability at the expense of the cargo capacity. It needs only enough cargo capacity to accomodate 2 light fighters + pilot only (300cu tops).
Assault gunship can have the same defensive capabilities as the test model provided some Goliath specific turrets are introduced. It’s main vulnerability (with low shield and armor) are missile bombers and packs of light energy fighters so I think some kind of “point defense” turret is in order - intercepting some % of incoming missiles and being effective at fending off light fighters at very close range.
Also, capital class weapons (cap gauss & swarms) are of no use on assault gunship. I think it would benefit more from the fast & effective turets like dual positrons or neutrons or even rocket turrets.

2. Heavy freighter variant, less front weapons in exchange for stronger shields, armor and cargo capacity - actually 800cu would be fine as it is.
Since it’s a cargo variant, speed and manouverability could stay the same as they are. Exclusive Goliath only point defense turrets should also be a valid option for this variant.

Once all the stats of the test model are known and I could actually test it, I will probably try to suggest some additional tweaks and changes.

About Goliath availability

Should Goliath be manufacturable or be a straight buy from the nation Capital stations - M7?

Whoever did the sadistic trident manufacturing grind when there was no N2 dynamic commerce station and M7 station was 30k away from the jump point, I think would agree with my suggestion to make Goliath purchaseable.

Make the price 50 mil + insurance cost of 2 mil for repurchasing it after destruction.
When you add the cost of additional equipment - weapons & turrets - it will become a solid money sink for everyone.

I agree with the Goliath being a straight buy.

However, the Capella will not remove twitch-based fighter combat, the moth can easily outrun the smallest capital ship at the moment, fighter craft and light transports will become the safer way to avoid nemesis capital ships and a light fighter will have to be used as a smarter way to catch them. As for the economies of power, well it's my hope that every capital ship will stand to be capable of fighting against every capital ship, for instance, the Goliath being lighter has a fair chance against a Trident, and I hope the Trident have a fair chance against the Capella.

Finally grinding, I believe GS did an amazing thing for those committed to playing their game, by allowing LTS to lease a Goliath early and I believe that your straight buy idea is fantastic. As the grind to obtain the TTM was torturous at best and as a new player, i can remember how impossible its manufacture seemed, especially how the players who had already obtained one described it. I think the manufacturing system was great for the trident for a time but has since become an elitist endgame goal of which no small guild or solitary player can ever stand a chance at achieving.

For the Capella, I would hope that it would be a group project / platform rather than individual player specific. Building a trident is bad enough and pretty much sucks any available time away from actually playing the game. Since it's going to have docking AND exit bays and imo is aesthetically unimpressive, my hope is that it is meant to function as a player owned station.

link?

I don't really see that adding large ships makes small ships any less relevant. If anything, our "small ship" foundation is really solid, and I'm trying to broaden and expand capabilities, especially in the face of a larger galaxy with player-conquered territory and player-owned stations.

Trading between small stations, that have peaky routes and can only receive smaller trade vessels, is still lucrative.. even if there are huge vessels trading between "major ports", or whatever.

Also, the goals for which-assets-are-made-first are driven as much by "how to train an artist" as anything else. In this case, it's been easier to work on mentoring Curt with a series of capships, than it necessarily would have been with other types of content.

At the same time, we do need more varied capships in more varied roles, and it helps improve the content graphics and adds other value (like diverse convoys, etc).

Anyway, I don't see the addition of new content, like a variety of capships, as cause for concern that we'll suddenly changed from a twitch-model game with arguably the best multiplayer PvP of any space title.. into a non-twitch model trade-sim game. It just increases the scale of possibilities, it doesn't change the "soul" of the game at all.

Are we going to become spreadsheet warriors manufacturing Capella for 2-3 years and then sitting in our invincible huge ships until we get bored and forget about VO?

The sort of players who would do this aren't the sort that we want to keep around anyway. Let them grow bored with the game quicker than us and leave the game to true pvp-loving players.

This might be finally the end of TGFT.

First off: the ability for these fighters to be twitch based AND to have the sort of giant powerhouse capitols allows VO to be the best of the two game worlds you are talking about.

There will be players who want to sit in that gigantic ship and do almost nothing until it really matters- and players who will be so skilled at fighter combat they will be needed almost all the time.

You are not looking at the entirety of scale GS is implementing here. The presence of these big ships vs the small ships makes this game have an entirely huge sense of scale. The twitch based combat will still be at the forefront as you def need fighters and small attack ships no matter what as well as the implementation of goliaths everywhere and a few dents and even the capella allows for some real armada space shit going down.

The goliath seems like a vessel that allows for a small cruiser-ish niche, throw avalons on it and aim it right and you can have a quick yet beefy artillery at the ready.

You are also forgetting the other small craft we have right now only serves few purposes, killing mostly other small craft. There are rags waiting to be used as the bombers they were meant to be. There is so much about eve that is hated, but what is loved by many is the sense of scale here. Those big ships serve a purpose, but when you start to play the game it gets so incredinly boring (VO is the oppositw, twitch based small fighter combat that is adrenaline filled).

There will be reasons to now fly your dent all the time, a reason to its incredible cost. Theres now reasons for goliaths all over. And there will incredibly be even more of uses for the small craft that is at the center of the game.

You are looking at it thinking "hey, i started playing this game for the small fighters and twitch combat that made this game so great, now it wont even be the best way to play", instead of looking at that twitch based combat becoming interwoven with the greatwr changes ahead. Can you imagine the need for really good vets who played this game when it was just mostly fighter twitch combat? They will be a huge advantage to every single niche coming up here.

Dont be afraid of progress, embrace the incredulous height GS is taking the game you love so much, making it even better.

4 guys man. They are doing something amazing right now.

Make the Goliath manufactureable with an insurance plan.

Also make it available via a 60 day lease for a not insignificant fee, something with some pain to it.

People can then choose to pay a lot or work a lot, or lease one to use to make one.

If anything, these changes make the small craft magnitudes more important. It wont be just small groups or 1v1s all the time, you will have needs for fighters, for bombers, for assault craft, all the small ships twitch based will have so many more things to do. You will have the presence of tridents mean so much more when they will be there to repair. Do you see where im going with this? The implementation of this sense of scale gives the game so much more to go to, and it has an incredible foundation already

@ohshtwaddup

Incarnate made it clear, in not so many words, that VO will not become EVE. Good enough for me for now.
However, your speculations about the future gameplay are without any merit atm.

For some time now we actually have gameplay involving fighters, bombers and tridents. It's enough to check the RP thread to see tridents getting destroyed every day en masse by teamwork of player groups. Besides the point now.
I also see introduction of Goliath in a dedicated gunship role as a very big improvement in the current gameplay and I only expressed my concern about Capella class player pilotable ships that will obviously (probably?) be classified as battleships.

However, you are wrong with your assumption that introduction of this new ships will make the small craft more important - it just won't. As in all other games, human nature leads most players towards bigger ships which provide them with a sense of security and power.
It remains to be seen if GS will be able to strike the right balance in the future to avoid that from happening. I hope they do.

@bojan,

You are incredibly right. The whole bigger powerful ship thing is def true, and henceforth i mean ofcourse people will want the beefy ships.

I need to reword what i meant though, skilled fighter pilots will find even more of a /need/ from the playerbase. What i mean is we are going to see so much more of skilled fighter pilots needed in fights when thesw big ships come out. Right now besides dents, that IS the game.

I mean when it comes down to it, these beefy ships will need some defence against a group of pilots in small craft. If theres more beefy ships, you can bet fighters will play a more central role.

I mean look at how dents are taken out right now. Scale down the people needed for taking down a goliath. You can see theres still a huge use for the fighters. Use is what will keep people in the small ships.

The saving grace here is the capship weapons arent all gattling cannons that auto aim and fire at small craft, otherwise it would be moot to even fight in small craft. Theres swarms, but i mean with a large enough group of good pilots its relatively easy to deal with them.

So i mean everyone can be flying around in goliaths and dents, but they are bulky, slow, and serve mostly as a support role for the fighters/bombers anyways.

And also, theres just more dynamic in the game this way. Group combat is a major thing that keeps people playing and keeps the game interesting, and that will definitely increase when there is more ships to defend.

First of all Combat is not the only thing in VO.
Myself and several others have spent a lot of hours flying through grey space in unarmed cargo ships to bring the many tridents to life and will continue to do so. Thats just how we roll and I really dont care if you dont like it.

Second I have personally built 3 tridents and will soon begin a fourth yet I dont personally own a single one. I find driving them to be extremely boring. The tridents are in fact meant to be the end game for the time being operated by the few who have earned the right.

It is my opinion that players should in fact have a choice of paying or building their ships as long as the payment is equal to the actual labor it takes to build one.
I am also of the opinion that cap ships should support group ownership and be transferable from player to player (Taxable?) with an increase in the build time / payment.

Finally fighters and small cargo ships will never lose their purpose in vo - they fill important roles that will always be needed.

VO is about skill while Eve is about levels. No amount of mining, trading or procurement will ever make you a better fighter. It is the games best feature and worst handicap.

If there are vets that can solo a leviathan, I'm sure that this ship (however powerful) will be as vulnerable as any trident without any player based support from guild mates etc..... Secondly, it is great that the VO landscape is changing and more content is coming out, though 1 player with furies should not be enough to take out this ship, we need the new turret models or improve thecurrent capital turrets to make them more fitting to the power they drain on the power grid. I'm sure the development team will take all this in prior to testing, and work out a fair balance, perhaps 2 players with a total of 6 furies able to desheild this monster, or 4-5 well timed rag bombers (a tad short of a levi sheild). In any case, I belive in some comments in previous replies on this thread, tridents should have more offensive capabilities to stand aboth the Goliath, yet still be vulnerable to it (its maneuverability giving it an edge/fighting chance), and also be able to stand against the Capella (2 Tridents should be able to desheild with no/little fighter support, yet a lone trident still be a fair target to the Capella if not an easy one).
To summarise, nobody wants and invincible ship, but it must be defendable, a ship that is too easily destroyed is not a challenge for a team of attackers with smaller ship, and not worth having. A ship that is too difficult to destroy with a decent team is boring for the one flying it. In short, the goldilocks tests will get us a ship that is juuuuust right.
Thanks for all the hard work devs