now that we can move equipment around, the next logical step would be to be able to move ships, in mass.

eg, a valk could be considered as a 20cu ship, plus the exact variant's cargo capacity (20+6 for a vigilant i believe).

this would then allow us to move, say, 4 valks in a moth down to a useful place.

if the moth gets blown to bits, then so would the ships to avoid seeing ships trailing in space as cargo crates.

this would make it interesting to see convoys of ships being transfered and it would feel more logical that ships need to be hauled in to a station for it to be able to sell them,

with the new economy, this would also translate to supply variations of this or that ship in a given station/sector.

this would also open a new kind of commerce, beyond equipment, for players. provided we find a way to transfer ownership of something via the station menu. or like the givemoney command, /transfer "cargo name" "player name" (if both players and cargo are in same sector).

edit:
oh, and if player/guild -owned cappies/stations are anywhere nearing availability, this would offer means to resupply station/cappy with equipment and ships.

/me pleads and wishes hard for this to come true.
(What the hell, it worked for the weapons-as-cargo thing...)

Yes, this is something that can be done. In fact, it can be done with the current system. But it won't be implemented for a little while yet, for various reasons I won't get into (I have to leave in a sec). But ships will probably only be transportable by Capital scale vessels. Don't expect to move anything but tiny drones in your Behemoth.

"tiny drones"? That sounds fun!

suure, hop on down to thurisaz's junkya....uh, I mean *showroom*, and grab yourself a demiCenturion... just like the popular light interceptor, but now it folds up to fit in your cargo bay!! nearly all(**) the comforts of one of the sky's most popular fighters, now with triple the flexibility!!!



[**-does not include cupholder, seat padding, ejection seat, HUD gauges, or control stick; engine sold separately and non-foldable; seller not liable for any injury or property damage resulting from piloting of demiCenturion prototypes; not available for purchase or import where prohibited by law]

Remember that ship size doesn't change, even if it's cargo space does. Increased cargo space just means smaller other parts. So a Valk or whatever would ALWAYS take up the same CU. Also, I suspect that ships will be made their own special cargo units: so a trident might have 300 CU and 8 ships as a hold, 500 CU and 4 ships, or 100 CU and 12 ships (as three separate variants).

Hey, you could load a transport-drone into a behemoth, into a constellation to make some kind of cargo-hauler turducken.

Sounds fun.
I can't wait for user-pilotable large ships.

Heh, you can actually do it now on the test server- some of the missions end up with vult (or any other ship) cargo scattered across the sector. You just can't fly em though, they don't have engines.

-Nautargos

Wait, did he say drone? As in we'll have our own drones, like spy drones? o_O