There's always a bunch of debate when a new ship is proposed about what effects it will have on balance, whether it will be the ultimate this or that, etc.... A lot of these debates would be best resolved by trying them out.

As I understand it, adding a ship variant only takes the devs a couple minutes, as a ship is just a few key/value pairs. If that's so, everything in the ships/addons thread could be added to the test server in under an hour. PCC could probably organize regular trials of new ships - I know I'd be one of the first to sign up.

Good way to test mechanics of it at least ... if not the image models.

Always thought this would be a good idea, but also always thought it was already suggested. Guess I'll wait to find out from someone else..

I'm not talking about new ship models here - just variants of existing ships and weapons. Anything that belongs in this thread qualifies. Proposals for entirely new models do not, as those are not easy for the devs to add. The focus here is on easy.

My point was until a ship model is defined beyond what we have, the mechanics can be tested. Models can be changed at a later date. But most of the arguments about the ships are functionality and balance questions, more then model. I know the Dev's have too much on their plates to worry about models.

I think this is a great idea. And should be tried.

New ship models require client updates, so that'd be out. Only variants of existing ships would work easily.

I've suggested this before. I think the devs are opposed to it for some reason though. I can't remember exactly. I think I may have suggested that we just have free reign to tweak stats as we please on the test server to see what works. Then once we find sets of stats that are interesting and balanced, we could post them here to be added to the game.

Would probably be best for the PCC to be able to add tweaked weps/ships to the test server instead of having the devs do the work. I'm all for this though.

It sounds like a good idea... the devs get reliable feed back on varients and the PCC gets to test out new ship varients. It's win win.

I like the idea of being able to play using ship variants on the test server. I might go there more often if this were added.

Unfortunately, we would then have a bunch of people hanging out on the test server, rather than populating the VO universe. Then everyone left in VO would complain that there are hardly any players, etc..

Also, if all the practical ship variants were added to the test server, that wouldn't really be a scientific method of testing for balance. Too many variables at once. Perhaps introducing one non-production ship at a time to test would be valid. All that said, we lack the long view that the devs have. They have very specific roles for ships.