It seems many people nearing completion of the pre-manufacturing phase of trident building are going to hold out until the Type-P and Type-S versions are out. If indeed you planned 3 trident variants, it would be a good time to drop them in. There are no shortages of Master Computers nor Optical Sensors already built, having had those missions available for so long.

+1

I don't understand why you'd want new content so soon after the new app icon was released.

You may not have noticed yet, but this community simply cannot be satisfied. You could release an updated icon or new phone support every day and they'd still want more!

Greedy fuckers.

It's really all about the icon.

HOW ABOUT A BIGGER ICON?!

/bows down

After repeated player requests, I've diverted all of our development resources towards icon development. We're going to begin by creating a 6-foot-tall clay mockup, concept-car style, then take a photo of it with a 12 year old digital camera, and re-scale the resulting image to 32x32.

Now can we return to the topic? CD, I hear you. I'm swamped trying to get all this graphics stuff done this week, but that would be a good goal for next week. Perhaps you could post some theoretical Type-P and Type-S configuration suggestions. I have some notes with ideas, but welcome others.

IMN is selling seipos master computers!
I am serious though

I agree that the Type-S and Type-P are needed, but before we spend too much time talking about configurations for those perhaps the Type-M config could be revisited.

400cu cargo just doesn't make any sense.

Anyway, Type-S should have a self destruct button, and Type-P should be lighter and faster. Only allow Serco players to build the Type-S...

Since all stats are subject to change anyway, as we are still in "first offering" mode, all 3 ships can be tweaked later to balance them.

I assumed the gist would be the Seipos would be heavier, have more armor, and maybe turbo thrust, while the Prosus is lighter, less armor, higher turbo top speed. IMHO, all three should EVENTUALLY get shields when you can work out how to do that with player ships. Perhaps different recharge rates and max strength on each variant?

I disagree about nation restrictions to build any of these if they are being made at the Latos Shipyard. The whole operation is based on un-licensed data aggregators...

Oh, and as long as Dad1 is advertising:

ORE has Seipos, Prosus, and perhaps one or two spare Milanar Master Computers for sale, as well as optical sensors of all 3 flavors.

-1 to nation-restricted capships at this time. Later when there are more capships, restricted national variants with better combat specs can be introduced that require a certain amount of service time with the military.

And don't forget, people who are hated with a particular nation will already have trouble acquiring the hive components themselves. That's enough of a limiting factor for now.

So, back on old topic:

Siepos Trident: (Freighter/miner)
-heaviest version, more armour, resulting in slower acceleration/turn (same max speed)
-Larger CARGO bay, some 1600cu
-Smallest DOCK bay, only 3 ships
-Weapons: 4 turrets, 3L/1s ports for pilot

Prosus Trident (carrier)
-Lightest version, less armour, resulting in fastest acceleration/turn (same max speed)
-Smallest CARGO bay, like 300cu
-Largest DOCK bay, for 12 ships
-Weapons: 4T, 1L/3s ports for pilot

So far I kept the same 3D model, but I really like to see variations on turrets placement/amount, like one version with 6 turrets, the other with only 2.

Also, more "capital" turrets versions, maybe only available to sell on shipyard(s). At least some missile/swarm turrets and a MINING TURRET should be included with next upgrade release.

I really don't see how 400cu is too small since you can fit 4x 200cu Behemoth XCs inside it for a grand total of 1200cu.

If we're going to be trading off docking bay capacity for additional cargo hold or vice versa, it may be a good idea to stick to that as a guideline. Considering that a shipping-packed valk as cargo occupies 100cu of space, so -100cu of cargo space for additional docking capacity of 8 more ships is pretty broken.

I vote treat the docked ships as cargo, and just have one grand unified bay. Ship docks, decrease remaining cargo space by the volume of the ship's bounding box (as opposed to the ship's displacement).

I was quite disappointed when I found out the Trident only had 400cu of cargo space. I was expecting the larger components to build a HAC or Connie to take up 800-1200cu, and thus you'd need to either own a Trident or hire one to build a HAC/Connie.

Take a look at that image on the media page showing the different ship scales. Just one of the engines on the Connie looks to be at least 5 times the size of a moth: http://images.vendetta-online.com/screenshots/relative.scale.jpg

I suggest making capships like stations in that the storage space can be use either for cargo or ships. Moths take up 300 cu of storage space, so as a baseline for the Trident M it could have 1500 cu of storage space available, and if 4 moths are docked then only 300 cu would be left for cargo. This would also mean that the Trident may have to jettison cargo to allow ships to dock (a moth would be able to grab most of it before docking). Note that a Trident takes up 15,000 cu of storage space in a station -- the cargo size I am proposing is a tenth of that.

It probably also would be good to keep a max hanger size like it is now (max 4 ships docked), so while you'd theoretically have the space to hold 15 EC class ships, you'd still be limited to having only 4.

I would rather shields and other issues like the key problems be addressed first

I do agree that keys should be dealt with first, but after that, probably best to go ahead and do the S and P tridents. That way people can get started on the very slow process of building their tridents while the devs are working on improving tridents in general.

I was joking (obviously I thought) about the nation restrictions.

Yes, it would be nice if the Type-S and Type-P were released, but I still am kinda lukewarm on the idea of spending much more time on cappie crafting for two reasons which are easily fixed, and should be at the time the new variants are added:

- Trident Type-M has very little practical use, especially with 400cu cargo capacity. At 1000cu, which is more realistic, it might be an incentive.
- The amount of time/energy/credits/resources to build the existing Type-M is.... a bit (two bits?) absurd. If there was a useful variant of the Trident AND it didn't take such a ridiculous amount of effort to build, I would be all over it. I would put in a lot of effort, and I already have crafted a very significant number of components. Response to the "it is meant to be a group effort argument": groups are hard to come by with the existing player base. It just doesn't make sense that the "cost" to build a Trident is equivalent to thousands of (insert any ship here).

Summary: I think all Tridents should have 1000cu+ cargo capacity and docked ships should decrease available capacity. I think the existing mission requirements for the Type-M are very very excessive. Add the new variants, make the ships useful, and cut the mission requirements significantly.

I really don't like the idea of an expanding docking bay. Makes no sense to me. I keep my previous concept:

A trident have Xcu total storage. You add a fixed size docking bay to it, resulting in (X-DB)cu left for cargo. No matter if dock is full or almost empty, it takes the same space.

Instead, when building a Trident, it is equiped with a (Large, Medium, Small) docking bay module that takes (1200,600,300)cu allowing that 'volume' of ships to dock. So, a small dock fits in 3 small ships but not a moth, while the Large one can hold up to 12 light ships or 2 moths+1small or 3 Ragnaroks or any other combination.

Supposing we start from 1,200cu storage for a Trident, it would result in versions with 0, 600 or 900cu storage respectively for up to 12, 6 or 3 light ships. Adapt the initial value as preferred. But main idea is carrier have no storage, freighter have very few docking slots.

Still on topic, Behemoths must take 400cu. Other ships remain as they are, with 300/Large, 200/medium, 100/light.