Just about every marauder variant sucks because of a lack of thrust. You put 3 heavy weapons on it and it's slow. Put any kind of cargo on it and it's slow.

Mauds (except maybe the corv maud) do need a general buff. The Prom and Valks already got nerfed to death, Valks did used to go 240m/s you know, with infiniturbo too! Proms had like 10x more thrust and a lil more mass+armor too.

I think more ships is the fix, not changing what we have. Ok, I'm not the best at PvP, but I can hold my own against almost any ship in a hog mk2, if the pilot isn't very clued up, they will die, regardless of ship.

Sure, in the right hands they are deadly, but that's what they are supposed to be.

Just another way to look at it.. if there is a gap, instead of nerfing the superior ships (which some people are obviously attached to, and others strive to achieve), fill it with other types of ships.
New models, (new variants?)... etc.
(Yes. I still want a fun raptor. Sorry, but it is the 'iconic' ship of VO... used in all the graphics (Droid loading screen, etc) ).

As for ship designs, it looks like back in the day there were a bunch of ideas:
http://vo-wiki.com/wiki/Player_designed_ships
^^Given, some of those designs look like they were stolen from: babylon 5, wing commander, etc..

How about putting a competition for ship designs -(models and textures). Opening it up to the schools that teach game design, etc (would encourage some high quality submissions). Have them posted and then a voting system where players could vote on what they wanted to see ingame?

The problem with asking for new ships is that it's not just the design you need, it's a ton of other stuff. It takes a lot of dev time to put together an entirely new ship. Fixing the valk and prom is an easier solution that can see results appear much sooner, and they can always be switched back when there's enough dev resources available to put in some new ships. It's a quick fix, but it can make an improvement temporarily while we wait for new ships, instead of leaving it how it is (broken) and waiting for new ships.

^^ on that note... so is adding more raptor varients... XD

We don't need more raptor variants, we need the raptor variants that exist to be better.

Valks and proms do not need any fix, yer brain might though sweetheart : ]

Personally, I think the TPG Raptor would make a more appropriate UIT analogue to the Itani Valkyrie and Serco Prometheus than the Marauder... if it didn't, ya know, suck.

And, really, making the Marauder more immediately accessible would go a long way towards making it more attractive. As it stands, most Marauder variants have license and faction requirements like top-tier equipment, when they have long since been eclipsed by more capable, more readily available alternatives.

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