Okay, so accounting for the comments since I last posted:

The Serco Guardian Interceptor concept I proposed would be a variant of the SVG. You could even call it the SVG-Interceptor (SVG-I) and the current SVG the SVG-Patrol (SVG-P) since both would be fulfilling a national defense role that the SVG was always designed to.

The issue of nerfing v. not nerfing the Valkyrie in some way has always been discussed. The problem with it being that it has always enjoyed something of a decisive advantage over the other national ships. The Valk has the speed and maneuverability to stay outside the guns of a Prom, completely negating the Proms heavier weapons. The slow speed of the Prom though means the Valk can sit off her and obliterate her at the Valks leisure.
Even a relatively new Valk pilot can out perform a Prom. And they were never really designed to be dog-fighting each other. The Valk-Vult were dog-fighters, while the Prom was an assault ship.

Since this thread is about trying to even up the disparity, we should remember what these ships historical role was. Obviously, the Valkyrie has undergone some major updates to make her an effective dog-fighter, but the Vulture lags, and the Prometheus is poorly suited. Likewise, the original Itani plans involved hit & run attacks as opposed to stand & fight engagements, so they never got a gunboat.

The other thing we could do, since we are getting a little overloaded on variants of national ships in an effort to block out the problems, is introduce contracted ships, similar to what small nations like Israel do in real life with weapons systems.

Something like the TPG Raptor (Serco [Military] Interceptor):
A 3rd party manufactured variant purchased under contract by the Serco Military to fulfill the missing interceptor niche in it's armed forces. Fitting upgraded engines, and an enhanced electronics package, the Raptor-SI is a threat to Itani border raiders.

The Itani could also license something for a gunboat: The Itani Ragnarok (couldn't think of a fancy name).
This Ragnarok fits heavier armor and an upgraded electronics package at the cost of 2 low slots. She was designed under contract with (pick a company) as a counter to the dominance of the SkyProm.

Make both of these ships nation exclusive variants, requiring high standing with their respective nations, and allegiance to that nation's military to purchase.

This gets around the issue of messing with the Valkyrie and the Vulture designs. Eliminates yet another variant model in the national ships and Vulture lines (which already have quite a few) and still serves the purposes of getting other ships out there.

More new ships! Screw the old ships! This is thread is exhaustively pointless. Moreover, tweaking the SVG (or any other ship for that matter) will do NOTHING to get more players into, or back to, the game.

This is evidenced by the newest ship addition -- the new vulture. People basically logged on to see how it handles differently and then logged off again. We need game changers, not tiny (and in this case, totally pointless) tweaks.

Moreover, tweaking the SVG (or any other ship for that matter) will do NOTHING to get more players into, or back to, the game.

As far as I'm concerned, that is irrelevant to the core discussion here. This is all about improving a balance situation for people who are playing. The OP may have had all sorts of sunny predictions of people flooding back because of this, but I have no illusions of that happening and it's not my goal in doing this.

So, let's focus on discussion of improved balance for the betterment of the game, and leave all the Serco-population and returning-veteran stuff out of it. Having "more ships" to attract people is a wholly separate issue that's beyond Valk-vs-other-interceptor relative-balance discussions.

(Continued discussion is welcome, just jumping in briefly to keep things on-topic).

Don't just make the svg as good as the valk at interception, make it better: the infiniturbo fighter.

We have loads of ships and weps. Pilot skill is far more significant than minor ship changes.

What we need is reasons to go and fly them.

This is true Dave, but we have a few REALLY good things, and other good things, but there is no reason not to buy the top tier. You know this. You fly a prom and an atlas-x most of the time. Without some sort of scarcity, ship or monetary, there is no reason to downgrade. And since we are unlikely to get that soon, let's make some of the good stuff better.

Fine inc, but you did say this:

I was fine with tweaking the Valk back in 2010.. Ghost knew that, although I don't think I told him why I had to basically "go away" for awhile. But if people would rather I re-visited the Valk tuning instead of adding new ships or tweaking the SVG, I'm fine with that too.

So my greater point was that I vote your time is better spent on new ships.

As an alternative, being that I am unaware that there must be a 1:1 ratio of special ships between the two nations, why not add a new model to the Warthog family with specs somewhere between the hog 2 and the greyhound and call it something Serco-ish and be done with it?

So my greater point was that I vote your time is better spent on new ships.

Ok, that's fine on its own, I just don't want people to get too bogged down in trying to "attract new users" or whatever. That's one factor, but it shouldn't be the main one of this discussion.

But more ships.. fair enough.

+1 Death Fluffy. Name it the Pumba.

Death Fluffy: Because a warthog would be typically too heavy for the task. Of course it's possible, but a Vulture is a better candidate for a Serco ship.

Actually, a heavier interceptor might be interesting, with strong engines that is good at chasing but less good at fighting (e.g. high turbo trust, lowish drain, and high max turbo speed but worse spin torque and normal max velocity and nowhere near the armour level of an SCP), but that packs a great initial punch because of the heavy port, e.g. with a jackhammer or even upgrade to 2L for a pair of jacks. Somehow that feels more serco-ish than a nimble fighter interceptor. The SVG can play the role of patrol / light defensive fighter.

You mean like the Raptor? :P

Or more like the Greyhound. That already exists.

Anyway, the SVG is already an excellent interceptor. So it's not going to be resigned to a role of a "defensive" fighter unless it gets a serious nerf.

Well it would be a greyhound variant for sure, but I think it needs to be tweaked a bit before it can scare a valk. Maybe increase turbo drain in exchange for some more weaponry, armour, or spin.

I'm just saying it would be nice to have a different interceptor ship for the Serco, which is better than the Valk at some things (firepower? turbo trust?), worse at other things (nimbleness), but does have the legs to give chase.

Another option could be to tweak the "light" prom (which I don't think is used much?) to sacrifice some more armour in exchange for turbo trust and turbo max speed. It would still suck at long chases since it cannot change course efficiently ("vector", in trs-speak), but it could dash out and hit a lighter craft that attempts hit-and-run tactics.

The Pumba would be like a hound, but swap the small port for a second large port, and swap the cargo scanner for an addon scanner. Then give it maybe a 5% boost to armor, mass, and thrust, a 10% boost to spin torque, and up the turbo drain to 49/s. Leave the velocities and turbo-thrust alone, and change the cargo capacity to 2cu.

The SVG would be a good interceptor in a world where there were 1 or two infini-turbo ships. It is incapable of interception at any distance beyond 3000m because it runs out of juice to output enough damage to destroy a fleeing target.

ARF is wrong.

Right, and for those extreme circumstances there's long range chase ships like the Greyhound.

Thats not an extreme chase scenario, that's the average distance to a wormhole and the average chase out of a sector, the greyhound has less acceleration and does worse for the first 2000m and better the further you chase.

EDIT:



Brown is normal thrust and orange is turbo thrust.

Seems I was wrong about the SVG doing better in the first 2000m, I probably felt that way since I tend to unnecessarily add flares to my greyhounds wheras I would never do that for an SVG interceptor loadout.

Looking at the valk though, it's miles ahead on turbo thrust/weight. It certainly does better than a greyhound in the first 2000m unless you're comparing the heaviest valk loadout to the lightest greyhound.

For the purposes of this discussion, an interceptor shall henceforth be understood to be a ship which is capable of:

A) Catching up to a running centaur mk3.
B) Being able to destroy said centaur with energy weapons using a UC battery.
C) Being able to sustain a chase against a vectoring opponent, firing incrementally.

I like the SVG, but it's not an interceptor. It's a light fighter with ambush capabilities if you catch someone with their pants down. I know I'm not the greatest pirate to ever live, but I am pretty good at my job. We need to stop trying to make things on par with the valk, and make some stuff better than the valk. Change up the universe's dynamics. Make me want to fly something else.

I liked a suggestion I saw about making cents itani, vultures serco, and warthogs uit. While we're at it, let's buff the WTD so it can chase, shrink the raptor so it can fight, and give the hornet a Cadillac hood ornament because fins are awesome and so is the Hornet!

Nobody intercepts ships beyond 3000m unless the target is a total newb or a crappy pilot. Poor argument.