What about a racing ship?

250 m/s normal
450 m/s turbo
1000 HP
very high agility
5.000 cr.
NO weapon slots

IceD'Bear: What about a racing engine? That would seem to be more in the spirit of the game as it currently is.

An engine with a higher top speed than the heavy, roughly the same thrust (or even less), but really really bad turbo efficiency probably wouldn't be all that embalancing and since there are few really long flats were you'd burn all your energy on the tracks, would be probably an excellent engine for well, racing.

True 'dat, Celebrim. What bothers me about this thread is that people are proposing ships with higher top speeds than other ships. If you look in game, top speed is determined by what engine you are using, not by the ship itself. If you want to talk about maneuverability, fine, but why should one ship have a higher turbo speed when *all* the other ships have the same turbo speed? If anything, it makes much more sense to propose an *engine* with a higher top speed.

On that note, I would also like to see an engine with a high torque/thrust ratio. Would be very useful on those heavier ships for aiming (if not for dodging).

"What bothers me about this thread is that people are proposing ships with higher top speeds than other ships. If you look in game, top speed is determined by what engine you are using, not by the ship itself."

-The reason people are doing this (or at least the reason I did it) is because one has to drastically nerf the ship in order to make such an absurdly fast engine balanced. That's why we need to limit the amount of weapon ports, etc. I wasn't thinking of it as a specific ship with all these traits. I was thinking more along the lines of having certain engines or batteries that ONLY fit into certain chassis of ships. All I wanted was a fast vehicle for transport. I am very much against any fast combat ships or trade ships. Hence the 0 weapons, 0 cargo, 200 hit point ship with mediocre torque and a piss-poor top speed.

I don't think they're that unbalanced, especially when you consider that later this game will have thousands of sectors. these will be a great way to explore.

Also of note, I think that there should be a global map akin to the EV series maps, where the more you explore, the more you know about the sector layout, and you can call up a map and look at where you need to go. It would be much nicer than that dinky little map on the bottom of the screen that only shows adjacent sectors.

That seems like a nice idea

I am of the opinion that those ships are in a class all of their own.. in a bad way.

There would be absolutly NO interaction between them and regular ships, and that sucks. If someone is in thqat erally uber ship, everything dies. EVERYTHING. because it can dish out the damage and NEVER get touched.

none of those ships could ever be touched unless standing still, which i think is over kill.

But that uber ship will be very, very rare. And if one of those goes on a rampage a couple of other ships could simply destroy it. (also, the missiles are also very very expensive.. so that too makes it difficult to go on a rampage with one). Also, what would be so bad with different classes of ships that don`t really interact? You`d get some nice variation, those that want to go fast, go fast. Those that can`t, don`t.. simple :)

Maybe if the advanced stealth tactical bomber gets too dangerous, disable repairs for it (or make them cost a lot of money), that way you really have to think twice before doing anything dangerous with it.

Urza, I agree with you about ship interaction, but your 500 hull 'fast scout' is even more unbalanced than Sheeans. All of these ships are so unlike anything else we have in game it would be incredibly unbalancing. Also, the devs have said that they don't want to have ships that go faster than 200m/s because there wouldn't be enough ship interaction. I'm told there used to be no top speed and ships used to be able to turn while boosting, but gameplay was a disaster.

yeah, cause people would just fly away.

I note that a triple rail will kill any of the ships with 1 shot.

2 rails will take all down except for the stealth tactical bomber.

Well, most fast ships (except those that are really, really, really expensive) cannot destroy even the simplest of `slow` ship.

Slow ships can dogfight, fast ships cannot.
Slow ships can flag cap, fast ships cannot.
Slow ships can (in average) carry more cargo.
Slow ships are much cheaper (look at the prices of just about anything, if money is scarse you are not going to waste a couple of 25.000 cr. missiles just to kill that poor newb). The cheapest `attack` ships can at the most severly damage a bus.. and if they do so they have to fire ALL their rockets AND they must all hit.
Fast ships have low hp, so slow ships can -for example with rockets, or a few lucky shots by a gat- quite easily kill their `fast` attacker. Also, when these ships are accelerating/deaccelerating, slow ships can attack them. It is not like: they leave station, and within 0.006 sec. they are at 400 m/s I think it should take quite some time to get there.

It is kind of like a b747 and a concorde, yes the concord can go a lot faster. But it is a lot more expensive (to mantain), it can carry a lot less and it needs a really large runway.

edit: Or maybe comparing helicopters with fighterjets. Both can destroy each other (the helicopter can fire it`s missiles of doom towards a jet that is just taking off and a fighterjet can fire it`s missiles to the helicopter when the jet is safly in the air). Ofcourse that will barly happen, the helicopter will mostly fight with the other helicopters. And the fighters will mostly fight with the other fighters.

look at it this way... it's hard enough to shoot down a ship turboing at 200 m/s. Now how hard would it be to shoot 1 down that goes tha

look at it this way... it's hard enough to shoot down a ship turboing at 200 m/s. Now how hard would it be to shoot 1 down that goes that fast forever?

I still prefered my ship... 500h/p, 1 small weapon, like 5m in long.

That's true Urza. Sheean, if you don't believe him, look for one of the devs next time they are on. If they happen to be using their developer only engines (the unreal engine) you'll see what it would be like to have that kind of speed. They'll pass by like a streak. The slow ships will never ever touch them unless they typekill. Essentially, no interaction. That's why my car is fast, but it can't really change direction ever. So if you want to move, you have to stop, recharge, presicely pinpoint your destination and start moving again. Considering hitting it is a one shot kill, that leaves it quite vulnerable. Especially if it has an engine/batt interaction similar to the heavy/heavy while turboing.
But even with all those vulnerabilities my ship is still quite powerful since it can, essentially run away from whoever it wants. It's only vulnerable when it enters a sector and when it is trying to dock, which will take quite some time since it will have to maneuver itself very carefully and very slowly.

OK, but what would be the problem if those ships don`t really interact with each other?

As seen in some earlier threads some of you would like to see faster ships, ofcourse imho that would kind of screw gameplay... well see here my ideas to make everybody happy!

The solution: add fast ships, with low HP that can`t do a lot of damage and can`t cap flags.

Like these:

Fast scout
---------------
200 m/s normal
300 m/s turbo
1000 HP
10.000 cr.
NO weapons
high agility

Nice getaway 'car'

Fast cargo transport
----------------------------
200 m/s normal
300 m/s turbo
1200 hp
4 cargo
15.000 cr
NO weapons
low agility

To carry those expensive goods safely.. but not by the dozens

Interceptor
---------------
180 m/s normal
250 m/s turbo
500 HP
4 really agile homing missiles (350 m/s, 500 HP damage each, 1000 cr. each)
medium agility
17.000 cr.

A simple fast fighter, but can`t do any significant damage to normal ships (2000 HP at the most.. not really something to worry about, you`d need at least 3 of them to take out a bus...)

Fast scout
---------------
250 m/s normal
450 m/s turbo
500 HP
medium agility
20.000 cr.

Great help to spot enemies during flag caps or trade convoys.

Advanced interceptor
------------------------------
250 m/s normal
450 m/s turbo
1500 HP
4 really agile homing missiles (500 m/s, 500 HP damage each, 1500 cr. each)
high agility
30.000 cr.

Stealth scout
------------------
300 m/s normal
450 m/s turbo
1700 HP
high agility
40.000 cr.
! can be hit by friendly fire
! doesn`t appear on your radar unless you select it using `g` (so others can still shoot it down)

Stealth interceptor
--------------------------
350 m/s normal
470 m/s turbo
1800 HP
6 really agile homing missiles (500 HP, 600 m/s, 5000 cr.)
100.000 cr.
! can be hit by friendly fire
! doesn`t appear on your radar unless you select it using `g` (so others can still shoot it down)

Stealth transport
-----------------------
350 m/s normal
470 m/s turbo
1800 HP
8 flares (if a rocket hits it the rocket and the flare explodes)
10 cargo
low agility
500.000 cr.
! can be hit by friendly fire
! doesn`t appear on your radar unless you select it using `g` (so others can still shoot it down)

Advanced stealth interceptor
----------------------------------------

380 m/s normal
500 m/s turbo
2000 HP
10 really agile homing missiles (500 HP, 700 m/s, 10.000 cr.)
2 adv. gat.
20 flares
2 cargo
very high agility
1.500.000 cr.
! can be hit by friendly fire
! doesn`t appear on your radar unless you select it using `g` (so others can still shoot it down)

This ship can assault `normal` ships... but one or two hits back and it is gone (and due to the costs, there will not be a lot of people trying to attack a normal ship with this ship).

Advanced stealth tactical bomber
-----------------------------------------------
400 m/s normal
500 m/s turbo
3000 HP
100 flares
20 cargo
20 really agile rockets (500 HP, 800 m/s, 15.000 cr.)
10 agile rockets (1000 HP, 500 m/s, 15.000 cr.)
5 medium agile rockets (10.000 HP, 200 m/s, 25.000 cr.)
5 avalons (30.000 cr.)
low agility
10.000.000 cr. (really, really expensive)

The elite über ship, it would take quite some evort to destroy one of these, but then again... losing one of these won`t be taken lightly by anyone (probably even now)

Problems:

turbo: how long? (I think that the turbo for all of these just could last forever, with the disadvantage that during the turbo you just cannot turn)
acceleration: how fast?
costs: are the best expensive enough to keep them rare?

-----------------

Maybe if I have the time I could make some of these in blender, just for the heck of it.
Feel free to contradict/attack/flame this message.

all of those ships are too ub3r. scratch them. Int eh old threads (long gone) i had posted a scout that everyone liked. super fact accel and everything, but well balanced. the problem? too agile.

What would be the trouble with it being too agile? You`d also have the other fast ships wich could take it down... and the scout can`t really do anything:
get too close: get killed (one hit, your ships goes BOOOM).
attack: with what? ram them? You`d probably only blow your own ship up.. wich - when money will be more scarse - is a very silly thing to do.
cap: they can`t

Also these ships wouldn`t be alone, you`d also have other fast ships which can intercept it (and in case you have a faster interceptor/faster missiles, the scouts are just sitting ducks).