Inc, do you have a copy of this data from before weapons added mass?

The earliest data I have is from December of 2004 (earlier data might technically be possible, but a lot harder to assemble). I honestly don't remember when weapons added mass, and I'd need to do some CVS or database hunting to try and figure that out. I can't even trivially access our older newsposts.

I did a diff of 2004->2006, and while there are quite a few tweaks, a lot of it is unrelated stuff like armor, cargo, and energy usage. I did see speed and thrust tweaks, of course, but nothing that jumped out like "every single ship was bumped by 15%".

IIRC weapon mass was added in beta.. so sometime between summer 04 and november 04.

Edit: I searched through Lemming's News Post archive and couldn't find it.

This one dated December 21, 2004 states that the weight of Gauss cannons was adjusted:
http://upsidedownturtle.com/HistoricalVendettaOnlineNews/posts/newsPost_8221.html

And this earlier one from October 16, 2004 states that Cargo mass has been introduced:
http://upsidedownturtle.com/HistoricalVendettaOnlineNews/posts/newsPost_6602.html

Yeah, I suspected it was added in beta.

In which case, that's the pre-Lua old "dat" objtable format, which was never really in CVS properly, and fluctuated really often.

I don't really have access to that very easily.

Perhaps this idea is too simplistic, but couldn't an approximate 10 to 15% of turbo speed/thrust reduction be applied to all ships other than those classified as interceptors?

Perhaps this idea is too simplistic, but couldn't an approximate 10 to 15% of turbo speed/thrust reduction be applied to all ships other than those classified as interceptors?

No. The moth, for example, got hit with a major nerf bat (as well it should, looking back at its old stats) between the speed cap and now. Reducing its speed another 10-15% would not be restoring balance because the speed gap between an old moth and a 240m/s interceptor was actually smaller than that between a current moth and a 225 m/s interceptor, at least proportionally speaking (probably in absolute terms too). As you may recall, [SCAR] used to conduct GR heliocene mining ops by just running the moths out to the roids in the middle of nowhere and they were fast enough that eventually the assaults gave up. Try that now and see what happens.

Though there aren't too many other ships that have been nerfed in a relevant way between then and now that I can think of...maybe some of the proms.

I keep hearing how the ship balance was better before the speed cap. It seems to me if that is in fact the general consensus among players who played then the starting point is to take the speed/thrust stats above scale them down to meet the speed cap of 225 then apply any current acceptable proportions like Lecter mentioned about the moth. Any current ships that did not exist then can be adjusted by applying a proportional adjustment based on other ships i.e. the UDV for example if its current proportion to say a vulture or regular raptor is say 10% faster then take the adjusted speed from the first step of the reference ship and that would determine it's adjusted top speed. As a final step eliminate infini turbo from anything that goes over say 200 or 210.

As a final step eliminate infini turbo from anything that goes over say 200 or 210.

Snort. Chuckle. Thank you for proving the saying that concludes "...than to speak and remove all doubt."

I think that at the moment, it is somewhat difficult to chase some of the trading ships even while flying an interceptor.

If we want to protect traders less and make pirating more newb-friendly (some say this is bad others will say this is good), then some of the commonly used trading and escort vessels should have their top speed dropped.

If we want to keep piracy a thing that requires skill, practice, and background knowledge of flight mechanics, then I see nothing wrong with the current ship speeds.

Personally, I'm torn on this. Sometimes I'm hauling things all over, and sometimes I sit in B8 and chase things. I've seen both sides of the coin. I've come to opinion that it's really a matter of which direction we want the game to go.

Very good point Darth. Personally I don't think there has been a strong case made for tipping the balance against "traders", which is why I can't understand why such a suggestion has gotten the attention of Incarnate, especially consider the huge impact a universal ship-rebalance would have on everyone.

Well, I think that it's always been intended for VO to be a role-play game. Currently, it is a skill/knowledge based game, with RP kinda smudged in between all the fight and flight mechanics.

Making it so that the ships aren't so balanced and have more skewed-ness to them, will enable more players (and newer players) to choose role plays based on role preference rather than fight and flight skill and knowledge.

As in, the type of ship that you're flying will have more impact on what role you're playing and what you are capable of doing than your actual skill.

Currently, mostly because of ships' top speeds, the kind of ship one pilots has little impact on what they can accomplish.

Now, don't get me wrong. People aren't taking on vultures in moths or anything like that. But it is possible for someone doing trading in a Centaur to outrun someone in a Warthog MkII (not the best pirating ship, but definitely in everyones top 5).

This simply does not encourage people to pick ships based on role. This encourages people to pick ships based on what the ship's stats are. This is fine. But it makes it less of a role-play game and more of a "lemme just find the best ship for what I wanna do" game.

I am not against either direction. Just thought I'd lay out some of my opinions around the topic.

Guess what I'm trying to say is....for those that are all like "why redo the ships?"....

It'll get away from the analytical style of gaming and be more in line with the role-play style of gaming.

On a related topic... The other thing that would help to bring VO to be more role-play oriented would be to change the names of the different variants to reflect what role they are trying to fulfill. i.e.

Standard Warthog = Warthog MkI
Interceptor Warthog = Warthog MkII
Hauler Warthog = Warthog MkIII
Armored Warthog = Warthog MkIV

This would make it easier to pick ships based on role and not stats. "Everyone" loves stats and all, but it makes it harder for newer players to put all the ships in the context of one another. Also, if we change top speeds, without any further demystification of the ships' intended purposes, the top speed change won't get to the root of the "problem" that has been noticed by some. Which is the lack of ship purpose.

Sorry for the long-windedness, I will rest my case.

I'm all for more RP and all, but nerfing trade ships is not going to increase RP. It will make everyone either become a combat player or quit the game. If you want more RP of role you have to make roles exclusive, ie, dedicated trade ships for dedicated traders, who in turn can't just go buy top tier fighters. Laying about with a big old nerf hammer because "RP" will get you nowhere.

It will make everyone either become a combat player or quit the game.

^

I really think the time for this sort of thing came and went years ago. The game and its player base have changed so much since this speed cap happened that trying to mitigate the imbalances from it now seems foolish.

Why not just try to look at which ships SUCK for their level requirements and cost, and make them better accordingly?

Let's be clear: there's NO need to tip the balance against traders on the moth front. Right now I think they're an excellent balance of slow but not retardedly so; armored but not the nutzo 45k they were before; and able to mount multiple forms of viable defense, including mines, swarms, plus the default no-cell-drain turrets. An unskilled moth pilot (or the NPC heavies) vs an unskilled pirate will be pretty well matched: pirate will almost certainly catch the moth, but will have a bad time of it if he fails to evade mines, swarms, and turret fire. Skilled pairs of predator and prey will likewise have an interesting time of it, though the balance is definitely against the moth (as it should be, given the amount of cargo it can move versus something like a taur, atlas, or maud).

I'm not convinced there's a need to nerf more balanced (as between risk of loss and cargo capacity) trade ships, but maybe so. I think they're easy enough to catch and kill in a hound, especially taurs...but an Atlas X will get safely away 9 times out of 10 unless there's a very unlucky warp distance in the mix. But it's an upper level TPG trade ship that carries less than 40 cu of cargo...it's probably balanced as-is. Pirates not in hounds (say, in Hog Mk IIs) will have a slightly harder time chasing down taurs and atlases, but again, that seems balanced.

I really think the time for this sort of thing came and went years ago. The game and its player base have changed so much since this speed cap happened that trying to mitigate the imbalances from it now seems foolish.

I think I may agree. If there's a specific case that jumps out, this data could be used to guestimate what might help fix it, but an across the board change at this point just seems unpalatable for little gain. Which ship, exactly, isn't able to catch stuff it should be able to catch?

While I think the Hound should become a more exclusive ship that's unsuitable for bombing and requires significant factional sacrifice to fly, there's not much argument it can't catch stuff that it's supposed to be able to catch. Its turbo thrust took a needless nerf to appease a few trolls, and I think that should be fixed AFTER the swap of the L port to an S port (and ideally the factional balancing)...but that's about it.

And anyone who tries to argue valks aren't fast enough for what they're intended to do...has, I think, a very uphill climb.

An empty Atlas X maybe. Load them down and they don't get away so easily.

Remember, we've got Power Cell Blasters now... I've used them with very good results against a fleeing Atlas X many times since their speed buff. Great for recovering CtC loot, which is a pretty heavy cargo.

Fair enough, but doesn't change my basic understanding that traders don't need a nerf.

But it is possible for someone doing trading in a Centaur to outrun someone in a Warthog MkII (not the best pirating ship, but definitely in everyones top 5).

So what? First, the Hog Mk II is only an interceptor of the class it is by default: 220 turbo speed and 50 drain was once upon a time relatively slow; now, having not received a speed nerf after the cap, the Mk II is second only to the Hound in pursuit ships (inline ports, both L and S ports, decent armor, gets up to speed quickly if kept light). The Valk is certainly a capable chaser and much better if a target turns to fight, but for pure chasing ability infiniboost is absolutely key.

Second, the taur involves a trader taking only ~1/3 the cargo of a standard moth. That should be balanced by a better chance at escape.

Mk II is second only to the Hound in pursuit ships

Only in your small world of not having valks and SVGs at your disposal, otherwise false.

I still have some of both, but they're not pursuit ships in the sense I mean - particularly the SVG, with its drain.

Can they catch someone who tries to run from a fight? Sure. Will they be chasing a trade ship successfully across sectors, much less through a WH? Not at all the the SVG's case, and less likely than a Mk II in even the X-1's case. Unless you have a really dumb and/or overladen trader.

And there's nothing wrong with that: both are combat ships, not dedicated pirating ships.

Here is my suggestion. All other ships not listed to remain the same. Ship "class" is (obviously) by turbo energy drain.

edit: I've opened it up for editing, all I ask is if you decide to make changes that you add an additional column for your own numbers. I've saved the original as a copy.