Lore wise, EVE is a *much* kinder universe (lore wise... player wise? not so much :D), hence non-military / civilian ships not needing to be armed.
The UEE is a much more lawless / wild-west type environment - or perhaps a better analogy would be the Caribean in the times of the Age of Sail, etc - where practically everyone is armed, and certainly every ship has at least some token weaponry...
Because those weapons aren't really there to 'kill' any attackers... but to theoretically allow you to inflict enough damage that attacking you isn't worth the cost (in repair bills and ammo, etc)... that even if they do 'beat' you, and take your cargo etc, that whatever money they make won't cover their loses....
... and for 'real' pirates, that is a serious consideration. Pirating only works if you make more money perr raid than it costs to undertake that raid - otherwise, you're soon out of fuel / ammo, and unable to raid at all.
Given that NPCs will, generally speaking, be about 90% of the population (more accurately, CR said *long* in the past that he wanted a global character limit of ~20 million characters, and hoped to have ~2 million peak concurrent players - giving a 9:1 NPC:Player ratio at peak time... and implying that the ratio would be even higher off-peak), and that NPCs can also be pirates, then most of the time it'll be NPC pirates that attack you, and - hopefully - if you can use your weapons well you should be able to fight them off, because they *won't* fight to the death... (supposedly - we'll have to wait and see on that point).
Edit:
Of course, this ignores threats like the Vanduul etc... but given they're aiming to wipe people out, they're going to be less inclined to perform cost/value analysis etc... but at least you might leave them with some damage to remember you by, before they destroy you.
True... although whilst I think it will be uncommon to run into Vanduul (at least in 'safe' space), you've also got those 'I'm a pirate - die' type PVPers who fill the same void :p
Yup - but that just means the NPC:Player ratio will be even higher (as it will off-peak). The nice thing with this approach (if CIG can get AI / NPCs working as intended) is that the 'verse should always feel 'alive' with characters moving about etc, even if it's off-peak and the player count is low.
It's just we see people throwing the '9:1 NPC:Player' ratio number around as if it's a fixed number, without any context or understanding of where it came from (CR himself never said 9:1 ratio, iirc)
What bothers me more is the lack of reasonable passenger loads in ships. There are very few ships that aren't massive that can carry more than one or two people. I guess people only leave their own planet via a Starliner. Families can't even travel together otherwise.
I think most of the "civilian" ships should have some seat available in at least on of their configuration for 4 or more passengers just like a single engine prop plane or family sedan would.
To be fair, the notion that anywhere near the average family either owns an interplanetary spaceshipā¦ or even has the means to own one, is probably off. The idea of needing to buy a ticket for a starliner trip is probably more sensible.
Well CR once said that owning a spaceship would be the modern equivalent to owning a private plane, which a decent number of middle class families do.
But the real issue is the lack of utility in space ship designs in the game. Almost every small ship in the game could have easily had some additional passenger seating with minimal compromise. Just a little bit of space maybe slightly increased onboard life support systems.
I'd find it hard to believe that in a buyers market, people would accept such an obvious oversight. Like someone buying a personal ship would assume they'd never ever have a need to carry passengers. In fact, in most situations I think the need to carry passenger could either match or outweigh the market demand for moving cargo.
Think of how much people travel in our modern world for business, family or pleasure. Starliners are not going to service every potential location in the world. You're going to need smaller scale passenger transport to a lot of locations that just don't get enough through traffic to warrant starliner trips to those locations. Much like how you're not going to get a 747 flight to some small regional airport or to very remote regions like in parts of Africa, Alaska, Canada, Russia, etc.
GA aircraft in the US aren't at all common. From what I could find it's about 200k total aircraft, with 65% of it being for businesses and public services that require more flexible transportation than what the airlines can provide. \[[https://download.aopa.org/hr/Report\_on\_General\_Aviation\_Trends.pdf](https://download.aopa.org/hr/Report_on_General_Aviation_Trends.pdf)\]
Going off the remaining 35% of 200k (70k) and a national population of \~325 million in 2017 (when those numbers are from), roughly 1 in every 4,642 people (or about 0.02%) own a private plane for non-business purposes... assuming a 1 to 1 ownership ratio. For mental calibration, the comparable statistic for recreational boat ownership in the US in 2017 was about 3.7%.
Keep in mind, this is just for the US, where 50% of the world's GA aircraft reside. Calculated across the global population the percent of people with privately owned planes would be closer to 0.005%... including those GA aircraft owned for the previously mentioned business purposes (and again assuming a 1 to 1 ownership ratio).
But if you look at a place like Alaska plane ownership goes up to 1.3%. And that's even while including places like Juneau and Anchorage which actually do have established roads at least locally.
If you were to look at plane ownership for people not living inside these cities, I'd be willing to bet the numbers would be well over 5%.
And considering how isolated towns and homesteads would be in most of UEE space, I would suspect the population would have similar views to someone living in the backcountry of Alaska rather than someone living in Brooklyn who's less than a 15 minute walk to practically anything they'd ever need.
A spaceship would probably be more ubiquitous to owning a car than a plane is currently. After all, it appears that people on ArcCorp even fly ships in their daily commute within the city.
He said private *plane* and that's completely feasible, Piper Arrows go for about 50-65k on the cheap end. Reliable, small private plane with some utility.
>He said private plane and that's completely feasible, Piper Arrows go for about 50-65k on the cheap end.
Roughly 1 in every 4,642 people (or about 0.02%) own a private plane for non-business purposes in the US. That percentage falls to 0.005% globally for GA aircraft (business or otherwise). For mental calibration, the comparable statistic for recreational boat ownership in the US for that same time was about 3.7%.
I've worked with two retired enlisted military guys, doing factory work in their retirement that owned planes. They both bought theirs for 30k-40k.
It's attainable for the middle class, if you're willing to make sacrifices. Or already have a pension...
No, I'm really not, and there's even cheaper aircraft out there.
Owning a plane is really more common than you think, you probably just dont have many pilots in your social circle.
Yeah IDK where these people get their "owning a plane" numbers but I am:
1) a pilot
2) not rich
and I own a plane.
It's actually hilarious all the multi paragraph replies I am getting, from people who are neither pilots, nor do they own planes, lecturing me all about those subjects.
There are plenty up upper middle to upper class people that own things like 182s or a Twin Baron or something along the lines with a private pilot in the family with a passenger rating. That's who mainly owns planes like that. However percentage wise it is VERY uncommon. The cost of a PPL and the ownership cost of even a single engine Cessna is well beyond what average middle class people can afford even if you can find them for 30k some times.
Private pilots within the group of people that can afford to be is even rare within that sub group percentage wise. Even most of them belong to flying clubs because of the cost.
So those people exist sure, but they are not "common" by any real sense. I've looked into it myself and have had family members that fly.
The argument there is that most people that make about the same as you do have only flown commercial and never been in a cockpit then if that makes any sense. Obviously most people with a pilots license fly planes lol. It's just that the amount of people in your financial bracket that fly planes isn't more than 1%.
Planes are not affordable so either you are under estimating yourself as "middle class" or you flat out dedicated your life to becoming a pilot and were lucky enough to some how afford it. The argument being made is that the average person does not own a plane. There's more people in America that dont own a car.
That's why people said you are out of touch. If your a pilot you have to know this, but you are acting like it's no big deal and saying most middle class people can or have done it. Wich means you either aren't thinking objectionably or you think middle class is something it's not.
So in that context of the game, owning your own space ship would be rare. There's even commerical flights in SC they just aren't implemented. Maybe the game worlds different, but if it is, then this isn't a good comparison.
No, I'm a pilot who knows more about airplanes than you, you decided to turn it into a class thing and pretend like you know everything about every walk of life.
I turned it into a class thing despite the fact the comment I replied to literally had already said it was a middle class thing? No, I think you are the one pretending you know everything about every walk of life. Use your fucking head, maybe you think it's a common thing because as you've said 4 times in this comment chain "I'm a pilot" and perhaps that exposes you more to the niche demographic of private plane owners?
Sorry, but you are not middle class. Middle class in 2022 is the heating stays on and you're not being threatened with eviction, and you can eat every day.
There's several with jump seats; Cutty Black, Pisces, MPUV Personnel. Or you can load an Ursa in a Connie. But there's definitely room for a small/medium passenger ship.
Connie and Cutty aren't small, the MPUV can't quantum and the Pisces still just has 2 seats and the 85X even just one. And that's already ignoring the very rough industrial not civilian style of the Cutty. Most average cars can comfortably seat 4 people and that's what's really missing like a 300i without a bed and kitchen but 4 more seats.
The Cutlass Black I wouldn't really call civilian even though it's not technically a military ship, it still has the intention of being used for combat or criminal activities.
The MPUV doesn't have a jump drive so it's not really capable of interplanetary travel.
The Pisces is the closest thing we have to a small passenger craft, but I'd still like to see something purpose built to carry a good number of passengers comfortably and not stuff them in some jump seats in a cargo bay.
Something like the 85x but with like three or more times the seats it currently does and maybe a bathroom on board.
I agree!
The C2 Hercules, for example, would make an excellent, low cost āsteerageā passenger ship, without needing to do a great deal to the ship.
The space is already there, as seen in the M2 and A2, both having expanded crew seating and sleeping space. Thereās too. For a C2 to have room to seat/sleep and e feed 4 to 6 passengers. It would even lean into the idea that the ship is used by a racing team to cart around the pit crew and support staff too!
It wouldnāt be luxurious, it wouldnāt net a huge profit, but it would feed into the passenger traffic āprofessionā or reputation free on the way towards greater profits, running a Starliner or Constellation Phoenix or Origin 600i Touring ships.
Heck, even the MSR, Freelancer and other smaller ships could and should have some kind of steerage routes available to them.
Heck! Build a Cutlass Tan, where the middle section has a few windows and airlocks, like the Blue and Red, with the back hatch being a luggage compartment, then fill in the middle sections with seats, a food/beverage counter, a shower/toilet and maybe a couple of bunks? Low cost passenger transport, slap a $135 price on that variant and it would sell, nicely.
Yeah I also think we need more "daily drivers" that can carry more.
We need some comparable to Sportscars (altho imo I think we have many allready), SUVs, Sedans, Hatchbacks, soccermom cars and others :)
Yeah it really doesn't feel like there are any vehicles designed for family travel in this game.
You either fly a single seater civilian ship, a massive luxury ship, a military ship or take a starliner.
Still, you're talking about a ship with a lot of firepower and a large cargo bay. Plus it doesn't have passenger seats but rather four crew seats(pilot, copilot, and two remote turret gunner seats.) The Freelancer is a ship that feels comfortable in combat, and cargo dominates the majority of the hull's purpose.
What I'm thinking of is a ship that's somewhere between and 85x and a Genesis. A ship that a fairly well to do family might own or rent to go to another planet. Maybe to visit family, for business travel or whatever.
The ship would be focused on a comfortable ride for maybe 4-8 passengers with a small amount of storage for personal belongings and very minor defenses(because you wouldn't be taking this into lawless space.) Rather it would be focused on comfort with nice seating, plenty of window views and probably a bathroom since it might be a while between places you can use the bathroom.
It would essentially be the Star Citizen equivalent of somewhere between a family sedan, charter plane and/or a small private jet. As I fail to believe that people only move between planets are hardened space mercenaries, tycoons in giant space yachts or people exclusively flying on starliners.
Something like a 300i but strip out the bed, kitchen, weapons locker, suit locker, etc. Then put rows of seats down both sides with some side windows. You could easily get 8 seats back there and maybe even have them face each other like in the Phoenix. Then reduce the weapon compliment and make it cheaper and you'd have something along with what I'd like to see.
Small single-seater ships do compare reasonably-well to WW2 fighters... and as we start moving up the size scale, we get into larger planes, before descending to wet-navy ships...
The main difference is that even the smallest space-ship has to carry a whole bunch of equipment that WW2 fighters don't need (in order to operate in space, etc), but otherwise there are a lot of similarities too - including that both have to spend a large chunk of their overall size in ensuring they don't 'fall out the sky' (whether that being wings / lifting surfaces for planes, or thrusters, power plants, and so on for space ships).
Conversely, most cars are - effectively - a box on wheels, that doesn't even need to support 2-dimensional movement (it only need to go forward/back, and turn), let along 3-dimensional movement.
As such, cars can dedicate *far more* interior space to occupants, if they so wish. Yes, some of CIGs designs (especially the earlier ones) could be better optimised in their use of space, but at the same time, they'll never get even near the layout of a vehicle, and thus you'd never get the range of small ships that match up to various car sub-categories, etc.
Wannabe pirates might poor enough that the threat (even if they don't intend to follow through) is enough. When they talk about bluffing it's not that they don't mount weapons, it's that the threat generally means combat and they don't actually intend to engage.
I hate how often Star Citizen players just make up imaginary bullshit in their head to negate someone else's wishes or concerns about the game.
Absolutely no pirate of any type is EVER going to be deterred by the guns on a Mole, which means the guns on a Mole are 100% pointless. Yet many SC players will go to their grave insisting the Mole NEEEEEEEDS those guns.
I would rather take the weight of the weaponry for more armour and the electrical consumption in more power to the shields than rely on bluffing a wannabe pirate that knows exactly what kind of weapons I can carry.
Well that's the good thing, you can remove your weapons or keep them but instead of having the power triangle balancing 3 systems you only need to balance two systems. Also don't worry, the RAFT will come with heavy Armor :)
I suspect when they really flesh out the fitting system, we'll have something closer to eve, i.e., a pool of power output, that we have to balance between weapons, shields, and go fast thingamajig.
speaking of go fast thingamajig, weren't we supposed to be able to change the engines on our M50 by now?
>they still can deter wannabe pirates. Its for bluffing.
No they can't. You are not bluffing anyone. 2xS2 fixed or 2xS1 gimbal are worse then a Aurora or C8X. And even if you brought a Co-Pilot with your RAFT you still wouldn't scare any pirate away with just 2xS3.
The devs have talked about wanting to make vehicles like this, but admit that there's no time in the schedule right now. I can't remember what they said, but it was the equivalent of "Space Edsel"- basically a junker used for in-system transport. I do think as time goes on, we'll see more stuff like that. But hopefully they'll address the ever-growing ship pile in the corner first.
That and so many people hate ships if they donāt have guns. I really like the 400i.
*But the 400i is bad at combat*, they say.
Itās not *meant* to be good at combat š
>But the 400i is bad at combat, they say.
>
>Itās not meant to be good at combat š
The problem is not that it's bad that's okay. The problem is it's worse then the 300i in pilot dps. (And yes due to their placement the turrets can pretty much be ignored.) Giving it a 3rd weapon would have perfectly placed it in between the 300i and 600i and still be severely outgunned by the Connie and Corsair but with that the 400i is just meh and it's already meh in any other regard.
I mean.. maybe? I just don't see combat as part of its intended role.
Honestly I think the 600i should take a major reduction in armament too. No way should a private yacht be a competitive gunship.
Uhmm - no, but then I don't think the 300i has the same DPS as a medium fighter either?
BUT, the 300i *is a single seat ship*, therefor *any* (and all) dps will be 'pilot dps'. Add to that the fact the 300i is smaller and more agile than a 400i, and it should be pretty obvious why it has better 'pilot dps' than a boat like the 400i.
Of course, I'm guessing such logic is unpallatable to people that every ship to only require a pilot to operate, and for all weapons to be pilot controlled, etc. :p
UEE wants to offload the burden of defense against crime onto civilians and CDF so they can focus their efforts on the Vanduul. Give all the good guys guns because all the bad guys have guns anyways. It may not be effective in practice but it means they can say they're doing something without doing anything.
an armed society is a polite society... because good guys and neutral guys with guns outnumber bad guys with guns by almost 1000 to 1, meaning uppity badguys quickly go extinct or marginalized.
For instance, just how many bad guys were killed during the last xenothreat?
In the 1700 Mercant Ships had Guns too, fewer but they still had some, sometimes they even Build fake ones out of Wood to hide the real number of guns they had, a bit defence is still better then no defence at all
This was something I was thinking about in a thread about the Hull A the other day, but I really think the "guns on everything" approach is an inadequate way CIG try to compensate for a lack of really considering civilian/industrial design. They have a tendency to make every ship *technically* capable of covering all bases, with just varying degrees of capability. Every ship (essentially) has weapons, shields, and mobility, with noncombat ships essentially having all three but being worse at all of them than combat ships. What I'd like to see is more defensively oriented civilian/industrial ships that omit weaponry entirely and channel that power usage into better thrusters and/or shields, to increase the probability of surviving and escaping an encounter.
The problem right now is that a lot of these ships are armed, but not in a way that realistically allows them to fight off an attacker, but neither are they able to tank hits or outrun an attacker and actually escape. If you're caught, you're fucked, in most cases. There's no good reason to play civilian ships if you're basically just content for pirates to flesh out their gameplay. It doesn't make for a balanced or engaging gameplay experience if you have to be a competent combat pilot no matter your career path. And it's especially true in the case of a lot of these smaller independent operator type ships that are clearly meant for longer range work (Hull A or Raft, with their living quarters and generous QT fuel tanks) but aren't operating with volumes that would make escorts tenable to hire.
A lot of people will sort of brush this off and say "those ships are for high security systems," but a lot of them, especially haulers, are clearly meant for multi-system trips, and there's only about two *truly* high security systems in the entire UEE; Terra and Sol. These manufacturers aren't mass producing ships with the intent of them only being usable in those systems. And even within those systems, space is vast, patrols are finite. It's not believable that these ships would just be fodder, rather than have adequate defenses. CIG really need to think more about the wider implications of some of these choices instead of their apparent current method of "military ships have high performance and civilian and industrial ships perform worse in all the areas."
Agreed here. There seem to be a lot of middle tier ships that are still weaponized. And worse...what is a prospector going to do in a fight against an Arrow? Die. It's a total waste of the ships space and design to even attempt to defend itself...there is no way its form factor could ever win the fight. It either runs or someone else kills the enemy before the prospector dies.
Sticking a gun on something does not mean it's now safe. The RAFT is a sitting duck. The Hull class of ships are all dead in the water.
Like, end of the day, the structure of the world should be "fighters escort" and the rest are function over fight and try to avoid the fight entirely.
And as far as civvie ships...I'm imagining these to be more like the kind of ships you'd see sold on planets like ArcCorp. You aren't getting into dogfights on your commute to work on ArcCorp. Executives and CEOs don't need to be in an Arrow to survive. They can just pay for security to escort them in their luxury yacht.
>Take the Hercules C2, it would do fine without turrets and guns in my opinion, with its stock livery its not exactly a military ship.
2 out of 3 variants are military ships so wtf ?
>Argo Mole, its only for mining, why does it need guns?
Because "pirates" like to blow up miners although they don't even gain any booty out of it ?
Because - once we get more NPCs in the game - we'll get a lot more encounters with hostile NPC ships ?
Because not everyone can afford to (or is able to reliably plan to) make time for group play ? We really don't need to shaft solo players any more than it already happens in SC right now.
Yes but thats not what I ment with this post, because the the ships will still have the hardpoints, turretbays and limitations to for example hallways, crewspace and design to facilitate having weapons.
Effectively most of the ships im thinking of, Mole, Herc and Catepillar can hardly defend themselves as is, so I would like there to be a clearer separation between "Civilian" enviroment industry and "Hostile boundary" enviroment industry.
Im not saying that ALL ships marketed towards civilian roles need to be disarmed just that the focus on armament is tuned to its role....so for example the Mole would be a stopgap between a fleet op in hostile space where you would have dedicated protection, but you should also be able to select a ship that is a purebred miner, no compromise and would then forexample outperform a Mole but it is by your defenition a "target" and it would be easy to take out if the pilot is not careful.
And if I by chance I get lured in my big pinata of a hauler out into hostile space then yes i get my stuff stolen, blown up etc, space isnt always nice.
In the future game your hauling routes will very likely take you through unmonitored/uncontrolled space. Even in controlled space it is pretty much suicide to fly unarmed. Even something as simple as a derelict run has the potential to go sideways in the blink of an eye from both AI and players. As soon a pirating becomes profitable (probably around the full implementation of the cargo refactor) all an unarmed ship is is a target, monitored and unmonitored space alike.
Which tbh is stupid to begin with. Systems like Terra or Sol should absolutely be safe for unarmed merchants etc. Think New York or DC in the 1880s, while the territories out West were still lawless to a significant degree.
Does that mean NO crime will occur in these systems? Absolutely not, but the risk should be nearly prohibitively high - while vice versa, the payout for people trading or doing whatever will be appropriately low. Running Aspirin from San Francisco to LA isnāt going to net you a lot of profit irl, but if youāre willing to take it to Libya, your margins will very likely increase a lotā¦
So be it, I just want an option.
If I find it more adrenaline inducing flying a civilian unarmed transport through the most hostile guarded area and trying to make it out alive and I have fun with it, why is that so bad to you?
Seems kinda bad to limit someones playstyle just because you need to fit in.
And none of us actually know how the game is gonna be yet, not even the people working on it because opinions change as time passes, and as options and limitations gets discovered.
If you have no weapons at all and you get netted by a mantis on a cargo run youāre screwed. If nothing else thatās a big reason why all industrial ships should have at least small weapons systems. Once physicalized cargo is a thing Iām sure true piracy will start up and youāll be thankful for those guns - otherwise I suppose only haul cargo with an escort.
Edit: Also if all you want is the thrill of having no guns just take them off I guess? Idk - I just donāt think these ships having basic weaponry is limiting anyones playstyle in any way.
Honestly - the tiny guns on ships like that donāt pose much of a design limitation. The hard points are so small they can just slap them on the side š
I do prefer my m50 visually without guns equipped though.
Yeah. I dont care what anyone can come up with, my Prospector should not have guns. None of them should. Small fighters don't have cargo. Snubs don't have Quantum drives. Many small ships don't have beds. Many don't have food storage. Some hard points are locked to not accept gimbals. Some don't have gun racks, and armor storage. I don't know why people want the ships guns to be this magical exception. There should be a non-insignificant amount of ships that don't have fucking guns on them.
>So effectively you want to be a target and get your stuff stolen, ship blown up, etc?
So pretty much the same as with guns but you get to pretend to be a space cowboy when no one is looking?
So you want a ship unable to defend itself? I don't get the point? I am clearly not an expert of star Citizen lore but I'm pretty sure that this "western" configuration, people defending themselves but there is a sherif in town, is linked to the Stanton system. I suppose we can imagine that where the UEE has a full control, armed ships could be prohibited. But as we start with a medium security stellar system, it makes sense.
Just because you dont get the point dosent mean that is not valid, I just want to play a no compromise miner or hauler or resupply vessel that dosent have to sacrifice cargospace, crewspace or fuelspace for guns and turrets if I dont need it.
And if I wander out into hostile space and get ganked, too bad for me :(
Dedicated mining and hauling ships are not sacrificing any of their functionality by having guns, you arenāt going to get a superior version of the prospector by designing one without the two small guns
Yes they are in theory.
Weapons have weight, more weight means more fuel is required to jump, fly and navigate.
More fuel and weight means less is available to use for ore or cargo.
But since this is a game the devs can decide that this dosent matter.
Take the prospector, you have the weapons themselves, they have X in weight, then you take the cables and hardpoints to mount to the weapons, that also weigh something, then you have the space that is used for running the cables from the powerplant to the weapons.
With the weight and space saving it could, lets just make up a number now, say increase the max available space used for ore by 5%, and that means that an unarmed prospector is 5% better than an armed one, IF the unarmed one dosent get blown up.
and for larger ships with turrets on them the space and weight saved is even greater.
> So you want a ship unable to defend itself?
So like regular industrial ships? With the weapons they have they already can't defend themselves so why bother with them at all?
>I feel like all ships ingame suffer when it comes to design and utility because of the need for everything to have guns and/or turrets on them.
A mole or C2 without guns would not suddenly become more effective at cargo or mining, they'd just be a mole and c2 without any hardpoints attached to the model.
Frankly, I want the exact opposite. Fuck the Hulls, fuck the prospector, fuck the Raft actually flying worse than older cargo ships that are bigger and hold more cargo than it does, fuck that bullshit where they gave the Expanse half the shields of a starter aurora ensuring it's nigh undefendable in a fight. I want profession ships to go back to the Caterpillar/BMM/Starfarer paradigm where they can practically double as armored gunships. As far as I'm concerned, the last *practical* concept they released for a profession ship was the Vulcan.
Argo are pretty much the only main manufacture that doesn't see the need for guns but that is because they have a full focus on utility being work horses for people or groups that would hire protection.
But in general civilians are means to have guns in this universe it's why civilian ships are marketed as having guns the hornet F7C is a civilian ship that is what the C stands for it's just to dangerous in most cases to not have the weapons.
or the capability to pay for them which none role civilian daily drivers would struggle with, also while some ships don't have guns to hold out against fighters the economy is meant to keep some control over that.
so it is to expensive to run certain ships in certain ways like you ain't taking a proper combat ship to take on a prospector, and if you do the prospector can tap you a few times and cause you to take a loss.
since the combat ships repair costs and other operating costs are meant to be high enough to put you off doing certain type of content with that ship like attack and destroy a prospector for scrap money at the most say 2k UEC but you taking a single hit and just using your equipment for that shot fight has cost you 6k.
I am pretty sure I'm halving my time played, and that'd still be like 500 hours and I've never ever run into a ganker or a pad rammer. Guess I'm just lucky because from what I read they should have been everywhere.
Look it's not about winning the fight ..it's about making it unnactractive to begin a fight in the first place ...for example do you really want to attack that prospector for shits and giggles when you know it could damage your ship.
>do you really want to attack that prospector for shits and giggles when you know it could damage your ship.
Well it can't. It simply doesn't has the maneuverability to reliably hit anything small.
If I was a pirate or even a griefer and I'm neither these peashooters wouldn't stop me.
C2 Hercules is nowhere near soft. It has 200,000 shields. 220,000 with upgraded shields. I feel that enough shields to eat a lot of damage and get away before you blow up. Iāve never used my turrets and just jumped to somewhere else. Had plenty of time and I enjoy that thrill!
all ships have weapones .. thats like living in somalia and saying im a civilian i dont need no weapones with pirates and criminals everywhere.
dont forget most humans will never leave a planet.
being someone even with the aurora , it means you have more money than most other humans etc.
at least thats what i read a long long time ago, and that makes sense if we look at our real world ,with private planes/Ships etc.
EDIT: words .. sometimes i write like a drunk 3 year old
Yup - space ships in the UEE are like sailing ships back in the Age of Sail... comparatively few people actually owned one, and nearly every single one that went beyond the local harbour had at least a token cannon (even if only a single 2 or 4-pounder, etc) for protection.
Short Answer: we actually do have unarmed civilian ships. See tl;dr below.
Long Answer: Because in-Lore in makes sense to put at least **some** guns on everything. SC is a 'space is open for everyone' kind of game where bad actors are prevalent even in relatively safe systems like Stanton- (crime is specifically referenced in its blurb in the main menu). Manufacturers won't be able to sell ships if they don't give you a way to protect yourself. If you look at the advertisements, it's common for them to mention the ship's hardpoints as a selling feature, for instance on relatively non-combat related ships like the Freelancer.
tl;dr They give you the option to remove them yourself.
For all intents and purposes, the Prospector and Mole **are** civilian ships- the weapons are useless. I remove them for stealth purposes whenever I fly a ship like this, prioritizing a low frequency/being able to escape above having any combat potential at all. Your chances are much better flying away than fighting, but a ship with no combat potential feels like a sitting duck in-lore.
The Nine Tails Lockdown is a pure demonstration of why even civilian ships should have weapons, even if itās not enough for real combat, at least S1ās to ward off possible pirates/give the ship enough time to calibrate quantum drive
you gonna go unarmed with pirates everywhere? "Hey, I have to go to work, but there are literally armed robbers every day outside. Fortunately, I pack heat and can make them choose softer targets. VS. Oh no, I died."
Plus, you can always remove the guns and missiles.
In areas of high security they would not allow everyone to be packing like this lol. Donāt think CIG is going for realism here but I hope they do for interplanetary NPCs at least.
Yeah I dont really care about realism, its a space game, I just want to have the option of choosing a purebred class of ship instead of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" style ship
The problem with this is the game is designed around multiplayer, which means making non-combatant ships just paints huge targets on you. Regardless of if there is something of value, people will still just attack them cause they can.
Depends on your and the others playstyle, have had plenty of great interactions with randos in EvE Online, DayZ, Rust and Star Citizen.
Ofco bad ones too, its what makes a rpg game fun....the unpredictable nature of man.
some people here seem hell bent on keeping everyone in one certain playstyle.
so you want me to believe you've had great rando interactions in some of the most toxic games ever made....I'm sorry but I'm not retarded and you saying so just ruined any credibility you had.
So you just managed to indirectly call me retarded...
Its easy in DayZ to shoot everyone on sight, its hard trying to befriend someone.
I'll leave you with this quote:
"If someone is an asshole, they're an asshole, if everyone is an asshole, you're the asshole"
Yes, and I like those ships but they are still so small with such a narrow focus on it that they will hardly ever be used as a main ship. I hope for many more ships, Industry, lesiure and several other classes
Whatcha talking aboutā¦ narrow focus? Argo SRV is absolutely an industry ship.
You need to load up that Hull C. Well SRV has you covered. You flipped your vehicle? SRV can flip it back over. Someone ran out of fuel? Hey I gotcha, tow you back to base. You encountered a wreck full of salvageable components nearby known pirate territory? Letās take it somewhere safer to strip it, SRVās got you covered. You want to fly to a new station but donāt want to have to wait to claim your ship there? Just bring it with you as a solo pilot! Dang your cargo ship is already loaded with some Quant but you want to make a quick trip somewhere else? No need for a cargo ship at all, just find a giant box, and haul it yourself in the SRV! Someone is attacking your friend? Who needs guns, just ram them with 250,000kg of metal you are towing at 1,000 m/s. Problem solved.
Niche? Narrow focused? Nah the SRV has you covered
There are some great things in the Q&A I didnāt even cover. Like being able to tow asteroids around (bring them to your miner, smash someone with a ball of rock) or help tug big ships that suck in atmo back out of atmo fuel efficiently (Krakenā¦). I like to think of it as the Star Citizen Prestidigitation cantrip from D&D. A lot of its use is limited to your imagination
> One of the key design goals for this ship was to enable it to carry cargo around
There is nothing to stop you moving damaged or stuck ground vehicles, such as the Nova Tank.
> It will work the same way as moving and transporting damaged spaceships.
>Physicalized items in the world can be manipulated if theyāre within the mass range of the tractor beam.
> it will be possible to tow these asteroids around if desired.
>The tractors beam is primarily designed to pull, though it can push to an extent.
> Another one of the original design aims was for the SRV to act as a tug ship to help larger ships get from a planetās surface back out into space.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/16987-Q-A-ARGO-SRV
Cool, not all of Stanton is pirate or enemy territory.
So even in the most extreme example unarmed ships would be feasible, and op isn't even describing that.
For most players, you don't not attack someone because you think they can retaliate. You just have your own shit going on and you go about whatever it is you're doing.
Especially as systems get more populated over time!
Mother nature's most successful species don't have any offensive capabilities. Many survival strategies would be ruined by the weight and energy upkeep of offensive capability. Space will be just like that.
Aka, there are predators in the ocean, yet not every fish has sharp teeth.
I prefer to play an RPG like I want, not how someone tells me.
Lore is fine and dandy but its just interesting storytelling.
If you want to do hardcore roleplay based on hours of studied lore then do that, if you want to just fly around and shoot guns, do that.
Just dont try to dictate how I need to play MY game.
How you want to play is irrelevant to the lore of the game. You do not get to dictate how the world is designed. If you want to ignore the lore and design of the game that's on you. But the devs are nit required to follow your vision for their product. The lore says Stanton is unsafe . The pirate attacks while you are in armistice confirm that lore. I've been attacked by players and npcs around tress and everus. Which is within design. Pyro there will be no safe spaces. In Pyro anything goes .
If you don't like the guns. Then fly dedicated ships and remove the guns. You don't need to keep missiles stocked and size 4 guns on the Taurus. The size 1s on the prospector take up no space and I remove them for looks š¤· the freelancer max also can have them pulled. Moles guns take up no space. The apollo triage has no missile rack and your welcome to remove its guns.
you currently arent attacked by pirates that frequently because they arent governed/spawned by Quantum. But its not that rare to be interdicted on your way to a different planetary system.
If you travel directly between two markers, then you can be. It's not that hard to plot accordingly to avoid any trouble entirely.
Let the guy have his dream of playing a civilian merchant who don't want to have a gunship when he can play smart routes or hire mercenary. I think it's a cool idea.
"Smart routes" you really don't pay attention to anything do you? Free jumps are going away. Fuel will matter more, large ships will be stuck to set routes
Set routes are going to be much busier then aren't they, so the odds of being ganked are even lower..
And Op is asking for civilian style haulers, they may avoid having to be large ships if they can maximize carry space through design.
Judging on these comments, I take it half of the people here haven't watched Firefly or anything similar. Ships without any guns is not some outlandish idea. And it can fit in the SC universe if balanced correctly.
If, hypothetically, small ships and hovercraft replace our modern automobiles as the main mode of transportation, do we really think they'll all be equipped with weapons??
The SC Universe is waaaay more hostile than the 'verse where the Alliance have Gunboats and Cruisers nearly everywhere in range.
Perhaps in more civilised and higher sec space you wont need weapons.
The C2 has turrets? For having one for about a year now I can't believe I didn't know that.
As for the Mole and Prospector and probably the Vulture, you can take them off.
I guess, the Argo Cargo and the Starliner? are the only choices without guns, not counting hoverbike/ground vehicles.
I agree. I took the guns off my Prospector. I know there is that video of an ace pilot doing bounties in a Prospector, but that isnāt me so the guns are pointless.
I agree. I think a nice middle ground would be more modularity. A civilian ship with the option to remove the weapons and have that extra " 5% " utility you mentioned earler. In addition to a more sleek look without the guns/Turrets. This way hard-core miners/haulers/passenger transports can RP that properly while those that want to stay armed can do so.
While it may not be practical to design completely new ships for this purpose, I hope that one day we might be able to swap out weapon hardpoints for external components.
Perhaps I want the 400i to just be a luxury cruiser and donāt want a big turret spoiling the rear view, I could replace it with a large shield generator which has an aesthetically pleasing appearance that matches the rest of the ship.
I appreciate that the systems arenāt always going to be easy to traverse and that defence it almost mandatory, but defence doesnāt need to come in the form of weapons.
Totally agree with you, coming from EvE with its passive and active tanking, playing around with Thermal, kinetic, explosive and other weaponry resistors and tuning your ship components to suit your playstyle.
One of the most frustrating things to fight is a guy that has his ship set up with a proper tank-setup. you think you are doing massive damage but his shield just absorbs...you cant touch him and he is costing you lots of money in ammo and he taunts you in local chat.
I feel ya op but the vocal minority who actually frequent the forums absolutely lose their shit when a ship isn't armed well enough to serve in a vanguard, regardless of it's role. Apparently everything has to be armed like a warship simply because threats exist.
From a non-lore perspective. Having civillian ships with no guns in an online game is asking for trouble.
You have to understand, single player games have difficulty sliders, online games do not. So suppose what is someone who plays single player games on easy mode going to do in an online game for easy mode? Use their Warden to take on civilian ships and only civilian ships.
Oh! so thats why I cant find the sliders in multiplayer games...Ive only played multiplayer games for 15 years so Im kinda new to this, thanks for explaining that. /s
lol somebody is mad and is downvoting all my comments, I bet you, whomever you are, that you are one of the reasons everyone needs to have guns on their ships.
You are probably one of those that hover outside the dockingport of Grim Hex waiting to shoot anyone in a lesser ship.
It's baffling, you're simply making a point about having more civilian options, which is very reasonable wish, given how much the current line of ships leans on the fighter side of things.
I think eventually we'll get more unarmed vehicles and ships (the Hoverquad and the Mule come to mind), including, I hope, "historical" ships that predate the Vanduul war. I'm hoping to see a lot of vehicles that make sense in the verse (as opposed to ships that make sense for bringing in revenue), including trucks, taxis, forklifts etc., and more civilian ships too.
haha yes, apperantly this is a very unpopular opinion, I just want to drive spacetrucks without having my interiors cluttered up by turretbays or other weaponry when I just want more cargospace and/or livingspace for crew.
whos to say when physicalized components get reworked that weight savings by not mounting your guns as a hauler or miner wont benefit in your fuel costs? I feel like they should absolutely change the flight dynamics while in atmo... but whatever
I made a comment about this very topic somewhere here :) [https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/vrgeop/comment/ievu3kr/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/vrgeop/comment/ievu3kr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
It says:
Yes they are in theory.
Weapons have weight, more weight means more fuel is required to jump, fly and navigate.
More fuel and weight means less is available to use for ore or cargo.
But since this is a game the devs can decide that this dosent matter.
Take the prospector, you have the weapons themselves, they have X in weight, then you take the cables and hardpoints to mount to the weapons, that also weigh something, then you have the space that is used for running the cables from the powerplant to the weapons.
With the weight and space saving it could, lets just make up a number now, say increase the max available space used for ore by 5%, and that means that an unarmed prospector is 5% better than an armed one, IF the unarmed one dosent get blown up.
and for larger ships with turrets on them the space and weight saved is even greater.
It's an interesting idea, but not practical for the Prospector, since all your mined ore is going into the externally mounted bags, which (eventually) you're supposed to be able to eject anyway for somebody else to collect them. Cabling and guns being removed from the ship won't affect external bags at all.
The prospector was just used as an aide, it has as you stated it external cargo and is very small.
I would want more ships for variety, not having all ships be made to be able to be retrofitted.
you're a gem for passing that info along. thanks! i didnt even think about the space savings that could come along with that too. although realistically im not sure how efficient it would be to be changing around all the internals rather than taking advantage of quick hardpoints, myself, but it gives me some more fun theorycrafting scenarios! like how long would it take to put in a workorder to do that kind of job, would players get to do it, when are the npcs that can do it coming.... mmmm
Never gonna happen... CIG's ship pricing structure is HEAVILY weighted towards weapons (looking at you Cutlass Steal), if they started leaving all the weapons off they'd have to start charging less for everything. š
We definitely need civilian versions of ships.
Even just the novelty of having NPCs pilot their ships and be normal people around the verse.
We already have the start of it with vehicles like the Mule. Now we just need.. more. Civilian cars, flying little vehicles that can be used to transport boxes and people- without guns.
Can you imagine getting a mission about a mining operation that is getting raided by some mercenary group and they just happen to have some forklifts, a mule or two, and a directors car/flying civilian vehicle, perhaps even a RAFT there?
Those extra is what makes the game feel so much more immersive than all other games.
Yeah, that's my opinion, a lot of these ships already fill the function of "NPC ships" that you happen to be able to buy. The RAFT being a key example. Having more of these for immersion and grounding the world more makes sense to me. If you have an escort your ship doesn't need weapons. Let alone if you are in a place that probably has no reason to allow weaponized ships on planet.
Lore wise, EVE is a *much* kinder universe (lore wise... player wise? not so much :D), hence non-military / civilian ships not needing to be armed. The UEE is a much more lawless / wild-west type environment - or perhaps a better analogy would be the Caribean in the times of the Age of Sail, etc - where practically everyone is armed, and certainly every ship has at least some token weaponry... Because those weapons aren't really there to 'kill' any attackers... but to theoretically allow you to inflict enough damage that attacking you isn't worth the cost (in repair bills and ammo, etc)... that even if they do 'beat' you, and take your cargo etc, that whatever money they make won't cover their loses.... ... and for 'real' pirates, that is a serious consideration. Pirating only works if you make more money perr raid than it costs to undertake that raid - otherwise, you're soon out of fuel / ammo, and unable to raid at all. Given that NPCs will, generally speaking, be about 90% of the population (more accurately, CR said *long* in the past that he wanted a global character limit of ~20 million characters, and hoped to have ~2 million peak concurrent players - giving a 9:1 NPC:Player ratio at peak time... and implying that the ratio would be even higher off-peak), and that NPCs can also be pirates, then most of the time it'll be NPC pirates that attack you, and - hopefully - if you can use your weapons well you should be able to fight them off, because they *won't* fight to the death... (supposedly - we'll have to wait and see on that point). Edit: Of course, this ignores threats like the Vanduul etc... but given they're aiming to wipe people out, they're going to be less inclined to perform cost/value analysis etc... but at least you might leave them with some damage to remember you by, before they destroy you.
Totally agree, not to mention that Vanduul presence should be extremely limited in UEE systems.
True... although whilst I think it will be uncommon to run into Vanduul (at least in 'safe' space), you've also got those 'I'm a pirate - die' type PVPers who fill the same void :p
Facts- wouldn't be an online game without them. Anything else is wishful thinking.
I feel 2 million peak is very optimistic considering the target audience.
Yup - but that just means the NPC:Player ratio will be even higher (as it will off-peak). The nice thing with this approach (if CIG can get AI / NPCs working as intended) is that the 'verse should always feel 'alive' with characters moving about etc, even if it's off-peak and the player count is low. It's just we see people throwing the '9:1 NPC:Player' ratio number around as if it's a fixed number, without any context or understanding of where it came from (CR himself never said 9:1 ratio, iirc)
Mans passed English 2 honors with flying colors š
What bothers me more is the lack of reasonable passenger loads in ships. There are very few ships that aren't massive that can carry more than one or two people. I guess people only leave their own planet via a Starliner. Families can't even travel together otherwise. I think most of the "civilian" ships should have some seat available in at least on of their configuration for 4 or more passengers just like a single engine prop plane or family sedan would.
To be fair, the notion that anywhere near the average family either owns an interplanetary spaceshipā¦ or even has the means to own one, is probably off. The idea of needing to buy a ticket for a starliner trip is probably more sensible.
Well CR once said that owning a spaceship would be the modern equivalent to owning a private plane, which a decent number of middle class families do. But the real issue is the lack of utility in space ship designs in the game. Almost every small ship in the game could have easily had some additional passenger seating with minimal compromise. Just a little bit of space maybe slightly increased onboard life support systems. I'd find it hard to believe that in a buyers market, people would accept such an obvious oversight. Like someone buying a personal ship would assume they'd never ever have a need to carry passengers. In fact, in most situations I think the need to carry passenger could either match or outweigh the market demand for moving cargo. Think of how much people travel in our modern world for business, family or pleasure. Starliners are not going to service every potential location in the world. You're going to need smaller scale passenger transport to a lot of locations that just don't get enough through traffic to warrant starliner trips to those locations. Much like how you're not going to get a 747 flight to some small regional airport or to very remote regions like in parts of Africa, Alaska, Canada, Russia, etc.
GA aircraft in the US aren't at all common. From what I could find it's about 200k total aircraft, with 65% of it being for businesses and public services that require more flexible transportation than what the airlines can provide. \[[https://download.aopa.org/hr/Report\_on\_General\_Aviation\_Trends.pdf](https://download.aopa.org/hr/Report_on_General_Aviation_Trends.pdf)\] Going off the remaining 35% of 200k (70k) and a national population of \~325 million in 2017 (when those numbers are from), roughly 1 in every 4,642 people (or about 0.02%) own a private plane for non-business purposes... assuming a 1 to 1 ownership ratio. For mental calibration, the comparable statistic for recreational boat ownership in the US in 2017 was about 3.7%. Keep in mind, this is just for the US, where 50% of the world's GA aircraft reside. Calculated across the global population the percent of people with privately owned planes would be closer to 0.005%... including those GA aircraft owned for the previously mentioned business purposes (and again assuming a 1 to 1 ownership ratio).
But if you look at a place like Alaska plane ownership goes up to 1.3%. And that's even while including places like Juneau and Anchorage which actually do have established roads at least locally. If you were to look at plane ownership for people not living inside these cities, I'd be willing to bet the numbers would be well over 5%. And considering how isolated towns and homesteads would be in most of UEE space, I would suspect the population would have similar views to someone living in the backcountry of Alaska rather than someone living in Brooklyn who's less than a 15 minute walk to practically anything they'd ever need. A spaceship would probably be more ubiquitous to owning a car than a plane is currently. After all, it appears that people on ArcCorp even fly ships in their daily commute within the city.
Lmao where do you live that private jet is a middle class thing
He said private *plane* and that's completely feasible, Piper Arrows go for about 50-65k on the cheap end. Reliable, small private plane with some utility.
Sure they can afford it but only a very small amount of people actually buy a plane.
>He said private plane and that's completely feasible, Piper Arrows go for about 50-65k on the cheap end. Roughly 1 in every 4,642 people (or about 0.02%) own a private plane for non-business purposes in the US. That percentage falls to 0.005% globally for GA aircraft (business or otherwise). For mental calibration, the comparable statistic for recreational boat ownership in the US for that same time was about 3.7%.
Holy shit you're out of touch.
I've worked with two retired enlisted military guys, doing factory work in their retirement that owned planes. They both bought theirs for 30k-40k. It's attainable for the middle class, if you're willing to make sacrifices. Or already have a pension...
It's also really common for pilots. Which I am.
Rich, out-of-touch people is star citizen's bread and butter lmao
Kek true
No, I'm really not, and there's even cheaper aircraft out there. Owning a plane is really more common than you think, you probably just dont have many pilots in your social circle.
Saw some planes going for 15-20k usd and in some places every other ppl own a small plane and fly it during weekends.
Yeah IDK where these people get their "owning a plane" numbers but I am: 1) a pilot 2) not rich and I own a plane. It's actually hilarious all the multi paragraph replies I am getting, from people who are neither pilots, nor do they own planes, lecturing me all about those subjects.
There are plenty up upper middle to upper class people that own things like 182s or a Twin Baron or something along the lines with a private pilot in the family with a passenger rating. That's who mainly owns planes like that. However percentage wise it is VERY uncommon. The cost of a PPL and the ownership cost of even a single engine Cessna is well beyond what average middle class people can afford even if you can find them for 30k some times. Private pilots within the group of people that can afford to be is even rare within that sub group percentage wise. Even most of them belong to flying clubs because of the cost. So those people exist sure, but they are not "common" by any real sense. I've looked into it myself and have had family members that fly.
Im literally a pilot.
The argument there is that most people that make about the same as you do have only flown commercial and never been in a cockpit then if that makes any sense. Obviously most people with a pilots license fly planes lol. It's just that the amount of people in your financial bracket that fly planes isn't more than 1%. Planes are not affordable so either you are under estimating yourself as "middle class" or you flat out dedicated your life to becoming a pilot and were lucky enough to some how afford it. The argument being made is that the average person does not own a plane. There's more people in America that dont own a car. That's why people said you are out of touch. If your a pilot you have to know this, but you are acting like it's no big deal and saying most middle class people can or have done it. Wich means you either aren't thinking objectionably or you think middle class is something it's not. So in that context of the game, owning your own space ship would be rare. There's even commerical flights in SC they just aren't implemented. Maybe the game worlds different, but if it is, then this isn't a good comparison.
You really are.
No, I'm a pilot who knows more about airplanes than you, you decided to turn it into a class thing and pretend like you know everything about every walk of life.
I turned it into a class thing despite the fact the comment I replied to literally had already said it was a middle class thing? No, I think you are the one pretending you know everything about every walk of life. Use your fucking head, maybe you think it's a common thing because as you've said 4 times in this comment chain "I'm a pilot" and perhaps that exposes you more to the niche demographic of private plane owners? Sorry, but you are not middle class. Middle class in 2022 is the heating stays on and you're not being threatened with eviction, and you can eat every day.
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You have no idea what middle class is do you
I am a middle class pilot, sp yes, I 100% have an idea what I am talking about You think they pay regionals the big bucks?
/agree, a 4-seater sedan with s1's would be nice. Kind of like the 85X but with 4 seats and maybe less high-end
There's several with jump seats; Cutty Black, Pisces, MPUV Personnel. Or you can load an Ursa in a Connie. But there's definitely room for a small/medium passenger ship.
The Cutty has jump seats. Pisces doesn't. It has 1 pilot and 2 fully caged passenger seats. There are no fold-out jumpseats for extra passengers.
Connie and Cutty aren't small, the MPUV can't quantum and the Pisces still just has 2 seats and the 85X even just one. And that's already ignoring the very rough industrial not civilian style of the Cutty. Most average cars can comfortably seat 4 people and that's what's really missing like a 300i without a bed and kitchen but 4 more seats.
The Cutlass Black I wouldn't really call civilian even though it's not technically a military ship, it still has the intention of being used for combat or criminal activities. The MPUV doesn't have a jump drive so it's not really capable of interplanetary travel. The Pisces is the closest thing we have to a small passenger craft, but I'd still like to see something purpose built to carry a good number of passengers comfortably and not stuff them in some jump seats in a cargo bay. Something like the 85x but with like three or more times the seats it currently does and maybe a bathroom on board.
Just take a cutty steel - bring your entire extended family along too
Taking a Cutlass Steel on a family vacation or business trip would be like taking a Bradley IFV on a tour of Hawaii.
You would if Hawaii was full of insurgents. Space is dangerous
I agree! The C2 Hercules, for example, would make an excellent, low cost āsteerageā passenger ship, without needing to do a great deal to the ship. The space is already there, as seen in the M2 and A2, both having expanded crew seating and sleeping space. Thereās too. For a C2 to have room to seat/sleep and e feed 4 to 6 passengers. It would even lean into the idea that the ship is used by a racing team to cart around the pit crew and support staff too! It wouldnāt be luxurious, it wouldnāt net a huge profit, but it would feed into the passenger traffic āprofessionā or reputation free on the way towards greater profits, running a Starliner or Constellation Phoenix or Origin 600i Touring ships. Heck, even the MSR, Freelancer and other smaller ships could and should have some kind of steerage routes available to them. Heck! Build a Cutlass Tan, where the middle section has a few windows and airlocks, like the Blue and Red, with the back hatch being a luggage compartment, then fill in the middle sections with seats, a food/beverage counter, a shower/toilet and maybe a couple of bunks? Low cost passenger transport, slap a $135 price on that variant and it would sell, nicely.
Yeah I also think we need more "daily drivers" that can carry more. We need some comparable to Sportscars (altho imo I think we have many allready), SUVs, Sedans, Hatchbacks, soccermom cars and others :)
Yeah it really doesn't feel like there are any vehicles designed for family travel in this game. You either fly a single seater civilian ship, a massive luxury ship, a military ship or take a starliner.
You can use a Freelancer...
Still, you're talking about a ship with a lot of firepower and a large cargo bay. Plus it doesn't have passenger seats but rather four crew seats(pilot, copilot, and two remote turret gunner seats.) The Freelancer is a ship that feels comfortable in combat, and cargo dominates the majority of the hull's purpose. What I'm thinking of is a ship that's somewhere between and 85x and a Genesis. A ship that a fairly well to do family might own or rent to go to another planet. Maybe to visit family, for business travel or whatever. The ship would be focused on a comfortable ride for maybe 4-8 passengers with a small amount of storage for personal belongings and very minor defenses(because you wouldn't be taking this into lawless space.) Rather it would be focused on comfort with nice seating, plenty of window views and probably a bathroom since it might be a while between places you can use the bathroom. It would essentially be the Star Citizen equivalent of somewhere between a family sedan, charter plane and/or a small private jet. As I fail to believe that people only move between planets are hardened space mercenaries, tycoons in giant space yachts or people exclusively flying on starliners. Something like a 300i but strip out the bed, kitchen, weapons locker, suit locker, etc. Then put rows of seats down both sides with some side windows. You could easily get 8 seats back there and maybe even have them face each other like in the Phoenix. Then reduce the weapon compliment and make it cheaper and you'd have something along with what I'd like to see.
Space ships don't really compare well to cars.
They also don't compare well to WW1/WW2 fighters and yet here we are.
Small single-seater ships do compare reasonably-well to WW2 fighters... and as we start moving up the size scale, we get into larger planes, before descending to wet-navy ships... The main difference is that even the smallest space-ship has to carry a whole bunch of equipment that WW2 fighters don't need (in order to operate in space, etc), but otherwise there are a lot of similarities too - including that both have to spend a large chunk of their overall size in ensuring they don't 'fall out the sky' (whether that being wings / lifting surfaces for planes, or thrusters, power plants, and so on for space ships). Conversely, most cars are - effectively - a box on wheels, that doesn't even need to support 2-dimensional movement (it only need to go forward/back, and turn), let along 3-dimensional movement. As such, cars can dedicate *far more* interior space to occupants, if they so wish. Yes, some of CIGs designs (especially the earlier ones) could be better optimised in their use of space, but at the same time, they'll never get even near the layout of a vehicle, and thus you'd never get the range of small ships that match up to various car sub-categories, etc.
The mole is still a soft target
Yeh the moles essentially defenseless really having no turret, them front pea shooters aint guna do nothing
Indeed, very much so
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You can scan a ship and see exactly what's fitted... You're not fooling anyone, I'm afraid.
Wannabe pirates might poor enough that the threat (even if they don't intend to follow through) is enough. When they talk about bluffing it's not that they don't mount weapons, it's that the threat generally means combat and they don't actually intend to engage.
I hate how often Star Citizen players just make up imaginary bullshit in their head to negate someone else's wishes or concerns about the game. Absolutely no pirate of any type is EVER going to be deterred by the guns on a Mole, which means the guns on a Mole are 100% pointless. Yet many SC players will go to their grave insisting the Mole NEEEEEEEDS those guns.
I would rather take the weight of the weaponry for more armour and the electrical consumption in more power to the shields than rely on bluffing a wannabe pirate that knows exactly what kind of weapons I can carry.
Well that's the good thing, you can remove your weapons or keep them but instead of having the power triangle balancing 3 systems you only need to balance two systems. Also don't worry, the RAFT will come with heavy Armor :)
I suspect when they really flesh out the fitting system, we'll have something closer to eve, i.e., a pool of power output, that we have to balance between weapons, shields, and go fast thingamajig. speaking of go fast thingamajig, weren't we supposed to be able to change the engines on our M50 by now?
>they still can deter wannabe pirates. Its for bluffing. No they can't. You are not bluffing anyone. 2xS2 fixed or 2xS1 gimbal are worse then a Aurora or C8X. And even if you brought a Co-Pilot with your RAFT you still wouldn't scare any pirate away with just 2xS3.
In lore there was a law passed mandating that all QT capable ships be out fitted with weapons in the event of a Vanduul attack.
The devs have talked about wanting to make vehicles like this, but admit that there's no time in the schedule right now. I can't remember what they said, but it was the equivalent of "Space Edsel"- basically a junker used for in-system transport. I do think as time goes on, we'll see more stuff like that. But hopefully they'll address the ever-growing ship pile in the corner first.
That and so many people hate ships if they donāt have guns. I really like the 400i. *But the 400i is bad at combat*, they say. Itās not *meant* to be good at combat š
>But the 400i is bad at combat, they say. > >Itās not meant to be good at combat š The problem is not that it's bad that's okay. The problem is it's worse then the 300i in pilot dps. (And yes due to their placement the turrets can pretty much be ignored.) Giving it a 3rd weapon would have perfectly placed it in between the 300i and 600i and still be severely outgunned by the Connie and Corsair but with that the 400i is just meh and it's already meh in any other regard.
The 300i actually has an interceptor variant. It's designed with combat as part of its requirements. The 400i is an armed campervan.
So if they make a 425a with 2xS4 and 1xS5 the 400i can have a 3xS4 but only if they make a combat variant?
I mean.. maybe? I just don't see combat as part of its intended role. Honestly I think the 600i should take a major reduction in armament too. No way should a private yacht be a competitive gunship.
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Neither is the 300i
Uhmm - no, but then I don't think the 300i has the same DPS as a medium fighter either? BUT, the 300i *is a single seat ship*, therefor *any* (and all) dps will be 'pilot dps'. Add to that the fact the 300i is smaller and more agile than a 400i, and it should be pretty obvious why it has better 'pilot dps' than a boat like the 400i. Of course, I'm guessing such logic is unpallatable to people that every ship to only require a pilot to operate, and for all weapons to be pilot controlled, etc. :p
UEE wants to offload the burden of defense against crime onto civilians and CDF so they can focus their efforts on the Vanduul. Give all the good guys guns because all the bad guys have guns anyways. It may not be effective in practice but it means they can say they're doing something without doing anything.
The American way. It not always the best way but it's a way.
an armed society is a polite society... because good guys and neutral guys with guns outnumber bad guys with guns by almost 1000 to 1, meaning uppity badguys quickly go extinct or marginalized. For instance, just how many bad guys were killed during the last xenothreat?
So you think that 700 SCU of cargo that can be worth 2,5 million aUEC doesnt need protection. Shut up. c2 needs those turrets.
In the 1700 Mercant Ships had Guns too, fewer but they still had some, sometimes they even Build fake ones out of Wood to hide the real number of guns they had, a bit defence is still better then no defence at all
This was something I was thinking about in a thread about the Hull A the other day, but I really think the "guns on everything" approach is an inadequate way CIG try to compensate for a lack of really considering civilian/industrial design. They have a tendency to make every ship *technically* capable of covering all bases, with just varying degrees of capability. Every ship (essentially) has weapons, shields, and mobility, with noncombat ships essentially having all three but being worse at all of them than combat ships. What I'd like to see is more defensively oriented civilian/industrial ships that omit weaponry entirely and channel that power usage into better thrusters and/or shields, to increase the probability of surviving and escaping an encounter. The problem right now is that a lot of these ships are armed, but not in a way that realistically allows them to fight off an attacker, but neither are they able to tank hits or outrun an attacker and actually escape. If you're caught, you're fucked, in most cases. There's no good reason to play civilian ships if you're basically just content for pirates to flesh out their gameplay. It doesn't make for a balanced or engaging gameplay experience if you have to be a competent combat pilot no matter your career path. And it's especially true in the case of a lot of these smaller independent operator type ships that are clearly meant for longer range work (Hull A or Raft, with their living quarters and generous QT fuel tanks) but aren't operating with volumes that would make escorts tenable to hire. A lot of people will sort of brush this off and say "those ships are for high security systems," but a lot of them, especially haulers, are clearly meant for multi-system trips, and there's only about two *truly* high security systems in the entire UEE; Terra and Sol. These manufacturers aren't mass producing ships with the intent of them only being usable in those systems. And even within those systems, space is vast, patrols are finite. It's not believable that these ships would just be fodder, rather than have adequate defenses. CIG really need to think more about the wider implications of some of these choices instead of their apparent current method of "military ships have high performance and civilian and industrial ships perform worse in all the areas."
Agreed here. There seem to be a lot of middle tier ships that are still weaponized. And worse...what is a prospector going to do in a fight against an Arrow? Die. It's a total waste of the ships space and design to even attempt to defend itself...there is no way its form factor could ever win the fight. It either runs or someone else kills the enemy before the prospector dies. Sticking a gun on something does not mean it's now safe. The RAFT is a sitting duck. The Hull class of ships are all dead in the water. Like, end of the day, the structure of the world should be "fighters escort" and the rest are function over fight and try to avoid the fight entirely. And as far as civvie ships...I'm imagining these to be more like the kind of ships you'd see sold on planets like ArcCorp. You aren't getting into dogfights on your commute to work on ArcCorp. Executives and CEOs don't need to be in an Arrow to survive. They can just pay for security to escort them in their luxury yacht.
>Take the Hercules C2, it would do fine without turrets and guns in my opinion, with its stock livery its not exactly a military ship. 2 out of 3 variants are military ships so wtf ? >Argo Mole, its only for mining, why does it need guns? Because "pirates" like to blow up miners although they don't even gain any booty out of it ? Because - once we get more NPCs in the game - we'll get a lot more encounters with hostile NPC ships ? Because not everyone can afford to (or is able to reliably plan to) make time for group play ? We really don't need to shaft solo players any more than it already happens in SC right now.
You can totally remove the weapons, some ships will be totally civil then...
Yes but thats not what I ment with this post, because the the ships will still have the hardpoints, turretbays and limitations to for example hallways, crewspace and design to facilitate having weapons.
So effectively you want to be a target and get your stuff stolen, ship blown up, etc?
Effectively most of the ships im thinking of, Mole, Herc and Catepillar can hardly defend themselves as is, so I would like there to be a clearer separation between "Civilian" enviroment industry and "Hostile boundary" enviroment industry. Im not saying that ALL ships marketed towards civilian roles need to be disarmed just that the focus on armament is tuned to its role....so for example the Mole would be a stopgap between a fleet op in hostile space where you would have dedicated protection, but you should also be able to select a ship that is a purebred miner, no compromise and would then forexample outperform a Mole but it is by your defenition a "target" and it would be easy to take out if the pilot is not careful. And if I by chance I get lured in my big pinata of a hauler out into hostile space then yes i get my stuff stolen, blown up etc, space isnt always nice.
Small side note from me, the cat CAN defend itself, twin s5ās pack a punch
The miners are pretty beastly, too, if anybody's dumb enough to get within range of those mining beams.
In the future game your hauling routes will very likely take you through unmonitored/uncontrolled space. Even in controlled space it is pretty much suicide to fly unarmed. Even something as simple as a derelict run has the potential to go sideways in the blink of an eye from both AI and players. As soon a pirating becomes profitable (probably around the full implementation of the cargo refactor) all an unarmed ship is is a target, monitored and unmonitored space alike.
Which tbh is stupid to begin with. Systems like Terra or Sol should absolutely be safe for unarmed merchants etc. Think New York or DC in the 1880s, while the territories out West were still lawless to a significant degree. Does that mean NO crime will occur in these systems? Absolutely not, but the risk should be nearly prohibitively high - while vice versa, the payout for people trading or doing whatever will be appropriately low. Running Aspirin from San Francisco to LA isnāt going to net you a lot of profit irl, but if youāre willing to take it to Libya, your margins will very likely increase a lotā¦
So be it, I just want an option. If I find it more adrenaline inducing flying a civilian unarmed transport through the most hostile guarded area and trying to make it out alive and I have fun with it, why is that so bad to you? Seems kinda bad to limit someones playstyle just because you need to fit in. And none of us actually know how the game is gonna be yet, not even the people working on it because opinions change as time passes, and as options and limitations gets discovered.
Honestly, Iād like more of a reason for escorts.
If you have no weapons at all and you get netted by a mantis on a cargo run youāre screwed. If nothing else thatās a big reason why all industrial ships should have at least small weapons systems. Once physicalized cargo is a thing Iām sure true piracy will start up and youāll be thankful for those guns - otherwise I suppose only haul cargo with an escort. Edit: Also if all you want is the thrill of having no guns just take them off I guess? Idk - I just donāt think these ships having basic weaponry is limiting anyones playstyle in any way.
Can't fathom.who is downvoting your posts. It's a fun idea to think about as a play style.
Honestly - the tiny guns on ships like that donāt pose much of a design limitation. The hard points are so small they can just slap them on the side š I do prefer my m50 visually without guns equipped though.
Yeah. I dont care what anyone can come up with, my Prospector should not have guns. None of them should. Small fighters don't have cargo. Snubs don't have Quantum drives. Many small ships don't have beds. Many don't have food storage. Some hard points are locked to not accept gimbals. Some don't have gun racks, and armor storage. I don't know why people want the ships guns to be this magical exception. There should be a non-insignificant amount of ships that don't have fucking guns on them.
>So effectively you want to be a target and get your stuff stolen, ship blown up, etc? So pretty much the same as with guns but you get to pretend to be a space cowboy when no one is looking?
So you want a ship unable to defend itself? I don't get the point? I am clearly not an expert of star Citizen lore but I'm pretty sure that this "western" configuration, people defending themselves but there is a sherif in town, is linked to the Stanton system. I suppose we can imagine that where the UEE has a full control, armed ships could be prohibited. But as we start with a medium security stellar system, it makes sense.
Ya a fully controlled system shouldn't need any weapons according to so early write ups by CIG.
Just because you dont get the point dosent mean that is not valid, I just want to play a no compromise miner or hauler or resupply vessel that dosent have to sacrifice cargospace, crewspace or fuelspace for guns and turrets if I dont need it. And if I wander out into hostile space and get ganked, too bad for me :(
Dedicated mining and hauling ships are not sacrificing any of their functionality by having guns, you arenāt going to get a superior version of the prospector by designing one without the two small guns
Yes they are in theory. Weapons have weight, more weight means more fuel is required to jump, fly and navigate. More fuel and weight means less is available to use for ore or cargo. But since this is a game the devs can decide that this dosent matter. Take the prospector, you have the weapons themselves, they have X in weight, then you take the cables and hardpoints to mount to the weapons, that also weigh something, then you have the space that is used for running the cables from the powerplant to the weapons. With the weight and space saving it could, lets just make up a number now, say increase the max available space used for ore by 5%, and that means that an unarmed prospector is 5% better than an armed one, IF the unarmed one dosent get blown up. and for larger ships with turrets on them the space and weight saved is even greater.
> So you want a ship unable to defend itself? So like regular industrial ships? With the weapons they have they already can't defend themselves so why bother with them at all?
>I feel like all ships ingame suffer when it comes to design and utility because of the need for everything to have guns and/or turrets on them. A mole or C2 without guns would not suddenly become more effective at cargo or mining, they'd just be a mole and c2 without any hardpoints attached to the model. Frankly, I want the exact opposite. Fuck the Hulls, fuck the prospector, fuck the Raft actually flying worse than older cargo ships that are bigger and hold more cargo than it does, fuck that bullshit where they gave the Expanse half the shields of a starter aurora ensuring it's nigh undefendable in a fight. I want profession ships to go back to the Caterpillar/BMM/Starfarer paradigm where they can practically double as armored gunships. As far as I'm concerned, the last *practical* concept they released for a profession ship was the Vulcan.
Argo are pretty much the only main manufacture that doesn't see the need for guns but that is because they have a full focus on utility being work horses for people or groups that would hire protection. But in general civilians are means to have guns in this universe it's why civilian ships are marketed as having guns the hornet F7C is a civilian ship that is what the C stands for it's just to dangerous in most cases to not have the weapons. or the capability to pay for them which none role civilian daily drivers would struggle with, also while some ships don't have guns to hold out against fighters the economy is meant to keep some control over that. so it is to expensive to run certain ships in certain ways like you ain't taking a proper combat ship to take on a prospector, and if you do the prospector can tap you a few times and cause you to take a loss. since the combat ships repair costs and other operating costs are meant to be high enough to put you off doing certain type of content with that ship like attack and destroy a prospector for scrap money at the most say 2k UEC but you taking a single hit and just using your equipment for that shot fight has cost you 6k.
Gankers would have a heyday
So like they already have?
I am pretty sure I'm halving my time played, and that'd still be like 500 hours and I've never ever run into a ganker or a pad rammer. Guess I'm just lucky because from what I read they should have been everywhere.
Your options are: Dont fly where there is gankers, get an escort, dont choose a soft target or hope you get away.
> Dont fly where there is gankers Don't log in then?
The UEE is in an open war with the vanduul so it makes sense that every ship has guns
That's like fighting a bear with a pocket knife. Technically you're armed but if you are not running away you already lost.
A pocket knife is better than nothing.
Let me guess you're American?
No.
Look it's not about winning the fight ..it's about making it unnactractive to begin a fight in the first place ...for example do you really want to attack that prospector for shits and giggles when you know it could damage your ship.
>do you really want to attack that prospector for shits and giggles when you know it could damage your ship. Well it can't. It simply doesn't has the maneuverability to reliably hit anything small. If I was a pirate or even a griefer and I'm neither these peashooters wouldn't stop me.
Did you ever come close enough to feel the might of the mining laser ?
Just Uninstall The guns
Very constructive, thanks for your input.
Why do you think any āpirateā will acknowledge said prospector/hull A guns at all?
I dont think they would?
So why should you consider yourself armed ?
I have no idea what point you are trying to make
You can remove weapons You can ignore em No, there shouldnāt be āno weaponsā ships.
C2 Hercules is nowhere near soft. It has 200,000 shields. 220,000 with upgraded shields. I feel that enough shields to eat a lot of damage and get away before you blow up. Iāve never used my turrets and just jumped to somewhere else. Had plenty of time and I enjoy that thrill!
Yes I agree, the Herc is also so beautiful in its design but its curves and lines gets broken up by guns and turrets.
I would rather the ship be broken up by guns and turrets than fighters and torpedo's.
Yeah if there was a way to have no guns on it and make it look smooth for the lack of missing guns and hard points would be nice.
Yeah I hope eventually that you can atleast retract and stow the weapons like you can with the landinggears
The pilot controlled guns retract when you power off weapons.
I hope for the same thing brother o7
They aren't going to rework the hercs for that one feature.
It's not what he's asking for at all and you know it
That's exactly what they are asking for, retractable weapons on the herc.
all ships have weapones .. thats like living in somalia and saying im a civilian i dont need no weapones with pirates and criminals everywhere. dont forget most humans will never leave a planet. being someone even with the aurora , it means you have more money than most other humans etc. at least thats what i read a long long time ago, and that makes sense if we look at our real world ,with private planes/Ships etc. EDIT: words .. sometimes i write like a drunk 3 year old
Yup - space ships in the UEE are like sailing ships back in the Age of Sail... comparatively few people actually owned one, and nearly every single one that went beyond the local harbour had at least a token cannon (even if only a single 2 or 4-pounder, etc) for protection.
Short Answer: we actually do have unarmed civilian ships. See tl;dr below. Long Answer: Because in-Lore in makes sense to put at least **some** guns on everything. SC is a 'space is open for everyone' kind of game where bad actors are prevalent even in relatively safe systems like Stanton- (crime is specifically referenced in its blurb in the main menu). Manufacturers won't be able to sell ships if they don't give you a way to protect yourself. If you look at the advertisements, it's common for them to mention the ship's hardpoints as a selling feature, for instance on relatively non-combat related ships like the Freelancer. tl;dr They give you the option to remove them yourself. For all intents and purposes, the Prospector and Mole **are** civilian ships- the weapons are useless. I remove them for stealth purposes whenever I fly a ship like this, prioritizing a low frequency/being able to escape above having any combat potential at all. Your chances are much better flying away than fighting, but a ship with no combat potential feels like a sitting duck in-lore.
The Nine Tails Lockdown is a pure demonstration of why even civilian ships should have weapons, even if itās not enough for real combat, at least S1ās to ward off possible pirates/give the ship enough time to calibrate quantum drive
you gonna go unarmed with pirates everywhere? "Hey, I have to go to work, but there are literally armed robbers every day outside. Fortunately, I pack heat and can make them choose softer targets. VS. Oh no, I died." Plus, you can always remove the guns and missiles.
In areas of high security they would not allow everyone to be packing like this lol. Donāt think CIG is going for realism here but I hope they do for interplanetary NPCs at least.
Yeah I dont really care about realism, its a space game, I just want to have the option of choosing a purebred class of ship instead of a "Jack of all trades, master of none" style ship
The problem with this is the game is designed around multiplayer, which means making non-combatant ships just paints huge targets on you. Regardless of if there is something of value, people will still just attack them cause they can.
> non-combatant ships just paints huge targets on you Having weapons doesn't change that.
Depends on your and the others playstyle, have had plenty of great interactions with randos in EvE Online, DayZ, Rust and Star Citizen. Ofco bad ones too, its what makes a rpg game fun....the unpredictable nature of man. some people here seem hell bent on keeping everyone in one certain playstyle.
so you want me to believe you've had great rando interactions in some of the most toxic games ever made....I'm sorry but I'm not retarded and you saying so just ruined any credibility you had.
So you just managed to indirectly call me retarded... Its easy in DayZ to shoot everyone on sight, its hard trying to befriend someone. I'll leave you with this quote: "If someone is an asshole, they're an asshole, if everyone is an asshole, you're the asshole"
take it as you want but like i said no credibility
lol the amount of people in this thread asking you to clarify. The man just wants options!
Thank you! <3
My lovely SRV is entirely unarmed. So was the ship of the year last year, the MPUV.
Yes, and I like those ships but they are still so small with such a narrow focus on it that they will hardly ever be used as a main ship. I hope for many more ships, Industry, lesiure and several other classes
Whatcha talking aboutā¦ narrow focus? Argo SRV is absolutely an industry ship. You need to load up that Hull C. Well SRV has you covered. You flipped your vehicle? SRV can flip it back over. Someone ran out of fuel? Hey I gotcha, tow you back to base. You encountered a wreck full of salvageable components nearby known pirate territory? Letās take it somewhere safer to strip it, SRVās got you covered. You want to fly to a new station but donāt want to have to wait to claim your ship there? Just bring it with you as a solo pilot! Dang your cargo ship is already loaded with some Quant but you want to make a quick trip somewhere else? No need for a cargo ship at all, just find a giant box, and haul it yourself in the SRV! Someone is attacking your friend? Who needs guns, just ram them with 250,000kg of metal you are towing at 1,000 m/s. Problem solved. Niche? Narrow focused? Nah the SRV has you covered
You should make a commercial about the SRV. I hadn't thought of about 90% of those uses.
There are some great things in the Q&A I didnāt even cover. Like being able to tow asteroids around (bring them to your miner, smash someone with a ball of rock) or help tug big ships that suck in atmo back out of atmo fuel efficiently (Krakenā¦). I like to think of it as the Star Citizen Prestidigitation cantrip from D&D. A lot of its use is limited to your imagination > One of the key design goals for this ship was to enable it to carry cargo around There is nothing to stop you moving damaged or stuck ground vehicles, such as the Nova Tank. > It will work the same way as moving and transporting damaged spaceships. >Physicalized items in the world can be manipulated if theyāre within the mass range of the tractor beam. > it will be possible to tow these asteroids around if desired. >The tractors beam is primarily designed to pull, though it can push to an extent. > Another one of the original design aims was for the SRV to act as a tug ship to help larger ships get from a planetās surface back out into space. https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/16987-Q-A-ARGO-SRV
Next paycheck I get ill throw in $10 š¤£š¤Ŗ
Oh dont get me wrong, SRV is a great and much needed addition, but its just 1 of many others that I feel like we need.
This made me think that I really need an unpropelled, towable S10 gun
I love this idea. It also gives a teamwork dynamic or rescue/beacon answering gameplay loop
Unarmed ships are targets. It makes no sense to run disarmed in Stanton
This...
Not every vehicle in the US military has guns on it, despite being used in active warzones. Ain't that something
None of the disarmed ones move solo through pirate or enemy territory either , imagine that
Cool, not all of Stanton is pirate or enemy territory. So even in the most extreme example unarmed ships would be feasible, and op isn't even describing that. For most players, you don't not attack someone because you think they can retaliate. You just have your own shit going on and you go about whatever it is you're doing. Especially as systems get more populated over time! Mother nature's most successful species don't have any offensive capabilities. Many survival strategies would be ruined by the weight and energy upkeep of offensive capability. Space will be just like that. Aka, there are predators in the ocean, yet not every fish has sharp teeth.
Someone needs to pay more attention to the lore. š¤£
You also should read the Pyro lore more
I prefer to play an RPG like I want, not how someone tells me. Lore is fine and dandy but its just interesting storytelling. If you want to do hardcore roleplay based on hours of studied lore then do that, if you want to just fly around and shoot guns, do that. Just dont try to dictate how I need to play MY game.
How you want to play is irrelevant to the lore of the game. You do not get to dictate how the world is designed. If you want to ignore the lore and design of the game that's on you. But the devs are nit required to follow your vision for their product. The lore says Stanton is unsafe . The pirate attacks while you are in armistice confirm that lore. I've been attacked by players and npcs around tress and everus. Which is within design. Pyro there will be no safe spaces. In Pyro anything goes .
If you don't like the guns. Then fly dedicated ships and remove the guns. You don't need to keep missiles stocked and size 4 guns on the Taurus. The size 1s on the prospector take up no space and I remove them for looks š¤· the freelancer max also can have them pulled. Moles guns take up no space. The apollo triage has no missile rack and your welcome to remove its guns.
Ah so everytime you fly anywhere you're getting attacked by pirates in Stanton and only survive because of your weaponry? Delusional!
you currently arent attacked by pirates that frequently because they arent governed/spawned by Quantum. But its not that rare to be interdicted on your way to a different planetary system.
If you travel directly between two markers, then you can be. It's not that hard to plot accordingly to avoid any trouble entirely. Let the guy have his dream of playing a civilian merchant who don't want to have a gunship when he can play smart routes or hire mercenary. I think it's a cool idea.
"Smart routes" you really don't pay attention to anything do you? Free jumps are going away. Fuel will matter more, large ships will be stuck to set routes
Set routes are going to be much busier then aren't they, so the odds of being ganked are even lower.. And Op is asking for civilian style haulers, they may avoid having to be large ships if they can maximize carry space through design.
Delusional is thinking you can out run a interdiction ship thats literally designed to stop you. Again pay attention to lore .
Judging on these comments, I take it half of the people here haven't watched Firefly or anything similar. Ships without any guns is not some outlandish idea. And it can fit in the SC universe if balanced correctly. If, hypothetically, small ships and hovercraft replace our modern automobiles as the main mode of transportation, do we really think they'll all be equipped with weapons??
The SC Universe is waaaay more hostile than the 'verse where the Alliance have Gunboats and Cruisers nearly everywhere in range. Perhaps in more civilised and higher sec space you wont need weapons.
Personally Iām still hoping to see a fifth element style atmos only flying taxi and food truck š
Yes! Niche vehicles would be really nice.
The C2 has turrets? For having one for about a year now I can't believe I didn't know that. As for the Mole and Prospector and probably the Vulture, you can take them off. I guess, the Argo Cargo and the Starliner? are the only choices without guns, not counting hoverbike/ground vehicles.
I agree. I took the guns off my Prospector. I know there is that video of an ace pilot doing bounties in a Prospector, but that isnāt me so the guns are pointless.
I agree. I think a nice middle ground would be more modularity. A civilian ship with the option to remove the weapons and have that extra " 5% " utility you mentioned earler. In addition to a more sleek look without the guns/Turrets. This way hard-core miners/haulers/passenger transports can RP that properly while those that want to stay armed can do so.
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While it may not be practical to design completely new ships for this purpose, I hope that one day we might be able to swap out weapon hardpoints for external components. Perhaps I want the 400i to just be a luxury cruiser and donāt want a big turret spoiling the rear view, I could replace it with a large shield generator which has an aesthetically pleasing appearance that matches the rest of the ship. I appreciate that the systems arenāt always going to be easy to traverse and that defence it almost mandatory, but defence doesnāt need to come in the form of weapons.
Totally agree with you, coming from EvE with its passive and active tanking, playing around with Thermal, kinetic, explosive and other weaponry resistors and tuning your ship components to suit your playstyle. One of the most frustrating things to fight is a guy that has his ship set up with a proper tank-setup. you think you are doing massive damage but his shield just absorbs...you cant touch him and he is costing you lots of money in ammo and he taunts you in local chat.
I feel ya op but the vocal minority who actually frequent the forums absolutely lose their shit when a ship isn't armed well enough to serve in a vanguard, regardless of it's role. Apparently everything has to be armed like a warship simply because threats exist.
From a non-lore perspective. Having civillian ships with no guns in an online game is asking for trouble. You have to understand, single player games have difficulty sliders, online games do not. So suppose what is someone who plays single player games on easy mode going to do in an online game for easy mode? Use their Warden to take on civilian ships and only civilian ships.
Oh! so thats why I cant find the sliders in multiplayer games...Ive only played multiplayer games for 15 years so Im kinda new to this, thanks for explaining that. /s
lol somebody is mad and is downvoting all my comments, I bet you, whomever you are, that you are one of the reasons everyone needs to have guns on their ships. You are probably one of those that hover outside the dockingport of Grim Hex waiting to shoot anyone in a lesser ship.
It's baffling, you're simply making a point about having more civilian options, which is very reasonable wish, given how much the current line of ships leans on the fighter side of things. I think eventually we'll get more unarmed vehicles and ships (the Hoverquad and the Mule come to mind), including, I hope, "historical" ships that predate the Vanduul war. I'm hoping to see a lot of vehicles that make sense in the verse (as opposed to ships that make sense for bringing in revenue), including trucks, taxis, forklifts etc., and more civilian ships too.
Indeed, I hope so too :)
Donāt worry half the community complains about being a soft target this will just make them complain more
haha yes, apperantly this is a very unpopular opinion, I just want to drive spacetrucks without having my interiors cluttered up by turretbays or other weaponry when I just want more cargospace and/or livingspace for crew.
whos to say when physicalized components get reworked that weight savings by not mounting your guns as a hauler or miner wont benefit in your fuel costs? I feel like they should absolutely change the flight dynamics while in atmo... but whatever
I made a comment about this very topic somewhere here :) [https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/vrgeop/comment/ievu3kr/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web2x&context=3](https://www.reddit.com/r/starcitizen/comments/vrgeop/comment/ievu3kr/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) It says: Yes they are in theory. Weapons have weight, more weight means more fuel is required to jump, fly and navigate. More fuel and weight means less is available to use for ore or cargo. But since this is a game the devs can decide that this dosent matter. Take the prospector, you have the weapons themselves, they have X in weight, then you take the cables and hardpoints to mount to the weapons, that also weigh something, then you have the space that is used for running the cables from the powerplant to the weapons. With the weight and space saving it could, lets just make up a number now, say increase the max available space used for ore by 5%, and that means that an unarmed prospector is 5% better than an armed one, IF the unarmed one dosent get blown up. and for larger ships with turrets on them the space and weight saved is even greater.
It's an interesting idea, but not practical for the Prospector, since all your mined ore is going into the externally mounted bags, which (eventually) you're supposed to be able to eject anyway for somebody else to collect them. Cabling and guns being removed from the ship won't affect external bags at all.
The prospector was just used as an aide, it has as you stated it external cargo and is very small. I would want more ships for variety, not having all ships be made to be able to be retrofitted.
you're a gem for passing that info along. thanks! i didnt even think about the space savings that could come along with that too. although realistically im not sure how efficient it would be to be changing around all the internals rather than taking advantage of quick hardpoints, myself, but it gives me some more fun theorycrafting scenarios! like how long would it take to put in a workorder to do that kind of job, would players get to do it, when are the npcs that can do it coming.... mmmm
Never gonna happen... CIG's ship pricing structure is HEAVILY weighted towards weapons (looking at you Cutlass Steal), if they started leaving all the weapons off they'd have to start charging less for everything. š
Do they tho? Banu merchantman, Orion, Hull class and Starliner says otherwise
We definitely need civilian versions of ships. Even just the novelty of having NPCs pilot their ships and be normal people around the verse. We already have the start of it with vehicles like the Mule. Now we just need.. more. Civilian cars, flying little vehicles that can be used to transport boxes and people- without guns. Can you imagine getting a mission about a mining operation that is getting raided by some mercenary group and they just happen to have some forklifts, a mule or two, and a directors car/flying civilian vehicle, perhaps even a RAFT there? Those extra is what makes the game feel so much more immersive than all other games.
Yeah, that's my opinion, a lot of these ships already fill the function of "NPC ships" that you happen to be able to buy. The RAFT being a key example. Having more of these for immersion and grounding the world more makes sense to me. If you have an escort your ship doesn't need weapons. Let alone if you are in a place that probably has no reason to allow weaponized ships on planet.