My guess is that the shields were put in by developers and they either decided against using them or are going to put better freighters in an expansion (GOD I hope so!). I agree with you completely that there is a lack of balance or trade-off in this game, but it is not too horrible. In a big ship you lose your turning speed and your ability to dodge, but you have more armor, shield, and firepower. It would be great if you could buy upgraded components, say put a high level shield and weps on freighters and smaller fighters. That would make the game much more interesting (especially in MP!) and customizable. How great would it be to be able to put 2 level 10's on a LF or FR?

True, however, is there really a trade off for better armor? The humpback tops out at 5800 or so for armor and some of the later ships are well over, 12k, I maybe this is due to the fact that they stopped concurrently making Frieghters at the level 20 range. Therefore it was intended that Frieghters should never contend with something beyond level 20. Bummer. better have some good escort buddies then I guess. Althought to me being able to survive the trade route, is far more important than having a bigger hull, but never being able to actually live to deliver.. so some of the heavy fighters with 70 or so seem to be the better way to go.

some??? only one so far as i know... the titan is 12600, the sabre is 10800, and the eagle is only 9900 (only.... LOL) but yes, the freighters are a little outclassed...

just get some friends in MP to escort you... run like hell and hit turret mode blasting away at your ass...

Remember, on a scale of 1 to Awesome, I'm Totally Great

I think with shields, the idea was just to make level 1-10 of just about everything (except for graviton shields at equipment shops, strangely).

As for there not being any "good" light fighters, well, that would go to my own personal opinion of the designers not really trying to "balance" ship classes, and just have increasing levels of uber-ness. And admittedly, the uber-fighter regime does work pretty well for what it's trying to do.

ER

The freighters aren't quite up to par because this is primarily a combat game. Trading and cargo ships are basically only the means by which you acquire those combat ships. With the current freighters, it's already possible to get enough cash to buy the best ship fairly easily and quickly.

So, unless they make some other changes to the trading system and game economy, new cargo ships would probably only make players have more money than they can spend even faster then what currently is the case.

i think they either got lazy or are lining up for an expansion pack

I guess you have a point there, Lem. If you can make a trade run w/500k profit, that alone just bought you a sabre (almost). I just think it'd be nice if you could put some of the higher rated weps on the freighters so you can make it through hostile space easier...I mean, if you have the trade lanes you're fine, but if not and there are 8 corsairs or hessians flying around zapping you w/lasers it gets easy to lose cargos...

Well, i fly a fighter, and i did enjoy my time in a humpback, level 10 shield is awesome on it, its hard to find a really good one though. Plus, the best freighter in game (humpback) seems to only be able to use 7 class weapons, which is kind of a bummer, i still liked being a trader though.

PS: many people say the dromedary is way better, i agree, its turning speed is better plus the extra cargo, but imtalking better equipment-wise, the humpback can use better equipment than the drom, although i like the drom more, because when i was a trader, the cool thing was it manages to have better cargo but still be having much better turning, though the equipment will drag you down eventually, good luck

"I Would Rather Die Standing Than Live On My Knees"

*Corsairs need freighters* I always play Corsairs either raiding or smuggling in a Dromedary or just blowing crap up with a Saber. Either way I use Outworlder ships in the Corsairs. Corsair researchers need to figure out a way to rig the Titan turret to fire forward and make a decent freighter pronto.

I’d love to see a level +35 Outworlder freighter ship with lvl 10 shields. Perhaps call it a Two Hump Dromedary and just pile on the armor, on top of that nice 550 cargo space. But since anything like that would be super uber make it very expensive to buy a $2 million or greater ship.

Why not go all out and call it a camel?



A corpse is a corpse of course of course, unless that corpse can talk of course, and then of course that talking corpse is the famous Mr. Dead.

I know, let's just make all the ships invulnerable so the game loses all it's fun! kkthxbye!

Anyone seen my missing Freighter?
Class 10 shields available for purchase but no ships to use them, went into god mode after I made my first 30 million & searched every system. Alas no luck, but hope springs eternal, while looking through the data folder I came across a corsair freighter (data\ships\corsair\co_freighter) Also found its flyable, found a cockpit view for it (data\cockpit\corsair\model\co_freighter_cockpit). Anyone seen or heard of this elusive possibly mythical ship?


“Yea though I fly through the valley of the shadow of death I shall fear no evil for in my Titan I’m the badest (expletive deleted) in the valley!”

Edited by - balacava on 15-06-2003 08:19:06

The Corsair freighter does seem to exist, I tried to make it buyable at manhattan, but it doesn't show up (Either that, or it's cloacked at the dealer..), anyway, loking at the ini files, it doesn't sound really impressive

Only 15 bots/shield, cargo of 90, only 2200 HP, 4 guns, 4 turrets..

Part of the shiparch.ini

[Ship
ids_name = 237046
ids_info = 66591
ids_info1 = 66592
ids_info2 = 66608
ids_info3 = 66593
ship_class = 2
nickname = pi_freighter
LODranges = 0, 60, 120, 1000
msg_id_prefix = gcs_refer_shiparch_pirf
mission_property = can_use_berths
type = FREIGHTER
DA_archetype = Ships\corsair\co_freighter\co_freighter.cmp

There's also the needed entries in goods.ini;

[Good
nickname = pfr_hull
category = shiphull
ship = pi_freighter
price = 18400
ids_name = 12022
item_icon = Equipment\models\commodities\nn_icons\co_freighter.3db

[Good
nickname = pfr_package
category = ship
hull = pfr_hull
addon = ge_pfr_engine_01, internal, 1
addon = pi_freighter_power01, internal, 1
addon = ge_s_scanner_01, internal, 1
addon = ge_s_tractor_01, internal, 1
addon = shield01_mark02_fr, HpShield01, 1
addon = LargeWhiteSpecial, HpHeadlight, 1
addon = SlowSmallPurple, HpRunningLight01, 1
addon = SlowSmallPurple, HpRunningLight02, 1
addon = SlowSmallPurple, HpRunningLight03, 1
addon = SlowSmallPurple, HpRunningLight04, 1
addon = SlowSmallPurple, HpRunningLight05, 1
addon = SlowSmallPurple, HpRunningLight06, 1
addon = contrail01, HpContrail01, 1
addon = contrail01, HpContrail02, 1
addon = DockingLightRedSmall, HpDockLight01, 1
addon = DockingLightRedSmall, HpDockLight02, 1

So I put pfr_package in place where the gf2_package was in the li01_01_base (Manhattan) but no go... Anybody know why ? (Maybe the different IDS_Name in goods.ini and shiparch.ini... )





Edited by - Seer on 15-06-2003 11:27:03

Yeah i find it very hard to survive trade routes in a Freighter, oh well, maybe in an X-Pack they'll be abit more stronger.

DeaconCrude

Love you Simzi