As a Elite Dangerous player I can tell you from experience there is no such thing as too many ships!!! MORE SHIPS!! Keep adding ships because someone will always buy them. SC has such a good thing going that they could potentially hit 1 billion dollars if they continue adding ships
Coming from ED : damn, I hoped for so long for a new ship.. never came out. A few ships after Odyssey would have brought a lot of old players but they never thought about it... sad story. Rip ED
Saw the thumbnail and thought you were talking about people (like me) owning too many ships 😭 sometimes i wanna buy a Cutter and melt everything else so badly
38:44 I believe the design for the Arrastra was intended for a different manufacturer. The only reason why it's RSI is because when it was announced last year, it was a poll to see which manufacturer people wanted to see it to be under. RSI won out, which I have a feeling they were not expecting people to choose.
I never thought of it but I could totally see the shell part being smooth for Misc or boxy for Argo. We voted angular for RSI. This is an interesting take!
Galaxy looks too aggressive and warlike for a modular industrial ship. Would rather see the Argo or MISC aesthetic for the Galaxy. Likewise the Arrastra seems too sleek for a mining ship never intended for atmospheric flight.
I'm not so sure about that. The RSI design language is pretty distinct. It's was well refined and laid out starting with the Mantis. Even the Connie's helped define the design language of RSI as the foundation. If you want to talk about a ship that looks like it changed manufactures mid concepting, look no further than the Vulture. It screams ARGO... but with Drake engines strapped to it.
There can never be too many ships. Nothing bad about CIG making as many ships as possible as they don't take away money or time from other aspects of development, its actually the exact opposite. Ship sales don't just fund the work hours going into the ships but everything else as well.
The number of ships I feel isn't a problem. The problem is the game play with the ships. We need more game play, and it would be nice to have a few more of the game breaking bugs fixed for the life of the alpha - beta - release. Sadly, people I bring in have different thoughts and views because of the bugs. With SQ42 done, I hope we see more bug fixes in each release, as well more ships from JPEGs. Time will tell. I just love this game.
This would be like saying there are too many different designs of cars in real life. If there were only a few styles, color, and 3 manufacturers. I’d say we’ve entered a minimalist hellscape. No such thing as too many. When there are so many styles of play you can have in star citizen. From mining to racing, combat, exploration. Cargo. Etc. it’s good to have variety. And that is going to require more. Always more.
I think it would be cool to lock some ships behinds "licenses" or "rep" with an industry. For instance, they won't sell you a Caterpillar unless you are an experienced cargo hauler, or you don't get Freelancer MAX variant until you have rep with a delivery company. So anyone can buy a Freelancer, but only those with rep with a delivery company can buy a MAX.
We need each manufacturer to fill out their catalogue lorewise. Then they should make iterations on those ships, older designs found as deralicts floating in space, decomissioned in abandoned or rundown outposts or as heavily modified npc ships. Newer models could be released sporadicly adding newer uprated componants, sleeker designs and funtionality, upgrade kits for people that can't afford a whole new ship. Blueprints from the engineering/crafting gameplay could be used to cover alot of this too. Kitbashing various ships together such as combining the top mounted engines from a connie to a corsair, combining the wings from a drake buccanear with an rsi aurora. It'd be a pain in the ass for CIG to balance it with all the variables like weight, power and cooling but it could be doable as an expansion as year or so after release maybe. Might tie in with modding tools and private servers. Maybe take a page from Starfields ship builder and have modular componants that can be added. Might need some AI magic to ensure the connective hull "greebling" like pipes and panels all matches up.
Free fly was a nightmare for me. Had to ride the tram around like 10 times to get the spaceport to actually render. You've heard FPS I got FPM if i was lucky.
love that you gave Marcus some time to shine. I have seen a few of his videos and I am looking forward to him growing and being embraced by the community ❤
For me, its quite simple - the answer is yes. While its not currently the case, we can get there at some point. Why? Well... we can answer that by asking why ships are designed the way they are - they have a function, usually tied to what profession they serve. Some are "multi-purpose" - jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none. So... unless new professions are created, with the professions we currently have and those that are in the pipeline to come out, theres no reason to have new ships after said professions are complete and their respective ships are done. Theres room to add a few more ships by creating ships that can cover two or three profession functions, but even then theres a limit to that. So yes... Star Citizen can, at some point, have too many ships.
I really want to see more 2 player ships in all aspects of the game (besides combat ships). I feel like there are a lot of solo ships, then it jumps to 3 & up.
On planet Earth, according to Autoevolution's database currently there are: "129 brands, 7120 models and 29849 engine variations". So in an open universe CIG can keep going putting out ships. Server capacity growth will continue to improve.
@@SingleTrack66 more than enough ships already. If they finish the previously announced ships they will also have enough ships for each gameplay loop (not to mention that said loops don't have their mechanics implemented yet either).
20:14 re, features vs ships It's important to remember that the ship art and design teans aren't the same people working on features. If cig stopped doing ships (and CIG somehow had revenue still coming in), there wouldn't be more people to work on features or gameplay. It could be argued that the ship people could be sacked and more features people hired. However, then you end up with situation like that which befell the Merchantman. It's construction was interrupted because its team left CIG and took all their Banu experience with them to boot. If people think ships take too long now, realize that if CIG downsized ship teams to hire more feature devs that all that experience is permanently lost and can't just be spooled up again later when new people are hired. It would take even longer to get ships done. Aside from that, until SQ 42 is able to generate revenue, if it sells well without the mmo being available on the same quality level, then any reduction in ships actually means a reduction in everything else as costs would probably have to be cut as new ships generate new interest new money. I'm sure everyone on the panel knows all this, but it's worth reiterating for viewers who don't know and because the guy at the timestamp is speaking as if reducing ship design would increase work on features. Edit, you touched on this later in the show. It's one thing I really like about how you talk about things by coming back to remind people of things like this. When I used to be active on the forums or in other channel comments I'd often be reminding people that whatever they were suggesting or saying the game needs is already on the list of things to do. Thanks for mentioning that new ship design isn't optional at this point.
While CIG does need to close the tech debt gap embodied in existing ships, they're nowhere near to exhausting the number of unique ship design this game ought to have for the scale it is attempting. And it's fine if some of them are so niche that 99% of players consider them duds. Thanks as always Tomato. You're the best panel host in the 'verse. It really seems like your calling. You should think about developing an in-universe, cosplayed show format, whether that's a once per year event or a daily in-universe show that we have to watch in sketchy space station bars.
I am a new player of this game. I’m generally the first of the gamers (friends family etc) that i play with to play things like this that are early in development. I love the game and i can tell you there are so many ships and ive only seen like 5 to 10 ships since i started a couple of weeks ago. Id already be 100% inclined to recommend this game if there were a few things that worked better (improved star map and area map for planets and space stations, and more stable gameplay). If they can get those things into the game i’ll be inviting people to get on with me and buy the base version of the game. I fully understand that it sounds like they make their money from selling ships but for me i don’t think the game needs more ships to get a lot more people into the game.
That's great to hear! There now level headed folks take it at face value the better! We can't get a better map soon enough, though. It seems there will be a lot of nice upgrades next year on that front.
I don't have a maximum number of ships - keep them coming! So long as they give them a certain niche. I'm not a fan of some of the ship variations which don't seem to add much currently though. And it will be difficult to keep all the large ships up to standard when there are changes but doable.
I feel like the taco truck is a great exercise for cig and the community together. It should be built to help the team leads understand how important it is to talk with each other often, maybe even the community too! Great connection and reminder
23:37 I don't understand Marcus's point at all here. He's talking about oh the Odessey has all these features that are in the game, when talking about a ship that is years away???? Bizzare.
So long as the ships are functional and useful, then we can keep them coming. That said, they need to redo old ones first and make them so that updates can be done more easily, otherwise they will be eternally behind on ship work. The danger of such a big ship list is of course that you have to then support/maintain all of those ships.
There will always be new ships simply because they aren't going to ask the ship team to stop making ships. I agree with you guys, though, that the features are more important. But it also shows how much more work it is to bring in features than it is to bring in new ships. I do think the ships will reach a modularity level where upgrades will be much easier across the board. But in five to ten years I think the manufacturers lines will be filled out and then two things will happen; there will be new models of ships coming into game, much like they've remodeled the Vanduul ships from their original designs, along with many of the early other ships. But I also think that along with other new systems coming in we'll get new manufacturing lines as well. Also, there will probably new ships introduced to support new game play that will come in that we haven't thought of yet. As for consulting professionals, I agree. As a aeronautical engineer, when I hear how they're going to bring aerodynamics in and what they think a stall is, I cringe. I say that because they could bring somewhat simple aerodynamics in that would credibly model a stall, but they obviously aren't doing that. Lastly, you talk about features ships have now versus what they will be. I talked about this last week on X, but if the Raft can load and unload it's cargo pods on it's own, and unload them rapidly, you could use it as part of a tactical fast reaction team. Load up three of those 64scu cargo pods with provisions, weapons, and maybe some hover bikes. Now have a Legionnaire, Prowler, or Cutty Steel insert a strike force and secure the landing area, bring the Raft in, drop the cargo boxes and egress immediately and you could have a well armed strike force rapidly deployed. As for the dam breaking, to me that is when server meshing is in game and they can actually start expanding the verse and they'll be able to start getting more people into the same shard.
55:05 re combat game play and ship design. Since the Retaliator will get it's gold pass soon, it'll be interesting to see if the bays or corridors are large enough to accommodate the titan exosuit which the drop module is supposed to be capable of. Of course, that ends up being yet another thing dependent on a thing that doesn't exist yet combined with ship design teams that aren't exactly forward thinking with gameplay as priority. Maybe the CitCon being focused around game play signals a shift in mindset culture inside CIG.
I think that's why I like the lore aspect of SC. I see IAE as a good show to show new ships or changes to ships just as a car shows we have today. You all briefly mentioned it but you are right how our tech improves and new cars and things improve it works perfectly for SC to come up with new ships/ vehicle. It'll keep alot of life to the game.
Ah... Markus.. Love that guy! My favorite dew rag geek! and yes, combat gets way way way too much dev effort (especially FPS) and ships, exploration, salvage, minding are relegated to "when we have time"
I have to disagree with you on that. This year has been entirely about cargo, mining, and salvage. We had the cargo refactor, 30k protection for mainly cargo, all the mining changes, salvage getting missions, salvage getting cargo added to ships, now thr big salvage changes with vulture and reclaimer getting a "hopper", the claw, hull munching. I saw very little in the fps relam other than a couple of missions that were added.
@@ScarredCitizen "this year" has been "more" about those features but at least in terms of things to do, missions, etc.. it's been way more combat focused for the longest time.
@Sams911 the new industrial stuff is far better fleshed out vs fps stuff or even ship to ship combat. Been the same forever now. Nothing has changed really.
I'll agree that it always has been rather combat focused. This year was much better though with actual industrial missions. Bummer we STILL don't have mining missions, though. I like that they are putting effort into a proper launch for cargo hauling, too. Factions, branding, the works. So, even though combat still keeps getting so much focus, it is shifting every year!
Lots of ships means more variety. … except that everyone will be in Corsairs fighting NPCs in Cutty Blacks. Many people have a Hammerhead or a Reclaimer, but how often they take it out depends on the availability of other players.
Can we get a podcast tailored to the early ships such as the Vanguard series, Retaliator, etc who still need some much refinement/updating? Consistently every patch something goes wrong with them.
The only way I could see there being *TOO MANY* ships is if there are too many *REDUNDANT* ships. It's great having a lot of options, having "tiers" of each type of ship that allow you to work your way up through the universe, but if there's 200 ships and only "25" of them are worth getting, then there's too many.
I have to say like the cutter scout, I also feel mixed about the scanning gameplay as we don't have any of the stealth/scanning gameplay of any detail yet. I have a number of ships that say they have expanded scanning or search features and hope that a cheep solo ship don't exceed say my Terrapin. Perhaps the Zeus ES also being cheaper than a Terrapin would be another kick to the teeth so to say if not done correctly.
Ive always thought games like league of legends and overwatch suffer greatly from relying on adding new characters, eventually they hit a number where balancing becomes almost impossible. I dont think star citizens ships are the same, they feel more like real world cars where they can have ships have exactly the same functionality and they arent redundant because everyone has a manufacturer that fits their style, might just be me that feels that way tho
I think there are a few points at which different people could say there are too many ships. 1. Someone who only views the game through their own style of play might reach that point very early. Even to the point where they see something like a heavy fighter as making light fighters obsolete because they value hitpoints over manoeuvrability. They might be quick to suggest that there are too many “useless” light fighters. 2. A specific example from Battlefield 3 comes to mind for this point. At launch there were numerous sniper rifles but one was superior to all others in nearly every way. This made selecting the others kind of pointless. Even if another rifle provided more 1 shot damage to the body it wasn’t enough to kill and the better rifle rechambered faster letting you get off a quicker second shot. In terms of SC ships, if one is far superior to others in it’s class then additional ships may start to feel like too many. 3. Finally for those who might care about the aesthetics of their ship rather than performance. The point at which the number of ships out there makes it difficult for the devs to create new unique designs while still adhering to the design canon of each in-game manufactures will be the point where “too many ships” is reached.
My biggest issue so far with the amount of ships has more been ship distribution. Cargo and dog-fighting gameplay has over 20 ships each. Whereas salvage has two. I understand salvage is a newer gameplay loop, but the Reclaimer was in the game for ages long before salvage was added. Like I want to be excited for the santokyai yet I can't for yet another fighter among many. Like it's cool to see a new alien ship, but the fighter category seems too bloated imo. Anyway, I'm happy to see mining get a new ship if only in concept. I only hope they start showing off some new salvage ships.
I finally got around to watching this and I was just laughing to myself because of obsolete ships. Imagine its 2030 and you go to your classic ship cruise and show and all your buddies bring out their old rides from "back in the day".
Well, let's consider modern day? How many makes and models are there for typical civilian owned cars, trucks, suvs etc? Then how many makes and models for utility/construction and special purpose (transport, mining, heavy utility, air transport (planes and helicopters); then add fun vehicles like motorcycles, quads, dune buggies, etc - and we haven't touched military vehicles yet. I think we're a long way off from too many. We barely have 1 vehicles per class and size per purpose. No competition etc. There's room for way more. Having said that, I'd like to see more work on finishing things that have been started like modules for the MPUV, Cat, Carrack etc.
Honestly I think there isn't enough variety in ships yet. Way too many ships that do the same thing, very few alien ships and not enough variety in alien manufacturers and also not enough ships to fit various roles. I would like to see between 8-10 ship for each role and size available with between 2 and 3 manufacturers for each style.
I believe they want the damage system and engineering to be functional so that ships only need to be reworked once for everything rather than over and over again.
Only when I am scrolling through an ALSOP terminal looking for a specific ship to recover. I have 28 ships and vehicles but somehow, have 3 times that number in loaners, prize ships and rentals.
It ain't the number of ships, it's the crew requirements for your fleet that may put a ding in enjoying the game. With the number of capital ships pledged for, I fear that SC PU will become an HR simulator.
I think the biggest problem with infinite ships is loss of game play resources . I hope until launch we can aim for limited starting catalogue of 300 or so ships and probably around. 50 or so ground vehicles (lots of variants.) but the way a choice between scout and terrapin is juicy- the hornet tracker has a cool side upgrade to cutter scanner body . I hope we have roles and have some close choice and trade offs, but pardon me if we infinitely work on ships they will quickly be a point where those resources should be on gameplay , no even more tools but a way the sandbox can be unique and changing . People paying to test ahead to prepare for the gates opening. Once the economy can get free of ships in 4-8 years and switch to insurance and new player sales after launch the more the company can refine gameplay and take their slice of industry . Completed this game blows dayz , sea of thieves , of course their is town , but their is a broken baby of the king mil space sim sandbox mmo.
It's like asking if there are too many models of cars in real life. The answer is always going to be no. New and fresh blood is always required to keep things from becoming stale and stagnant.
@keeperwings1 Sadly I think this would only work if the only way to get the ship was real money, otherwise everyone would just buy it with credits. Maybe a timed exclusive, but I don't think that would go over well. It'll be skins for sure.
If SC just cleared the 50 million per year hurdle in 2020 (most years up to then were in the 25-35 million range) and now are pulling quadruple that.. Imagine that day when they announce Squadron 42's release and start actually advertising. You can Still see by things like that Squadron 42 / Star Engine demo how much of the general public has little or no clue SC even exists. Hypothetically - if CIG is earning 100 million for what they already do with the P.U. - how much do you think they will earn on top of that with Squadron 42 sales, for that year? And do you think that the 100 million dollars they earn from the P.U. side will remain static?..(yeah, right.) Prep for all those vids coming up with people crying and clutching their pearls about the '1 billion dollar space game'. Take the ship sales out of the equation - Squadron 42 and starter packs from SC alone are going to earn so much - that CIG will have plenty of time to plan the transition away from ship sales, if thats their intent. Star Engine Demo may be another clue as to their transistion plans. Why would we - the backers need a demo of the engine we already play with?.. wasn't for us, nor new potential backers.
Can it? Yes. (Especially If designing new ships delays basic systems and development) Or If the designing of new ships delays the implementation of already announced ships. Does it? Nowhere close, for the most part.
As long as you have your tiered progression ships and your niche fun ships, there'll never be enough ships. The only thing about ships right now is that you don't really have a gameplay loop for all of them, so a lot of ships feel out of place right now. Like my medical ships, when I'm not actively doing search and rescue I do package missions RPing that I'm delivering medical supplies.
So IMO as far as redundancy and gameplay I don't think there is ever going to be a point where there are too many ships. If we eventually have 20+ single seat mining ships and 40+ multi crew mining ships that's fine from the perspective of gameplay. Some of those are going to be more powerful than others and I think eventually those things will be balanced by in-game pricing and availability. You might have a ship that is very powerful in it's intended role but you may need to travel to the other side of the verse and grind rep to even have a change at buying it and even then it will be very expensive and I think we need to think of ships and power creep more in that relative sense with all the connective tissue of what the game will eventually be able to support. Now that is problematic in terms of their current business model for sure. However they've basically stated previously that the current business model of funding development via ship sales may not last forever and they may transition to a point where you're only able to purchase the most common ships with real money and all other funding is going to come from cosmetic items like paints or what ever. So yeah from a gameplay standpoint I say more is always going to be better. Now from a technical debt and maintenance standpoint I think that is where the conversation gets a bit more murky. I think that is largely going to depend on how much continual work needs to be put in, how many developers CIG can dedicate to working on them, and how efficient they can get their workflow pipelines to support those ships. So that is really not a call that we as players can make other than by setting expectations for what we want out of the rate of development. On that I think we have to remember that 90% or more of CIG's total man power has been directed at Squadron 42 so while I think we can all agree that the rate of development on PU has not been what we want I think we really need to wait for the release of Squadron and observe how that shift in development priority effects the rate we start to see new content released in the PU and base our expectations off that new standard. Until we have that and we know that all or at least most of CIG's resources are going towards the PU we really wont have any idea of what CIG's true rate of development is. Like I think people forget that there is going to be a whole lot of content in S42 that we've never seen. They have ships like the Idris, Javelin, and Bangle that they've indicated are finished up to the standards we'd expect of ships in the PU. Then you have like a dozen vandul ships that we've only heard about. You have at least 1 whole star system with Odin, and potentially also Nyx, Vega, and Virgil as well, maybe more. So yeah I think we just need to wait and see what is in Sq42 and then evaluate what might be too many ships after that.
I personally like not seeing the same ships over and over now. The variety breaths life I think. If you come from Elite, you know how year is. That's not a dig against elite btw..
" Can Star Citizen Have Too Many Ships? " I believe this is a stupid question. It is like asking, " can a world have too many different vehicles? " Of course not. I wish there was 300 fighter craft, 50 salvage craft, mining craft etc. etc... there is never enough to express oneself or like a certain style of design/ship.
If Star Citizen had reached more milestones in their 11 year development process with their close to 700 million dollar increase, I would say the number of ships isn't an issue. However, after 11 years and still only one system, no server meshing, no engineering, no new star map, no mine laying, no true exploring, no stability, as many or more bugs in the game that waste hours of your time, no base building....I'd have to say that the buying of more ships is not only foolish, it's furthering the problem that CIG doesn't have to make stability and bugs a priority, or feel any pressure to create content within an appropriate time frame. CIG currently has zero sense of urgency or accountability because they continue to get millions from ship sales, a large portion of which don't even exist yet. That's the problem. I understand that we like to dream of the possibilities, but CIG has gotten rich of their ability to sell us dreams. Unless we wake up and hold them accountable by restricting our spending, things will never change. You might see a handufl of the promised 100 systems bf you die.
Damn, dogging on the Terrapin like that? When it has a hull HP of 113k... Which is higher than Carrack by 20k... It's one of the best bunker runners due to its vtol, scm speeds being good enough that its safe to yeet it into the ground and it doesn't blow up. Looking at a raw stat page of the two and saying "this one is better cost than that one" without actually delving into it is just miss leading.
To counter marcus in his initial reply. The ship designers and gameplay devs are completely separate teams that us completely different tools. If that team wasn't working on ships, they would be outside of their skillset and would give us a completely different quality. My point is... there is no such thing as stopping dev on ships. Because CIG has teams, and each has a unique purpose and removing their purpose means they have no use to the company.
doesnt matter if all ships are great, and even less if every ship is used by a player. In a scale as SC, you better have a bunch of different ships; or is it better to see everyone (players and npc's alike) using the same set of ships? If some ship is not appealing because its not "purfect", i still want it in game, NPC's will definitly use it. And that is the final goal, a diverse universe where you see different ships everywhere, some better some worse
Ships will always be the lifeblood of the project, unless they decide to add a monthly subscription. But I'm curious to see if the appeal for big ships will change once it becomes obvious that soloing a large ship isn't feasible anymore. Will they focus on smaller ships, gold standard until AI crew is really. I genuinely wish they are secretly working of many other star systems and haven't just obsessed over Pyro for the past 3 years because honestly I'm already a bit bored with it from all the media I've seen and I didn't even had the chance to play it.
to many ships depends on timing. during the alpha phase i think there can be to many. they need to pay for the game and that for SC is mostly ships. so there will be some overlap, but i think for now most ships need to be supporting mechanics. Ultimately, no there can never be to many. eventually they wont be reworking large numbers of ships like they have to do now. eventually the the ships will be released with current features working. so only tweaks and partial reworks if/when mechanics changing drastically.
More ships are better, the more gameplay loops the better. The “dead on arrival” ships that aren’t the next best thing has no merit in a game like this. I play and fly things I think look cool and fly cool. I don’t care if it’s not the most efficient
The only context in which I think I'd ever say that there's too many ships, is if they are neglecting content and game performance, while spending a large amount of development time cranking out ship after ship for people to buy.
Oh man, I got thoughts on the Storm. In no universe based in reality would any Amored Fighting Vehicle be realistically operated by a single person. Not only that, but how in the hell does putting that kind of weapon platform on a chassis the same size as the Tonk make sense from a silhouette standpoint? Goodness gracious. I mean, it does look cool, but gameplay wise it is trash unfortunately.
If all the ships have similar stats but looks different or has different styles then thats fine. Like i would love another type of aircraft carrier like the kraken, but with internal carrying and docking for large ships, and a command center (i think the kraken has but not sure😮). Like if it was a military carrier. Psh I'd prolly swap my kraken for it tbh 😅
tomato you are wrong! CIG doesnt have to rely on backers spending money on ships... they will have to change how they operate as a business to take loans to fund development like typical game developer. so if players stopped pledging the game would still survive. chris roberts wants this game more than we do so he will make it survive and this game has crossed minimum funding a long time ago to make any investor swoop up a deal. chris roberts whould have to try very hard to fail this project.
How many ships need reworks as a result of developing ships first for sale rather than flushing out gameplay that then the ships are designed around or worked on in tandem.. The latest being the reclaimer a perfect example of them developing something that then cannot work as sold...currently. New ships wiĺl always play a part but should be developed with the gameplay intended....
I hate the fact they slap a dish on something and call it an Explorer. Which means nothing. And they did this for the Zeus ES, as well as many others. No more explorers without a purpose
As a Elite Dangerous player I can tell you from experience there is no such thing as too many ships!!!
MORE SHIPS!! Keep adding ships because someone will always buy them. SC has such a good thing going that they could potentially hit 1 billion dollars if they continue adding ships
Coming from ED : damn, I hoped for so long for a new ship.. never came out. A few ships after Odyssey would have brought a lot of old players but they never thought about it... sad story.
Rip ED
Saw the thumbnail and thought you were talking about people (like me) owning too many ships 😭 sometimes i wanna buy a Cutter and melt everything else so badly
That’s what I thought too lol
Totally. Just do this and use your own referral code as well. I think there could be a few advantages to having whole extra accounts.
No... people like you are the ones funding this game. I enjoy building my small fleet. 😄
Great to see Marcus on here. Have been watching a lot of his videos recently.
Yay my thoughts exactly!
Cool group of doods
Yep been watching his stuff. His opinions on ships are based. Great content creator.
38:44 I believe the design for the Arrastra was intended for a different manufacturer. The only reason why it's RSI is because when it was announced last year, it was a poll to see which manufacturer people wanted to see it to be under. RSI won out, which I have a feeling they were not expecting people to choose.
I never thought of it but I could totally see the shell part being smooth for Misc or boxy for Argo. We voted angular for RSI. This is an interesting take!
Though this too. Completely thought it was originally supposed to be Argo.
Looks like an RSI design to me
Galaxy looks too aggressive and warlike for a modular industrial ship.
Would rather see the Argo or MISC aesthetic for the Galaxy. Likewise the Arrastra seems too sleek for a mining ship never intended for atmospheric flight.
I'm not so sure about that. The RSI design language is pretty distinct. It's was well refined and laid out starting with the Mantis. Even the Connie's helped define the design language of RSI as the foundation. If you want to talk about a ship that looks like it changed manufactures mid concepting, look no further than the Vulture. It screams ARGO... but with Drake engines strapped to it.
There can never be too many ships.
Nothing bad about CIG making as many ships as possible as they don't take away money or time from other aspects of development, its actually the exact opposite.
Ship sales don't just fund the work hours going into the ships but everything else as well.
Ship sales made Star Engine possible.
The number of ships I feel isn't a problem. The problem is the game play with the ships. We need more game play, and it would be nice to have a few more of the game breaking bugs fixed for the life of the alpha - beta - release. Sadly, people I bring in have different thoughts and views because of the bugs. With SQ42 done, I hope we see more bug fixes in each release, as well more ships from JPEGs. Time will tell. I just love this game.
Thanks for having me on great conversation!
This would be like saying there are too many different designs of cars in real life. If there were only a few styles, color, and 3 manufacturers. I’d say we’ve entered a minimalist hellscape.
No such thing as too many. When there are so many styles of play you can have in star citizen. From mining to racing, combat, exploration. Cargo. Etc. it’s good to have variety. And that is going to require more. Always more.
I think it would be cool to lock some ships behinds "licenses" or "rep" with an industry. For instance, they won't sell you a Caterpillar unless you are an experienced cargo hauler, or you don't get Freelancer MAX variant until you have rep with a delivery company. So anyone can buy a Freelancer, but only those with rep with a delivery company can buy a MAX.
We need each manufacturer to fill out their catalogue lorewise.
Then they should make iterations on those ships, older designs found as deralicts floating in space, decomissioned in abandoned or rundown outposts or as heavily modified npc ships.
Newer models could be released sporadicly adding newer uprated componants, sleeker designs and funtionality, upgrade kits for people that can't afford a whole new ship.
Blueprints from the engineering/crafting gameplay could be used to cover alot of this too.
Kitbashing various ships together such as combining the top mounted engines from a connie to a corsair, combining the wings from a drake buccanear with an rsi aurora.
It'd be a pain in the ass for CIG to balance it with all the variables like weight, power and cooling but it could be doable as an expansion as year or so after release maybe. Might tie in with modding tools and private servers.
Maybe take a page from Starfields ship builder and have modular componants that can be added. Might need some AI magic to ensure the connective hull "greebling" like pipes and panels all matches up.
Free fly was a nightmare for me. Had to ride the tram around like 10 times to get the spaceport to actually render. You've heard FPS I got FPM if i was lucky.
love that you gave Marcus some time to shine. I have seen a few of his videos and I am looking forward to him growing and being embraced by the community ❤
For me, its quite simple - the answer is yes. While its not currently the case, we can get there at some point.
Why? Well... we can answer that by asking why ships are designed the way they are - they have a function, usually tied to what profession they serve. Some are "multi-purpose" - jacks-of-all-trades and masters of none.
So... unless new professions are created, with the professions we currently have and those that are in the pipeline to come out, theres no reason to have new ships after said professions are complete and their respective ships are done.
Theres room to add a few more ships by creating ships that can cover two or three profession functions, but even then theres a limit to that.
So yes... Star Citizen can, at some point, have too many ships.
First off, great video. But the white box's around the youtubers burned an image into my TV LOL
I really want to see more 2 player ships in all aspects of the game (besides combat ships). I feel like there are a lot of solo ships, then it jumps to 3 & up.
Also to answer the title, unequivocally NO, can never have too many ships/vehicles in SC.
Seeing as a vast majority of ships we have are fighters that mostly do the same job, we're not even close to "too many ships".
On planet Earth, according to Autoevolution's database currently there are: "129 brands, 7120 models and 29849 engine variations". So in an open universe CIG can keep going putting out ships. Server capacity growth will continue to improve.
My short answer to the title question: No
My long answer: Noooooooooooooo!
17:20 Marcus nailed it. I'm saying this since years now.
You can’t have a gameplay loop without the ships for the gameplay loop. The ships fund the game. You have to have the ships first
@@SingleTrack66 more than enough ships already. If they finish the previously announced ships they will also have enough ships for each gameplay loop (not to mention that said loops don't have their mechanics implemented yet either).
20:14 re, features vs ships
It's important to remember that the ship art and design teans aren't the same people working on features.
If cig stopped doing ships (and CIG somehow had revenue still coming in), there wouldn't be more people to work on features or gameplay.
It could be argued that the ship people could be sacked and more features people hired. However, then you end up with situation like that which befell the Merchantman. It's construction was interrupted because its team left CIG and took all their Banu experience with them to boot.
If people think ships take too long now, realize that if CIG downsized ship teams to hire more feature devs that all that experience is permanently lost and can't just be spooled up again later when new people are hired. It would take even longer to get ships done.
Aside from that, until SQ 42 is able to generate revenue, if it sells well without the mmo being available on the same quality level, then any reduction in ships actually means a reduction in everything else as costs would probably have to be cut as new ships generate new interest new money.
I'm sure everyone on the panel knows all this, but it's worth reiterating for viewers who don't know and because the guy at the timestamp is speaking as if reducing ship design would increase work on features.
Edit, you touched on this later in the show. It's one thing I really like about how you talk about things by coming back to remind people of things like this.
When I used to be active on the forums or in other channel comments I'd often be reminding people that whatever they were suggesting or saying the game needs is already on the list of things to do.
Thanks for mentioning that new ship design isn't optional at this point.
Zeus, zeus, zeus. I would like to challenge CGI to get the Zeus out in 6 months or less.
While CIG does need to close the tech debt gap embodied in existing ships, they're nowhere near to exhausting the number of unique ship design this game ought to have for the scale it is attempting. And it's fine if some of them are so niche that 99% of players consider them duds.
Thanks as always Tomato. You're the best panel host in the 'verse. It really seems like your calling. You should think about developing an in-universe, cosplayed show format, whether that's a once per year event or a daily in-universe show that we have to watch in sketchy space station bars.
I am a new player of this game. I’m generally the first of the gamers (friends family etc) that i play with to play things like this that are early in development. I love the game and i can tell you there are so many ships and ive only seen like 5 to 10 ships since i started a couple of weeks ago. Id already be 100% inclined to recommend this game if there were a few things that worked better (improved star map and area map for planets and space stations, and more stable gameplay). If they can get those things into the game i’ll be inviting people to get on with me and buy the base version of the game. I fully understand that it sounds like they make their money from selling ships but for me i don’t think the game needs more ships to get a lot more people into the game.
That's great to hear! There now level headed folks take it at face value the better!
We can't get a better map soon enough, though. It seems there will be a lot of nice upgrades next year on that front.
I'm at 230 ships, over $46K USD. I still do not have enough, they can make 100 more. Also, great meeting you and the Mrs. at CitCon Tomato.
Lol surely you’re taking the piss
I don't have a maximum number of ships - keep them coming! So long as they give them a certain niche.
I'm not a fan of some of the ship variations which don't seem to add much currently though. And it will be difficult to keep all the large ships up to standard when there are changes but doable.
I feel like the taco truck is a great exercise for cig and the community together. It should be built to help the team leads understand how important it is to talk with each other often, maybe even the community too! Great connection and reminder
There is no such thing as too many ships. Keep them coming.
23:37 I don't understand Marcus's point at all here. He's talking about oh the Odessey has all these features that are in the game, when talking about a ship that is years away???? Bizzare.
So long as the ships are functional and useful, then we can keep them coming. That said, they need to redo old ones first and make them so that updates can be done more easily, otherwise they will be eternally behind on ship work. The danger of such a big ship list is of course that you have to then support/maintain all of those ships.
There will always be new ships simply because they aren't going to ask the ship team to stop making ships. I agree with you guys, though, that the features are more important. But it also shows how much more work it is to bring in features than it is to bring in new ships. I do think the ships will reach a modularity level where upgrades will be much easier across the board. But in five to ten years I think the manufacturers lines will be filled out and then two things will happen; there will be new models of ships coming into game, much like they've remodeled the Vanduul ships from their original designs, along with many of the early other ships. But I also think that along with other new systems coming in we'll get new manufacturing lines as well. Also, there will probably new ships introduced to support new game play that will come in that we haven't thought of yet. As for consulting professionals, I agree. As a aeronautical engineer, when I hear how they're going to bring aerodynamics in and what they think a stall is, I cringe. I say that because they could bring somewhat simple aerodynamics in that would credibly model a stall, but they obviously aren't doing that. Lastly, you talk about features ships have now versus what they will be. I talked about this last week on X, but if the Raft can load and unload it's cargo pods on it's own, and unload them rapidly, you could use it as part of a tactical fast reaction team. Load up three of those 64scu cargo pods with provisions, weapons, and maybe some hover bikes. Now have a Legionnaire, Prowler, or Cutty Steel insert a strike force and secure the landing area, bring the Raft in, drop the cargo boxes and egress immediately and you could have a well armed strike force rapidly deployed. As for the dam breaking, to me that is when server meshing is in game and they can actually start expanding the verse and they'll be able to start getting more people into the same shard.
HUGE part of multi crew: PARTY BED LOGGING PLEASE DEAR GOD
I would love to see SC have the same amount of ships if not more than Eve.
Is it close ?
Does eve have a ton ?
55:05 re combat game play and ship design.
Since the Retaliator will get it's gold pass soon, it'll be interesting to see if the bays or corridors are large enough to accommodate the titan exosuit which the drop module is supposed to be capable of.
Of course, that ends up being yet another thing dependent on a thing that doesn't exist yet combined with ship design teams that aren't exactly forward thinking with gameplay as priority.
Maybe the CitCon being focused around game play signals a shift in mindset culture inside CIG.
Execute on point and on fire!! This was a power panel and I love everyone on it!
I think that's why I like the lore aspect of SC. I see IAE as a good show to show new ships or changes to ships just as a car shows we have today. You all briefly mentioned it but you are right how our tech improves and new cars and things improve it works perfectly for SC to come up with new ships/ vehicle. It'll keep alot of life to the game.
Ah... Markus.. Love that guy! My favorite dew rag geek! and yes, combat gets way way way too much dev effort (especially FPS) and ships, exploration, salvage, minding are relegated to "when we have time"
I have to disagree with you on that. This year has been entirely about cargo, mining, and salvage. We had the cargo refactor, 30k protection for mainly cargo, all the mining changes, salvage getting missions, salvage getting cargo added to ships, now thr big salvage changes with vulture and reclaimer getting a "hopper", the claw, hull munching. I saw very little in the fps relam other than a couple of missions that were added.
@@ScarredCitizen "this year" has been "more" about those features but at least in terms of things to do, missions, etc.. it's been way more combat focused for the longest time.
@Sams911 the new industrial stuff is far better fleshed out vs fps stuff or even ship to ship combat. Been the same forever now. Nothing has changed really.
I'll agree that it always has been rather combat focused. This year was much better though with actual industrial missions. Bummer we STILL don't have mining missions, though.
I like that they are putting effort into a proper launch for cargo hauling, too. Factions, branding, the works.
So, even though combat still keeps getting so much focus, it is shifting every year!
Lots of ships means more variety.
… except that everyone will be in Corsairs fighting NPCs in Cutty Blacks.
Many people have a Hammerhead or a Reclaimer, but how often they take it out depends on the availability of other players.
Can we get a podcast tailored to the early ships such as the Vanguard series, Retaliator, etc who still need some much refinement/updating? Consistently every patch something goes wrong with them.
The only way I could see there being *TOO MANY* ships is if there are too many *REDUNDANT* ships.
It's great having a lot of options, having "tiers" of each type of ship that allow you to work your way up through the universe,
but if there's 200 ships and only "25" of them are worth getting, then there's too many.
@@Sukhoi_01 Yes, so having a bunch of ships in a linear upgrade-path is an abysmal idea.
I have to say like the cutter scout, I also feel mixed about the scanning gameplay as we don't have any of the stealth/scanning gameplay of any detail yet.
I have a number of ships that say they have expanded scanning or search features and hope that a cheep solo ship don't exceed say my Terrapin. Perhaps the Zeus ES also being cheaper than a Terrapin would be another kick to the teeth so to say if not done correctly.
30:03 Only supposed to have ships from one manufacturer?! I've been doing it wrong!
Ive always thought games like league of legends and overwatch suffer greatly from relying on adding new characters, eventually they hit a number where balancing becomes almost impossible. I dont think star citizens ships are the same, they feel more like real world cars where they can have ships have exactly the same functionality and they arent redundant because everyone has a manufacturer that fits their style, might just be me that feels that way tho
I think there are a few points at which different people could say there are too many ships.
1. Someone who only views the game through their own style of play might reach that point very early. Even to the point where they see something like a heavy fighter as making light fighters obsolete because they value hitpoints over manoeuvrability. They might be quick to suggest that there are too many “useless” light fighters.
2. A specific example from Battlefield 3 comes to mind for this point. At launch there were numerous sniper rifles but one was superior to all others in nearly every way. This made selecting the others kind of pointless. Even if another rifle provided more 1 shot damage to the body it wasn’t enough to kill and the better rifle rechambered faster letting you get off a quicker second shot. In terms of SC ships, if one is far superior to others in it’s class then additional ships may start to feel like too many.
3. Finally for those who might care about the aesthetics of their ship rather than performance. The point at which the number of ships out there makes it difficult for the devs to create new unique designs while still adhering to the design canon of each in-game manufactures will be the point where “too many ships” is reached.
My biggest issue so far with the amount of ships has more been ship distribution. Cargo and dog-fighting gameplay has over 20 ships each. Whereas salvage has two. I understand salvage is a newer gameplay loop, but the Reclaimer was in the game for ages long before salvage was added. Like I want to be excited for the santokyai yet I can't for yet another fighter among many. Like it's cool to see a new alien ship, but the fighter category seems too bloated imo. Anyway, I'm happy to see mining get a new ship if only in concept. I only hope they start showing off some new salvage ships.
I finally got around to watching this and I was just laughing to myself because of obsolete ships. Imagine its 2030 and you go to your classic ship cruise and show and all your buddies bring out their old rides from "back in the day".
Well, let's consider modern day? How many makes and models are there for typical civilian owned cars, trucks, suvs etc? Then how many makes and models for utility/construction and special purpose (transport, mining, heavy utility, air transport (planes and helicopters); then add fun vehicles like motorcycles, quads, dune buggies, etc - and we haven't touched military vehicles yet.
I think we're a long way off from too many. We barely have 1 vehicles per class and size per purpose. No competition etc. There's room for way more.
Having said that, I'd like to see more work on finishing things that have been started like modules for the MPUV, Cat, Carrack etc.
Honestly I think there isn't enough variety in ships yet. Way too many ships that do the same thing, very few alien ships and not enough variety in alien manufacturers and also not enough ships to fit various roles. I would like to see between 8-10 ship for each role and size available with between 2 and 3 manufacturers for each style.
I want see more mustang stuff. Its a cool style, like a muscle car spaceship.
I'd like to see the ships we have updated, so many unfinished, half complete ships. Finish what was promised, then work on new money makers.
I believe they want the damage system and engineering to be functional so that ships only need to be reworked once for everything rather than over and over again.
ahh it's cool to see Marcus in here! :)
Damnit Paul!!! If they make a Taco Truck and I buy it, I'm billing you for it!
This is why I have issues with logistics and supply chains (from what I've seen so far).
What's that intro tune, Tomato? Nice programme, as usual. :)
Only when I am scrolling through an ALSOP terminal looking for a specific ship to recover. I have 28 ships and vehicles but somehow, have 3 times that number in loaners, prize ships and rentals.
It ain't the number of ships, it's the crew requirements for your fleet that may put a ding in enjoying the game. With the number of capital ships pledged for, I fear that SC PU will become an HR simulator.
If they are expecting to daily use capital ships, they are in for a rude awakening.
Chicken... Egg... Ship... Gameplay... as long as it all comes together who cares which came first?
I think the biggest problem with infinite ships is loss of game play resources . I hope until launch we can aim for limited starting catalogue of 300 or so ships and probably around. 50 or so ground vehicles (lots of variants.) but the way a choice between scout and terrapin is juicy- the hornet tracker has a cool side upgrade to cutter scanner body . I hope we have roles and have some close choice and trade offs, but pardon me if we infinitely work on ships they will quickly be a point where those resources should be on gameplay , no even more tools but a way the sandbox can be unique and changing . People paying to test ahead to prepare for the gates opening. Once the economy can get free of ships in 4-8 years and switch to insurance and new player sales after launch the more the company can refine gameplay and take their slice of industry . Completed this game blows dayz , sea of thieves , of course their is town , but their is a broken baby of the king mil space sim sandbox mmo.
It's like asking if there are too many models of cars in real life. The answer is always going to be no. New and fresh blood is always required to keep things from becoming stale and stagnant.
The problem is not the number of ships, but what is the plan to transition away from the ship sale model when SC releases?
I would imagine that a new ship or two will release every year to keep funding the game.
I bet the plan is to stay in perpetual development. They will never cut themselves from the insane amount of revenue ship sells represent.
@keeperwings1 Sadly I think this would only work if the only way to get the ship was real money, otherwise everyone would just buy it with credits. Maybe a timed exclusive, but I don't think that would go over well. It'll be skins for sure.
@@CeesaX I think you may be underestimating the whales. But yes I'm sure it will be mostly skins and capital ships.
If SC just cleared the 50 million per year hurdle in 2020 (most years up to then were in the 25-35 million range) and now are pulling quadruple that.. Imagine that day when they announce Squadron 42's release and start actually advertising. You can Still see by things like that Squadron 42 / Star Engine demo how much of the general public has little or no clue SC even exists. Hypothetically - if CIG is earning 100 million for what they already do with the P.U. - how much do you think they will earn on top of that with Squadron 42 sales, for that year? And do you think that the 100 million dollars they earn from the P.U. side will remain static?..(yeah, right.)
Prep for all those vids coming up with people crying and clutching their pearls about the '1 billion dollar space game'. Take the ship sales out of the equation - Squadron 42 and starter packs from SC alone are going to earn so much - that CIG will have plenty of time to plan the transition away from ship sales, if thats their intent. Star Engine Demo may be another clue as to their transistion plans. Why would we - the backers need a demo of the engine we already play with?.. wasn't for us, nor new potential backers.
Good to see Marcus on here, Loken too but he's been on before. Good show with the whole crew!
Can it?
Yes. (Especially If designing new ships delays basic systems and development)
Or
If the designing of new ships delays the implementation of already announced ships.
Does it?
Nowhere close, for the most part.
As long as you have your tiered progression ships and your niche fun ships, there'll never be enough ships. The only thing about ships right now is that you don't really have a gameplay loop for all of them, so a lot of ships feel out of place right now. Like my medical ships, when I'm not actively doing search and rescue I do package missions RPing that I'm delivering medical supplies.
Levels and slots, they're a given pal.
Eve has around 280 ships. Pretty sure Cris is trying to go that route.
not enough Kruger Militia Light Corvettes
Kruger/Misc Militia Corvette. 75 to 80m max
So IMO as far as redundancy and gameplay I don't think there is ever going to be a point where there are too many ships. If we eventually have 20+ single seat mining ships and 40+ multi crew mining ships that's fine from the perspective of gameplay. Some of those are going to be more powerful than others and I think eventually those things will be balanced by in-game pricing and availability. You might have a ship that is very powerful in it's intended role but you may need to travel to the other side of the verse and grind rep to even have a change at buying it and even then it will be very expensive and I think we need to think of ships and power creep more in that relative sense with all the connective tissue of what the game will eventually be able to support. Now that is problematic in terms of their current business model for sure. However they've basically stated previously that the current business model of funding development via ship sales may not last forever and they may transition to a point where you're only able to purchase the most common ships with real money and all other funding is going to come from cosmetic items like paints or what ever. So yeah from a gameplay standpoint I say more is always going to be better.
Now from a technical debt and maintenance standpoint I think that is where the conversation gets a bit more murky. I think that is largely going to depend on how much continual work needs to be put in, how many developers CIG can dedicate to working on them, and how efficient they can get their workflow pipelines to support those ships. So that is really not a call that we as players can make other than by setting expectations for what we want out of the rate of development. On that I think we have to remember that 90% or more of CIG's total man power has been directed at Squadron 42 so while I think we can all agree that the rate of development on PU has not been what we want I think we really need to wait for the release of Squadron and observe how that shift in development priority effects the rate we start to see new content released in the PU and base our expectations off that new standard. Until we have that and we know that all or at least most of CIG's resources are going towards the PU we really wont have any idea of what CIG's true rate of development is. Like I think people forget that there is going to be a whole lot of content in S42 that we've never seen. They have ships like the Idris, Javelin, and Bangle that they've indicated are finished up to the standards we'd expect of ships in the PU. Then you have like a dozen vandul ships that we've only heard about. You have at least 1 whole star system with Odin, and potentially also Nyx, Vega, and Virgil as well, maybe more. So yeah I think we just need to wait and see what is in Sq42 and then evaluate what might be too many ships after that.
Great conversation!
No! People collect many different things. Unfortunate for me, I collect virtual space ships.
MY BROTHER @MARCUS YOU DESERVE IT!!!
I personally like not seeing the same ships over and over now. The variety breaths life I think. If you come from Elite, you know how year is. That's not a dig against elite btw..
" Can Star Citizen Have Too Many Ships? " I believe this is a stupid question.
It is like asking, " can a world have too many different vehicles? "
Of course not.
I wish there was 300 fighter craft, 50 salvage craft, mining craft etc. etc... there is never enough to express oneself or like a certain style of design/ship.
Many ships have the same funktion in different sizes🤷🏼♂️
In fact for a Game of This Caliber it has very little ships.😊😊😊😊
If Star Citizen had reached more milestones in their 11 year development process with their close to 700 million dollar increase, I would say the number of ships isn't an issue. However, after 11 years and still only one system, no server meshing, no engineering, no new star map, no mine laying, no true exploring, no stability, as many or more bugs in the game that waste hours of your time, no base building....I'd have to say that the buying of more ships is not only foolish, it's furthering the problem that CIG doesn't have to make stability and bugs a priority, or feel any pressure to create content within an appropriate time frame.
CIG currently has zero sense of urgency or accountability because they continue to get millions from ship sales, a large portion of which don't even exist yet. That's the problem. I understand that we like to dream of the possibilities, but CIG has gotten rich of their ability to sell us dreams. Unless we wake up and hold them accountable by restricting our spending, things will never change. You might see a handufl of the promised 100 systems bf you die.
Marcus is the man!!!
The greatest!!
Damn, dogging on the Terrapin like that? When it has a hull HP of 113k... Which is higher than Carrack by 20k... It's one of the best bunker runners due to its vtol, scm speeds being good enough that its safe to yeet it into the ground and it doesn't blow up. Looking at a raw stat page of the two and saying "this one is better cost than that one" without actually delving into it is just miss leading.
To counter marcus in his initial reply. The ship designers and gameplay devs are completely separate teams that us completely different tools. If that team wasn't working on ships, they would be outside of their skillset and would give us a completely different quality.
My point is... there is no such thing as stopping dev on ships. Because CIG has teams, and each has a unique purpose and removing their purpose means they have no use to the company.
doesnt matter if all ships are great, and even less if every ship is used by a player. In a scale as SC, you better have a bunch of different ships; or is it better to see everyone (players and npc's alike) using the same set of ships? If some ship is not appealing because its not "purfect", i still want it in game, NPC's will definitly use it. And that is the final goal, a diverse universe where you see different ships everywhere, some better some worse
Ships will always be the lifeblood of the project, unless they decide to add a monthly subscription. But I'm curious to see if the appeal for big ships will change once it becomes obvious that soloing a large ship isn't feasible anymore. Will they focus on smaller ships, gold standard until AI crew is really. I genuinely wish they are secretly working of many other star systems and haven't just obsessed over Pyro for the past 3 years because honestly I'm already a bit bored with it from all the media I've seen and I didn't even had the chance to play it.
how many completed profession gameplay loops is too many? so far we have... 1?
to many ships depends on timing. during the alpha phase i think there can be to many. they need to pay for the game and that for SC is mostly ships. so there will be some overlap, but i think for now most ships need to be supporting mechanics. Ultimately, no there can never be to many. eventually they wont be reworking large numbers of ships like they have to do now. eventually the the ships will be released with current features working. so only tweaks and partial reworks if/when mechanics changing drastically.
More ships are better, the more gameplay loops the better. The “dead on arrival” ships that aren’t the next best thing has no merit in a game like this. I play and fly things I think look cool and fly cool. I don’t care if it’s not the most efficient
Can someone explain to me the whole 315p being used to load cargo onto bigger ships thing, please?
The only context in which I think I'd ever say that there's too many ships, is if they are neglecting content and game performance, while spending a large amount of development time cranking out ship after ship for people to buy.
I would like too see way more ships coming. Diversity is a lot of fun and brings intresting match ups etc to situations
Oh man, I got thoughts on the Storm. In no universe based in reality would any Amored Fighting Vehicle be realistically operated by a single person. Not only that, but how in the hell does putting that kind of weapon platform on a chassis the same size as the Tonk make sense from a silhouette standpoint? Goodness gracious. I mean, it does look cool, but gameplay wise it is trash unfortunately.
There's never to many ships
Sadly i'd love to see some roles in the verse that are not ship related !!!!
If all the ships have similar stats but looks different or has different styles then thats fine. Like i would love another type of aircraft carrier like the kraken, but with internal carrying and docking for large ships, and a command center (i think the kraken has but not sure😮). Like if it was a military carrier. Psh I'd prolly swap my kraken for it tbh 😅
Javelin
They do ita called the Javelin 😉.. Don't know when they'll ever sell them again.
Need ships as that what drives funding.
tomato you are wrong! CIG doesnt have to rely on backers spending money on ships... they will have to change how they operate as a business to take loans to fund development like typical game developer. so if players stopped pledging the game would still survive. chris roberts wants this game more than we do so he will make it survive and this game has crossed minimum funding a long time ago to make any investor swoop up a deal. chris roberts whould have to try very hard to fail this project.
great discussion loved it!
This one's easy - no! The only thing that matters is that the quality is maintained or increases, and that they all have a unique place in the lineup.
How many ships need reworks as a result of developing ships first for sale rather than flushing out gameplay that then the ships are designed around or worked on in tandem..
The latest being the reclaimer a perfect example of them developing something that then cannot work as sold...currently.
New ships wiĺl always play a part but should be developed with the gameplay intended....
I hate the fact they slap a dish on something and call it an Explorer. Which means nothing. And they did this for the Zeus ES, as well as many others. No more explorers without a purpose
Give the people tons of ships let them decide their own style and play.
I wonder if they'll ever have procedurally generated ships
Screw the haters bro, these podcasts are fire.
Star Citizen can't have too many ships. Citizens can. 🤪
There is no such thing as too many choices (ships)
i'd love them to fully flesh out stanton, with all gameplay loops. Have them show us what their vision of SC is and then move to other systems.