6.0: TEL freighters get bigger cargo space

[blackphoenixx]

Looks like the Teladi freighters are getting an undocumented buff next patch.
All of them except the Cormorant are getting bigger cargo bays. Some of them a lot bigger (15100m³ for the Vulture Sentinel, 51000m³ for the Pelican Sentinel).

I did some testing for the Magpie, Tern and Vulture vs the Demeter (and Boa because so many people swear by it). Also some modded.
1 jump only for now, but i may do other distances and L traders when i have more time.

Spoiler

Show

1 jump distance, no highways
-----------------------------------
Magpie Sentinel (TEL Travel Mk2): 3870m³ in 279s; 14m³/s
Tern Sentinel (TEL Travel Mk2): 13600m³ in 530s; 26m³/s
Vulture Sentinel (TEL Travel Mk2): 15100m³ in 582s; 26m³/s
- " with Reaver (43.16%): 15100m³ in 501s; 30m³/s

Demeter Sentinel (PAR Travel Mk2): 9480m³ in 355s; 27m³/s
Demeter Sentinel (ARG Travel Mk2): 9480m³ in 337s; 28m³/s
- " with Reaver (42.94%): 9480m³ in 285s; 33m³/s
Demeter Sentinel (TEL Travel Mk2): 9480m³ in 350s; 27m³/s

Boa (SPL Travel Mk2); 7500m³ in 430s; 17m³/s

So it looks like the Demeter still barely comes out on top without highways (an advantage that should increase with distance) but as soon as those enter the picture the Vulture & Tern will probably quickly pull ahead.

[KextV8]

So it looks like the Demeter still barely comes out on top without highways (an advantage that should increase with distance) but as soon as those enter the picture the Vulture & Tern will probably quickly pull ahead.

I never much cared for the Cargo per speed method of calculating. It ignores the reality that sometimes the bigger cargo saves you on Trip numbers so wins out, or that being able to purchase a bunch at a lower price can be more profitable than lower value transations more often. So, it's nice to look at AI trading through that perspective, but not as relevant for player directed trading/logistics where we have defined quantities we want moved to complete specific tasks.

[blackphoenixx]

So it looks like the Demeter still barely comes out on top without highways (an advantage that should increase with distance) but as soon as those enter the picture the Vulture & Tern will probably quickly pull ahead.

I never much cared for the Cargo per speed method of calculating. It ignores the reality that sometimes the bigger cargo saves you on Trip numbers so wins out, or that being able to purchase a bunch at a lower price can be more profitable than lower value transations more often. So, it's nice to look at AI trading through that perspective, but not as relevant for player directed trading/logistics where we have defined quantities we want moved to complete specific tasks.

I automate pretty much all of my trading the moment i buy or capture my first freighter, so m³/hour is all i care about.
If i need less than half the M traders to shift supplies between my stations because i use Demeters instead of Boas that's less ships to buy early game and a big win for my endgame performance.
The same applies to manual trading. It doesn't matter if you save a trip or get a 5% higher profit every now and then if the other ship simply transports twice the volume of goods over time as yours.

Sure, for some edge cases delivering everything in one trip is worth a delay (like when you're bringing material for a defense station in dangerous territory) and survival (or in other words being fast enough to run away) can also be a factor if you're worried about pirates, but otherwise for most of the trading i do throughput is all that matters.

[Raptor34]

Pity there isn't a buff for the Cormorant. It's the coolest freighter after all.

[chew-ie]

Pity there isn't a buff for the Cormorant. It's the coolest freighter after all.

Indeed

[Old Drullo321]

Looks like the Teladi freighters are getting an undocumented buff next patch.

May I ask where did you get that information? Is it documented somewhere? Discord? Screenshot? Beta2?

[blackphoenixx]

Looks like the Teladi freighters are getting an undocumented buff next patch.

May I ask where did you get that information? Is it documented somewhere? Discord? Screenshot? Beta2?

From playing the beta.

[KextV8]

Sure, for some edge cases delivering everything in one trip is worth a delay

Those edge cases are the ones which actually utilize player attention, and thus outweigh all other situations in importance by an order of magnitude.

I don't care what my miners or traders are doing in the background, they simply don't matter as they do not directly impact player experience. I buy them and immediately hide them from my property list. As far as I'm concerned, they no longer exist. I do care about the freighter bringing a load of materials for my new station, or items for a mission delivery. In those cases, sometimes the faster ship is better, sometimes the larger cargo hold is better.

[dtpsprt]

Spoiler

Show

1 jump distance, no highways
-----------------------------------
Magpie Sentinel (TEL Travel Mk2): 3870m³ in 279s; 14m³/s
Tern Sentinel (TEL Travel Mk2): 13600m³ in 530s; 26m³/s
Vulture Sentinel (TEL Travel Mk2): 15100m³ in 582s; 26m³/s
- " with Reaver (43.16%): 15100m³ in 501s; 30m³/s

Demeter Sentinel (PAR Travel Mk2): 9480m³ in 355s; 27m³/s
Demeter Sentinel (ARG Travel Mk2): 9480m³ in 337s; 28m³/s
- " with Reaver (42.94%): 9480m³ in 285s; 33m³/s
Demeter Sentinel (TEL Travel Mk2): 9480m³ in 350s; 27m³/s

Boa (SPL Travel Mk2); 7500m³ in 430s; 17m³/s

So it looks like the Demeter still barely comes out on top without highways (an advantage that should increase with distance) but as soon as those enter the picture the Vulture & Tern will probably quickly pull ahead.

Seems to me that you made 2 cardinal sins in these calculations IMHO.

First and biggest of all you tried the Boa with Split Travel engines!!! They are notorious for their long time to spool and low performance, while the TEL onew are equaally (or slightly worse) to spool but they outperform everybody in travel speed.

Second is that to leave Freighters with Travel engines is to "condemn" them in slow but sure death. Ibelieve that Fighter Engines are in order with the ARG giving the best Speed/Travel Speed/Spooling Time ratio...

[mr.WHO]

Hmm, makes me wonder - if Teladi ships can get cargo buff, maybe other factions will get stats buff as well without affecting save game compactibility.

[Raptor34]

Hmm, makes me wonder - if Teladi ships can get cargo buff, maybe other factions will get stats buff as well without affecting save game compactibility.

For me it's more an indication that Egosoft balancing is giving out nerfs instead of the buffs you want.

[blackphoenixx]

Seems to me that you made 2 cardinal sins in these calculations IMHO.

First and biggest of all you tried the Boa with Split Travel engines!!! They are notorious for their long time to spool and low performance, while the TEL onew are equaally (or slightly worse) to spool but they outperform everybody in travel speed.

Second is that to leave Freighters with Travel engines is to "condemn" them in slow but sure death. Ibelieve that Fighter Engines are in order with the ARG giving the best Speed/Travel Speed/Spooling Time ratio...

Fair enough on the SPL engines, though it should be noted that SPL travel engines are still faster than any factions combat engine for trading over most distances.
The only reason to use combat engines on your traders is if you're worried about pirates. I set mine to comply by default so i'm not.

[Gavrushka]

Pity there isn't a buff for the Cormorant. It's the coolest freighter after all.

And it's the only viable 'M' size freighter in my game, but it still makes a profit even with with such a small cargo hold. (I mod some for additional speed, the endless mod material supplied by blockading Xenon gates, and then putting scouts on repeat orders to collect drops.)

Must admit, I'd not spotted the changes in the other ships...

[blackphoenixx]

Must admit, I'd not spotted the changes in the other ships...

I only noticed because i was running a Vulture on repeat orders and when i fiddled with its orders it was set to only use 3/4ths of the available space (or in other words, its pre-beta maximum capacity).
Then i looked at the number and went "wait a moment, since when did Vultures have 15k cargo space?" and checked the others.

[Zarjazz]

Well pre-6 the Teladi freighters were always the worst despite their bigger shields and cargo space. That never compensated enough for just how slow they are. This buff certainly helps.

[ZeroAffex]

Well pre-6 the Teladi freighters were always the worst despite their bigger shields and cargo space. That never compensated enough for just how slow they are. This buff certainly helps.

Exactly. It was needed. I am actually using a Pelican Sentinel for the first time ever because of the buff whereas before, I pretty much always avoided Teladi traders aside from RP purposes. It's awesome and am looking forward to more for other factions/ships.

May as well say my biggest gripe has been engines lately, I'd love a lot more balancing in this department to have more variety. I just feel like the meta is to go with Combat MK3's 99% of the time which is a slight bummer, and then there's like 1-2 options to choose from at that depending on my need (Argon/Paranid maybe Split depending on the ship). Will say, can't wait to see what the Boron engines bring to the table, am very excited to have some new stats to explore and hope they make some super-fast combat MK3's just to shake things up lol.

Anyways, as for balancing is concerned, it's all in due time of course like what they did here with the Teladi freighters. Devs have a lot on their plates as it is but would love it if someday to actually want to use a travel engine on a freighter or maybe even throw a Teladi engine into one of my ships. Syergies especially would be awesome. Like if we add ship A with engine B, shields C, weapon(s) D we unlock a special perk that grants special stats or abilities, just to make exploring combinations worthwhile and rewarding.

I am rambling. Off to bed I go. lol

[Miravlix]

So it looks like the Demeter still barely comes out on top without highways (an advantage that should increase with distance) but as soon as those enter the picture the Vulture & Tern will probably quickly pull ahead.

I never much cared for the Cargo per speed method of calculating. It ignores the reality that sometimes the bigger cargo saves you on Trip numbers so wins out, or that being able to purchase a bunch at a lower price can be more profitable than lower value transations more often. So, it's nice to look at AI trading through that perspective, but not as relevant for player directed trading/logistics where we have defined quantities we want moved to complete specific tasks.

This is one of those weird community reasons, that DEPENDS on something false, being true for the rest being true, but why are we ASSuming something to be true to begin with, instead of it being IF the ship sails with full cargo, but no you jump straight to THAT THEY DO sail with full cargo all the time.

The game has NO MECHANIC to fill ships cargo hold. The larger the cargo hold the larger the chance is that the ship is sailing without a full cargo. I have 10 Demeters and 1 L freighter on my HQ, my L freighter is sailing around with cargo filling 1-10% of it's hold, because the game doesn't see the size of trades.

Even the Demeters run around with less than full cargo holds. I think I've seen one trade where my L freighter filled it's cargo hold with 30K food and brought it home, the rest of the time it runs slow trades with way below half filled cargo, because the station can't produce or demand resources fast enough for even a 10 demeters to have enough work. So they see that we need 10 food and go buy 10 food, they don't wait until we need 30K food and send the big guy.

Now you can optimize stations for more efficient freighter operations, but no one is bothering mentioning that when they talk about full cargo ships as optimal and I'm not entirely sure you can optimize your station to avoid the problem of ships sailing empty.

So with how the game ACTUALLY works in mind, best freight ships is most likely a fleet of S, since they would be more nimble to react to demand/supply. Though then you run into them being flimsy and too easy to kill, returning you to the M class for reasonable cargo volume/speed/survivability combination. With L freighters is for heavy survivability requirement and long range transport that the game isn't really build to handle as stations is limited to 5 hops without repeat orders.

[blackphoenixx]

Now you can optimize stations for more efficient freighter operations, but no one is bothering mentioning that when they talk about full cargo ships as optimal and I'm not entirely sure you can optimize your station to avoid the problem of ships sailing empty.

Trade ships only use less than their full cargo bay if the seller doesn't have enough wares for a full one or the buyer doesn't want that much.
Either is a problem of having too many or the wrong ships assigned to the task. Or both.

If you assign 5 traders to a station that only needs 2 to keep running at full capacity they'll run half-empty most of the time (basically buying & selling immediately after a production cycle finishes) because they try to avoid being idle if possible.
If you have 20 traders selling food and medicine but only 5 are needed to keep up with demand they'll start a trade run the moment a buyer posts a buy order (which will likely not be for a full cargo load).
Solution 1: assign some of them somewhere else so they're not fighting over cargo or buyers.
Solution 2: for internal trade (your stations only) instead of assigning them to trade for a station put them on Fill Shortage so they have a larger pool of buyers and sellers to draw from (obviously only viable if you have multiple producers/consumers of that ware).

If you assign a Shuyaku Sentinel (or other high cargo L freighter) to trade ecells or food it's going to run near-empty most of the time because almost no one buys a full cargo hold of either.
Solution 1: use smaller traders for low volume cargo.
Solution 2: use repeat orders to sell to multiple buyers per trip instead of just one.

[TheDeliveryMan]

... and I'm not entirely sure you can optimize your station to avoid the problem of ships sailing empty.

This is possible if you use manual storage allocation, automatic pricing and repeat orders. But it is a lot of micromanagement. Even then "Just In Time" deliveries with small fast ships is usually better, unless you really have to shift huge volumes.

[KextV8]

This is one of those weird community reasons, that DEPENDS on something false, being true for the rest being true, but why are we ASSuming something to be true to begin with, instead of it being IF the ship sails with full cargo, but no you jump straight to THAT THEY DO sail with full cargo all the time.

The game has NO MECHANIC to fill ships cargo hold. The larger the cargo hold the larger the chance is that the ship is sailing without a full cargo. I have 10 Demeters and 1 L freighter on my HQ, my L freighter is sailing around with cargo filling 1-10% of it's hold, because the game doesn't see the size of trades.

TL:DR - Only assets you personally control and give direct orders to matter as far as I'm concerned.

See, we are talking about two different things. You're talking about automated things. I'm talking about player controlled assets. Automated assets are completely irrelevant to me. I buy them, I set them invisible on property list and I never care about them again. Their performance optimization doesn't matter one iota, they all get the job done. The only assets that matter to me are assets I personally give orders to. And I don't know about you, but any time I'm manually controlling a freighter, It's completely full because the only time I'm messing with freighters is when there is a reason for me to be involved. Generally missions, or station building.

The other folks who responded to you covered the automated concerns of cargo not being full.