My new toy: Advanced Corvette Series

[deca.death]

.

Now we have great vanilla safe cheating tool some of us may unleash their creative side and design and use much greater variety of ships. I was always very pissed that after you cap Hyperion and buy Springy there is no need (or will) to fly any other M6 ever again. I tried to buy and give a ride to Heavy Hydra the other day, always found that design intriguing, but to my horror fully equipped H Hydra can pack around 500 ecell reserve. Strange that Heavy M6 variants usually have such tiny cargobay that after ships like Hyperion they become virtually unplayable.

Well not any more : )
Now I was always quite fanatical of the elusive 'balance' term and I want my designs to be balanced and have sense compared to rest of ships in their class (no weird numbers here), I really don't want overpowered designs that will make game even more easy then it is. I just got bored with two "player ships" that Egosoft provided. Having ability to create ships that suit my style of gaming is a great asset to the game, if used wisely.

First Toy:

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Advanced Centaur
Speed 185 m/s
Steer 17.5 (Vidar 12, Xenon P 24)

I remember seeing menacing picture of Centaur in "Guide to X3 for dummies" when i begin playing this game and to the eyes of a newbie it looked just awesome. What a disappointment when I found out about his pathetic speed and disastrous turn rate. I was always fighter pilot at heart and those M6es turned painfully slow. I would be happy to sacrifice several stats for some more agile, fighterlike light vette but it was no go.

This baby is just quite fast and nippy light vette. With it's turn rate between P and vidar it's very agile, but still has a feel of slightly bigger ship, not a fighter. Very decent speed, slightly above dragon and hyperion, 3x200Mj shields, non-spectacular wepon generator of 10k and CW weapon selection. Decent cargo hold. Nothing spectacular, too powerful or unbalancing but something you would actually want to fly in in occasion, unlike common centaur.

Future project:

Advanced Heavy Centaur.
Speed: 250
Cargo: 2250

Just love the design of Argon ships. They look like they mean business. H Centaur desperately needs cargohold, turn rate in this case may stay the same (ie. low and pathetic) and we will boos speed up. It will be mean and usable player's ship, not as fast as Springy and not as spacious (or powerful or practical) like Hyperion but viable and fresh alternative to both of them.

So you see what I mean now. Usable and balanced new breed of player (M6 jockey) ships that will add variety, some new and cool designs to test out and still won't affect overall balance of game.

So, please, share your thoughts on the subject. What ships -you- will make these days? : )

[philip_hughes]

I reckon some nifty support ships can be made now. I was always toying with making droptank ships. Now we can. The idea is to get the worst performing m5, then crank up its cargo space to 600 or something like that. I currently use blastclaw prototypes which from memory are at 550. These can be docked with the hyperion to boost overall cargo capacity. Mine currently has a firestorm torpedo droptank and a wasp missile droptank. Converts the hyperion to an effective long range missile patrol craft.

I want to boost the Vidar to the range of 165 or a little greater. Seeing I accidently boosted my LX to 1262 when trying the method for the first time, I am fully expecting one at 500 or greater, but not by design.

[Rive]

This exploit is a great find and a nice toy, but I think it's vanilla only by mistake, and those who are aware of the 'vanilla' should not overuse - or even just keep in use - it anyway.

So I would consider to move all this to S&M even if it does not require any scripting.

[deca.death]

This exploit is a great find and a nice toy, but I think it's vanilla only by mistake, and those who are aware of the 'vanilla' should not overuse - or even just keep in use - it anyway.

I see what you mean but still... changing ships in a way (and in purpose) I described doesn't feel like cheating or "vanilla spirit" unfriendly gesture. We are talking about rich industrialist endgame kind of player who is more or less forced to spend his time in a single ship. Should't my 'Terraformer Industries TM' been able to deliver me an improved and modified version of standard ship? Am I not that rich? I do not want to make my gaming experience easier, just more varied. Not that I'm gonna level xenon sectors with my new adv. centaur toy. It's just standard light corvette with decent speed and turn rate, special top secret prototype which is unique in universe. It's not even FLAK mountable 360 m/s M6 platform for pete's sake : )It will not kill an M2 or M7 but will give those pirate scum nasty surprise. And will feel pleasurable to flight.

And one more thing, I will my friends the goners donation of 20 million credits - and will do so for every new ship I make this way. Producing of new prototype is costly business : )

[TTD]

Now we have great vanilla safe cheating tool some of us may unleash their creative side and design and use much greater variety of ships.

Have I missed something?

[deca.death]

:?
Have I missed something?

Obviously : )

link

[TTD]

Cheers,

I did glance at it late at night , but forgot about it until I read your post .

Thanks for the link...bookmarked on a tab

[Rhox]

Future project:

Advanced Heavy Centaur.
Speed: 250
Cargo: 2250

I like your general idea, but unfortunately will not be able to realize your project as tests of some users (including me) have shown that cargo bay extension can be selected via the new method but won't have any effect on actual cargo bay capacity...
You will have to stick to only enhancing Speed and rudder.

best regards,

Rhox

[Master of the Blade]

Yeah, I've found even a basic 'add ware' script doesn't pump ships above their normal cargo capacity. The only time I've seen a ship with more cargo than it should be able to have was actually an NPC manta with ~1100 capacity where it should have 1000, in my complex UK sector (the one near Getsu Fune).

Still haven't found anything about why that happened.

[deca.death]

.

That actually limits the idea significantly : (

So many fine ships (heavy vettes mostly) have offensively small cargobay, making whole ship design virtually unusable as player's ship.


Still, at least I have my advanced centaur ; ) Took out Two Qs with it last night (mass driver x8 setup)
: )

[Hubert99]

Actually, today I had a small conresation with myself, and we decided that the Hyperion's speed is just good as it is. I mean ... come on, it has almost the speed of a Dragon ! And while poor Dragon mounts a single 200MJ shield. (if I recall it right ... or was it 2 ?) the Hyperion has 5 of them. Now, the Centaur is indeed a bit slow with her 128m/s.

So I will probably let her at 169m/s, as it does not seemtoo slow, and the huge cargobay makes Turbo Boost usable almost non-stop.

I agree, that the Centaur is slowish, especially that the Prototype version has 154m/s top speed. I used some HCPs in OFF, and they did perform well, although a Khaak Corvette managed to kill one of them, when I wasn't paying attention. I will see if I can use a HCP as playership, but I guess the small cargobay will prevent me, too bad , awesome looking corvette, as most Heavy variants. The Heavy Hydra ... I'd like to see a mod what adds organic movements to boron ships, like a breething rythm, or ondulating tentacles ... maybe Rebirth will bring something in this area. Given that there will be borons in it.

Hydra has surprising speed and cargobay, for an MK1 Corvette.
And the Osprey ... has better turning rate, and good shielding. Especially, that I found no difference between the pirate and vanilla variants. The Heavy Osprey is also an impressive looking ship, and probably has bigger cargobay than the Heavy Centaur ,... maybe tuning her speed up is closer to the ideal playership. Now, if only heavy variants had an external docking place for a single fighter ... i think CMOD's author found that there is such an unused node for the Centaur. So you could use that mod, and have your advanced Centaur perform even better.

[deca.death]

Actually, today I had a small conresation with myself, and we decided that the Hyperion's speed is just good as it is.

Let's just say this: even with speed of 169 it's arguably best player's ship in game. Does it really need to go 250 m/s? Just fastest fighters go 200+, does the super corvette with gargantuan cargobay and two damn fat blastclaws under wings needs to go even faster? : )

So I will probably let her at 169m/s, as it does not seemtoo slow, and the huge cargobay makes Turbo Boost usable almost non-stop.

That seems "realistic"
I was quite greedy with speed of 185, I admit, but when compared to some others "km/s" speed it doesn't seem that scary : )

The Heavy Osprey is also an impressive looking ship, and probably has bigger cargobay than the Heavy Centaur ,...

Looks great I agree, cargobay? let's see .. 1050, quite decent (I find 900+ to be an absolute minimum)

Some other candidates for tweaking (good cargo vettes):

centaur 1250
H centaur 975 (much better then prototype, 690!)
skiron 975
hydra 1500! too bad it's so damn ugly : )
osprey 1500, great
H osprey 1050, OK
P 1250
PX 1150

all potential candidates : )

[SIMON POPPLEWELL]

What about the Vidar? Only 950 cargobay, could be better. But does use Wraiths. Plus It looks pretty good. Or maybe the Katana, does have a little extra cargo space, but it's pig ugly.

[Hubert99]

Yea, the Katana is like a fat Baldric. I expected better looks from a ship named like this. Also, she has limited steering, all these make her unappealing. But the exploit might adress this ... if one feels constrained to fly one. Still gotta cap a Vali ... I wonder what cargobay that beauty has.

Hmmm. PX you say ? I got one docked somewhere. I think I'm gonna reverse engineer it.

[Sovereign01]

I reckon some nifty support ships can be made now. I was always toying with making droptank ships. Now we can. The idea is to get the worst performing m5, then crank up its cargo space to 600 or something like that. I currently use blastclaw prototypes which from memory are at 550. These can be docked with the hyperion to boost overall cargo capacity. Mine currently has a firestorm torpedo droptank and a wasp missile droptank. Converts the hyperion to an effective long range missile patrol craft.

I want to boost the Vidar to the range of 165 or a little greater. Seeing I accidently boosted my LX to 1262 when trying the method for the first time, I am fully expecting one at 500 or greater, but not by design.

Blastclaw Prototype is 650, Enh. Kea is 750. My Hyp carries two of the latter, one holds Ecells, the other EBC ammo

[deca.death]

Blastclaw Prototype is 650, Enh. Kea is 750. My Hyp carries two of the latter, one holds Ecells, the other EBC ammo :D

What you people DO with your Hyperions for Pete's sake? I carry 250 crates of ammo and it's more then enough (forward turrets EBC). I have place for 2000+ ecells, 20 adv. sats and 100 mossies, 70 wasps, 70 typhoons and 70 wratihs.

I carry just mamba vanguard, because it's sexy and for spare JD. One place is free and I transport other fighters there sometimes (capped, or mappers, sat dispatchers etc...)

[deca.death]

What about the Vidar? Only 950 cargobay, could be better. But does use Wraiths. :D Plus It looks pretty good. 8) Or maybe the Katana, does have a little extra cargo space, but it's pig ugly. :roll:

Oh it would be like mean super fighter on steroids. No flak but it doesn't need them, they are OP and weight too much for him anyway. 950 is not much when you have to carry ammo for 10 MAMLs : (

180-200 m/s vidar would be like specialized assassin, with his agility and shields (and size...)

[deca.death]

Yea, the Katana is like a fat Baldric. :)

I actually don't find that line of ships ugly at all. Not especially beautiful but believable and definitely not ugly.

I am not especially in love with terran designs for this class (notice that I don't mention them at all), their weapons feel so limited.

Still gotta cap a Vali ... I wonder what cargobay that beauty has.

850. Not as great, but looks appealing and has best shields in class (6x200)

Hmmm. PX you say ? I got one docked somewhere. I think I'm gonna reverse engineer it.

This baby's got potential, still it's little limited on weapon choice, ISR are only vette weapons it can use and they suck way too much energy.

[Nanook]

"Vanilla safe" or not, discussions of scripts and mods belong in the S&M forum, not here. Therefore, I'm moving this to TC S&M.

[Alan Phipps]

@ Nanook: You might consider moving it back. This is all from a vanilla exploit and not a 3rd party script or mod. See: http://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=303682