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Amalgamation100 — Elite Dangerous: Critism on ship sizes
#fighters #frigate #shipcomparison #shipsize #multicrew #crewsize #elitedangerous
Published: 2018-09-01 09:08:44 +0000 UTC; Views: 26266; Favourites: 107; Downloads: 0
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Description
I just want to get this out of the way first: I have nothing but respect for the Frontier Development team and I only criticize the game because of my love and passion for it, I want it to get better. Disclaimer though, I want to swear my ass off with frustration. What you see before you is a rough size comparison between an Anaconda from Elite Dangerous and the SR1 Normandy from the first Mass Effect game, they are roughly the same size (the Anaconda is 152 or 155 metres long, whereas the Normandy is about 155 metres long, in game size) different sources for the Anaconda state 155 or 152 and the Normandy's game size is not consistent with it's canon/stated size, 125 metres, but roughly you can see that these ships are relatively the same size.Sources:
Mass Effect Normandy Ship Sizes Euderion
Elite Dangerous Ship Size's
About Elite Dangerous: it's a very fun, very vast space sim game, you start off with a really small ship called a Sidewinder and do missions to rank up and earn credits, as you climb the ladder you get bigger and better ships. The game is set within the Milky Way galaxy and it's most amazing bizarre feature is yes you can travel the entire fucking galaxy in this game, it has like 400 billion star systems and not even a fracture of them have been explored, the game is mostly procedurally generated like No Mans Sky except it has a pretty rich lore, background story and evolving narrative. If you want to learn more about it, look it up.
About Mass Effect: It's an action adventure RPG set in space, not much to explain and most people know about it already.
The problem/Why I'm comparing these ships with each other:
To start off with and get to the point, the SRV Normandy has a crew size of roughly 27-31 ( source ) and my Anaconda at the moment only has a crew of 2, myself and one AI fighter pilot. I am capable of having 3 crew members if I use friends/irl players, one fighter pilot and one gunner.
Comparison with IRL ships
Other players have also pointed out the sheer size of these ships are unrealistic for how they operate, one such feela has compared them to the irl Ticonderoga-class cruiser which is 173 meters long but has a crew of approximately 400. I wanna say this in words: Four fucking hundred! (Source ) I understand that comparing the fictional space ship with an irl ship is not 100% accurate and you need to account for things like technological automation and other things, but that's just to help you grasp the size of this thing.
What do the bigger ships do?
So, as I stated before in Elite you start off with a small ship and work your way up, there's like 3 ships you'd class as Frigates in this game at the moment and that'd be the Anaconda (smallest of the three), Imperial Cutter and Federal Corvette.
Getting your hands on one of these is going to take you a long ass time because not only do they cost a fuckton to actually buy they also cost a fuckton to outfit and maintain, owning one of these babies will cost you a fucking fortune and I was so happy when I was finally able to buy my Anaconda, as soon as I took control of the behemoth I thought to myself "this is a fucking battleship" these babies have a lot of armour and guns and are generally pretty difficult to take down most of the time. Than problems started to become apparent the more I outfitted this ship and thought about the size of it... it functions basically as just a larger fighter. What do you mean by that? Aside from a larger heavier ship to manouvre with heavier armour, the only thing that sets the ship apart from others smaller than it is that it can carry fighter bays. The smaller bay hosts about 8 ships, the bigger acts as a double bay with 16... but here's the fuckin' kicker: You can only launch one fighter at a time. Only one. Ever.
The Problem
I have a huge empty ship, the "control bridge" looks like this , with three seats and lots of space for more potentially, we're told that the game has been made interiors in mind , so that eventually we'll be able to get up and walk around inside our massive ships, but right now all I have in function is a large fighter. The reason for this seems to be balancing, they didn't want these larger ships to be too OP... but when they're about to release a fucking Capital ship for regular plays to own, the fucking Fleet Carrier those arguments become fucking mute. Why does that exist but my Frigate size ship can't act like a Frigate?
At the moment the whole multi-crew system is deplorable as it only allows you to recruit up to two companions for very specific roles (gunner and fighter pilot) and if you just want to use AI, only one, and they take a huge chunk of your money. For the bigger ships (Frigate size) to feel like bigger ships you should be able to employ a crew of about 20-50 AI crew members to help maintain it and boost certain performances, I'd like to be able to hire an engineering crew to help repair the ship in combat, and engine crew to help with engine management, a navigator on the bridge to shorten jumps etc etc. It'd be a nice idea if these larger ships had spaces for tiny guns to help screen for the little fighters and I could employ a crew gunner on the bridge to control them as well, another neat idea would be troop carrier missions where I deploy squadrons of marines onto stations to perform missions... really they should of tried something out with bigger crews using the Frigate size ships to test the waters before implementing larger capital size ships for players to control, but right now what I'd settle for is the ability to launch half the fighters in my bay. Hear me out: at the moment I have 16 fighters in my bay and the most I've ever used up from my inventory is fucking 4! My Anaconda gets too goddamn damaged too launch more fighters as I only ever lose them in intense combat scenarios. I am aware that the lore in Elite Dangerous states that most of the systems are automated, but I'd like to argue against that as really it's just a lazy writing cop-out to explain away bullshit. Again, four fucking hundred crew members on comparable irl vessels, also if the automation was to such a degree why do the in-game 2KM cruisers have 7K crew members?
Some people will complain about balancing issues as well, to them I say: get f***ed. A game like this with a progression system should offer a wider range of gameplay, any other shared online game such as this, the most comparable would be MMO's, have progression systems that make the players who have played the longest and unlocked the most gear more powerful than players who have started and that's how it goddamn well should be. In a game like this I expect to have a different experience flying a fighter to going to a 155 metre long Frigate, I expect it to feel and function differently, I expect it to be way more powerful, and I expect it to be able to take on entire groups of other smaller ships, it should be a challenge you have to gang up on for players with smaller fighters too. I also want to be able to live out my space fantasy of being in command of a goddamn spaceship crew, Star Wars and Star Trek to Halo and Firefly, we've all wanted to be a Captain of our own ship crew whether it was for Pirating and Smuggling, to Scientific Exploration or Military Command.
My proposal/Solution
To avoid changing the lore and consistency of the ships too much, I would propose introducing automated drone Squadrons for the tiny fighter class ships, and giving us players the ability to hire two pilots (nerf the payment system though) as Squadron Commanders. I don't expect Frigate Size ships to command fleets but we should be able to launch half the ships in our inventory, otherwise what's the fucking point of even having them there? A 5A fighter bay that carries 8 Fighters should be able to launch four of them, one "person" as a Squadron leader and the 3 others would be drones, the 6A which hosts 16 would launch 8, two Squadron Commanders and 3 ships under there command each. I'd expect the drones to be very dumb but that's okay as it'd help with people's balancing issues, and as I do think a ship of the size of an Anaconda definitely has the space to host 8 fighter pilots (people) within the ship to remote control them I doubt the Devs wanna make any drastic lore changes. I know that in lore the fighter hangars 3D print the ships as they're launch, suggesting a limitation on space, if this is really an issue give us the option to install what would essentially be cargo space for pre-made fighters. As fighters get destroyed, the ship can 3D print the fighters it has in reserve to reinforce the Squadrons like it does already. This wouldn't require much extra work as you could set the drones to function as 'Harmless" by default without the ability to rank up like the actual pilots and give us the ability to assign targets to each Squadron instead of each ship individually, not much work needed to be done except to expand the fighter control UI, no extra coding or tinkering that I can think of.
People with these size ships should be able to take on Wing Combat Missions with an AI crew and compliment such as this, I'd also suggest to the devs to REALLY consider introducing larger ship crews to bolster ship systems with these Frigate sized ships before moving onto bigger ships or just giving us more ships to play with. The focus should be on making the ships we have now feel and function differently rather than just dumping more ships on the players lap to play with, I know doing this would require more in-depth work with coding and such and may or may not come into conflict with what you have prepared for Space Legs but honestly, making the gameplay more diverse and change as you progress to give us more variety should be priority. I'm pretty sure even the devs could agree that living out our fantasies as a Space Captain in the world of Elite Dangerous would be pretty sweet wouldn't it?
About me:
Just to show that I have some credentials when it comes to game development, I too have designed and built ships in 3D, the only one I'm willing to showcase atm is this one:
www.cgtrader.com/3d-models/air…
I also have a Diploma in Digital Media Technology which encompassed some coding and units associated with game design and development, what I'm saying here is I understand some of the technical side to implementing the things I'm requesting and I don't think it's too unreasonable.
Related content
Comments: 7
Remember, the body of the Normandy is just the center piece. The wings are for propulsion and maneuvering. Then, we have the space needed for cargo like the Mako or shuttles. I think at least 1/5 of the ship is the core and the mass effect weapons, which are spinal mounted. Modern ships can fit more people, but they require a lot less technology taking up space. Like oxygen recycling.
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I get what you're saying and would like some of your ideas for changes. I don't feel a point in having more then one fighter if I can't have more then the one pilot to hire. Heck, give us Military SRVs to drop on a planet or research missions. I got my Anaconda just three days ago and I love it. It just feels like it's lacking in crew and some actions is all.
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The essential problem with your issues is that these ships aren't frigates. You're comparing their sizes to modern ships. Unlike your statement of comparisons with modern ship sizes being somewhat unrealistic, it'd be more accurate to say they're completely unrealistic and are entirely irrelevant. In fact, the Federal Corvette, a ship that's actually larger than the conda, is a corvette. These aren't supposed to be heavy warships, or carriers, and they've already got the ability to solo combat oriented wing missions with the right builds, so I fail to see how this is anything more than complaining that your preferences should supersede everyone else's.
As for having your conda feel like an oversized fighter, that's because that's how you've chosen to build it. If you only ever put fixed or gimballed weapons on, of course it's going to feel like a fighter, but turrets are also a thing, and there are extremely effective builds for the conda, as well as the other big three, that involve almost exclusively using turreted lasers. I've currently got two combat condas, one with a more traditional armament of fixed and gimballed weapons, and one with all turrets. With the amount of flexibility the game gives you, I suggest you look into how you might be able to improve your experience with what's already at your disposal before asking the devs to radically alter certain gameplay aspects.
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www.reddit.com/r/EliteDangerou…
I kinda reformed my argument and put it here, it got a lot of attention, 10K views, 84% upvote and it was on the front page of the sub-reddit
I've argued a lot in the comments with dozens and dozens of people, I really don't feel like re-hashing any more of the counter points I've made to counter arguments again I'd just be repeating myself so read the comments if you're realy interested
What I will say though is that I do use turreted weapons, I use a mix of turreted (small-medium) and gimballed (large-huge) for my Anaconda. I have it outfitted with shields boosts, hull reinforcements and a fighter bay, my point on it not feeling distinct from other ships is that there's nothing special about this ship in comparison to others and there's almost no point in going for the bigger ships in this game, the Fer De Lance out performs it and it's a medium ship!
Eh fuck it, I will go on about the rest of your argument: you're wrong, about everything.
www.google.com.au/search?rlz=1…
there's no real clear distinct difference between a Corvette and a Frigate, if you look in the comments of the post you'll see that these ships HAVE been called Frigates before, even the Python has been referred to as a "Cruiser," on the OP which was updated it shows CANON evidence that the Anacondas were originally supposed to house a crew of 40-72 back when the ship was a third of the size it is now...
You're just wrong man.
Read through my updated argument and the comments. Most people have brought up your points before.
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I literally could not care less what people on reddit say. You could get an entire country of people who lack the ability to think critically (think post-Trump USA), that doesn't mean they aren't being stupid.
As for me being wrong? I'm not. You haven't refuted my points, only tried to say that the backing of an echo chamber means I'm wrong, and that your pointless and misguided whining has any merit.
Now for the frigate vs. corvette argument. Try actually reading something before trying to be a smartass and posting links to google. Out of curiosity, I followed the one you gave me, and the very first link in the search you yourself typed states that a corvette is "smaller than any frigate or destroyer". Not really the kind of evidence you were hoping for, eh? I took a screenshot, if you'd like me to show you.
For your last actual paragraph, once again you tell me people on reddit have referred to the ships in the game as frigates, and the python has even been called a "cruiser". This is laughable to anyone who has even a passing knowledge on naval ship classes. A cruiser is larger and more powerful than a frigate, destroyer, or a corvette.
A cruiser is a true warship, and we've already got those in game. The Farragut Battlecruiser and the Majestic Class Interdictor, are both cruisers as this setting recognizes them. In technical terms, a battlecruiser is a cruiser that has been upgraded with either battleship grade armour OR armaments. Since we don't really have any other large ships to compare them with, we can probably assume battlecruiser was used for the former since it sounds cooler.
Really, in terms of role and operation, the Big Three are more like patrol boats than corvettes even. Able to be operated by a very small crew, but fast and armed well enough to cause problems for far larger ships.
I would have left this be if you'd left your comment at saying you didn't feel like arguing this, but once I read the rest of it, I had to respond. At this point you can block me, but that'll just give me the satisfaction of knowing I've actually upset you.
To reiterate, I'm right and you're wrong. Labeling any playable ships in the game a frigate, let alone a cruiser is hilarious and inaccurate, and ultimately you're arguing with the devs by saying that these ships are frigates and not corvettes, since they called the Federal Corvette a Federal CORVETTE, meaning you are automatically wrong no matter what you say to the contrary.
Have a nice day.
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Why the fuck would I block you?
First off I'll apologise about the link, it appears Google actually changed the results after I sent the link.
Still, most of the arguments about ship sizes have already been hashed out, like how a Corvette can launch fighters in the first place which isn't very accurate.
Look, dude, you didn't read anything I actually said. I never said people on Reddit called them Frigates, I said some people brought up your exact point and some others brought it to my attention that they've been called Frigates IN GAME/LORE. I wanted you to go read my reddit post because I refined my argument more and made more points in that post, this one was mainly for the purpose of uploading a picture for Reddit.
Jesus you got a big fucking ego haven't you? I don't wanna argue with you because I've been through these exact fucking arguments before, I already spent the better half of a day arguing and discussing with strangers on the internet, as seen by the amount of comments and replies I got there.
I don't want to re-hash the same fucking discussions here, kid. People have beaten you to it, you're beating a dead horse.
I list canon sources which state that the Python has been listed as a Cruiser and the older Anacondas had crews of 40-72 people at a third of the size they are now, I also make a comparison of the Frigate sized vessels (Anaconda and Corvette) to the big Cruisers in game.
The terminology is being mixed up because of Elite and what they call there ships, not me my dude. NOW I'm telling you to make your replies/inquiries to the reddit post or I will block you from commenting on this post, I don't mind having arguments but people should be have the fucking courtesy to look into what they're arguing before making random ass comments without doing any research.
GO READ THE POST, GO SEE THAT PEOPLE HAVE MADE YOUR EXACT ARGUMENT ALREADY.
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