The starting ships in Eternity Port are somewhat underpowered (except for the Hercules, which is overpowered). I'd like to make the following changes:
Hercules
The Hercules is designed to be a multi-role ship (no slot restrictions) with 6 armor segments and lots of cargo space. I made the following changes:
- Max armor down to superHeavy/9 tons tons (from 12)
- Added a trader's cargo hold (just like EI500).
- Increased drive power consumption to 3 MW (from 2 MW).
Raijin
The Raijin is a heavy gunship, but optimized to be fast. I made the following changes:
- Cargo space increased to 50 tons (from 35)
- Max cargo space increased to 150 tons (from 100)
- Standard armor increased to medium/3.5 tons (from 3 tons)
- Thrust ratio decreased to ~6 (from ~8).
- Increased arc of external mounts to 60 degrees (from 40).
- Downgraded to class I deflector (instead of class II) to save on fuel.
Spartan
The Spartan is a more traditional heavy gunship. I made the following changes:
- Increased max cargo space to 200 tons (from 150)
- Standard armor increased to heavy/6 tons (from 5 tons)
- Thrust ratio decreased to 5 (from ~6.5)
- Max rotation rate increased to 12 (from 9)
- Switched from hull-plate ionizer to class II deflector (to save on fuel).
It's been awhile since I played EP, but I swear I remember the Spartan being the only one of the three I had any luck getting off the ground. The Spartan has good durability, and a starting weapon that's good enough to be usable in early-game fights. I *think* (like I said, it's been awhile) that I had trouble with the Hercules being fragile and having poor starting weaponry -- it just didn't have the punch to kill targets before taking a lot of damage. The Raijin, again as I recall, had slot trouble. Slots are a real problem in EP since you have to dedicate a slot to the CDM shard if you want to have any special powers. Having only two non-weapon slots is pretty limiting.
The boost to 50 tons of cargo for the Raijin will help a fair bit, as it means that a hold expansion (using up your other non-weapon slot) is no longer absolutely mandatory if you like having fun.
If your algorithm said the Hercules was the best of these three, then it dramatically undervalues top speed and maneuverability.
@derakon: The CDM shard does not take up a slot. And the Spartan and Raijin, like other playership gunships, have 4 non-weapon slots, but one is required for the reactor.
If your algorithm said the Hercules was the best of these three, then it dramatically undervalues top speed and maneuverability.
I couldn’t agree more. You probably just nerfed the one playership in Eternity Port that could least afford to be nerfed.
Hercules is basically a bigger and slower Sapphire without the money. It should either start with a bit more money (so it can buy a better weapon or something) like a Sapphire or start with a better weapon.
Re: Four non-weapon slots. I guess it is assumed two are taken by reactor and shield, so you really have two non-weapon slots to play with. No shield run is... difficult to say the least.
Raijin had slot trouble because it is a slower (and bigger) Wolfen with external swivels. With the new changes it should no longer be an inferior Wolfen. (If I started with old Raijin with Ship Broker available, I would probably buy a Wolfen as soon as I could afford one to replace the Raijin.)
I've enhanced TransData to generate these calculation, so you'll be able to see it in 1.8 Beta 4.
Here is the breakdown for the Hercules:
Slots: 80 (full slots = 10, restricted slots = 6.7)
Cargo space: 5
Max cargo space: 7.5
Armor segments: 5 (because it has 6 segments; otherwise it would be 0).
std armor mass: 5
max armor mass: 6.7 (in contrast, Spartan gets 10/10 for armor mass)
max speed: 8.3 (Raijin gets 11.7, Wolfen gets 16.7)
thrust: 1.6 (Raijin gets 3.8, Wolfen gets 10)
drive power use: -2.5 (others get no penalty)
special restrictions: -2 (must have cargo expansion)
Full calculation for all ships: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1HD6_hj-Zu6IHGEaEDVi959Y3hg4RvXgtROKHMMDVJyA/edit?usp=sharing
See also: https://forums.kronosaur.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=8679
In 1.8 Beta 5 I tweaked the algorithm a little to decrease the value (slightly) of cargo space and armor.