November was extremely busy!
Money, its what I want….
There’s been a ton of things happening since the last newsletter and it would take a novel to encompass it all here. We’ll get back to what LID does best, keep track of the economy and the ships/professions that help create it.
With 3.0 looming in the distance, already out of Evocati and into the hands of subscribers and concierge, we’re getting a new playground filled with un-optimized and buggy, server disconnects that we hope get ironed out more (yay delta patcher) before live release, we have a lot to go over.
Cargo is definitely in, which means we finally get the ability to move cargo from point A to B. The economy is currently getting tweaked so the cargo will actually have a price and can be bought and sold in different locations for varying amounts of money, really nice seeing as the reworked cutlass black and some of the other ships with cargo are coming in. I hope to get on top of the ship game moving forward as to whats available in each patch and what it’s cargo capacity is.
We’ve seen some nice ships showcased this past week. I really care about the money makers. In this vein, which is probably more SOD than LID is the hawk, a light and agile ship in the Hornet size range that’s a light fighter dedicated to disabling threats rather than destroying them.
Land Claims
This has been controversial and I think it’s largely unwarranted. You get to purchase a beacon that lets you stake a claim on a plot of land $50USD gets you 4x4km of land and $100USD lands you 8x8km. The deal is the claim is not the land. The land costs extra and how much extra, we just don’t know. They did say that you can only own 10x each size per account. Even if everyone bought land, they said all 2 million people would only buy half of a moon. Not even half a planet but half a moon and only in UEE space. Depending on how they do this on release when they let everyone claim land it could be good or bad for PR, we’ll just have to wait and see. I hope they release it with everyone on more even footing but only time will tell. You’ll know more when I know more but this is important for resources and strategic reasons so all of the department branches will be on top of this and keeping an eye on more prime locations as we get more systems online. Hang in there.
Cargo
Cargo, glorious cargo is coming in 3.0. We can’t buy and sell for a profit/loss just yet but they’re in the middle of adjusting prices of missions and fuel costs, etc. So I would imagine cargo is going to get a once over before we get our hands on it. I have been trying to stay on the scene and link together implications of gameplay without theory crafting too much. We do know that cargo is based on the smallest sized crate and that items can be bought and stored up to 100 cargo units inside the crate. The next item will have to go in a second crate by itself and you cannot mix and match items being stored. We’ll see how this develops, if I can get my hands on some numbers I can start working on formulas and fuel costs to start to get a grasp on the cost of operations. I look forward to working with anyone interested in helping along these lines as 3.0 reaches live and things move toward a more stable environment.
Reclaimer
Mixed in with the LID objectives of making money so the military can do what they do and we can all get a paycheck in the verse, comes the timely showcase of the scavenger salvage ship. We got to see over the anniversary sale how this ship is doing in the pipeline and it’s definitely on it’s in the final art phase before it goes to flight prep. Once in flight prep it’ll get sent out to the PTU and we’ll get to fly it. I like that they’ve gone with this push toward getting the profession ships in and we’ll talk about the next one now.
Orion Miner
This ship is one that I’m personally excited to see in action and like the Reclaimer, it’s gotten some attention as well, I believe both ships have grown in size, this one being more than twice the size that it was. Originally when this ship was first introduced back before item 2.0 and all the current metrics were in, it was a large ship compared to the fighters but small compared to capital ships. Not anymore. With the metrics finally hammered out and with the new ship pipeline of blocking out the interiors to take into account gameplay afforded by item 2.0 (think engineering and inventory mechanics), we have a new ship that’s massive. It’s big, bold and beautiful. You can see it in the image above in relation to the others we’ve seen. But wait, there’s more…
Prospector
Yes. Yes. Yes and yes in so many words. I want this one in and wouldn’t you know it? It’s Out of in final art and in flight prep that we’ll get to play with in 3.0, they really want this one in there too and I can’t wait to see it in action. I really think this is going to be one of the early go to ships to get money coming into the org and into our coffers. This ship will be one of the workhorses of the verse and they’ve worked very hard getting it pushed through in time for us to test out the mining mechanics. I wish I could say mining will be in 3.0 but from everything I can see, it’s definitely a 3.1 mechanic (eternal cutlass blue hype).
Hull C
This is really another one I want to see working, they decided to jump straight to the C first and get it working since it was the middle of the road variant of this series of MISC ships. You cannot land this thing when it has cargo, which is going to make gameplay interesting since this one will likely fall like a brick in atmosphere if it has cargo tied to it and you can’t just land at a port somewhere and run away from pursuers. You’ll have to protect this one and I like the dynamics this type of situation brings to the verse.
Cutlass Black
Oh yes. This one is my baby. I’ve been through all the ups and downs with this ship and hung in there during the darkest hour of it’s design and with the new design coming in 3.0 it’s everything I wanted it to be and more. It’s bigger, it’s sleeker, it’s got room for cargo, it’s got jump seats built into the rear near the reworked and larger ramp, the doors on the side pop open and there’s even talk about modular gunship type concepts being kicked around to allow manned side guns just behind the side doors. This is really the ship I wanted it to be, common enough for everyone to get one and versatile in nearly every situation. I couldn’t expect an explorer capable variant, I don’t think Drake is that interested in a modular mini carrack but I’ll always be paying attention to what’s in the wind about this ship and when I know, you’ll know.
Honorable Mention:
Banu Merchantman
As much as I like the traveling bazaar idea, this ship needed some major work done and it’s been moved back into design/concept phase. They got to thinking about how a ship that would trade with literally everyone (vanduul included) would be sized and function. How would it be traversed? With all this in mind they took it back to give it a good once over before pushing it back up the pipeline, they want this one to really shine for it’s purpose and I personally agree with the direction they seem to be moving with it, this is a special one and the fans don’t want to see it flop.
The Next Drake Ship?
Vulture
Please and thank you! I personally voted for this one and I’ll tell you why. This ship is a mini, one man version of the Reclaimer (I keep wanting to call it the scavenger) and this type of ship is very, very important for getting an org up and running. From everything I can glean from CIG on how they want professions/economy gameplay to work, they want the larger ships to be expensive to outfit, expensive to crew and expensive to operate. Day 1 I imagine we’ll all step out there and realize we can’t afford to operate the orions and reclaimers. This little ship will be able to zip in, relatively ignored because of it’s size, and chop up wrecks and refine some of the materials on a smaller scale than the big boys. This is what the verse needs to get going and so far this ship is in the lead with 45% of the votes to be the next drake ship.
Corsair (explorer)
This is a neat intro into the mid-sized exploration based ship for Drake (I like drake and the misc most if you can’t tell already) and a more economic, although rugged and emenity free, version to compete in the verse is a welcome addition to the already awesome ship lineups. We’ll need exploration based ships to ferret out new mineral deposits, gas to harvest, good soil and air to grow crops in for (medicine? food? spice?) and these will be the busy bee’s directing the workforce of Oddysee to the next pot of gold.
Kraken (scout carrier)
Can you envision a small carrier, not well defended but holding a small fleet of ships to engage the enemy, scrap wreckage from a battlefield, or maybe strip mine asteriods with a small horde of prospectors? If you can then you’ll be pleased the Kraken is on the table. I really think all of the ships will be made but we’re only voting on the order, if the numbers mean anything, this would be the second of the bunch to get made followed in third by the aforementioned Corsair.
Cast your vote before December 11th!
If you’ve not been keeping up, you can still get in on the action and cast your vote on your favorite ship, everything matters and if you don’t toss in your ballot into the pile, you don’t get results. Get out there and vote.
https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/citizens/16303-YOU-Pick-The-Next-Drake-Ship
Conclusion:
That’s about all for now, I’ll be sure to hit on anyting I think is financially interesting (which is most things) and how it pertains to LID. If you think of anything in the meantime, shoot me a message and let me know and I’ll try to work it in. Until then, I’ll catch you later.
Odd man out. -Lord Corwin.
