Question about ships ?

[Bill Huntington]

I notice that the basic TS and the similar Tanker model are identical in terms of speed, cost and cargo capacity. I checked both the Argon and Paranids. But the Tanker model looks different, with big tanks in place. (Surprise!)


Anyone know why they gave us two models, no real difference?

[ubuntufreakdragon]

Anyone know why they gave us two models, no real difference?

The short answer is a "No" with a "but" the long a "yes" with a "though".
Nobody really know why Egosoft did such things (Teladi M4+ is the peak of this iceberg btw.), because the don't tell it us, but I have a guess:
They started having one ship of each type done, than the decided to create some variants, so first they build some models, than they created pure copies of the first ship only using the new models.
Sometimes later, I guess after 12PM, they changed their values and forgot more than half of the ships and sometimes only changed the price.

[pjknibbs]

I notice that the basic TS and the similar Tanker model are identical in terms of speed, cost and cargo capacity. I checked both the Argon and Paranids. But the Tanker model looks different, with big tanks in place.

There are actually two Tanker models of each TS, one which is near identical to the regular TS but with tanks, and one much bigger one. Confusingly, I think these are both called Tanker even though their stats are very different!

[Honved]

To make things more confusing, there are the functionally identical or nearly identical Hauler and SuperTanker variants, which respectively appear to be extended versions of the functionally identical basic freighter and tanker models, plus there is the even bigger Supertanker XL model.

What I find ridiculous is that the "civilian" ships flying around are all M5 class military ships, just with little or no weapons and often minimal shielding. It's as if everyone were driving ex-military Armored Personnel Carriers to work. There really should be at least one or two "civilian" class M5s to serve as the equivalent of the "family car", and possibly a civilian M4 "hauler" equivalent (think of a big pickup truck in space). Ideally, there should be at least one design for each faction, with enough overlap, so in Argon space, for example, you'd see mostly Argon design civilian ships, with a fair number of Boron and Teladi models (Teladi ships being "well marketed" universally), a few Split, plus a much rarer Paranid model, reflecting the relations and amount of commerce between the factions.

[Alan Phipps]

"It's as if everyone were driving ex-military Armored Personnel Carriers to work." Given the piracy (some by the player even?), alien invasions and the race wars going on then why wouldn't they take some precautions? Also remember that the excellent Hyperion medium warship was built as a luxury yacht!

Actually one of the local pub managers near here in the UK used to drive a civilian Humvee. I'd guess it saw very few 'chicken run' incidents from 'boy-racer' drivers.

Sorry for the topic drift.

[jlehtone]

Anyone know why they gave us two models, no real difference?

I don't.


Nevertheless, I'll harken back to earlier era and give one thought: Boron Dolphin in X2

Whether you know what that means or not, rest assured that devs made a whole new graphic design for the X3(R). The design that you can still see in X3AP. The design, where all Commonwealth transports did use standard cargo modules, but had race-specific cockpits/engines/framework. Furthermore, variants were introduced.

There are three cargo module types:

• Box-like container
• Spherical tank -array
• Passenger module

The transports have one, two, or four modules. They correspond (roughly) to 4000, 8000, and 12000 unit capacities. (Yes, that does not follow logic either.)

The "base" variant has one container module. The otherwise identical Tanker has the tank container. It could be that it was added because "we can" and for roleplay purposes.

The two module transport variants are Hauler, Tanker and SuperFreighter. They differ in specs, and also visually, having two containers, two tanks, and one of each, respectively.

The four module transport is SuperFreighter too, with two container and two tank modules.

Some races have a Miner variant. They vary a bit more between races, but essentially look like one of the other variants.

The "base" TP has just one passenger module. The "better" TP is bigger.


All the new toys were obviously quite confusing in X3R, with two variants named "Tanker", two named "SuperFreighter", and one Tanker practically identical to base model.


I did just load X3TC and there, just like in X3AP the larger Tanker and SuperFreighter variants have moniker "XL". I'm not sure whether that was always so, or has it been patched in.

I do recall seeing "slightly annoyed" After Action Reports from helpful (X3TC) pilots that did deliver a "Tanker" to some buyer and were told that they have to bring a "Tanker". X3R had no such missions, IIRC, so I'd bet on the "X3TC patch".

[Snafu_X3]

I do recall seeing "slightly annoyed" After Action Reports from helpful (X3TC) pilots that did deliver a "Tanker" to some buyer and were told that they have to bring a "Tanker". X3R had no such missions, IIRC, so I'd bet on the "X3TC patch".

TC differentiated between X & XL (not cargo-related, just my terminology) superfreighters by quite a bit WRT naming (not so much capacity or anything else) to alleviate just this sort of confusion; I'd expect that AP refined them further, tho I dunno..