Why Terran ships are so slow?

[AsadullinIF]

As a side question, aren't the borons technically the oldest and most advanced race, aside from the elders themselves.

The Terrans remain the most technologically advanced race in the gate network, even after losing several hundred years of progress in the Terraformer War. Borons are cool, peaceful creatures with cool biotechnology, regenerating ships, good shields, and the best non-lethal weapons. But in terms of the general technical level, they lag behind the Terrans.

[SmarterThanAll]

I've seen at least a dozen hours of preview footage and I've only ever seen them expand immediately and very aggressively into Getsu Fune where I've seen them build several defense stations have like 2 or 3 carriers roaming about with half a dozen or more destroyers patrolling around. Which makes sense they want to control and protect all gates leading into Sol. Now I'm sure the Antigone will have a problem with that but I don't think the Terrans care in the slightest but that's the most I've seen them expand so far.

The Terrans are technically not at war with everyone. They just strongly dislike them. As such ANT should not really care much about any Terran defence platforms near them.

I mean just because they aren't at war doesn't mean the Antigone are happy with a previously sealed away unfriendly super power showing up and immediately invading their sector with overwhelming force and setting up camp. I know Getsu Fune is technically a neutral sector but very shortly after a new game the Antigone expand into Getsu Fune and claim it so I'm calling it a De facto Antigone sector.

[SmarterThanAll]

As a side question, aren't the borons technically the oldest and most advanced race, aside from the elders themselves.

The Terrans built gates before ever knowing others previously existed. An that was in the ancient past still to this day Terrans are the only ones able to build gates.

[SmarterThanAll]

And again, just because the player can use everything on everything DOESN'T mean that factions will crossfit anything.

It does not matter. I dont want to superior civilization barebone ships were weaker than barbaric ships. If it doesnt matter for AI, but it DOES for me. I cant enjoy of inferior ships. I want the barebone ships of the Terans were at least equal in their strenght with commonwealth ships. I dont want weak ships and strong components. Because it means ditch the garbage ships - get the good components. And i dont want the most advanced race ships be that way. They are good-looking - one of the best looking in the game (some of them). I want to get some fun from the ships. Not from the boring components.

First off the Terrans have a completely different economy you need to use their modules and their goods to build any of their tech. They have special everything. Special docks special shipyards and wharfs. Also you need to understand the Terrans are isolated to Sol. Their larger ships are slow because in theory they only operate in Sol. Seeing as how they have a completely different and much much more efficient economy they don't need to travel around the galaxy to trade or do anything really. They just fly around Sol. Think of the Terrans and Sol as it's own little galaxy they can and do operate completely independently of everyone else. A commonwealth trader or miner may have to fly across the entire map to get resources whereas the Terrans have a sector or two at most to travel for any of their goods. Speed becomes less of a priority when you operate in literally one system.

[dholmstr]

Guys. Again. It is a GAME. With a BALANCE. Game. Okinawa - 2 times slower then other commonwealth L cargo ships and has 2(!!) times smaller cargospace. What does it mean? It mean than the Player will n-e-v-e-r buy this ship in his game. The player would never even look in its direction. He will not need it. It's garbage. What the point in modeling this ship in the first place? Egosoft artist modelled this ship for the player to PLAY and to ENJOY. All of his work was for NOTHING. Beatuiful. Gorgeus. Absolutely garbage on the stats side. Useless. the Okinawa is the TITLE ship for the expancion! It is THAT good-looking! You don't feel sorry for the artist? Stop justifying it with some unique terrans ideal economy. It's a game. Computer game. Computer games have rules. There is game design. There is a balance. And these rules say - if a ship is inferior to an analogue, then no one needs it. Ever. The main character in the game is not Terrans with theis super-duper-efficient-economy and super slow inferior ships. Not Paranids. The main character in the game is the Player. If the ship is garbage - than player do not need that ship. Than all the work on this ship was for nothing. It is okey for the ships to be slow. But you need to give them another advantage aside the components, that are available to ALL races, to justify the loss of speed.

That being said, you want the the Okinawa to be the top tier? Well If you get the top bang for the buck from Okinawa, why would you look at ANY other ship for mining after that? Many others here are trying to explain lorewise why Terrans are slow or build differently, isolation and so forth. Also add that Terrans absolutly hate AI and wont touch it at all, AI that other races are using to build stuff differently. Am I also abit baffled by the stats on those ships, yes I have my concerns....

[SmarterThanAll]

Guys. Again. It is a GAME. With a BALANCE. Game. Okinawa - 2 times slower then other commonwealth L cargo ships and has 2(!!) times smaller cargospace. What does it mean? It mean than the Player will n-e-v-e-r buy this ship in his game. The player would never even look in its direction. He will not need it. It's garbage. What the point in modeling this ship in the first place? Egosoft artist modelled this ship for the player to PLAY and to ENJOY. All of his work was for NOTHING. Beatuiful. Gorgeus. Absolutely garbage on the stats side. Useless. the Okinawa is the TITLE ship for the expancion! It is THAT good-looking! You don't feel sorry for the artist? Stop justifying it with some unique terrans ideal economy. It's a game. Computer game. Computer games have rules. There is game design. There is a balance. And these rules say - if a ship is inferior to an analogue, then no one needs it. Ever. The main character in the game is not Terrans with theis super-duper-efficient-economy and super slow inferior ships. Not Paranids. The main character in the game is the Player. If the ship is garbage - than player do not need that ship. Than all the work on this ship was for nothing. It is okey for the ships to be slow. But you need to give them another advantage aside the components, that are available to ALL races, to justify the loss of speed.

That being said, you want the the Okinawa to be the top tier? Well If you get the top bang for the buck from Okinawa, why would you look at ANY other ship for mining after that? Many others here are trying to explain lorewise why Terrans are slow or build differently, isolation and so forth. Also add that Terrans absolutly hate AI and wont touch it at all, AI that other races are using to build stuff differently. Am I also abit baffled by the stats on those ships, yes I have my concerns....

People keep wanting to pretend that the Terrans operate even remotely similar to everyone else. I've watched so much preview footage. The Terrans no joke have like maybe 5 trade goods. That's it and everything is built with some combination of those goods. They make very high value low count goods. Meaning they use comparably much much less mats to build anything. Captain Collins had a hard time filling up half the storage of the Terran medium transport when buying all the mats he needed to build a station. Very high value but low volume goods. I simply cannot imagine needing anything larger than the Okinawa using the Terran economy. They get much more done with much less when compared to the commonwealth. An it's not even lore wise either I'm talking from a straight practical and mechanical way the Terrans are the most out of the way and isolated faction on the map and unlike every other faction which is spread around like delicious border gore spaghetti all 13 Terran sectors are condensed and localized for obvious reasons. It seems building tall is the powerplay in the X Universe.

[mr.WHO]

People keep wanting to pretend that the Terrans operate even remotely similar to everyone else. I've watched so much preview footage. The Terrans no joke have like maybe 5 trade goods. That's it and everything is built with some combination of those goods. They make very high value low count goods. Meaning they use comparably much much less mats to build anything. Captain Collins had a hard time filling up half the storage of the Terran medium transport when buying all the mats he needed to build a station. Very high value but low volume goods. I simply cannot imagine needing anything larger than the Okinawa using the Terran economy. They get much more done with much less when compared to the commonwealth. An it's not even lore wise either I'm talking from a straight practical and mechanical way the Terrans are the most out of the way and isolated faction on the map and unlike every other faction which is spread around like a delicious border gore spaghetti all 13 Terran sectors are condensed and localized for obvious reasons. It seems building tall is the powerplay in the X Universe.

One case where I seem possible logistical nightmare is when you will want to use Terrans ships with Commonwealth equipments (e.g. Plasma, Flaks, Split engines).
If you stick to Terran only part you're golden, but if you need to add something non Terran...it will be the nightmare.

I'm considering building separate SY/Wharf for Terran ships, instead of expanding my current SY/Wharf.

[MSterling]

Argon ships are 2 times faster

With Terran engines or Argon engines? I'm asking because maybe I haven't watched some nice movies and missed something? Or maybe you tested? If not, this comparison does not add anything. You still don't know if it's the fault of the engines or the ships and how they will perform with other engines.

The terrans being weak in engines (doubly so because they generally have just one engine, making them easy to knock out of manoevering: remove the Asgard engine and you neuter its main batteries and the XL gun, if AI could be trusted not to just fly in front of it anyway...) is there so that you can't ROFLStomp every race, because if you do that, you lose speed (Split engines for S/M, Paranid for L/XL), you also lose plasma turrets and the really helpful Burst Rays. Want to be faster? Stop destroying the Split. Want travel speed for traders because the Terran sectors are huge? Don't blow up the Argon, you need their Travel engines.

[MSterling]

Argon ships are 2 times faster but have the same shields and weapons. Terran ships are inferrior to argon ships - they are 2 times slower.

How do you know this? The DLC isn't even out yet. You know the exact amount of shields and weapons each terran ship has? You know the exact speed of every ship with maximum engines? How do you know how maneuverable or agile their engines are in a fight? Just curious where you are getting the info. There is no way that the Terran ships are so weak that they would be weaker than every other faction. This would affect the economy and faction wars too much. You sound very extreme in your opinion about this.

They know it will bolster their complaint, therefore it must be true...

[MSterling]

To be fair, for M size mining and freight ships, speed is king, especially with the changes to mining and the kha'ak. Before you could make a choice... your average bad guy top speed was the minotaur raider at like ~310kms. You could sacrifice cargo space for speed if you didn't want to assign each individual ship an escort. Now you have pirates running around in dragon raiders, like 770kms or so... and you have kha'ak zipping around at like 500kms.

The choice now is to die quickly, die slowly, assign each ship a small group of fighters, or absolutely litter the map with squads of quick reaction forces, who are often not in the right place anyhow because your miners are 40km off the ecliptic.

If terran ships are slow, they'll be nothing but fodder ultimately.

However, the Teladi are still worse than the Terrans, and I don't recall ANYONE complaining those ships were too slow.

Except me. Posted about that several times now. Not one person has said "Yeah, you're right!".

[MSterling]

Thanks so much for helping me understand! Capitol really!

That's great for them then! I suppose ill never see a single one of their ships outside the Sol system. They won't have designs on expanding outside Sol either, which is smart.

You failed to comprehend or read that they were locked off until a few days' time. Go tell me when you see your 4.0 beta or 3.30 have Terran ships pootling around in commonwealth space. THEN you would have had a point.

What the Terrans will need to do is NOT blow up the rest of the universe in a fit of pique that their specialness is not obvious to all, because they will need the split for their small ship engines and the paranids for the large engines. At least for a couple of years while they work on new ship designs that will take two engines or find a way to increase the engine output 50%. Until there are new ships, obsoleting the old ones (say bye bye to your Asgard, it old and busted now), you will have to put up with slow ships if you want to play Terran.

[MSterling]

you don't really need to be fast in X-universe - if you have firepower and resilence, you just blockade the sector entry points and wait for weaker enemy to come to you.
Those 700 km/s won't save you from Terran beams (most dammage beam) and Terran pulse (fastest bullet).
Not to mention general no-fly zone than Asgard battleship project.

When you need to move Terran, simply use travel drive.
When you need high speed interceptor, there is still Katana.

Terrans seems to be ideal blockade faction.

The Terran pulse, like the split "better than average damage" weapons, are slightly shorter range. 5km vs 4.4km IIRC. Though misses are common at extreme ranges for the standard pulse, so of limited use.

[MSterling]

As a side question, aren't the borons technically the oldest and most advanced race, aside from the elders themselves.

No, they were losing badly to the Split.

[mr.WHO]

The Terran pulse, like the split "better than average damage" weapons, are slightly shorter range. 5km vs 4.4km IIRC. Though misses are common at extreme ranges for the standard pulse, so of limited use.

Given the faster speed and shorter range, Terran pulse should be noticably more effective than Argon Pulse at longer ranges (less travel time to target).

[SmarterThanAll]

People keep wanting to pretend that the Terrans operate even remotely similar to everyone else. I've watched so much preview footage. The Terrans no joke have like maybe 5 trade goods. That's it and everything is built with some combination of those goods. They make very high value low count goods. Meaning they use comparably much much less mats to build anything. Captain Collins had a hard time filling up half the storage of the Terran medium transport when buying all the mats he needed to build a station. Very high value but low volume goods. I simply cannot imagine needing anything larger than the Okinawa using the Terran economy. They get much more done with much less when compared to the commonwealth. An it's not even lore wise either I'm talking from a straight practical and mechanical way the Terrans are the most out of the way and isolated faction on the map and unlike every other faction which is spread around like a delicious border gore spaghetti all 13 Terran sectors are condensed and localized for obvious reasons. It seems building tall is the powerplay in the X Universe.

One case where I seem possible logistical nightmare is when you will want to use Terrans ships with Commonwealth equipments (e.g. Plasma, Flaks, Split engines).
If you stick to Terran only part you're golden, but if you need to add something non Terran...it will be the nightmare.

I'm considering building separate SY/Wharf for Terran ships, instead of expanding my current SY/Wharf.

Oh absolutely It's gonna be an absolute logistical nightmare for players because I'm pretty sure you NEED Terran Shipyards and Wharfs to build Terran ships. I'm pretty sure you can't built them at normal Shipyards/Wharfs. Not to mention they require completely different mats that you're gonna have to make yourself if you're out in the commonwealth. It's gonna be even more a nightmare for players that start out as Terrans as you start with -15 with pretty much every commonwealth faction. Hell even the pirate factions like you more than most of the commonwealth

[MSterling]

The Terran pulse, like the split "better than average damage" weapons, are slightly shorter range. 5km vs 4.4km IIRC. Though misses are common at extreme ranges for the standard pulse, so of limited use.

Given the faster speed and shorter range, Terran pulse should be noticably more effective than Argon Pulse at longer ranges (less travel time to target).

Totally. There are edge cases otherwise, though, IIRC, the medium turrets used in Xenon stations has a range of 4.6km, so the terrans would be unable to standoff while if they put on commonwealth pulse weapons, they could, as long as the graviton guns are gone or at least busy on other targets, bombard the medium turrets. VERY edge case, especially since there are sooooooooooo many small guns, all over the flipping place, on every single Xenon station. I keep getting pwned trying to disarm a Xenon station because they put their medium turrets in weird places, places that there would otherwise be a safe space to park, but then again, they still have plenty of those on the outside of the structure, so still catches me out with random trouncing. And if you have decent reverse, you can slam in reverse and just run back and an extra 600m can last long enough to kill an N. As long as the AI routine picked for it isn't "I will randomly jink up and down but still manage to point the lasers at you, evil human scum". They are annoying.

[taztaz502]

People keep wanting to pretend that the Terrans operate even remotely similar to everyone else. I've watched so much preview footage. The Terrans no joke have like maybe 5 trade goods. That's it and everything is built with some combination of those goods. They make very high value low count goods. Meaning they use comparably much much less mats to build anything. Captain Collins had a hard time filling up half the storage of the Terran medium transport when buying all the mats he needed to build a station. Very high value but low volume goods. I simply cannot imagine needing anything larger than the Okinawa using the Terran economy. They get much more done with much less when compared to the commonwealth. An it's not even lore wise either I'm talking from a straight practical and mechanical way the Terrans are the most out of the way and isolated faction on the map and unlike every other faction which is spread around like a delicious border gore spaghetti all 13 Terran sectors are condensed and localized for obvious reasons. It seems building tall is the powerplay in the X Universe.

One case where I seem possible logistical nightmare is when you will want to use Terrans ships with Commonwealth equipments (e.g. Plasma, Flaks, Split engines).
If you stick to Terran only part you're golden, but if you need to add something non Terran...it will be the nightmare.

I'm considering building separate SY/Wharf for Terran ships, instead of expanding my current SY/Wharf.

Oh absolutely It's gonna be an absolute logistical nightmare for players because I'm pretty sure you NEED Terran Shipyards and Wharfs to build Terran ships. I'm pretty sure you can't built them at normal Shipyards/Wharfs. Not to mention they require completely different mats that you're gonna have to make yourself if you're out in the commonwealth. It's gonna be even more a nightmare for players that start out as Terrans as you start with -15 with pretty much every commonwealth faction. Hell even the pirate factions like you more than most of the commonwealth

Can you put other factions weapons on terran ships at their wharf? like an equipment dock. I personally don't see it as an issue if you can do that, just means you'll have to provide your terran shipyward with a few old faction wares.

If i've got to build a fleet and send it to an old faction equipment dock to equip the components i need then its going to be an absolute pain to equip terran fleets since you can't upgrade multiple ships at once.

As for the negative relations it won't be too difficult, -15 they won't attack your trader ships or stations, a few criminal traffic should get you in positive relations with them. (Criminal traffic give a HUGE reputation boost) i was on positive terms with ZYA within like 20 minutes.

[SmarterThanAll]

The Terran pulse, like the split "better than average damage" weapons, are slightly shorter range. 5km vs 4.4km IIRC. Though misses are common at extreme ranges for the standard pulse, so of limited use.

Given the faster speed and shorter range, Terran pulse should be noticably more effective than Argon Pulse at longer ranges (less travel time to target).

Totally. There are edge cases otherwise, though, IIRC, the medium turrets used in Xenon stations has a range of 4.6km, so the terrans would be unable to standoff while if they put on commonwealth pulse weapons, they could, as long as the graviton guns are gone or at least busy on other targets, bombard the medium turrets. VERY edge case, especially since there are sooooooooooo many small guns, all over the flipping place, on every single Xenon station. I keep getting pwned trying to disarm a Xenon station because they put their medium turrets in weird places, places that there would otherwise be a safe space to park, but then again, they still have plenty of those on the outside of the structure, so still catches me out with random trouncing. And if you have decent reverse, you can slam in reverse and just run back and an extra 600m can last long enough to kill an N. As long as the AI routine picked for it isn't "I will randomly jink up and down but still manage to point the lasers at you, evil human scum". They are annoying.

I mean the Asgard or a few of them would make short work of any Xenon station. The Asgard XL battery has a range of 14 km!!! They can literally sit back and destroy the station without ever getting in range. An the XL battery is way way way powerful it can near one shot a Raptor without ever getting in the raptors range that's kind of insane. There's a video of someone testing the AI to see if they correctly use the XL battery and to his mine and everyone's surprise they do! The AI shoots the XL battery at the Raptor and gets it down to like 15% hull in seconds. An if you're smart and just feather the Xl battery so it doesn't overheat you can absolutely crush a Raptor in less than 30 seconds without it ever reaching you. Now the Asgard is king shit against capitals and stations but it has obvious weakness against smaller ships. However when is anyone gonna use the Asgard alone and without some escort fleet? That's just nonsensical. Even the Terrans have carriers and a **** load of destroyers around their Asgards in the few times I've seen one in the wild.

[taztaz502]

I couldn't see any size fleet that the AI could produce of S/M ships even scratching an Asgard.

Things got 650,000 shields, 0 recharge rate and like 16 L turrets.

My behemoths barely even take any damage from them unless they lose their engines/turrets but then they'll generally just sit there forever tanking the damage.

[MSterling]

I mean the Asgard or a few of them would make short work of any Xenon station. The Asgard XL battery has a range of 14 km!!! They can literally sit back and destroy the station ...

Not unless the station is being built right in front of it.

One destroyed engine and the main guns of the Asgard are ways to draw a line in space, a very expensive etch-a-sketch. This is the weakness of the terrans, that and you have less work to cripple their economy. Indeed if you blockaded Terra/Luna but still let traders through, blow them up trying to get back in, and started blowing up terran stations, the traders would take reserves from the inner stockpiles and choke production, you would take massive losses holding the line, but you have the entire universe to raid to build new ships, put ship manufacture in Antigone and ferry replacements continually, and every ship you take out cannot be replaced by Sol, the materials were used to repair and build new stations.

If diplomacy were an option, such a blockade of Sol could garner a ceasefire peace treaty with Terra. It is a pity that the HOP are not likewise strategically weak.

Oh, and I think the beam is bugged. According to given stats, the XL battery should not one-shot. 10k for 5 seconds is 50k of shielding. A Behemoth has, what, 160k? Three shots it should take, during which the shields recharge. Looks like it is doing 100k, not 10k, with the cooldown. However, if the I were also taken out in one shot, that would show something closer to 200k damage.