Should spawn ships all be small ships?

[zrisher]

There's been a lot of debate on whether the spawn ships should remain large grids or should move to small. If we used small ships, they would have to contain enough components to build a large grid with a reactor, med bay, refinery, and assembler.

Pros of Small Grids:

• Decreased ramming damage - ramming happens a lot with spawn ships, and large grids do significantly more damage
• More work to get started - if we want there to be more progression from start to end, we could make the start harder

Pros of Large Grids:

• Less work to get started - if we think there's enough difficulty at the beginning, this makes it a lot easier for people to get started
• Harder to abuse for resources - You have to grind down the ship to get its components, instead of just taking a ton out of an inventory

[chickenbranches]

I feel like something that needs to be added in the consideration is how it changes what new players do when they first start on the server. So many times I hear new players just go straight to a cp and get destroyed by other players and not be able to do anything. It would be my hope that if it is a small ship, then players may try to set up a little base further out so that they can have a medbay first. I am sure some people will still be stupid enough to go straight to a cp though.

I don't think the early game needs to be any harder tbh. It is already hard enough to get the resources you need without being killed or losing too much to a bug from core. We want the pvp to be fighter v fighter instead of mostly fighter v spawn ship. On that note, if we go with small ship then i suggest we include enough materials to make a small drill ship as well as the basic large grid.

[MrZSFG]

ya

[stackcollision]

Having only small starter ships will drive players away. I, and all my friends who play this game, almost always immediately leave any server that only has small starters. You've already cited the fact that getting started in GC is much harder than in normal SE. Forcing players into a small ship makes an already uphill climb into vertical cliff. Chicken, there is absolutely nothing to back up your assertion that giving players only small ships will encourage them to set up a base before going to a CP. They'll dive straight into the CPs just like they do with big ships, and they will get killed even faster.

That said, I don't see a reason to not give players a choice. Give them a small and larger starter ship in the menu, let them pick how they die.

[chickenbranches]

Actually, i did give a reason to back up what i said but let me repeat what i said with more details. A large ship already gives you a working refinery/assembler/medbay. Therefore, whats to stop you from going and getting some ore immediately and have it start refining as soon as you grab it. With a small ship, you can still get all of that stuff, but you have to set it up first for it to work. Yes there are still going to be players who are stupid enough to go straight to a CP, but not everyone. Also, a small ship could be harder to hit and be made faster for fewer materials making it harder for them to be destroyed. I actually enjoy servers with small respawn ships, so not everyone shares your opinion.

[MrZSFG]

I'm kinda going both ways in this right now :l

[drNovikov]

Maybe 1 large ship every 24 hours, 1 small every 30 minutes?