Dromedary cargo error

The 275 cargo of the Dromedary makes perfect sense to me. What the Dromedary lacks in mountable equipment and armor plating compared to the Humpback, it makes up with increased cargo space.

There´s nowhere else a negative correlation between armor and cargo space. Armor and cargo space both gradually improve as you go up in levels. Take a look at this ordered lists of numbers. It´s not hard to find which one very boldly breaks the pattern: 80, 90, 125, 275, 175, 250 These are the cargo sizes of the Freelancer freighters, ordered by level and ease of acquisition. If you divide the Drone´s cargo capacity by its level, you get 12. Exactly the same for the Humpback. For the Dromedary, it´s over double that: 27. In all other instances (gun capacity, armor, nanobots/shield-batteries, weapon class, and gun battery), the ships get better as you progress in levels. (Except for turn rate, which fluctuates somewhat for the other ships; it remains constant for Freighters, except for the Humpback: the Humpback has a terrible turn rate, owing to its large size, i.e., cargo capacity.) The Drone and the Dromedary are roughly equal in all respects: same level, roughly the same stats. Except the Dromedary has, for no reason, a HUGE cargo capacity, making it far better than the Freighter twice its level. It would make much better sense if the cargo capacity of the Dromedary were identical to the Drone´s. Whoever ordered this stuff made a typo: 275 where 175 was clearly intended. It´s really unfortunate, since it makes it essentially pointless to fly the best freighter in the game.

When you´re making a game as vast as FL, you don´t "typo" on something of that import. Something like a ship´s cargo capacity would be extensively tested, retested, and tested many more times by the team as they were working on the game. I know how this stuff is done. Trust me, they didn´t "typo". The Dromedary is pretty much THE rebel freighter. Rebel factions tend to have better ships (Titan and Sabre, anyone? Even the Eagle is held by a somewhat less-than-ideal faction in terms of the law), thus giving them a better freighter makes sense. I look at the Dromedary as a tradeoff: slightly less weapon power, but increased cargo space for the same amount of cash as the Humpback. Besides, I beg to differ on the ease of access point. In order to get access to the Dromedary, you have to become at least neutral with the owning faction--which can be dangerous, since you don´t want to become hostile to the Police--if you do, you´re relegated to the border worlds, where trading isn´t as big of an issue.

I agree that it´s basically unimaginable that such an error could creep through. Which makes the fact that it clearly did, well, shocking. But look at the numbers. Whoever set them up had a clear plan, and the consistency and logic of that plan is radically broken by this error. It´s easier to get the Dromedary than it is to get the Drone. But they´re about equal. (Thus, they should be about equal, in cargo capacity.) Who ever flies a Humpback, except for the sake of a challenge? Certainly there´s no practical reason. This is totally wrong. It would be like a level 10 fighter which was MORE powerful than a VHF, essentially making the VHF´s obsolete. Sure you can rationalize any error, but this one is pretty easy.

Just because you disagree with it does not make it an error. I also think that the writers did what they wanted to do and did it the way they wanted. As far as the Humpback, I like to use it. It is easy to obtain. And has such heavy armor and shields that a lot of really good runs are "Set wavepoints and forget" runs. I rarely have to even defend myself with it on most runs. So if I want to take a break and just make some money with a trading character on a server I can do it while I am actually taking care of something else also. I don´t think any ship is truly bad. Remember different does not mean worse, nor does disagreement mean wrong,

I think I have not been clear. So very basically: Similar-level-ships always have similar stats. If one ship is better than similar-level ships, the advantage is always slight. All stats increase gradually as ship-level increases. It wouldn´t make sense for the the Rhino to be better than the Mule, or the Mule better than the Clydesdale. This is the same rule we find in all other games. You gradually get better weapons: you simply don´t get a level-10 sword that´s better than a level-20 sword. It´s the fundamental principle of level-based games: you get better stuff as you increase levels. The Dromedary is a HUGE exception to these rules. Are any of the above points disputable? Yes, I guess it´s a tradeoff between the Dromedary´s cargo-hold and the Humpback´s armor. But there´s not supposed to *be* a tradeoff between a level-20 ship, compared to a level-10 ship. All level-20 ships are *far* superior on all counts. As far as how this error crept into the code, I can only speculate. Most likely would seem that someone in late-production changed the Dromedary´s cargo-space, to run a test or something, and forgot to change it back. Edit: One point I didn´t consider: it´s arguably the Dromedary´s LEVEL that´s the problem. If the Dromedary were level-20, I would have less reason to argue that an error had been made. Still , I think the larger game-design suggests that the Dromedary was intended to be roughly equivalent to the Drone, since it is equivalent to the Drone in all other respects. Edited by - breslin on 7/18/2005 11:41:18 AM

also the drone and drom cost roughly the same, bout 60K. Also looking at the animals these ships are named after in order of smallest to largest: rhino, mule, clidesdale, drone, humpback, dromedary rhino, donkey, horse, bee, whale, camel I dont think the game designers would save the name of a whale for the second biggest ship and use a pathetic camel as the biggest, they have slightly more brains than that.

Saber tooth, this is a dead thread for about 3 months. I´m A Forum Bowser!

he´s a recruit; cut him some slack. Death to the salad eaters!