I kind of like the idea of a zoom and boom strike cruiser.
5/3 or 6/2 on the weapon load out but average/poor agility, but with a battle cloak.
The reason is when we see them attack in Yesterday's Enterprise is a straight run in firing then an over pass.
This could give us a new attack style, no dogfighting or close combat, like the America pilots in the pacific in WW2, zoom in, shoot get the hell out again.
Any good?
Where ever you go, there you are.......
Join The Space Invaders,..... Federation and KDF fleets.
You're not even listening at this point. You want a free ship that everyone's going to get after a 10 minute mission to be the solution to all that ails the KDF, and it's not going to happen. Nor should it.
It's free, it should be a toy, it shouldn't really be a ship that's taken seriously or it'll be the only thing anyone uses anymore because everyone's going to have one..
IMO K'vort would fit as a big destroyer more then an big cruiser or an sized-up raider. I know K'vort was said to be a "battlecruiser" but I don't see the use of BoP-looking cruiser other then just for looks for some peeps. Personally, would love to see 4/3 weapon slots, 4 tac/3 eng/3 sci consoles and universal boff slots so it makes a solid ship for all captains - with 30k or slightly bit more hull points and 0.9 shield modifier with a very good manuverability for it's size. This would make a good heavy destroyer or a flavor of escort I suppose. I also see in this sense an standard cloak because battle one would be slightly op. This is all of course imho.
I'll be honest and say I'd be happy to get any kind of new ship on KDF - free or otherwise at this point.
As much as I would love to see another KDF ship that could contend with the new fed ships shouldn't we have more story content as there is no point in getting a new ship and having nothing to do with it.
NO TO ARC
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
and YOU are asking Cryptic to GIVE you a better cruiser than the ones you have to pay for, while complaining about the cost of the Fleet Ship modules.
Did you even see my proposal? Or are you just making stuff up now? Because the K'Vort I proposed isn't better than any tier 5 C-store ship..It'd basically be the free Bortas from the last event with a bit more maneuverability, less hull and shields a cloak and a worse console layout..
It'd basically be a Bortas, that we got free last year, with much worse defenses, much less crew, and better maneuverability. It'd have the defensive capabilities of the tier 4 Vor'Cha, with the weapons, consoles and BOFFs of the tier 5 ships.
It'd be a stand-in battlecruiser, just like the K'Vort was supposed to be.
It's not going to have the effectiveness of the Fleet Vor'Cha/Tor'Kaht due to only being a 9 console boat, having less shields, hull and crew. It'd also lack the Flor'Kaht'Cha's +10 engine power.
It's not going to be as tanky as the Negh'Var or Bortas because it has much less hull, shields and crew, but it has better maneuverability. It also lacks the Bortas' +15 weapons power bonus.
I could also argue that the KDF has no intermediate battlecruiser.
You're either stuck with the garbage default Negh'Var, staying with a tier 4 ship, buying the terrible Bortasque, or getting a fleet ship. This could make a good, solid tier 5 ship, without replacing anything else, and without introducing capabilities that no other KDF ship can match.
Because no free ship should do that.
Which would be...well..? If it wasn't BETTER you would not WANT it.
I'd want it because it's a neat ship that's available for a limited amount of time, for free, "celebrating" one of the best episodes of TNG.
A ship doesn't have to replace anything I've already got for me to want it..
I'd want the Ambassador even if it was nothing more then a reskin for the tier 4 Galaxy...I'd still want it..
so...you want the seating of the Veteran Destroyer, (that IS an LTC universal, right?) on a FREE cruiser...and you don't see this as a problem re: the cruisers we have to pay cashy-money for.
It's also the seating on a ship that was free last year, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Also, the seating on the Peghqu' is very different..The Lt.Commander universal is the ONLY similarity..
we've GOT the intermediate Cruiser covered; it's the Tor Kaht. YES, you have to buy (or grind Dil and convert to zen) Fleet Modules for it, but the role's covered.
The Fleet Tor'Kaht is hardly intermediate at anything. It's probably the single best ship in the game currently, discounting the atrocity that is the bugship.
As it sits, right now, your best option upon hitting endgame, if you don't want to spend money, is to keep on using your tier 4 ship...
and you want to give it to everyone who'll sit through a ten minute mission-to use your own words.
They gave a "better" ship to everyone who sat thru a 10 minute mission last year, so why not?
Klingons need science rigs. We get that. Why make a dedicated attack ship a science rig, tho? That makes no sense at all. Give KDF real science rigs and stop trying to fill the niche with ships that shouldn't be doing it anyway.
How much 'science' have we ever actually seen a Bird of Prey do?
Let's give KDF some real science rigs, like the Jach'eng or the Fek'lhr. How hard would it really be to give Klingons real science ships instead of trying to gimp ships for science that clearly shouldn't be fulfilling scientific roles?
3 Tactical (basis: the B'rel Fleet has 4 engineering, Hoh'sus has 4 tactical.)
And there's the whole problem. You want this free ship to fill a role that not even $20.00 fleet ships can fill.
Like I said, if they want to release a pack later that has a Sci/Eng/Tac versions, like they did the Bortas, Odyssey and no doubt will do with the Ambassador, so be it. Great. I'll welcome that. But the free one shouldn't be comparable in any way to $20.00 fleet ships...
1)I could ask the same question of you-why make a Cruiser out of a dedicated recon ship?
Because that's what they called it in that episode? Not once, but twice. Including once by Picard..
I don't care about special effects, or model budgets, or any of that nonsense. I know that in an alternate universe, they called the ship a battlecruiser. And it's this alternate universe that we're highlighting in the event. Therefore, the ship should be what it was in that episode. A battlecruiser..
2)concession to the game here; MOST players using KDF sci toons run around in Bird of Prey to make use of their sci abilities.
Because there's no better option. There should be, but there isn't. "That's how things are" is no reason for propagating bad game mechanics.
So I end up seeing a LOT of BoPs doing Sci...and if you're watching, so would you.
See my above post.
If KDF had dedicated science rigs, people probably wouldn't be using BoPs, which are classified ingame as raiders, for science duties. Especially when they aren't really that good at it because of a general lack of consoles..
KDF needs a dedicated Sci rig with 4/5 sci consoles, not a BoP with 3 sci consoles pretending to be a science rig. And adding another one of those isn't going to fix the problem.
Further, the improved Cloak seen in the movies was tested...on a BoP, not a cruiser
Maybe because it--hold on for this one--wasn't government funded and a BoP would've been cheaper to not only obtain, but man, then a cruiser? We weren't talking about a KDF-run experiment. So they likely used what they could afford/spare/maintain.
Farmer John uses a Mazda Pick-up to haul dirt instead of a dump truck. Therefore, one can conclude Mazda Pick-ups are better at hauling dirt then dump trucks..
KDF would be government-funded. In fact, we hear in ST VI that 3/4 of the Klingon economy is dedicated to the military...
Finally, it's the role of a Sci ship: Sci ships are HUNTERS, first and foremost, in a culture like the Empire
Good job making that up. Too bad it has no basis in the canon at all.
Give KDF real science rigs. Bird of Preys are not science rigs, nor should they be.
I'm looking at this mainly from the business angle
It's a free ship. There IS no business angle. As I said, if they want to go and sell it as a pack-ship like they did the Odyssey and Bortas and more then likely will do with the Ambassador, dandy. I'm talking about the FREE one..
Business-wise, it makes a hell of a lot more sense to convert a BoP-looking ship into a Bird of Prey with some special ability, than it does to generate another cruiser that probably won't sell after the initial roll-out.
It's a free ship. Whatever they do with the free one will have no bearing on what they do with the C-store pack ships. Again, see the Odyssey and Bortas, which are very different as c-store ships then they were as free ships..
your inclusion of a CDR Uni console puts it in direct competition with better designs that already exist.
Bolded the part that matters.
Direct competition with better designs?
If there are better designs, there is no competition, direct or indirect..
How many ships did the free Bortas obsolete?
so where's the profit for Cryptic in your proposal?
There is no profit because it's a free ship...
at least MINE includes the ability to sell it once the event's over,
And if they do sell it when the event's over, it'll likely be in a "Tac/Sci/Eng" 3-ship pack just like the Odyssey and Bortas...so what the free ship is will have absolutely no bearing on what the bundle ship will be, assuming there is one..
upsizing a BoP into a full on Cruiser makes as much sense as putting jet engines on a sopwith camel
Except they did it in the show, to pretty good effect presumably considering the Federation was losing the war and said "Sopwith Camerls with jet engines" presumably destroyed the "battleship" Enterprise-D..
I've said it at least 3 times now. If they want to make a sci-version of the ship as you envision it for the $50.00 3-ship-pack like they have done the Odyssey, Bortas and likely will do the Ambassador, awesome. That's prime work. Good job Cryptic..
But the free one doesn't need to be some half-assed science ship "just because KDF doesn't have one"...
Except they did it in the show, to pretty good effect presumably considering the Federation was losing the war and said "Sopwith Camerls with jet engines" presumably destroyed the "battleship" Enterprise-D..
"They" did it on the show because they didn't have the budget to make a new Klingon battlecruiser for that episode. When the Vor'cha model was produced in season 4, the K'vort was never mentioned again.
Copy & Past, and no, I don't care about the cloak if it means a lower shield mod. I won't say no to SC or BC, but if it means they have to fiddle around with the stats/layout I'd rather they just leave well enough alone. We have enough tinderbox feather weights already.
While a new skin would be nice I love my T5 bop skin & would love to be able to fly that skin around without feeling gimped as hell while doing so. BC & Uni flexibility comes at too high a price for the TRIBBLE Bop. I see no need to make the same mistake again.
As a final note, I don't care if I have to "pay" for it. If that's what it takes to get a half decent BOP layout with those T5 skins attached then so be it.
"They" did it on the show because they didn't have the budget to make a new Klingon battlecruiser for that episode. When the Vor'cha model was produced in season 4, the K'vort was never mentioned again.
You're clinging to that assumption that the C-store bundle has to be anything like the Free version, despite stating that the C-store versions of the Odyssey and Bortas are better then the free ones, awfully hard..
They can do whatever they want with the c-store ones. They probably will do a sci/tac/eng bundle just like they have done with the Odyssey and Bortas and will probably do with the Ambassador.
But I'm not talking about the C-store bundle.
I'm talking about the free ship.
Which will have absolutely no bearing on what the C-store bundle will be..
For the free ship, there is no price point because it's free
except in determining whether or not the c-store version will ever see the light of a computer monitor after the event.
the 'free' version is a taster to see if it's worth the effort to continue.
And what exactly are you basing that on?
The Bortas was hated, despised and rejected almost immediately, and they still put out 3 C-store versions of it..
The models are probably already done. Feedback on the free one will likely have little to no bearing on the C-store version(s), since they'll likely be very, very different ships..
It's like using customer feedback on a base-model Dodge Charger to decide whether or not to continue to sell the SRT-8...
It must be spectacularly successful, so successful that it erases three years of failure.
I guess the Bortas was spectacularly successful, huh?
No..No it wasn't..
Also, Stahl's blaming the community for lack of sales of a ship that was terrible to begin with is a joke. Since when does a business blame the potential customer base for not buying something they don't want?
and AFTER the Bortas, how many KDF ships showed up, hmmm?
Yah, zero. (the vet rewards and fleet ships don't count.)
Because the Bortas was terrible. But so were the C-store versions..
That's the big one there.
The C-Store versions are very different from the free Bortas. But they're still awful, and they're ridiculously expensive. They weren't ships that the KDF players wanted, so the KDF players weren't going to buy them. No KDF player I ever saw asked for a Fed starcruiser with cannons. The very mention of anything less-maneuverable then a Negh'Var would've been laughed down instantly.
If Cryptic took the time to know their playerbase and what their playerbase wanted, they'd know that.
That's their own damn fault for not listening. It has nothing to do with the FREE ship and everything to do with the REAL MONEY ship being terrible when it didn't need to be.
They can still give us a FREE battlecruiser version of the K'Vort..
And then..
Then
Get this
Wait
Guys
Wait seriously
Wait
Guys
SELL US a science and escort version of it as the post-event bundle!
You know, ships people actually want, instead of the Bortaswhale?
None of the free "event" ships have ever been a "hit from the beginning".
Even the free Odyssey was a disaster and was terribad on so many levels it wasn't even funny.
You're making it sound like the free version of the ship has to be accepted by all, adored and loved for them to even consider releasing completely different versions of the ship, on models that they've probably already made..
That simply isn't the case. The free version will have little to no bearing on whether or not people will buy the C-store version.
What will guarantee people buy the C-store version is listening to the playerbase and giving the playerbase ships they want to buy..Something they failed miserably to do with the Bortas, and that's why it was such a tragic failure. Because they didn't listen..
The free one's going to be a toy. It's not going to be something that's meant to be competitive. It's meant to look pretty and whet people's appetites for better versions of it that they can sell on the c-store for ridiculously high prices.
The free one needs to make people say "Hey, this is neat, but I wish it had......"
And then that's what you give them.
And then they'll buy it..
Now, what is yet to be seen is if they'll do it right this time and give the playerbase ships to buy that they actually want.
And the free one has little to no bearing on that, because the playerbase knows the free one will be trash compared to what the C-store pack will be.
It's like stylng a family economy sedan like a supercar-it will only carry the stigma of poor performance, even if you paint it red and if you then offer a supercar version, people will only remember the TRIBBLE performance of the initial version.
Toyota Supra. Performance car with a family car base that has achieved legendary status despite all of the above. Nobody remembers the **** base model, they remember the 2JZ twin-turbo rocket that was still based on a family car's platform...
Except...the Oddy had something we're not going to ever have with a Klink ship:
The name "Enterprise".
The Enterprise-F is an Odyssey Tac cruiser. The original Odyssey was not the "Enterprise"..
As for your Supra argument-not a supercar, it got its reputation solely as a "Tuner's car" in the hands of teenagers, so it's mostly invalid-a pony car is a pony car, and the Supra was the japanese equivalent of the original mustang-a pony car.
Irrelevant. A performance car based on a family car that nobody really even knows about, let alone cares about. It's a direct contradiction to your "performance car being dragged down by it's humble roots" comparison. There are many such stories in the automotive industry. Ever heard of the Pontiac GTO? How about the humble LeMans that the GTO was based on that nobody's ever heard of?
Finally, by limiting it to a Cruiser, you're hamstringing the brand from the outset-there are better Cruisers already available and plentiful
Not to someone who doesn't want to pay any money, there aren't.
people only ask for things to be added if they actually LIKE the thing they're adding to.
And what're you basing that on?
Again, we're talking about ships that can have anything adjusted on them. If they want to make class-specific variations for the C-store, nothing's stopping them. The free ship shouldn't be a requirement for filling voids in the KDF line-up. That's asinine.
Comments
5/3 or 6/2 on the weapon load out but average/poor agility, but with a battle cloak.
The reason is when we see them attack in Yesterday's Enterprise is a straight run in firing then an over pass.
This could give us a new attack style, no dogfighting or close combat, like the America pilots in the pacific in WW2, zoom in, shoot get the hell out again.
Any good?
Join The Space Invaders,..... Federation and KDF fleets.
You're not even listening at this point. You want a free ship that everyone's going to get after a 10 minute mission to be the solution to all that ails the KDF, and it's not going to happen. Nor should it.
It's free, it should be a toy, it shouldn't really be a ship that's taken seriously or it'll be the only thing anyone uses anymore because everyone's going to have one..
I'll be honest and say I'd be happy to get any kind of new ship on KDF - free or otherwise at this point.
Vice Admiral Volmack ISS Thundermole
Brigadier General Jokag IKS Gorkan
Centurion Kares RRW Tomalak
[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC]
Did you even see my proposal? Or are you just making stuff up now? Because the K'Vort I proposed isn't better than any tier 5 C-store ship..It'd basically be the free Bortas from the last event with a bit more maneuverability, less hull and shields a cloak and a worse console layout..
My proposal, since you apparently didn't read it, was..
Battlecruiser
4 fore
4 aft
10 base turning
0.15 impulse modifier
1.0-1.05 shield modifier
30,000 hull
900 crew
+10 Weapons
BOFFs:
Lt.Cmdr Uni
Lt Tac
Cmdr Eng
Ens Eng
Lt Sci
Consoles:
4 eng
1 sci
4 tac
Could alternatively do:
4 eng
2 sci
3 tac
It'd basically be a Bortas, that we got free last year, with much worse defenses, much less crew, and better maneuverability. It'd have the defensive capabilities of the tier 4 Vor'Cha, with the weapons, consoles and BOFFs of the tier 5 ships.
It'd be a stand-in battlecruiser, just like the K'Vort was supposed to be.
It's not going to have the effectiveness of the Fleet Vor'Cha/Tor'Kaht due to only being a 9 console boat, having less shields, hull and crew. It'd also lack the Flor'Kaht'Cha's +10 engine power.
It's not going to be as tanky as the Negh'Var or Bortas because it has much less hull, shields and crew, but it has better maneuverability. It also lacks the Bortas' +15 weapons power bonus.
I could also argue that the KDF has no intermediate battlecruiser.
You're either stuck with the garbage default Negh'Var, staying with a tier 4 ship, buying the terrible Bortasque, or getting a fleet ship. This could make a good, solid tier 5 ship, without replacing anything else, and without introducing capabilities that no other KDF ship can match.
Because no free ship should do that.
I'd want it because it's a neat ship that's available for a limited amount of time, for free, "celebrating" one of the best episodes of TNG.
A ship doesn't have to replace anything I've already got for me to want it..
I'd want the Ambassador even if it was nothing more then a reskin for the tier 4 Galaxy...I'd still want it..
I WANT this so baaad
Size doesn't matter much, I mean we got the Vesta which is almost the size of a Sovereign but handles almost like a escort.
It's also the seating on a ship that was free last year, so I'm not sure what you're getting at.
Also, the seating on the Peghqu' is very different..The Lt.Commander universal is the ONLY similarity..
The Fleet Tor'Kaht is hardly intermediate at anything. It's probably the single best ship in the game currently, discounting the atrocity that is the bugship.
As it sits, right now, your best option upon hitting endgame, if you don't want to spend money, is to keep on using your tier 4 ship...
They gave a "better" ship to everyone who sat thru a 10 minute mission last year, so why not?
Klingons need science rigs. We get that. Why make a dedicated attack ship a science rig, tho? That makes no sense at all. Give KDF real science rigs and stop trying to fill the niche with ships that shouldn't be doing it anyway.
How much 'science' have we ever actually seen a Bird of Prey do?
Let's give KDF some real science rigs, like the Jach'eng or the Fek'lhr. How hard would it really be to give Klingons real science ships instead of trying to gimp ships for science that clearly shouldn't be fulfilling scientific roles?
And there's the whole problem. You want this free ship to fill a role that not even $20.00 fleet ships can fill.
Like I said, if they want to release a pack later that has a Sci/Eng/Tac versions, like they did the Bortas, Odyssey and no doubt will do with the Ambassador, so be it. Great. I'll welcome that. But the free one shouldn't be comparable in any way to $20.00 fleet ships...
Because that's what they called it in that episode? Not once, but twice. Including once by Picard..
I don't care about special effects, or model budgets, or any of that nonsense. I know that in an alternate universe, they called the ship a battlecruiser. And it's this alternate universe that we're highlighting in the event. Therefore, the ship should be what it was in that episode. A battlecruiser..
Because there's no better option. There should be, but there isn't. "That's how things are" is no reason for propagating bad game mechanics.
See my above post.
If KDF had dedicated science rigs, people probably wouldn't be using BoPs, which are classified ingame as raiders, for science duties. Especially when they aren't really that good at it because of a general lack of consoles..
KDF needs a dedicated Sci rig with 4/5 sci consoles, not a BoP with 3 sci consoles pretending to be a science rig. And adding another one of those isn't going to fix the problem.
Maybe because it--hold on for this one--wasn't government funded and a BoP would've been cheaper to not only obtain, but man, then a cruiser? We weren't talking about a KDF-run experiment. So they likely used what they could afford/spare/maintain.
Farmer John uses a Mazda Pick-up to haul dirt instead of a dump truck. Therefore, one can conclude Mazda Pick-ups are better at hauling dirt then dump trucks..
KDF would be government-funded. In fact, we hear in ST VI that 3/4 of the Klingon economy is dedicated to the military...
Good job making that up. Too bad it has no basis in the canon at all.
Give KDF real science rigs. Bird of Preys are not science rigs, nor should they be.
It's a free ship. There IS no business angle. As I said, if they want to go and sell it as a pack-ship like they did the Odyssey and Bortas and more then likely will do with the Ambassador, dandy. I'm talking about the FREE one..
It's a free ship. Whatever they do with the free one will have no bearing on what they do with the C-store pack ships. Again, see the Odyssey and Bortas, which are very different as c-store ships then they were as free ships..
Bolded the part that matters.
Direct competition with better designs?
If there are better designs, there is no competition, direct or indirect..
How many ships did the free Bortas obsolete?
There is no profit because it's a free ship...
And if they do sell it when the event's over, it'll likely be in a "Tac/Sci/Eng" 3-ship pack just like the Odyssey and Bortas...so what the free ship is will have absolutely no bearing on what the bundle ship will be, assuming there is one..
Except they did it in the show, to pretty good effect presumably considering the Federation was losing the war and said "Sopwith Camerls with jet engines" presumably destroyed the "battleship" Enterprise-D..
I've said it at least 3 times now. If they want to make a sci-version of the ship as you envision it for the $50.00 3-ship-pack like they have done the Odyssey, Bortas and likely will do the Ambassador, awesome. That's prime work. Good job Cryptic..
But the free one doesn't need to be some half-assed science ship "just because KDF doesn't have one"...
"They" did it on the show because they didn't have the budget to make a new Klingon battlecruiser for that episode. When the Vor'cha model was produced in season 4, the K'vort was never mentioned again.
^
Copy & Past, and no, I don't care about the cloak if it means a lower shield mod. I won't say no to SC or BC, but if it means they have to fiddle around with the stats/layout I'd rather they just leave well enough alone. We have enough tinderbox feather weights already.
While a new skin would be nice I love my T5 bop skin & would love to be able to fly that skin around without feeling gimped as hell while doing so. BC & Uni flexibility comes at too high a price for the TRIBBLE Bop. I see no need to make the same mistake again.
As a final note, I don't care if I have to "pay" for it. If that's what it takes to get a half decent BOP layout with those T5 skins attached then so be it.
DS9: Penumbra. IKS Koraga.
They can do whatever they want with the c-store ones. They probably will do a sci/tac/eng bundle just like they have done with the Odyssey and Bortas and will probably do with the Ambassador.
But I'm not talking about the C-store bundle.
I'm talking about the free ship.
Which will have absolutely no bearing on what the C-store bundle will be..
For the free ship, there is no price point because it's free
And what exactly are you basing that on?
The Bortas was hated, despised and rejected almost immediately, and they still put out 3 C-store versions of it..
The models are probably already done. Feedback on the free one will likely have little to no bearing on the C-store version(s), since they'll likely be very, very different ships..
It's like using customer feedback on a base-model Dodge Charger to decide whether or not to continue to sell the SRT-8...
I guess the Bortas was spectacularly successful, huh?
No..No it wasn't..
Also, Stahl's blaming the community for lack of sales of a ship that was terrible to begin with is a joke. Since when does a business blame the potential customer base for not buying something they don't want?
Because the Bortas was terrible. But so were the C-store versions..
That's the big one there.
The C-Store versions are very different from the free Bortas. But they're still awful, and they're ridiculously expensive. They weren't ships that the KDF players wanted, so the KDF players weren't going to buy them. No KDF player I ever saw asked for a Fed starcruiser with cannons. The very mention of anything less-maneuverable then a Negh'Var would've been laughed down instantly.
If Cryptic took the time to know their playerbase and what their playerbase wanted, they'd know that.
That's their own damn fault for not listening. It has nothing to do with the FREE ship and everything to do with the REAL MONEY ship being terrible when it didn't need to be.
They can still give us a FREE battlecruiser version of the K'Vort..
And then..
Then
Get this
Wait
Guys
Wait seriously
Wait
Guys
SELL US a science and escort version of it as the post-event bundle!
You know, ships people actually want, instead of the Bortaswhale?
Even the free Odyssey was a disaster and was terribad on so many levels it wasn't even funny.
You're making it sound like the free version of the ship has to be accepted by all, adored and loved for them to even consider releasing completely different versions of the ship, on models that they've probably already made..
That simply isn't the case. The free version will have little to no bearing on whether or not people will buy the C-store version.
What will guarantee people buy the C-store version is listening to the playerbase and giving the playerbase ships they want to buy..Something they failed miserably to do with the Bortas, and that's why it was such a tragic failure. Because they didn't listen..
The free one's going to be a toy. It's not going to be something that's meant to be competitive. It's meant to look pretty and whet people's appetites for better versions of it that they can sell on the c-store for ridiculously high prices.
The free one needs to make people say "Hey, this is neat, but I wish it had......"
And then that's what you give them.
And then they'll buy it..
Now, what is yet to be seen is if they'll do it right this time and give the playerbase ships to buy that they actually want.
And the free one has little to no bearing on that, because the playerbase knows the free one will be trash compared to what the C-store pack will be.
Toyota Supra. Performance car with a family car base that has achieved legendary status despite all of the above. Nobody remembers the **** base model, they remember the 2JZ twin-turbo rocket that was still based on a family car's platform...
The Enterprise-F is an Odyssey Tac cruiser. The original Odyssey was not the "Enterprise"..
Irrelevant. A performance car based on a family car that nobody really even knows about, let alone cares about. It's a direct contradiction to your "performance car being dragged down by it's humble roots" comparison. There are many such stories in the automotive industry. Ever heard of the Pontiac GTO? How about the humble LeMans that the GTO was based on that nobody's ever heard of?
Not to someone who doesn't want to pay any money, there aren't.
And what're you basing that on?
Again, we're talking about ships that can have anything adjusted on them. If they want to make class-specific variations for the C-store, nothing's stopping them. The free ship shouldn't be a requirement for filling voids in the KDF line-up. That's asinine.