Thoughts on the freighter in 1.07a

[Viperion]

Personally, I don't think freighters should have their own weapons, unless they are some very nice broadside, massive power draining weapons. Like a 3 barrel fusionfire, or a triple fast laser, or something similar. The two weapon slot restriction serves to balance the freighter nicely without resorting to the gimmicks of special weapons or damage types.

Here's why - the freighter in trans already functions, essentially, as a Q ship. It's not that hard to play as an aggressive, warlike player with the freighter. So if I'm going to sacrifice and get a two-slot weapon, I want a weapon that takes some skill to use, can be devastatingly effective, and can wreck me if I use it wrong. As a freighter pilot, I think there should be a little bit of a 'roll the dice' feel when I go into combat, and I don't exactly get that now. I think I'm a fair pilot, and I'd like the challenge of something like that.

I need to throw together a mod to demonstrate what I'm thinking on this. I really do think if the freighter is going to get a significant weapon, it needs to come with significant tradeoffs.

The Hyper Viper

[Amariithynar]

Freighter weapons should provide similar effects as one rank up weapons (like a level III freighter-only weapon with level IV regular weapon stats) but be much, much heavier, cost more, and drain more power than the higher rank equivilent. This way, they pack a punch, as they should, but are much heftier in cost, power consumption, and weight limits. Heavy freighter type ships typically have heavy defenses due to their enormous bulk- It was typically the smaller craft that had limited defenses both defensively and offensively; Galleon-class ships for example had many rows of cannonnade at the ready, for offense, and the sheer size made doing any more than light structural damage to the hull a daunting task. I see the freighter type ships as similar.

Edit: Another option to them would be 'heavier' shots- more power goes into each shot, but it takes longer to draw, thus reducing the rate of fire.