Is there such a thing as too many ships?
TL;DRThe panel says there's no such thing as too many ships overall, only too many of the same type, and similar ships across different manufacturers give players useful variety.
No, definitely not. It's only a problem when there's too many of the same type. We obviously have, I forget the exact number now, but it's like 200-ish.
We're at 197 now, that have been announced and revealed so far.
If we had 197 light fighters, that's too many light fighters, I think. But when you spread it over all the careers, all the roles, all the progression within the roles, I think there's certainly room for plenty of them.
Would you still say that if there were 197 different manufacturers? Or 197 different styles of light fighter?
No, if there's 197 manufacturers and each of them wants to do a light fighter, then there's going to be some very close, similar attributes beyond visuals, but in that very specific instance, no, I don't think so.
I think that's what's right for Stanton as well, isn't it? A whole host of different manufacturers and a whole host of different roles. And not every manufacturer is going to deliver every role. And yeah, I think that's fine. I think there's also a lot of space in our universe for things that aren't necessarily straight off the production line. So we're bringing these new systems out, and you don't expect every system to have, oh, it's got a new manufacturer in it and it's got this, that and the other. But I think there's definitely scope for less official ships, so things that wouldn't necessarily fall under certain manufacturers, or they might have started out as a particular thing, but they've been retrofitted and kept alive over generations of...
Millennium Falcon kind of thing. Things that have been customised so much...
Can't even tell what it originally was. Junkers.
I agree with John. Even within subgroups, it's important to have even very similar ships to each other, because every manufacturer will do it a little bit different. Players for the most part have manufacturers they prefer and certain traits that manufacturers do compared to other ones. So certain ones might be more luxurious, more military, et cetera, et cetera. Having multiple of a similar type across multiple manufacturers, I think that's fine, because it gives people variation about what they want to pick. There's not one type of estate car in the world. There's not one type of sports motorbike in the world. There's variation because people like different things. So if we had 50 Argo single-seat mining ships, then absolutely. But having five or six across multiple manufacturers, they all bring little bits and pieces to the table.