The saga of the infamous Hero Ships is as old as the game itself and so is the discussion whether or not the concept is a valuable addition to the game or just a cash grab. I’m not going to beat that dead horse but I’d like to take a minute and write about a revelation that I had recently in terms of gameplay.

I was playing Veteran fleet a few days back because at that particular daytime I could not get a Legendary match popping. The game mode was Conquest and so I decided to give my dust gathering Hanuman Hero Ship a try. I did decently well and I ended up earning around 5k Free XP which made the usage of that Hero Ship really worthwhile for me. Especially since all my Tier III’s are maxed out and I don’t need the ship bound (but higher amount of) XP to level them anymore.

The locked and subpar loadouts of Hero Ship require them to be of the highest tier in their respective fleets in order to make them competitive. The ‘Legends Redefined’ update (or 'Last nail in the coffin' as I call it) made things better and worse in that respect, depending on what fleet you are looking at.

The Tier II Hero Ships are at the top of the food chain in Recruit Fleet (Tier I and II), the same goes for Tier III Hero Ships in Veteran (Tier II and III). Well, at least in terms of their base stats. Where things go off rails is in Legendary Fleet (Tier IV and V). Here the Hero Ships are a combination of the weakest base stats and subpar modules + officer briefings. Back when Tier IV could be applied to Legendary and Veteran this was a different situation but these days are gone and Tier IV Hero Ships can now be assigned to Legendary Fleet exclusively.

So players are asked to shell out 25 to 30 Euros to play a Hero Ship that has no chance of winning any one on one situation against a superior Tier V or even against a similar Tier IV but with better modules and/or officer briefings (I’m not going into the ‘Hero Ships are all about the cosmetics rather than viability’ debate).

The solution to this predicament is easy. To make Hero Ships competitive in Legendary Fleet SixFoot should simply increase the base values of the ships and their modules from Tier VI to V (without increasing the asking price of course!). This way Hero Ships in Legendary Fleet would make a turn from being useless cannon fodder and a liability to being a viable choice players might actually consider to purchase. A great effect for minimal effort...

What do you think?

I agree with you, but Im not sure 6foot would want to do that without upping the charge... But as they stand yeah, theyre basically useless and they became all about cosmetics for that reason but I dont think that was ever the intent.

I had a little hope that if not updating the existing T4's SixFoot would at least adjust new Hero Ships meant for Legendary Fleet to be T5. With the new AV Tac Cruiser Hero Ship 'Indrik' it is clear they are not going to.

I wonder how many will actually purchase this new Hero Ship as it has again

• inferior base stats,
• terribel modules for a pure healer (with the exception of the primary module) and,
• mediocre officer briefings.

And even the vanity items which even SixFoot considers to be the main selling point aren't appealing as it is probably the ugliest ship in the game so far though I admit this is purely subjective.

I honestly dont know if Ive ever seen a healer hero ship (or cosmetics) in battle. When it comes to aesthetics theyre all pretty lame.

With the inclusion of the Indrik we now have four hero healers in the game. There are two Oberon (Nereid and Akkoro) and two AV (Kali and Indrik).

The Nereid can be seen quite some time, though my personal favourite is the Akkoro design. This one really rocks. But yeah, all in all Hero healers are a rare sight. And the latest addition (Indrik) definitively won't change that.

I think the game should come out fresh with an "under new management" release.

The gameplay and art style are still great. For monetization there are a lot of problems with the current model. The hero ships do suck. And they always sucked. Paying a high price for a ship that cannot be customized - in a game all about customization - was always a bad idea. Paying for the privilege to be less competitive due to lack of module + OB customization has too strong of counter-incentives. It's not fun and it costs money.

But I do love the retrofits and buy them all like a madman. I love the visual customization. And the newest halloween release for 2019 looks gooood. And at a good price. I bought that in 2 seconds with zero regrets.