Hero ships are another area that have been discussed for a long time as they come with one build only, cannot be changed and, unless you're lucky, will not match the playstyle you want - so basically they are sub-optimal in most cases.

Dreadnought knows this, have no intention of changing this and I guess the main reason many buy is for the look of the ship which can then be used on other ships of the same manufacturer and type of ship as the hero ship.

It would be unfair to call them 'Zero Ships', but many get caught out when they pay a fair bit of money and find they really don't feel like they bought themselves a slice of hero! O7

Hero ships have to be played a specific way. If you can adapt your play style to them, they can be quite good. If you can't, only but them if you want there look/coating and decal. The T2 and T3 are good value for money imo as you get a retrofit, (1500GP) a coating pack (aound 999GP) and a decal pack (around 599-999) form 700- 1500 each.

Indeed, £30 ($40) is a bargain for a camo, ship parts and decal if they appeal to your individual style.

Okay, question for OP.

When you buy a hero ship you also get the paint, decal, and ship parts of that ship correct?

So what's stopping you from just applying them all to the equivalent ship when you unlock it? It's exactly the same, and you can use the tech tree too.

Like many others I bought my hero ship solely for the cosmetics. I would have spent more money on more hero ships but the steep price tags keep me from doing so. To me scrapping the whole hero ship concept and offering the cosmetics separately at a reasonable price would be the much more lucrative option. Just saying...

The hero ships also give you extra xp and credits as long as you have them in your fleet. That is a huge savings on time over the long haul.

$40 that makes you look good and skims grind time off the top is actually a pretty good deal for people just getting into the game. Unfortunately im pretty squarely into T5 progression and its not as valuable for me.

It's far more effective to spend your money on Elite Status as you will get much more XP and credits compared to the benefits of a hero ship.

Ah, but again that is not the only thing a hero ship gives you. Also, you can have both. Why wouldn't you stack them?

Also also, as a one time purchase its a smaller investment, which appeals to some people.

SAD-Reclaimer#0656 posted (#post-234149) said:

Like many others I bought my hero ship solely for the cosmetics. I would have spent more money on more hero ships but the steep price tags keep me from doing so. To me scrapping the whole hero ship concept and offering the cosmetics separately at a reasonable price would be the much more lucrative option. Just saying...

I agree entirely. Retrofits have kind of filled that gap, but I stillwish they did that for existing hero ships too.

Ridiculon#3900 posted (#post-234152) said:

Ah, but again that is not the only thing a hero ship gives you. Also, you can have both. Why wouldn't you stack them?

Also also, as a one time purchase its a smaller investment, which appeals to some people.

It's simply a matter of cost-benefit-ratio.

A hero ship nets you +10% XP which you can't transfer to ships you acually want to progress. You can convert the XP to freeXP, though, but at a horrendous exchange rate of 1GP per 40 XP. The same +10% bonus applies to freeXP but with an average gain of around 500 freeXP per match (with a hero ship being in your fleet but not being used) that bonus only amounts to 50 freeXP per match which is miniscule and as such forgettable.

There is one instance in which a hero ship has a noticeable effect on freeXP gains, though, and that is when you actively play one. Then your freeXP gains increase significantly (the same goes for normal XP gains but with the conversion requirement I'm going to ignore that). But then again, most of the hero ships have subpar modules and/or officer briefings or just modules/OB's that don't fit your playstyle so playing them becomes a chore more often than not.

The Elite Status on the over hand nets you +100% so it literally doubles your XP gains which is 10 times the bonus of a hero ship. But the real obstacle to obtaining a hero ship is the price tag. 3000 GP (for a T4) which equals roughly 25 € is a lot of money for just a +10% bonus to XP which you have no use for unless you spend even more money.

I don't have the exact number but let's assume 3000 GP will grant you 180 days of elite status. That means you would have to play 1.800 days (roughly 5 years!) in your hero ship exclusively just to get the same amount of bonus XP as the benefit of Elite Status exceeds the benefit of a single hero ship tenfold. And again, you would have to spend even more money to convert that XP.

So while it is technically correct that hero ships grant you benefits to XP and freeXP gains in practice that's just not worth your money.