The next "Normandy/Tempest"

I have a lot of faith in BW to give us a decent new ship.

My favorite so far is still the SR1. I liked that it was all about functionality and still probably has the coolest scifi space ship design to this day IMO. I particularly liked the moving parts on the engine, that made it look like the ship was "buckeling up" when going into FTL or through a relay.

The SR2 was also cool and had some useful stuff in it for a game hero ship but it also had some weirdness going on. I did like that the captains quarters were part of the exterior hull space, so technically it wasn't a waste of space but still, there was plenty of other waste and weird design decisions going on. One could excuse this by the fact that Cerberus built the ship and made some alteration specific to their special needs but then, the fact that Cerberus would be able to build a ship like this from scratch in secret was a major downside of the SR2 to begin with.
Also, it did feel a little like "we built a bigger better ship, so let's discard the old one in a quick cutsene".
Otherwise, the SR2 is alright, especially after the Alliance takes it over and retrofits it in ME3.

The Tempest also had a bunch of weird stuff going on and the overall shape took me a while to get used to but they did a lot of stuff right with that ship IMO, especially when it comes to the interior. I just love that they finally managed to connect the exterior space to the interior, giving the ship all those windows. How the lighting changes in the ship depending on where you are stopping on the galaxy map is increadible. And yes, I know, windows are structural weaknesses and their half-assed lore breaking explanation for this was just in line with all the other silliness going on in Andromeda but still, it looked so gorgeous I actually didn't mind.


So what do I want for the next ship? I want it to be functional like the SR1 but also nice and open like the Tempest. So here is my idea: Make it a consular ship. Something a diplomat or ambassador would use. Maybe we play one, maybe we kinda just get it from one but that way, you could kinda have the best of both worlds.

On the one hand, a ship like that might need to be very self sufficient, capable of longer term independent missions and because it might have to go into politically unstable territory, it could be argued that it was reasonable to outfit it with both some defensive and stealth capabilities. Probably not too much, so the ship couldn't just handle every situation on it's own (so you as the hero still need to organize support, typical ME stuff) but good enough to get us out of a tough spot if needed.

At the same time, the ship is also designed to host diplomatic events and maybe impress visitors or just provide a nice space for negotiations, receptions and such. So it would have something like retractable armor plating, so on a button press, you can expose large clear oxide/nanofiber windows, so in game you can have the same awesome lighting and open scenary that we saw in Andromeda. For that reason, the ship would also be slick looking from the outside.

For such a vessel, it would also make sense to give it good communications equipment, so you can stay in touch with mission givers, etc. while some guest quarters can be occupied by squad mates you pick up or can be converted into more functional gameplay related places like a lab or an armory.

So yea, something like that I could see working pretty well as a hero ship for a new ME game.

That is true, the Cerberus Normandy SR2 was a bit of a mess wasn't it? The refit definitely made her more of a proper vessel overall. Though I don't think they kept the cool turian guns that took out a collector ship singlehandedly around the start of the suicide mission in ME2. I assumed that was a Galactic Politics related refit choice as it seems like they were replaced with some anti-fighter weaponry when they take out more of those collector probes in the Final Assault on Earth. Was a nice unspoken nod to the continuity of ME2 to completely prevent another 2 phase boss fight in the cargo bay.

Consider that Mr Ryder was supposedly one of the wealthiest people in the known galaxy and a spectre with alliance contacts and the ability to coordinate one of the most daring undertakings in the galaxy before the crucible in ME3, and you could see that the lack of weapons on a normandy-esque stealth vessel like the Tempest does not make sense for such an expedition.

Sure they are not there to wage war, but even in the fringes of alliance space, most backwater colonies had some kind of Military emplacements and ships like those shown in paragon lost. Mostly to help prevent raids from pirates and slavers from the Terminus Systems. Those would have been very helpful against the kett/not-locust horde and the mostly human pirates that were already there for some reason. 

I'd prefer a small ship and crew.
Something rather utilitarian - workhorse - trusty old rust bucket kept together with duct tape instead of luxury-leather seats-prototype with swanky (Galaxy class carpet) room, even for the mandatory main player character's "loft/cabin"

For a change I would like something less high tech/top of line. A ships that's a bit roughed up and has some milage clocked up already.

I always remember Zaeed's descriptions of the ships he worked on and I've always wanted the protagonist to have a ship like that.