@coldreactive said in Thinking Of Transferring Ship:
Three was added for PC beta, and 4 came out after PC release.
I'm guessing you're calling the 27 May PC release on Microsoft Store "PC beta" and the 4 August release on Steam "PC release", but this would still contain an inaccuracy so I'll neutrally state the timings involved either way:
- Ship 1 was the only ship open at the start of Closed Beta in February, only accessible to Xbox One (and was instructed to be limited to North America and Canada which turned out not to be a hard region-lock).
- Ship 2 was added during Closed Beta, also in February.
- Ship 3 was added on 17 March when the game returned after the Closed Beta. This was Open Beta, and was still limited to Xbox One.
- PC release was on 27 May on the Microsoft Store. PC had no official beta. No ship was launched at this time (a cause of controversy)
- Ship 4 was added on 4 August when the game was extended to Steam on PC.
Prior to PC release, it is known that Ship 2 was more populated than Ship 1, and that Ship 3 had a relatively low population. At the height of what in hindsight was a rather remarkable PC release launch spike in May, all 3 ships were increased to 138 blocks and all still filled completely. It is presumed that Ship 3 had the greatest proportion of PC players of the three ships simply because it had the most space to fill; the market prices of content whose generation ceased before PC release also suggested a much more drastic difference between supply and demand, corroborating this.
In the months following the end of the PC release spike tailing off, multiple people observed that Ship 1 and Ship 3 were indistinguishable for block populations* (and also for the expensive forms of content - rare drops, desirable AC pulls, etc). Yet during that time and to an extent persevering beyond it, there remained a preconception that Ship 3 was still far smaller. I strongly believe this was and likely continues to be based on the observations prior to PC release, and that it is now a misconception. In the last ~3 months there has been no recorded indication (let alone credible comparison) that Ship 3 has declined faster than Ship 1.
* One amusing observation I noted with consistency was that Block 42 on Ship 3 was popular as a meme block, but on Ship 1 was basically a normal block with a population that matched the blocks around it on the list (i.e. much lower).
I don't have much information about Ship 4. I've heard its population is lower, and it would make sense given how late it opened, but given the legacy misconception around 3 I would not immediately believe it without question. Given it released in August, if you have any interest in campaign/FUN content that departed before then you probably wish to avoid Ship 4 as this content will likely either be dramatically more expensive as Ship 3 content prior to late May was (and for the most part still is) or will simply not exist outside of extremely limited quantities brought in via Ship Transfer.