May 9th Ship Specs Update

[jive]

So it's taken me a few days to get around to it, but I've finally chewed through the new ship specs update.

Everyone's really excited about the BMM, which now has a drastically larger cargo hold than originally specified.

But let's take a look at some of the other cool things on the way.

First off, there's updated stats all over the place for the generic pledge ships - chances are your baby(s) been modified a little bit, so I encourage you to check that out. Nothing serious, just a few weight and dimension changes.

There's a huge swath of the new pledge ships though, from the Herald to the Orion - we have the initial spec sheets for the next generation of PU craft, or as I've been thinking of them, the "specialists."

So they're all pretty interesting, sure - but I think three really stand out compared to the other vessels we have so far.

The first pairing I noticed was the Constellation vs. the Carrack vs. the Surveyor.

I compare these three because they're in the same ship-size class. The Surveyor is the largest, but it also features some area which is probably dedicated to its drones taking up a portion of its null-cargo mass and it's dimensions (it's significantly wider than the other two ships in this class)

From an engineering standpoint, it's pretty clear which ship is designed with which role in mind, again this is why I call the new ships the Specialists. But, that means that the Constellation is now a specialist in its own right.

The Constellation, when compared to ships of crew and size class is faster, has more power to manage, and fields more armaments than the Surveyor and Carrack combined (including the P52 Merlin, of course).

A lot of people have imagined the Constellation as a kind of cruise liner cargo vessel, but it's appearing to sit more in the role of an anti-dogfighter. Highly maneuverable, fast, high-powered shields and weapons, and a serious presence on the field.

So what about the specialists, then? Well, it all boils down to the final set of features listed at the bottom of the specs page. How valuable is it to have an on-board med bay, or survey drones? We can't really say - but we do know that these ships are packing their main value in modules which are not fitted to the original line of pledge ships, which seem to be focused more on combat, now that the new line has been released.

Personally, I think the Carrack is pretty darn exciting and I'm looking forward to buying one in game.

What excites you about the new ships and which ship are you most looking forward to?

[Calignos]

The constellation definitely seems to be a very fast and armed vessel. I still don't know what class to call it. Gun Boat doesn't seem like a good fit, especially since it can deploy it's own escort fighter. I'm thinking it might be close to the "Heavy Fighter" role... "A heavy fighter is a fighter aircraft designed to carry heavier weapons or operate at longer ranges. To achieve acceptable performance, most heavy fighters were twin-engined, and many had multi-place crews." Very excited to see what it can do, especially after the re-work and variants.

The Banu Merchantman is a pretty awesome looking ship, and looks like it would fill the role of a large freighter very well. It's armaments are pretty similar to the Constellation, so certainly not unarmed. However, it's ~35x larger if you compare m^3 volume (assuming a perfect cube.. which it's not) and over 2x the weight. Given that it has smaller engines and fewer engines than the Connie, it's probably going to be hella slow. But as a freighter it's going to fill it's role very well.

The carrack I think is going to be a pretty cool ship also. It's dimensions, weight and armaments are fairly close to the Constellation as well. It lacks the main engine capacity, but has an extra 2 maneuvering thrusters. It's specialty equipment clearly fits the role of an explorer vessel well, and will probably be incredibly useful for recon and deep space stuff.

The surveyor in principle I like, but it's very unarmed, assuming the drones aren't combat ready. Would likely need an escort.

The other ships sound interesting, but didn't grab my attention as much or wouldn't probably be pledgable due to being Xi'an or Vanduul, so for now didn't pay too much attention to them.

[Siycle]

How about that RSI Orion Mining Platform?! This right here feels like the primary money maker to me. Don't think they gave out enough details on this guy but I for one am very curious about this thing! Can't wait to see what it looks like!

[EchoSeven]

Personally, I'm terribly excited about my Caterpillar. HOW COOL!

[Husker]

I'm very excited for the Caterpillar, and I don't even own one.

[EchoSeven]

Lol, I really want a ship I can explore, and the multi-levels are exactly what I had hoped for.
I'm a very peaceful person, so I would not participate in any.. violent activities..

I won't be able to say the same for my crew.