LeroyJenkins

The dogfighting training sessions will likely include some of that, doesn't look like another one has been scheduled yet but I had fun with that last week. Keep an eye on discord events feed.

Not specifically no, though we can start to spool this up again. I've been active over the last 2-3 weeks and it's becoming very easy to remain active with the current gamestate. With all the goodies slated to be ported over to PU now that they revealed a bunch from SQ42, it's only going to get better from here. I usually have time Sat/Sun/Mon to mess around here, and might pop in for a couple contracts during the week. Command has said they want to ramp up the community events too, so expect more of those to be showing up in the discord events feed. I participated in one of the salvage contract events and one of the dogfighting training sessions, will need a bit more practice but I made it to wave 25 in the Vanduul Swarm special mission they have going (gladius only, gets pretty tough).

A few highlights from the video. Hull C Good: High Capacity - the Hull series is designed first for cargo capacity High Efficiency - cargo containers are very modular, allowing for hauling several types of cargo simultaneously as well as offloading via "drone" containers Common - this ship will be very common and cheap to obtain/maintain/replace Minimalist - skeleton crew of two can operate the vessel at full capacity Long Haul - this ship will be able to make longer trips without refueling Bad: Vulnerable While Hauling - Hull series stores cargo in containers that are exposed on external struts Weak Arms & Armor - the Hull series has relatively weak armament, with a point defense turret and a few small (S2/S3) turrets for self-defense Minimalist - the Hull series is designed for one single purpose at the expense of effectiveness in every other category Dangerous To Go Alone - escorts are basically a hard requirement given how exposed the payload is Common - this ship will be very common and its weaknesses will be widely known and exploited Space Whale - this ship will likely require assistance to take off from the surface of a planet while fully loaded with cargo Merchantman Good: Armed & Armored - high-end offensive capability (S5/6 guns) and a fully enclosed hull give the Merchantman significant battlefield presence when required Onboard Trade Center - onboard space for negotiating and showing merchandise Planetside Friendly - this ship will be able to navigate in atmosphere and land on planets without issue High Capacity - largest subcapital cargo hold, at about 75% of the Hull C's capacity but fully enclosed Luxury - this ship will contain high-end components and interior detailing Bad: Luxury - this ship will be fairly expensive Not-Quite-So-Long-Haul - this ship will have somewhat limited jump range Gold Sink - this ship will likely cost a lot to maintain as its components and interior are high-end Friends Required - skeleton crew of four and max crew of 8 means higher crew costs

Click the link at the top of the thread, should let you add your availability. If it doesn't let you edit just send a request and I'll add permissions manually.

I may or may not have forgotten to actually give anyone with the link edit permissions. Should be working now.

Indeed I can. Never bothered to check before. Heh. Everyone should have edit permissions if you click that link. Fill in something to let the squadron know when you'll be around.

I was looking at that with @Zaib after @VoA got wife aggro on Monday. That's one of three new modules on the Portal, the others being Capital Crew preferences, and an enhanced ship borrowing module (for designating which ships Imperium can borrow for fleet-level missions and in what capacity). As of now they exist in your Portal profile, but are not being utilized for anything. There's a small notification tucked in there saying they're "broken", meaning they probably just cobbled together the interface panels and haven't worked them into the API as of yet. For now, I'll just stick an Excel sheet on the google drive, maybe VoA can copy this link to the OP. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1TofygMcTn5166wrA8jky1qR1gMnvt5JjwxPCd0wr_EA/edit?usp=sharing

Bar Citizen STL would be more than happy to coordinate with Imperium for a big meetup. Long as we can do it on a Sunday so I'm not being left out, lol. https://discord.gg/QjDZVG Ping Rakish or Will Sperling, they're the ones who coordinate the meetups.

Next couple updates are going to be big foundational steps - OCS looks like it will be in by 3.4. Things are getting interesting.

Fixed.

The way I understood it, explosive damage (from missiles/torpedoes) will "bleed" through shields slightly. i.e. if it detonates on a shield, the shield will take 75% of the applied damage and the hull takes the rest. Something to that effect. The shield mitigates most of the damage, but doesn't completely stop explosion damage. And ballistic weapons are similar. They're mitigated by the shield but most of the damage is still applied to the hull. Energy weapons are the only thing that shields completely absorb.

If you're going to use an Eclipse as an alpha strike, use mutiple. Otherwise, bring a distraction and keep the fight away from them until there's an opening.

@Reavern I did some light testing and some guy in a 600i couldn't see me in my eclipse (no signature detected) until he was within 450m. That was with shields off and only maneuvering thrusters firing. EM signature was hovering around 450, IR was at about 150. So those numbers may be fairly indicative of the detection ranges. And those torpedoes look decently fast.

Several builds a week, sure. several a day is a bit unusual.

@LowZone It's not, they're both from the current evocati build. And the ships behave identically regardless of whether it's f reeflight, racing, AC, or PU.

Looking at the power systems video on that playlist, I wonder if the numbers on the indicator are ranges or just abstract values. Because the values on the signature display seem to be well over twice as high for the Sabre (in the power systems vid) versus the Eclipse. What I'd heard is that if a Hornet was a 100 on a scale of detectability, the Sabre was supposed to be around 50 and the Eclipse around 25. But the Eclipse would be at about 15-17 on that scale according to the values on the HUD. Sabre was closer to 3x more detectable.

@Amy Babe The viewport isn't being restricted just for the sake of being restricted. It's drawing on real-life concepts like the B-2 bomber, which is even more restricted than what we're being given in the Eclipse. It's built that way to keep EM/IR signatures from escaping the ship as much as possible. Although, I agree the overhead panel needs something more.

To be honest, that screeenshot should be about as restricted as the view should be on any of these ships barring capitals, which are a whole different animal. There's enough open cockpit to see things around you, but it's narrow enough that it fits with the realism behind that type of ship.

I have zero issues with this. If anything, I feel like a couple of the HUD elements should be occupying that blank space at the top of the FOV here.

Most S1-4 weapons can't land hits past 2.5km. So most combat will be in the 500-2000m range.

@Shifty I'm not saying you'll be at 20+km as a stealth bomber. More likely 3-5km. Even at that range your torpedoes will only be in transit for about 5-8 seconds. That's still a really small window to react. And yes, your scanners will be passive on a stealth craft. That's how modern military stealth fighters work. They use passive scanners that detect enemies by way of incoming signals, and emit nothing. I'm aware that the Eclipse will have scan-diffusing technology, but there has to be a hard limit on how close you can get to something without being detected. The stronger the sensor suite, the longer that range is.

I would never want to be that close to anything in an Eclipse. If you can get a signature lock on an enemy fighter at 5-6km (typical range in Vanduul Swarm, although IIRC you can get signature locks at 8-10km) it's safe to assume that capital ships will be able to see farther than that. They'll have stronger avionics. Meaning that even a small signature will be detectable at extreme ranges. Fighters will probably be on an Idris's sensors at 20-25km if they're not trying to hide. Also, how fast do you think a capital ship will be? I think they'd be too fast at 100m/s. Also consider inertia - that's a LOT of mass to accelerate, changing course on a capital ship will take time. Guided missiles move at what, 400-500m/s? Either way with dumbfires you'll have (if we don't get it there's no point to dumbfires) telemetry from your avionics to "eyeball" the trajectory. You're not getting anywhere within 1000m of an Idris without being detected, mate. CS scans will pick you up at that point. There's gonna be a certain range at which you can't avoid being detected because there have to be hard limits on stealth. An Eclipse is gonna be the kinda ship that stays at or near its maximum attack range if it can help it. You seem to think that stealth will work enough like EVE that you can be that close to something and not be detected. I don't think that's going to be the case. It would kinda defeat the purpose of having an advanced scanner suite and beefy avionics in your C&C center. Stealth will be skill-based (like they've been saying every aspect of operating a ship will be) - you'll need to be monitoring your EM/IR output, your distance to enemy ships, and making adjustments to be sure that you're not showing up on the enemy's sensors. And you'll be doing that at all stages of a bombing run, up until you quantum out. And spooling your quantum drive takes less time than burning out. That 4-5 seconds is fast enough that if you're at the range you should be keeping they can't even get a missile lock on you.

@Reavern@Shifty I understand where you're coming from, but being 2000m from an Idris is too damn close. Thats dogfighting range. You'll need your instruments to gauge how close you can get without being spotted. It's hardly baseless to say your targeting computer will demand most of your attention when you need to know how strong the enemy's sensors are and whether or not your ir/em signature is large enough to be detected. You'll need to be watching the target's velocity and trajectory for dumbfire ordinance, you'll need to know if their shields are focused on a certain face, and probably some other stuff I'm not thinking about. Visual target acquisition will not provide most of that information. To clarify, the three signatures scanners will detect are EM, IR, and CS. Cross-sectional will be the least of your worries as a stealth bomber. They have small cross-sections and scan diffusing armor. If something is close enough to identify you with a CS scan, you're probably screwed. Your primary concern will be the other two signatures. You'll need to be aware of your EM and IR output at all times, probably dedicating one of your main HUD elements to tracking your output on those spectra. Hopefully there is a way to have your avionics give you a rough estimate of detection range based on the scanner it detects on the other ship. Your primary concern will be managing your signature and gauging detection range, both of which require significant attention on your sensors.

@Shifty The sabre is also a dogfighter, so it's necessary there. If you're going to spend 80% of your time on target staring at instruments, slightly lower cockpit visibility isn't an issue. It's similar to how a tank pilot has fairly limited visibility and needs to rely on sensors and other instruments to navigate. It won't be quite that extreme in the Eclipse, but some of that ideology will carry over. The cockpit will have enough visibility to allow for maneuvering without sensors, but for the precision you need on a bombing run you'll need to use them. If visibility is good enough for you to see where you're going if you need to scramble for an exit, that's enough.

@Shifty It won't be a particularly fast or agile craft to begin with. Most of its defense is in scan diffusion tech, with some decent armor to back it up. TBH i think you'll be flying it with shields down most of the time to hide your signature too. I don't think subpar cockpit visibility (from a dogfighter's perspective) will be a concern. You'll be looking at instruments and HUD most of the time anyways, so you're aware of distances and scan ranges and other stuff that's been speculated about how stealth bombers will operate.