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Esperia Prowler


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47 minutes ago, Reavern said:

The Prowler isn't actually a Tevarin ship or even reproduction of a Tevarin ship, like the Glaive, so the "alien" premium doesn't really apply. The Prowler is a hybrid design produced by Esperia that combines some of the features (and possibly aesthetics) of the First Tevarin War era Tevarin boarding craft with contemporary UEE ship tech. According to SC lore, the Tevarins were technologically inferior to the UEE so it doesn't make sense that Eperia would manufacture an authentic Tevarin boarding craft with their inferior tech. It's definitely a Human-manufactured ship with many of the same components that can be found on other human ships. So I don't think the Prowler will be as "alien" as either the Vanduul Glaive or the Xi'An Khartu-Al.

I expect the Tevarin ship features of the Prowler will relate to its stealth abilities and the method it deploys EVA boarders. I imagine that the Tevarin used a crude but effective stealth tech that, 400 in-game years later, the UEE has permitted Esperia to incorporate into the civilian market Prowler. I'm certain the Prowler will be stealthy, but I believe the UEE military has far superior stealth tech, which we'll probably never be allowed to buy or own in the PU, but we might acquire and use it in SQ42.

Regarding the Prowler's Tevarin-inspired boarder deployment system, my prediction is that the Prowler will have a dorsal battery of perhaps 16 vertical launch tubes, arranged in 2 parallel columns of 8 (similar to ballistic missile launch tubes on a nuclear submarine) that will silently propel an individual marine in an EVA combat suit into space (meaning no EM or thermal emissions). I can imagine such an unconventional and risky rapid deployment method was pioneered by the Tevarins, because they needed to compensate for their technological inferiority by doing crazy and dangerous things that humans wouldn't even consider: i.e. launching a marine toward the hull of an enemy ship. SPLAT!

Of course, this is all just speculation. I could be wrong; the Prowler could be just a Redeemer clone with alien greebles on it, which would be as you said: a $200 ship + $200 "alien" markup. I would be very, very disappointed if that's the case. I have faith in CIG that they won't do that to us. ;)

Yessir; I'm familiar with the lore, it's some good stuff, but I'm also familiar with CIG's price vs. performance shenanigans, especially when Esperia is involved. By CIG's own lore these ships are recreations, not even *real alien* in their game universe. Basically you can divide the price of any Esperia clone by 2-2.5 and come up with a fairly accurate comparison in a human ship, and that's even being too generous sometimes. And I'm not just talking about Arena Commander's likely dumbed-down AI swarms, the Scythe and the Glaive are being flown by players in the PU as well. I honestly expect the Blade to turn out as little more than an up-gunned M50.

It doesn't much matter to me, I have 70+ ships (with more than a few greebles), and I'm totally xenophobic. I don't do aliens. :P I know it's only alpha, and the stats are currently irrelevant, but when backers are investing real life premium pledge dollars for these ships, and they're regularly out-performed by supposedly inferior ships costing half as much or less, well I find that...... Questionable. I hope I'm wrong, I really hope CIG doesn't pull the usual Esperia 200%+ markup and actually presents something worth our fine backer's money this time.

Good luck this Friday my fellow space-farer. :)

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19 hours ago, NemeSys said:

 

Yessir; I'm familiar with the lore, it's some good stuff, but I'm also familiar with CIG's price vs. performance shenanigans, especially when Esperia is involved. By CIG's own lore these ships are recreations, not even *real alien* in their game universe. Basically you can divide the price of any Esperia clone by 2-2.5 and come up with a fairly accurate comparison in a human ship, and that's even being too generous sometimes. And I'm not just talking about Arena Commander's likely dumbed-down AI swarms, the Scythe and the Glaive are being flown by players in the PU as well. I honestly expect the Blade to turn out as little more than an up-gunned M50.

It doesn't much matter to me, I have 70+ ships (with more than a few greebles), and I'm totally xenophobic. I don't do aliens. :P I know it's only alpha, and the stats are currently irrelevant, but when backers are investing real life premium pledge dollars for these ships, and they're regularly out-performed by supposedly inferior ships costing half as much or less, well I find that...... Questionable. I hope I'm wrong, I really hope CIG doesn't pull the usual Esperia 200%+ markup and actually presents something worth our fine backer's money this time.

Good luck this Friday my fellow space-farer. :)

The Vanduul Scythes and Glaives are nerfed in AC and so are the flyable Scythes and Glaives. Since I own a Glaive, it's frustrating that CIG hasn't balanced it with the Human starfighters, but I have faith they will in the future. (I believe the Vanduul will be buffed when SQ42 is released and that will translate to AC and the PU.) I acknowledge that ATM the Esperia Glaive is overpriced based on its stats and combat performance. I'd say it's comparable to a 325a or 350r with fixed-forward weapons, so its $350 price was 3-4 times what it should be in its current state. But I don't believe it will always be like that.

A few pages ago, I analyzed the cost and specs of the existing ships with troop transport and boarding roles: IMO the Caterpillar is probably the closest ship to the Esperia Prowler because it was originally pitched as an Assault Transport favoured by Pirates to board and capture ships. Since then CIG has played up the Cat's modularity and it's become a jack-of-all-trades ship; but assault transport and boarding will still be one of its roles.

CIG announced a few months ago that the Caterpillar is undergoing a redesign and will be larger when Hangar/Flight-ready; consequently its price will increase significantly, just like the Starfarer. The Starfarer jumped from $175 to $300. The Caterpillar was $225 and it's highly probable its price will increase to $300-350. That's the Base Caterpillar, which is configured with only Cargo Modules.

The "Boarding Caterpillar" will have specialized modules; at least 1 Troop Transport and a Barracks/Armoury module. Considering the Retaliator's Dropship module cost $75, the Cat's boarding modules will probably cost $50+ each. My most conservative estimates are $300 for the Base Caterpillar + $50 for one Troop Transport module + $50 for one Barracks/Armoury module = $400. That's only $25 less than the Esperia Prowler, which has stealth tech and the "alien" premium. $25 seems fairly reasonable IMO. If the Base Cat's price increases by $125 (like the Starfarer) it could cost $350 and if the modules are $75 each (like the Tali's Dropship module), the "Boarding Caterpilar" could cost $500, making the Prowler seem like a bargain. ;)

Admittedly, I'm assuming that the Esperia Prowler will be somewhere between the size of a Constellation and Caterpillar. If it's not and it turns out to be, as I joked earlier, a Redeemer clone with alien greebles, then the $425 price is outrageous and I'm not going to buy it. But I don't think CIG will do that to us. I guess we'll find out in 4 days.

Good luck to us all. :)

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The Prowler isn't actually a Tevarin ship or even reproduction of a Tevarin ship, like the Glaive, so the "alien" premium doesn't really apply. The Prowler is a hybrid design produced by Esperia that combines some of the features (and possibly aesthetics) of the First Tevarin War era Tevarin boarding craft with contemporary UEE ship tech.

@Reavern I agree. It's more like the Freelancer or Redeemer which are alien tech inspired. I don't think CIG's pricing department cares though. 

Quote

According to SC lore, the Tevarins were technologically inferior to the UEE so it doesn't make sense that Eperia would manufacture an authentic Tevarin boarding craft with their inferior tech.

Prowlers also were a load of trouble for the UEE during the war. I think it's safe to say that they had some areas that were more technologically advanced at the time, specifically regarding stealth. I'm sure that the UEE has adopted and refined this tech over the last few hundred years, but given that ships like the Avenger are a few hundred years old and still relevant, I would be inclined to think that the much newer Prowler has incorporated a lot of newer systems and is still very, very capable vs all but possibly the newest UEE ships. 

Most UEE designs and ships themselves are quite old, and state of the art ships are probably quite rare. Even the Bengal design is likely a few centuries old, and while I'm sure that ships have been refit with new scanning tech, that's probably also pretty old. The first trailer showed Scythes sneaking up on the Bengal from nearby asteroids, and while I doubt that's totally canon because cool trailers, I think that ambushes are supposed to be part of the game and that there's a lot of hope for the Prowler to be useful even vs average UEE military ships. 

 

Huh. Sounds like the proposed human catapult that the Caterpillar was possibly going to get. 

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On 11/15/2016 at 2:39 AM, Karmaslap said:

Prowlers also were a load of trouble for the UEE during the war. I think it's safe to say that they had some areas that were more technologically advanced at the time, specifically regarding stealth.

Or maybe...they were tactically advanced... despite technology. Perhaps the prowler is a series of oak barrels sealed with pine pitch and bound by a length of hemp cord....flying through space like the devil's own bolas. Try pickin' that up on yer fancy smancy scanner thingies.

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On 11/14/2016 at 9:28 PM, Reavern said:

The Prowler isn't actually a Tevarin ship or even reproduction of a Tevarin ship, like the Glaive, so the "alien" premium doesn't really apply. The Prowler is a hybrid design produced by Esperia that combines some of the features (and possibly aesthetics) of the First Tevarin War era Tevarin boarding craft with contemporary UEE ship tech. According to SC lore, the Tevarins were technologically inferior to the UEE so it doesn't make sense that Eperia would manufacture an authentic Tevarin boarding craft with their inferior tech. It's definitely a Human-manufactured ship with many of the same components that can be found on other human ships. So I don't think the Prowler will be as "alien" as either the Vanduul Glaive or the Xi'An Khartu-Al.

I expect the Tevarin ship features of the Prowler will relate to its stealth abilities and the method it deploys EVA boarders. I imagine that the Tevarin used a crude but effective stealth tech that, 400 in-game years later, the UEE has permitted Esperia to incorporate into the civilian market Prowler. I'm certain the Prowler will be stealthy, but I believe the UEE military has far superior stealth tech, which we'll probably never be allowed to buy or own in the PU, but we might acquire and use it in SQ42.

Regarding the Prowler's Tevarin-inspired boarder deployment system, my prediction is that the Prowler will have a dorsal battery of perhaps 16 vertical launch tubes, arranged in 2 parallel columns of 8 (similar to ballistic missile launch tubes on a nuclear submarine) that will silently propel an individual marine in an EVA combat suit into space (meaning no EM or thermal emissions). I can imagine such an unconventional and risky rapid deployment method was pioneered by the Tevarins, because they needed to compensate for their technological inferiority by doing crazy and dangerous things that humans wouldn't even consider: i.e. launching a marine toward the hull of an enemy ship. SPLAT!

Of course, this is all just speculation. I could be wrong; the Prowler could be just a Redeemer clone with alien greebles on it, which would be as you said: a $200 ship + $200 "alien" markup. I would be very, very disappointed if that's the case. I have faith in CIG that they won't do that to us. ;)

But is has something to do with aliens... Therefore it is necessary and proper to give it a $200 markup.

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1 hour ago, faquarl25 said:

But is has something to do with aliens... Therefore it is necessary and proper to give it a $200 markup.

As I said, if the Prowler is between the size of a Constellation and Caterpillar, and carries upwards of 20 marines, the $425 price might be justified. But if it's a glorified Alien Redeemer then I'll agree about the $200 markup.

We'll find out tomorrow.

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I just noticed this particular bit: Kind of makes me curious which one it is; reproduction or new ship based on old tech/design.

"First off, since we were just talking about the ship expo, what finer example of our hunt for authentic Tevarin experiences than Esperia’s brand new Prowler? This faithful reproduction of a centuries-old Tevarin ship is set to premiere later this week on Severus, but it seems that some celebs couldn’t wait that long. Star sataball player Sam Tonvi arrived at last night’s match riding in his very own hot-off-the-production-line model. Guardian fans went wild as Sam and the full offensive squad jumped out of the Prowler to “board” the arena. Maybe the next step will be for a Tevarin to join their team."

Kind of makes me curious which one it is; reproduction or new ship based on old tech/design.

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Remember, stealthy does not mean cloaked. Design, construction, materials, surfacing (color and texture) and sensors intended to mask detection (to obscure which is different from denying detection) or to deceive (spoof) sensors is what the Prowler should have, and that MIGHT justify the outrageous cost of $425.

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Just my 2c on all this:

 

- the comparison with the Sabre isn't really good because there is a quite some confusion imho about the Sabre's stealth abilitites.

The Sabre is indeed built ground up for stealth ( Ben ate back that quote later) but the way an F-22 is built for stealth unlike a F-117: in both cases stealth is a core feature but the F-22 melds it in his role of dogfighter ( when it blips on radar it started shooting already, hard to get a good lock on, easy to lose in a asteroid field etc), while a ship like the Esperia could as well be stealthier since it's not supposed to fight much or at all probably: it could well sacrifice weaponry or agility in order to be harder to spot.

- the ship is big enough for a Sataball squad so it's no small ( probably redemeer/vanguard size or more).

-while it's true that Tevarins had lower tech compared to UEE, it is quite possible that in selected fields they were more advanced or had "spark of genius" solutions to problems.

Consider that the Prowler is still famous after all this time, it's the iconic stealth assault barge ( and not the human side equivalent), adopted by the Navy ( or at least it's solutions were ) so it's safe to say it was quite quite good at the time.

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Seems all the talk of stealth has been completely dropped.... Now its armored instead?

 

I guess they figured that stealth and a boarding vessel is either useless or wildly OP.


Armour makes more sense, how are infantry going to cut through ships hull anyway?

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7 minutes ago, faquarl25 said:

Seems all the talk of stealth has been completely dropped.... Now its armored instead?

 

I guess they figured that stealth and a boarding vessel is either useless or wildly OP.


Armour makes more sense, how are infantry going to cut through ships hull anyway?

If it's true that the Prowler isn't a stealth boarding craft, instead it's an Armoured Personnel Carrier, then I'm gonna melt my Prowler tomorrow. An APC wasn't the Prowler that was promised. And it's redundant with the Redeemer.

I hope this isn't true. If it is, I am SO DISAPPOINTED!!!!

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39 minutes ago, Reavern said:

If it's true that the Prowler isn't a stealth boarding craft, instead it's an Armoured Personnel Carrier, then I'm gonna melt my Prowler tomorrow. An APC wasn't the Prowler that was promised. And it's redundant with the Redeemer.

I hope this isn't true. If it is, I am SO DISAPPOINTED!!!!

Well they mentioned honey-comb stealth materials I believe?

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Esperia_Prowler_SHOT_02b.jpg

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There is a reason that the Prowler made its mark on history. At the time, the ship was one of the most advanced and cutting edge pieces of combat technology to grace a battlefield, and Esperia’s Prowler continues that tradition today. An ideal vessel for infiltration, boarding, troop deployment, extraction, fleet security and stealth missions, the Prowler’s distinctive hull can not only hold 16 persons, but it can rapidly deploy them thanks to its series of airshield portals. While common today, airshields were first developed by the Tevarin and changed the face of war thanks to the ease in which their troops could move in and out of the Prowler.

Overall, the Tevarin’s expertise in shields far outpaced Humanities own as exemplified by the Phalanx Shield that comes standard with the Prowler. A point defense shield that provides a very strong but limited protective face, the Phalanx Shield was one of the reasons that the Prowler became such a significant defensive force when flown in a squad with shields deployed and its wide variety of defensive countermeasures at the ready.

In addition, the Prowler’s Grav-Lev plates give additional flight control when traversing along uneven surfaces. This comes quite in handy when trying to position the Prowler alongside a large capital ship or inside a planetary fortification. As does the remote turret positioned along the upper spine for full 360 offense.

From silently infiltrating an unsuspecting enemy hangar to charging in to get forces where they’re most needed, the Esperia Prowler is a piece of history ready to make a whole bunch more.

 Might've overreacted earlier. Based on the Prowler's description it appears that the Tevarin boarding craft does have stealth capabilities, or at the very least the Prowler is intended for stealth infiltration missions. There's no mention of any stealth tech in the Prowler's design -- nothing distinctive like the Hornet Ghost's Void Armour -- however, given its angular design, dual TR2 engines, TR1 thrusters, and ballistic cannons, I believe the Prowler will have a lower sensor signature than its Aegis cousin, the Redeemer.

I confess that I am disappointed that the Prowler is a relatively small dropship or APC at only 34 metres long, instead of the Constellation-size stealth boarding ship that I was hoping for. The Prowler definitely isn't going to operate independently because it has no sleeping berths or cargo space. It's definitely a dropship intended for short hops, not a ship you cruise around on. I was really hoping the Prowler would be similar to a Caterpillar configured as a troop transport, boarding, and raiding ship, which had a barracks and armoury for a platoon of 16-24 marines, as well as specialized personnel launch tubes, like "human catapults" for deploying marines via EVA. The Prowler does have 8 individual "Air-Shield" doors for deploying marines, but they're not what I was hoping for.

I genuinely like the aesthetics of the Prowler, but it's too streamlined IMO. I was expecting a much larger and fully featured boarding ship. The Prowler seems redundant with the Redeemer and the redesigned Cutlass -- the latter will be able to carry a Dragonfly and has side-opening "raid doors" presumably intended for rapidly deploying boarders.

Given the size of the Prowler, its crew of 2 plus 8 marines, weapons loadout, specs, and the lack of clear-cut stealth tech, I definitely think it's over-priced -- even at the $380 Warbond price. Prowler seems like it should cost no more than a Redeemer -- which is a much beefier ship and approx. triple the firepower. It doesn't seem like the Prowler is $100 more expensive than it should be and I agree with the speculation that it's guilty of the "alien" markup. The fact that the Prowler is referred to numerous times as a "collector ship" reinforces the suspicion that its price is inflated.

I genuinely hope that CIG provides a detailed explanation for the Esperia Prowler in a Q&A because ATM it's a ship I'm already regretting buying. I'm planning on melting it unless CIG makes a compelling case why the Prowler isn't anything more than a beautiful piece of ship art.

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3 minutes ago, GeraldEvans said:

Looking at the lines though: High arched back swooping down to the tail, dropped angular head, arms out into the ground and the winglets opened up. It's a dragon, but with a swallow's tail.

yeah it indeed looks alot like a dragon, rly when landed 

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