RSI - Polaris - Corvette

[Danakar Endeel]

Hmmm, it seems the information about the limited Polaris and lack of CCU may have been incorrect. Maybe CIG Marketing had a change of heart scheme?

Now it is still very likely that CIG will increase the Polaris price during said Anniversary Sale though; just that it won't be a limited ship and you will be able to CCU to it.

[VoA]

[buzby x]

so now that everybody with a hammerhead bought an upgrade but is afraid to apply it...hammerhead v fighters or polaris v fighters...?

[Danakar Endeel]

On 10/19/2018 at 6:46 PM, Danakar Endeel said:

Hmmm, it seems the information about the limited Polaris and lack of CCU may have been incorrect. Maybe CIG Marketing had a change of heart scheme?

Now it is still very likely that CIG will increase the Polaris price during said Anniversary Sale though; just that it won't be a limited ship and you will be able to CCU to it.

Well, I am happy to report that a Hammerhead-to-Polaris CCU is available now and only $25 because the Polaris did not get a price increase (yet). So anyone who doesn't know if they prefer a Hammerhead or would rather have a Polaris instead can just get a relatively cheap CCU and decide later once the Polaris is ingame. 

[Brightmist]

On 11/27/2018 at 5:28 AM, buzby x said:

so now that everybody with a hammerhead bought an upgrade but is afraid to apply it...hammerhead v fighters or polaris v fighters...?

Brochure says 3x Large shield generators compared to Hammerhead's 2x Large shield generators so it's got that going for it and it's got bunch of missiles and turrets but I still don't think it'd be the ideal ship to engage a bunch of fighters in close range unless it's fully crewed.

On the other hand, you don't need to get close with this to engage anything, torpedoes and missiles are likely to have a ton of range and you can probably launch multiple fighters from its hangar.

It's also versatile and can help with repair/rearm/refuel of small ships.

Hammerhead is pretty narrow compared to Polaris tbh. Like people on turrets are likely to get bored unless you're in combat whereas they can do whatever they want with their small ships if there's a Polaris around.

I'd expect Polaris to see way more play than HH tbh, it's a convenient ship.

[buzby x]

4 hours ago, Brightmist said:

Brochure says 3x Large shield generators compared to Hammerhead's 2x Large shield generators so it's got that going for it and it's got bunch of missiles and turrets but I still don't think it'd be the ideal ship to engage a bunch of fighters in close range unless it's fully crewed.

On the other hand, you don't need to get close with this to engage anything, torpedoes and missiles are likely to have a ton of range and you can probably launch multiple fighters from its hangar.

It's also versatile and can help with repair/rearm/refuel of small ships.

Hammerhead is pretty narrow compared to Polaris tbh. Like people on turrets are likely to get bored unless you're in combat whereas they can do whatever they want with their small ships if there's a Polaris around.

I'd expect Polaris to see way more play than HH tbh, it's a convenient ship.

 

I agree...it'll be more expensive to crew/arm,  but it is definitely more versatile, for the money.  PLUS, with a Hurricane loaded in the hangar, it has one more many-gunned turret (for me, as I'm a shitty dogfighter and would just use it decoupled and close to the ship)

[Brightmist]

I didn't know much about dogfighting, nevermind played using a joystick until a couple of years ago either but I've been playing/practicing and I feel I'm getting better. There's still plenty of time to practice until game launches if you enjoy dogfighting and same skills should also help you in combat when you're piloting a huge ship against an equal sized one.

There's also new and higher quality sticks getting produced every day these days, mainly by Virpil and VKB, that helps a lot too.

New flight model will hopefully fix ESP too so we're likely to have a better combat experience in the near future. It's a mess currently.

[Scotterius]

In the end it comes down to what you love.

You will become skilled at the things you love to practice. If you love to gather crews for your 8 man gun corvette, it will be difficult to beat.  It is an investment and takes practice and real skill. Managing a crew takes something, and I recognize it. If you want to solo it with NPCs then the Hammerhead is a much better choice than the Polaris. Having multiple players with NPC filled Hammerheads, sounds terrifying to me. (Kind of skeptical about how prevalent this will be though).

I am a dog fighter and joined a group that requires members to try out.  Squadrons in Imperium are the same deal.  This situation just makes the Polaris a better option as it supports fighters. 5 or 6 skilled pilots and a Polaris with a skeleton crew (1 to 3 players) would be a hard, hard fight for a  fully crewed Hammerhead, even with a skilled crew.  But, the Polaris is just a big support craft with torpedoes at this point.

A lot of people fall into the trap of "this ship is better than this ship".  Having team mates and doing something that you enjoy is what is important. If you can find that, you have fun at that, even if you are never good at it.

[ChiefWarrant]

👏 Well put

[Boildown]

Well we still don't know if 4 NPC crewed Hammerheads are worse or better than one hammerhead fully crewed by 4 humans.  Or 5 and 5, or 6 and 6, etc... need a pilot/captain, a gunner for each manned turret, and someone to run around repairing stuff (engineer).  If each NPC crewed Hammerhead runs at 40% effectiveness of a human crewed Hammerhead, its better if all the humans spawn their own NPC crewed Hammerhead.  That's the challenge and I'm not quite sure how CIG will balance this.

[Brightmist]

NPCs might not be able to crew manned turrets at all and we might have to replace turrets with PDCs in combination with AI server blades. There can be a limit to how many turrets you can automate to balance things out because single seater fighter is almost always gonna be worse than a fully automated HH if the purpose is to defend something and this defeats the purpose of multi-crew. HH might not even get automated turrets at all tbh, or 1-2 maximum. Ships that size shouldn't be able to work effectively with a single pilot.

[Karazantor]

2 hours ago, Brightmist said:

NPCs might not be able to crew manned turrets at all and we might have to replace turrets with PDCs in combination with AI server blades. There can be a limit to how many turrets you can automate to balance things out because single seater fighter is almost always gonna be worse than a fully automated HH if the purpose is to defend something and this defeats the purpose of multi-crew. HH might not even get automated turrets at all tbh, or 1-2 maximum. Ships that size shouldn't be able to work effectively with a single pilot.

Extremely unlikely scenario I would suspect. Manning a basic gun turret is going to be one of the easier things for NPC's, let alone something CIG  is likely to prevent by handwavium.

 

Far too many big multi-crew ships out there in orgs with limited numbers - no way is CIG going to piss everyone off by telling them their multi-crew ship "must" be crewed by real people in the gun turrets or else.

 

A single seat fighter isn't meant to be competition for a capital (or near capital ship in the case of the HH) - the fighter is the escort for the torpedo bombers that are the real threat.

[Brightmist]

Then there's no reason for fighter escorts to exist if you can use HH as a single seater. People need to realize that there'll be artificial limitations to ships if there ever to be semblance of balance in the game.

Also if you're in a smaller org, get a smaller ship pretty much. Not everyone has to fly large or capital sized ships.

 

[Devil Khan]

Hammmerhead and the Polaris are not really the same fish. The hammerhead has a lot of short range firepower and basically it's escort is basically killing things.

The Polaris, while nowhere near the Hammerheads guns, it has quite a good number of the internal rooms on concept. There is NOTHING capital about any of the modules on board the Hammerhead. The Polaris has every thing except the shields as capital class.

The AI  is supposed to be "dumb" and fires below average*. The NPCs "will" have difference skills such as ace gunner, but we have to yet see them operating real time. It's nothing new with varied skills with your NPCs. It's getting them to look natural (human). NPC's will (I hope) operate turrets if you spend more money then the higher the skill base for gunnery.

Of course this is theory work as they have yet to show us, I mean put it in the game.

[Brightmist]

AI having below average aim or operating costs being higher doesn't really do anything to limit these ships' combat effectiveness. They still have large/capital sized components with a ton of armor/health. Same thing goes for missiles/torpedoes too. If combat effectiveness is determined by the size of your wallet or how much UEC you own in-game, it means SC is a P2W game which I really don't want it to be tbh. Nevermind that it'll destroy ship diversity in the verse. No reason to fly a medium or heavy fighter defensively if you can just fly a HH with NPC crew. Operating costs is not a good way to go about balancing the game since a ship like HH can fly escort for anything pretty much.

I think combat effectiveness should be determined by strategy, tactics and skill and both Polaris and HH should be a heap of flying junk when flown solo even with a NPC crew. Game should force you to team up with other people or get stuck flying small/medium sized ships. That's why I want there to be a limit how many things you can automate on a ship, starting with turrets. I'm totally fine with NPC crew being guards/janitors/cooks/quartermasters/flight deck-hangar crew on a ship but they shouldn't have a considerable effect on PvP or PvE encounters.

Hammerhead has 6 manned turrets and Polaris has 7 but Polaris can engage targets from further away. If HH can be operated as a single seater, that means Polaris can be operated as a single seater too pretty much and now we're in the verge of ships like Idris or Javelin operated as single seaters.

[Devil Khan]

AI = blade = zero cost ( other that if you have to buy a blade like the hurricane). CR doesn't like it if it is easy. 

The blade/AI no cost (outside of maintenance), but NPC cost money to hire and the maintain them "happy" IE wage/food ( these actually do plan in SC).

So that is why the blade can't be that good. There is no P2W.

Hammerhead needs a pilot, otherwise it is a sitting duck. only 4 (not the front 2 those can be operated via remote.

From day zero, it was always talked about taking Idris soloing.

ok Polaris has 6 manned S4 dual guns, 1 S5 Dual remote gun and 4 we were told (28 single) 4x s10 Torpedoes.

Hammerhead has 6 quad S4 turrets

 

[Boildown]

11 hours ago, Brightmist said:

Hammerhead has 6 manned turrets and Polaris has 7 but Polaris can engage targets from further away. If HH can be operated as a single seater, that means Polaris can be operated as a single seater too pretty much and now we're in the verge of ships like Idris or Javelin operated as single seaters.

 

Future me thinks its cute the enemy fleet is 12 Hammerheads with NPC crews, because my fleet is 6 Hammerheads and 6 Polarii with NPC crews and our torpedoes are OP.

[buzby x]

On 12/3/2018 at 5:58 PM, Boildown said:

 

Future me thinks its cute the enemy fleet is 12 Hammerheads with NPC crews, because my fleet is 6 Hammerheads and 6 Polarii with NPC crews and our torpedoes are OP.

 

current me is amazed at the size of your fleet...thanks for funding this game.

[Boildown]

LOL not "mine" as if I own those fleets, just if I were leading a fleet that size. 

They would both be approximately the same price to buy though.  And I think it exemplifies a problem if NPC crew is too effective.

[buzby x]

the best parasite ship for the Polaris is the Gladiator

debate me or I win by default.

[Boildown]

I... agree?  Well its too early to say for sure, but if you can launch a torpedo-laden Gladiator and bracket your target with the Polaris, its going to have to take torpedoes in the rear from one of the two ships.

[Karazantor]

1 hour ago, Boildown said:

I... agree?  Well its too early to say for sure, but if you can launch a torpedo-laden Gladiator and bracket your target with the Polaris, its going to have to take torpedoes in the rear from one of the two ships.

Likewise I go with a Gladiator. Great all round ship that should fit in the hangar. Size 5 Torps or lots of sts missiles, reasonable as a fighter even. Ground attack very likely an option down the track with it.

 

Can do decent recon and even be used as a shuttle for getting into atmosphere where you want to avoid being with the Polaris unless there is no choice.

[buzby x]

 

well, in my case, as a spaceman who sucks at dogfighting but can shoot missiles, it's perfect...expensive, but it works.

the fact that I could unload all my torps then pop back in and reload is really a cool thing and increases the power of the Polaris, big time.

[VoA]

 

[VoA]

Voon's comparison of the Nautilus to the Polaris