Hammerhead - Corvette Anti-fighter

[Reavern]

19 hours ago, Tom Villder said:

But what if the pirates used the Hammerhead? It would be an escort pilot nightmare as it would give space for boarding ships to do their work

Of course that's a potential problem. However, I believe that Pirates and criminal Orgs will always have greater difficulty operating and maintaining cap ships than lawful players and Orgs, for numerous reasons.

Firstly, insurance. CIG has explained that Pirates can't obtain insurance like lawful players. There will be a different form of insurance available for criminals, which will probably be more expensive and take longer to replace ships, especially cap ships.

Second, it won't be as easy to elude law enforcement in a cap ship. CIG has said that the quantum jump mechanics will be revised so that the larger the ship, the longer it will take to spool a quantum drive, and the cool-down time will be longer before it can make another jump. Also, cap ships require large jump points, which limit the Pirates' possible escape routes. Pirates probably won't risk using a cap ship, like the Hammerhead, in UEE star systems, because the risk of losing it will be too great. As for lawless star systems, it probably won't be difficult to track down a Pirate-owned Hammerhead, and the bounty on it will be so high that countless bounty hunters will be gunning for it. (It'll be like the Hunt for the Bismark.)

Third, cap ships are expensive to operate and maintain, and Pirates' only source of income is successfully looting ships. Piracy will be a high-risk, variable-reward enterprise. Pirates risk imprisonment or death every time they raid, and they could only come away with a few cargo boxes of worthless crap. If a Pirate suffers a string of bad luck, they could easily bankrupt themself. If and when that happens, they don't have the same options as lawful players, because their Crime Stat will prevent them from accepting easy missions for easy money.

A Pirate Org will need a high success rate to afford to operate and maintain a cap ship, like the Hammerhead. As I've mentioned before, my prediction is that Pirate Orgs will use stolen ships until they break and then won't bother repairing them; they'll just steal another ship instead. Pirates will have a hangar full of broken ships that they can't even sell because they're stolen. So if a Pirate-owned Hammerhead is mauled by a lawful Org's fleet, it probably won't be repaired and out raiding again anytime soon.

That's why if and when lawful players encounter a Pirate-owned cap ship, they should do everything they can to spoil it. Meaning that they shouldn't just give up and dump their cargo to pay the "pirate tax". They should always resist. Fight, run, hide, and stall as long as possible, until NPC law enforcement and/or lawful players intervene. Any damage inflicted on the Pirate cap ship will be exponentially greater than the losses the Pirates can inflict, because insurance is on our side. It might even be worthwhile for lawful players to kamikaze Pirate cap ships.

Another option is to self-destruct your ship and eject, rather than allow Pirates to capture or loot it.

My point is that the best way to deal with Pirates is to make their "job" as difficult and expensive as possible. Make it so that Pirates can't afford to use cap ships, like the Hammerhead.

[Fizzlefuse]

This ship looks absolutely stunning.
I love the design choices, with the cockpit underneath the nose and the free swiveling side turrets...

definitely a ship I'll be looking at to buy in the verse.

[Zee]

3 hours ago, Nova-Prime said:

SON OF A BITCH !!     RIP Wallet.  RIP BMM. I hate you Pretty concept pics.  Romen and crackers for a month

 

Haha! I said the same! Not 24 hours after I swore to not drop another penny on this game, CR drops the Hammerhead... SOB!!! Welp, now I've got to rethink my fleet composition... By year's end, I'll have 2 Hammerheads, 3 Polarii, 4 Superhornets, 4 Sabres and a Carrack... I think i need an intervention LoL

[Gremlich]

Disco did tweet out on 24 Nov "Wait until tomorrow"

 

CIG are currently over $166 mil as of 1955 EST 25 Nov. With 1,919,312 registered accounts (we're prolly at 1.1 to 1.2 million actual backers)

[Devil Khan]

Tbh, this isn't a capital ship. It's a gunboat, a gunboat isn't a cap ship. I really hate it when they have just 4 different sizes small, medium, large, and capital. A capital ship is a ship that can offensively attack other cap ships owned by the military. This ship hasn't any Cap weapons or shields. 890 shouldn't even conside itself as a cap ship either. Those are cruise ships, not cruiser ships. 

The corridors are wasted space really even though it is just a concept image.    

[Reavern]

1 hour ago, Riley Egret said:

Thumbs up to all that but one thing: at 100 m lenght and 1/10 mass of a Polaris this hardly qualify as a capship, more of a SuperRedeemer imho.

There's no way the 195,000 kg mass stat for the Hammerhead is correct. That's 100,000 kg less than a Retaliator! So Turbulent has definitely screwed up the ship stats. (I bet that's going to be a popular question for the Q&A and CIG will resolve the confusion. I wonder how long it'll take for Turbulent to correct the stats.)

The Hammerhead might be classified as a "Large" ship ATM, but as we recently learned about the Carrack, ships always get larger from the concept to production phases of development. If you check out the ship's cross-section from the brochure, to say the interior is spartan is a gross understatement. The entire ship is basically hallway.

I believe the room in the middle is the Crew Quarters, which has 4 double bunks for 8 crew members. The smaller room forward of the bunk room is presumably the Captain's Quarters. But where does the crew eat? Or sit when they're not in the turrets or bridge? The Redeemer has more crew amenities than the Hammerhead. Also, the side Landed view of ship shows what appear to be a crew elevator near the front, and a cargo lift at the back. The interior cross-section only shows the cargo lift in the back. I originally thought it had to be the engine room, but it that's the cargo lift. So where's the ship's engine room!? Even if the ship has a lower deck... how do you get to it? There are no stairs, ladders, or elevators, from what I can see. Most bewildering: How do you get to the ship's bridge!?! The bridge should be located under the T-intersection of the hallway at the front, but there's nothing there. Not even stairs to the bridge.

There's no way that is the Hammerhead's final design. It's just a rough concept. I guarantee that CIG will add more rooms to the interior, which will significantly increase the ship's size. It'll probably be somewhere between 130-150 metres. That'll put the Hammerhead in the capital ship range.

31 minutes ago, Devil Khan said:

Tbh, this isn't a capital ship. It's a gunboat, a gunboat isn't a cap ship. I really hate it when they have just 4 different sizes small, medium, large, and capital. A capital ship is a ship that can offensively attack other cap ships owned by the military. This ship hasn't any Cap weapons or shields. 890 shouldn't even conside itself as a cap ship either. Those are cruise ships, not cruiser ships.

The Hammerhead may not be classified as a capital ship ATM, but it will be.

I agree though that the 4 ship sizes are inadequate. Capital ships are supposed to be the largest and most important ships in the navy. In WWI/II era, battlecruisers, battleships, and aircraft carriers were classified as capital ships. Today, there are no battlecruisers or battleships. Aircraft carriers are considered capital ships. Some nations, like the US, classify their nuclear ballistic missile submarines as capital ships.

Regarding Star Citizen, it seems like any ship Corvette-size or larger is a capital ship according to the Ship Matrix. I don't agree with that, but that's what it says. There should be a least one size category between Large and Capital. I've seen the term "Sub-Capital" ships used before. It's not ideal, because it could further confuse what a Capital ship is. But it would apply to all of the ships currently classified as "Capital" ships. If the term Sub-Capital Ship was introduced, the Polaris, Idris, and Javelin would all be Sub-Capital Ships. The Bengal Carrier would be a Capital Ship. Whatever cruisers the UEEN has would be Capital Ships. The Retribution Battleship/Dreadnought could be a "Super-Capital" Ship.

Regardless, when the Hammerhead inevitably increases it size, it will end up in the same size range as the Polaris.

[Gremlich]

27 minutes ago, Devil Khan said:

It's a gunboat, a gunboat isn't a cap ship.

I agree. The backer population is loaded with people who know nothing about real armies or navies. Technically, an Idris is not a Cap ship, although CIG does reserve the right to characterize it as such, however incorrect. The entry below provides a succinct definition of what IS a capital ship. CIG are using it loosely as the second definition. And surface ship should be interpreted as a combat vessel. Thusly, the Carrack, Endeavour, Pioneer, Hammerhead, the SF/SF-G, Genesis should not be considered Capital Ships - combat support, sure, but not major combatants despite the probable workload the Idris will have. The Idris can almost because it is actually a major ship in the SC/SQ42 milieu - a mainstay of the fleet if you will due to numbers. Few, if any, of the ships in SC/SQ42 can be considered a battleship, cruiser, or aircraft carrier (and no, the lame "pocket carrier doesn't count). Javelin, Bengal, and the huge ship I cannot remember are it for me as a Cap ship. I submit that the Idris is equivalent to a Littoral ship.

Capital Ship: a warship of the first rank in size and armament : a major surface ship (as a battleship, cruiser, aircraft carrier)

[DASKOMMTDAWEG]

Maybe we should steer clear from terran saltwater navy wording.

We're in space after all.

[Tom Villder]

1 hour ago, Reavern said:

That's why if and when lawful players encounter a Pirate-owned cap ship, they should do everything they can to spoil it. Meaning that they shouldn't just give up and dump their cargo to pay the "pirate tax". They should always resist. Fight, run, hide, and stall as long as possible, until NPC law enforcement and/or lawful players intervene. Any damage inflicted on the Pirate cap ship will be exponentially greater than the losses the Pirates can inflict, because insurance is on our side. It might even be worthwhile for lawful players to kamikaze Pirate cap ships.

Never thought about it like that... maybe the insurance situation would make them more hesitant to use large, expensive ships like capitals to attack traders.

 

1 hour ago, Reavern said:

Another option is to self-destruct your ship and eject, rather than allow Pirates to capture or loot it.

Speaking along the themes of damage, if you know that you have no chance of survival, you might as well try and ram the most expensive ship of the attacking force, try and damage it as much as possible and will leave them with the following dilemma:

a. Make repairs, which would run the risk of an org retaliation or UEE attack

b. Abandon the ship, which could be retrieved by our org and would be great compensation for the lost ship

[faquarl25]

This is what I was hoping the Polaris would be. Instead, we got a ship that didn't know its role. The Polaris doesn't know if it wants to be a carrier, bomber, or gunship, sacrificing all of these roles for a little of each. It was clearly designed for small orgs to operate from or (in universe speak) militias to operate C&C off of with a little combat. I will be disappointed if we see a lot of polarizes in the UEE fleet because they simply don't fill a needed role (the military already has a bomber, a small carrier, and has more C&C than anyone would know what do do with).

 

The Hammerhead on the other hand... WOW. This is clearly NOT a capital ship or a command ship. It is a large support craft. However, it knows its role. The UEE desperately needed a picket ship and here it is. We get a working gunship (Were any of TNGS ships like the hammerhead?) that will make sense both in civilian AND UEE navy hands. I think this going to be my favorite military ship released since I backed and a really wish I could buy one. Anyone need crew :). Lastly, I would not be surprised if it gets nerfed (and rightfully so) down to quad size 3s on the turrets. Even those would tear through ships. 

 

@Reavern I loved your breakdown about pirates, and I would love to agree with you. However, I am being cautious. One of the issues that I have with this is LTI. While I do have LTI ships, I dislike the concept as it downplays risk. How will pirates get punished if they have LTI? Will they lose it if their wanted level goes high enough? Because nearly all of the large ships have LTI.

 

While I am sorry that I cannot afford it, my wallet is happy that it doesn't need to be assaulted any more than normal.

[Catbuss]

I wonder if you can fly a P52 through that hole. 

[Reavern]

19 minutes ago, faquarl25 said:

 

@Reavern I loved your breakdown about pirates, and I would love to agree with you. However, I am being cautious. One of the issues that I have with this is LTI. While I do have LTI ships, I dislike the concept as it downplays risk. How will pirates get punished if they have LTI? Will they lose it if their wanted level goes high enough? Because nearly all of the large ships have LTI.

We don't know if or how Crime Stat will affect LTI. I suspect it will affect it somehow. Even if Pirates don't have to pay a recurring fee for ship insurance because of LTI, I believe the replacement time will be longer and the Expedited Fee will be higher for criminals.

The most extreme scenario is that LTI won't apply if you have a Crime Stat, so criminals will have to pay for their version of insurance. The only way to reinstate their LTI is to clear their Crime Stat. This shouldn't be a problem for a lawful player who makes a simple mistake. (Like I just did in the PTU by bumping into a ship I was supposed to be escorting -- still getting used to the new afterburner controls!) But for a criminal player, even if they hack their Crime Stat to zero and recover their ship using LTI, they'll just commit crimes again and their Crime Stat will go up again. If criminal players have to spend time zeroing their Crime Stat to recover their LTI ship, that seems fair to me.

[Boildown]

This is what I thought the corvette would be before we got the Polaris.

I don't mind the Polaris, but now I do question whether I need my Retaliator and my Redeemer.  The Retaliator is basically obsoleted by the Polaris.  And the Redeemer, other than boarding actions, is obsoleted by this gunship.  But I've never been super interested in the boarding part of the Redeemer, I wanted the gunship part of it.

Anyways, haven't bought one yet, gunna wait and see what else is revealed over the next week.  But I might get one Dec 4th, and I really wasn't intending to get anything this go-round.  It does look really cool, people are going to want to crew this thing, and based on my knowledge of computer games this ship is going to be "OP" in the verse, because its design is so well focused.

[Wrathpole]

Picked one up, using it to replace my Hoplite. Figure it can load troops and a APC/Ground Vehicle and drop into a combat zone, unload the vehicle and then play AC-130.

[GeraldEvans]

Yeah the ability to carry a rover makes this the Super Redeemer.

[faquarl25]

1 hour ago, Boildown said:

This is what I thought the corvette would be before we got the Polaris.

I don't mind the Polaris, but now I do question whether I need my Retaliator and my Redeemer.  The Retaliator is basically obsoleted by the Polaris.  And the Redeemer, other than boarding actions, is obsoleted by this gunship.  But I've never been super interested in the boarding part of the Redeemer, I wanted the gunship part of it.

Anyways, haven't bought one yet, gunna wait and see what else is revealed over the next week.  But I might get one Dec 4th, and I really wasn't intending to get anything this go-round.  It does look really cool, people are going to want to crew this thing, and based on my knowledge of computer games this ship is going to be "OP" in the verse, because its design is so well focused.

I would disagree. The retaliator is not rendered obsolete by the Polaris. If anything, it is the other way around. The retaliator, which is smaller, and far less expensive, delivers a comparable (though slightly smaller) payload. This means that in most engagements, people will be able to deploy more retaliators than Polari(?, not sure on plural here). I personally don't see why one would ever use a Polaris instead of of one or two retaliators. The redeemer was supposed to be far smaller, meaning that it should not be placed in comparison to the hammerhead. 

[Caldon]

Not getting this one. I like it, but too expensive. However, recently seeing how the carrack came along made me wonder if I should melt the 600i upgrade and X1 I have for a sabre. 

A shame. I really wish I could afford this one

 

[Zee]

Welp, just bought my second one... Not only can I serve and project, but I can serve and protect the hell out of something! 

[Darius Marx]

Thinking about replacing my phoenix and redeemer for this beast

[Reavern]

I re-watched the Aegis video and learned that the Hammerhead apparently has two remote turrets in addition to the six manned turrets. Unfortunately, it's unclear where those two remote turrets are located on the ship.

Also, the video explained that there is a small galley for the crew to eat, and internal diagrams show the engine room is the same room as the one with the cargo lift. Regardless that the ship has these rooms, I still believe that the ship will increase in size during the ship production pipeline. The concept artists can get away with blocking out a kitchen nook and claim the crew can eat, and place the ship's power plants on the walls of a room with a cargo lift in the middle, but I guarantee those aren't getting through production.

The Carrack was increased in size just so they could make the hallways hexagonal in shape -- a purely aesthetic design choice -- which increased the width of the hallways by 2 metres, and consequently the whole ship. The Carrack also has a dedicated drone room, as well as crew amenities, such as a pool table!

That is why I believe the Hammerhead won't be as spartan when it's finished as the concept art portrays. CIG will add several rooms and the missing features that I mentioned, and the ship will probably be at least 25% larger.

[Zee]

3 minutes ago, Reavern said:

I re-watched the Aegis video and learned that the Hammerhead apparently has two remote turrets in addition to the six manned turrets. Unfortunately, it's unclear where those two remote turrets are located on the ship.

I'll have to re-watch the video. If this is the case, CIG may have created a bigger monster than even they're aware of!

Welp, here it is in the description.. Manned and unmanned turrets...

[Reavern]

Just now, Zarian said:

I'll have to re-watch the video. If this is the case, CIG may have created a bigger monster than even they're aware of!

The Hammerhead was created entirely by Foundry 42. I think they said it was the first capital ship they built from start to finish. I suppose it's possible that CIG in Los Angeles didn't know all of the ships features, like the two remote turrets. However, I think it's more likely that Turbulent screwed up again and didn't include the unmanned turrets on the Ship Matrix. Even the ship's 100 metre length is inconsistent with the cap ship size comparison pic, which indicates the Hammerhead is 125 metres long.

And there were also mistakes with the Anvil Hawk's stats. The Anvil video and ship brochure say it has six gun hardpoints and the Anvil ring in the centre is an EMP projector. The Ship Matrix posted by Turbulent says it has five gun hardpoints and one is an "EMP Device". I think CIG knows more about the ships than Turbulent. And considering their track record regarding the old Ship Stats page they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

[Donut]

6 minutes ago, Reavern said:

The Hammerhead was created entirely by Foundry 42. I think they said it was the first capital ship they built from start to finish. I suppose it's possible that CIG in Los Angeles didn't know all of the ships features, like the two remote turrets. However, I think it's more likely that Turbulent screwed up again and didn't include the unmanned turrets on the Ship Matrix. Even the ship's 100 metre length is inconsistent with the cap ship size comparison pic, which indicates the Hammerhead is 125 metres long.

And there were also mistakes with the Anvil Hawk's stats. The Anvil video and ship brochure say it has six gun hardpoints and the Anvil ring in the centre is an EMP projector. The Ship Matrix posted by Turbulent says it has five gun hardpoints and one is an "EMP Device". I think CIG knows more about the ships than Turbulent. And considering their track record regarding the old Ship Stats page they don't deserve the benefit of the doubt.

Turbulent is in charge of the website. This includes not only putting things on sale, and the ship descriptions, but also the ship stats. They literally can't do anything right, except the Idris P sale which they actually were successful on. I think what it is, is that all the turrets were listed on the ship matrix, so 2 out of the 6 turrets will be remote, where the other four, I assume the side turrets, will be manned. I don't believe it's an additional 2 turrets.

[Reavern]

16 minutes ago, Donut said:

Turbulent is in charge of the website. This includes not only putting things on sale, and the ship descriptions, but also the ship stats. They literally can't do anything right, except the Idris P sale which they actually were successful on. I think what it is, is that all the turrets were listed on the ship matrix, so 2 out of the 6 turrets will be remote, where the other four, I assume the side turrets, will be manned. I don't believe it's an additional 2 turrets.

 

In the Aegis video, the Foundry 42 guy said the Hammerhead has 6 manned turrets with quad cannons, plus two unmanned (remote) turrets. He didn't say that the unmanned turrets had quad cannons, so I suspect they're smaller. I'm hoping that the unmanned turrets are pilot (or co-pilot) controlled, like I mentioned earlier.

[Devil Khan]

No the 6 turrets, 2 of which can be remote controlled from the bridge. however you don't have to be remote controlled they can be directly turreted at any time. The two seats are pilot ans co-pilot doubles