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Aopoa San'Tok.Yai


Danakar Endeel

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34 minutes ago, Zero Null Cero said:

$220 puts it in the Andromeda / Mercury range. I sure hope it turns out to be something comparable with regard to ship size, utility and firepower.  We can only hope.

ZNC

Hard to tell what it is, but it sure doesn't look that big from that picture...

  • The view appears like we're looking at it from the front and right side, so we see the front cockpit area (I'm assuming) and right wing. 
  • There's one large looking weapon up top which I'm guessing has a brother on the opposite side.
  • I'm also assuming it will "fold out" kind of like the Aopoa Khartu-Al does.

Guessing we'll find out more on Nov 28th.

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16 hours ago, Zero Null Cero said:

$220 puts it in the Andromeda / Mercury range. I sure hope it turns out to be something comparable with regard to ship size, utility and firepower.  We can only hope.

ZNC

I fear it won't be comparable to those ships as the ship in the image feels rather small when you look at the guy standing next to it in the picture. As such I'm betting that part of the price is 'alien tax'.

I'm guessing this might be a Xi'an Medium Fighter or something as Aopoa is the manufacturer for Xi'an ships and the Xi'an Khartu-Al Light Fighter was $150 when it was first sold.

https://starcitizen.tools/San’tok.yāi

The Aopoa San’tok.yāi ( kyexiin: @sàN’tokY#(Proper); SRX: San’tok.yāi (Proper); literally ship that creates genuine fear; ) is an upcoming Xi’an ship converted for human use.[1] It is named after the Tokyai, the apex predator that is native to the Xi’an world Xi.[2]

Matokyaiwinner.jpg

 

 

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Concept Sale is up + Q&A

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/transmission/16877-Aopoa-Santokyai

The Aopoa Council cordially requests your presence at an exclusive gala, commemorating the release of their new medium fighter, the ferocious San’tok.yāi.

In celebration of the recently passed Human-Xi'an trade initiative, Aopoa is pulling out all the stops in unveiling their latest - a medium fighter that harnesses the power of Xi'an mil-tech, capable of inspiring awe and dismay in even the stoutest adversaries.

 

You're invited to Prime, Terra for a one-of-a-kind foray into Xi'an culture, as we raise a toast, or many, to the San’tok.yāi and the continually increasing goodwill between our great civilizations. This star-studded formal affair features the famous āluo'a Pō’syu e Ngi’u.in’a as its centerpiece. Performed in its unabridged fourteen-hour form by the incomparable Nyaāluo'a U.al se Ngē who, even at his advanced age, still touches hearts and rumbles bowels with his dulcet sub-sonic tones. Joining him onstage will be Terra's own King City Rhythm Collective, their dance prowess melding harmoniously with U.al's time-bending vocals to weave a stirring tribute to the unique poetry of motion and the freedom of flight itself. A fitting coronation for the San’tok.yāi that must be experienced to be believed. An extravagant banquet will be provided and catered by none other than Nyaoten Yiim se Mu’ao, who is widely renowned for pioneering unheard levels of "haut gout" in her cuisine. Human entrees will be available upon request. The event culminates in the dramatic reveal of the San’tok.yāi - Aopoa's most ambitious human conversion to date and the future of spaceflight as you know it. 

We would be humbled and honored for you to join us in this singular experience.

 

 

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DISCOVER THE XI'AN ADVANTAGE

DISCOVER AOPOA

The San’tok.yāi, for the true Xi’an ship enthusiast.

From the unmistakably angular profile to the game-changing dual-vector thrusters now-synonymous with the brand, Aopoa continues the tradition of bold and distinctive design while continually pursuing further advancements in technology, engineering, and combat. With the San’tok.yāi, we're introducing to the Human market Yeng’tu Laser Repeaters, inspired by Xi'an mil-tech and tailor-made by Torral Aggregate for this model. Coupled with our latest thrusters and power components, the daunting custom weapons package lends the San’tok.yāi a potent punch, and will make you rethink the very concept of the light-medium fighter.

MAX CREW1
MASS106,566KG
LENGTH24M
WIDTH23M
HEIGHT10M

Welcome to the future of spaceflight, courtesy of the Xi’an Empire. We know you’ll enjoy your flight.

 
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AOPOA SAN'TOK'YAI ANNIVERSARY 2018 WARBOND- Standalone Ship
$195.00 USD
IN STOCKMORE INFOADD TO CART
store_small.jpg
AOPOA SAN'TOK'YAI ANNIVERSARY 2018- Standalone Ship
$220.00 USD
IN STOCKMORE INFOADD TO CART

https://robertsspaceindustries.com/comm-link/engineering/16872-Q-A-Aopoa-Santoky-i

Q&A: Aopoa San’tok.yāi

 

Following the launch of the San’tok.yāi from Aopoa, we took our questions to the ship designers to give you more information on this recently-unveiled medium class fighter.

Special thanks to John Crewe and Todd Papy for answering our questions.

 
 

 

XIAN_medium_fighter_saltplanes_4k_AA01.j
What can the San’tok.yāi do that the Khartu-al cannot and vice versa? What are the advantages and disadvantages? What are the main differences?

 

In the Xi’an order of battle, the Khartu-al serves principally as a light fighter, scout, and skirmisher, whereas the San’tok.yāi is a medium fighter and direct combatant. Just like the UEE Military, the Xi’an military employs various types of fighters with different strengths and performance characteristics. The comparison between a Khartu-al and a San’tok.yāi is similar to the comparison between a Gladius and a Hornet – one emphasizes firepower and the other emphasizes speed and agility. Particularly due to its lower mass and lighter weapons complement, the Khartu-al is faster, accelerates more quickly, and is even more responsive than the San’tok.yāi. However, the San’tok.yāi carries considerably more weaponry. That said, the Khartu-al and San’tok.yāi are both Xi’an designs through and through, set apart from other fighters by the exceptional maneuverability afforded to them by their distinctive maneuvering rigs. In the hands of a capable pilot well-versed in the ship’s capabilities, the San’tok.yāi is a difficult target. The Khartu-al, maddeningly so.

 
Is this a true Xi’an military ship or a civilian export?

 

Similar to the Khartu-al, the Santok’yai is a civilian version of the Xi’an military ship designed for export and sale in the Human market. Like the Khartu-al, the San’tok.yāi is an original Xi’an-produced export by Aopoa, and not a replica, reconstruction, or a product of reverse-engineering.

 

 

How does this ship handle, maneuverability wise?

XIAN_medium_fighter_landed_1_4k_AA01.jpg

In terms of maneuverability, the San’tok.yāi is one of the best-handling ships of its size and weight class – in this case, the proper point of comparison is other medium fighters, such as the Hornet or Sabre. The design of Xi’an fighter craft revolves around their unique thruster configuration, which relies on highly articulated main thrusters. When compared with the typically human thruster setup, which relies on one or more main fixed thrusters with yaw, pitch, and roll delivered through additional small maneuvering thrusters, the Xi’an approach provides superior strafe-movement capabilities and lateral acceleration. The ability to deliver main engine performance on multiple axes also affords some other benefits. For example, many ships have finite VTOL endurance or exert heavy wear on their maneuvering thrusters while engaged in VTOL. Xi’an fighters, like the San’tok.yāi, barely notice such activity, it being nearly as natural to them as forward flight.

 
Will the Xi’an tech that introduces this new strafing maneuverability be applied to any other ships?

 

Theoretically it’s possible, but it will likely remain exclusive to Xi’an ship designs. While Xi’an thruster technology plays a large part in delivering this unique strafing flight capability, the overall design of the ship’s entire spaceframe and power infrastructure is also integral to providing the full range of articulation and point reinforcement needed to utilize it to its fullest. It is not something that can be effectively or efficiently retrofitted to ships not designed with them in mind from the ground up. Furthermore, the resulting structural arrangement, with main thrusters located outside the ship’s main fuselage and borne articulation joints that may be exposed from multiple angles, is less durable under fire than contemporary ‘bricky’ human designs. Xi’an engineers still make their fighters as strong and durable as they can without compromising the ship’s other capabilities, but this requires accounting for these requirements from the get-go. An attempt to retrofit a Xi’an thruster rig to a ship that wasn’t designed with one in mind from the start would result in something downright rickety.

 

 

Is this a common ship in the Xi’an empire?

XIAN_medium_fighter_cockpit_4k_AA01.jpg

As a mainstay medium fighter in the arsenal of the Xi’an Empire, the San’tok.yāi is about as common a sight in Xi’an space as a Hornet or Sabre would be in UEE space. It serves prominently in the Xi’an fleet and may also occasionally be found serving civilian security forces of some of the more powerful Xi’an houses.

 
Are we getting any cool Xi’an weapons? Xi’an missiles maybe?

 

The Yeng’tu S3 Laser Repeater (full name in Xi’an: Aoō’nu se T.or’al Ro’thli Yeng’tu) that comes with the Santok’yai is manufactured by Torral Aggregate and uses Xi’an technology to provide a higher rate of fire than traditional human-produced laser repeaters of comparable size. While powerful, the design that produces this increased rate of fire comes at the expense of a lower maximum heat threshold, leading to a reduced firing duration before overheating.

 
Will Xi’an ships get their own UI style? (They currently use VNCL UI)

 

Yes, as noted they currently use a recoloured Vanduul ship UI as a temporary stand-in. We have plans in the future to make all the Alien manufacturer ships feel different UI wise.

 
Will the ship have a Xi’an branded ship-computer-voice? If yes, will we be able to switch between English and Xi’an?

 

That’s certainly an interesting idea and while we have plans to record new cockpit audio for all the alien ships, we hadn’t planned on doing them in alien languages specifically, assuming that the export version of the fighter would use human language. Now that you mention it, we’ll try to gauge interest for this feature.

 

 

In terms of combat capability, how does it compare to ships like the Anvil Super Hornet or Aegis Sabre?

Xian_med_fighter_dogfight_1_4k_AA01.jpg

 

 

The San’tok.yāi resides within the same medium fighter weight class that the Super Hornet and Sabre inhabit, so it is designed to be competitive with them. As noted above, the San’tok.yāi’s design makes it less resilient to damage than either of those two ships, and its weapons loadout is lighter than these two specific contemporaries, but not by much. It’s the Xi’an thruster design and arrangement, of course, that make it superior to either of those two fighters in terms of lateral acceleration and strafe-focused flight, while its Xi’an-designed weapons are designed to capitalize on relatively brief windows of target vulnerability. Each fighter is capable in a variety of scenarios and yet each matches particularly well for certain types of pilots: We expect that the Super Hornet will be favored by sluggers and endurance fighters who can maintain steady firing solutions and use their ability to shrug off minor hits to press an advantage. The swift, stealthy Sabre may be favored by pilots who prefer ambush and boom-n’-zoom tactics, using momentum to strike and fade. We anticipate that the San’tok.yāi may be the favorite of consummate dogfighters and sneaky pilots who thrive in furballs and crowded, tricky environments, never giving anyone more than a few seconds to fire before ducking behind cover. Of course, how it all bears out depends greatly on how you, the players, decide to use these ships in practice. We’re eager to see what you can do with them!

 
What amenities will pilots find on board the ship?

 

The San’tok.yāi is a military medium fighter, so while it’s big on maneuverability and firepower, it’s short on creature comforts – same as you’d expect from other military medium fighters. If you’re looking for cargo, storage, or living space, you won’t find it here; but then, if you’re designing a ship specifically to go up against Super Hornets and Sabres, you’d best keep your head in that game and focus the ship’s edges on combat!

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I just bought one as part of a CCU which pushes my pledge from Wing Commander to Completionist 😎

I am having a hard time (guess I'll have to wait for it to become flyable) as to where to place this on my "favorite ships list"....... so far here are my top 5

  1. Pioneer
  2. Phoenix
  3. San'tok.yai
  4. Khartu-Al
  5. 890 Jump

++++ Here is the ATV on the Exotic / Import Ships

 

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2 hours ago, Brightmist said:

Undergunned flying glass cannon barn door with an unprononounceable name as expected 😀

Well I wouldn't say undergunned as it has the same number and size of gun hardpoints as the Aegis Sabre. 

2 hours ago, Brightmist said:

It has 4x 322 racks so 8 S3 missiles total.

Someone likely typed it wrong.

According to the brochure it has 4x 322 racks so that would mean it has 8 S2 missiles total (or 4 S3 missiles max) :)

  • 3 = hardpoint size
  • 2 = number of missiles mounted on the rack
  • 2 = size of the missiles mounted of the rack

So yeah, it seems the stats page is wrong again (as usual) and it just has 8 S2 missiles (2x S2 per rack). 32 S3 missiles would be pretty insane and impossible due to the size (the Hammerhead has 32 S3 missiles divided across 4 large missile bays). 

Effectively it's like a Sabre with higher strafing potential but no stealth and a +$50 alien tax. So I'll just keep my Sabre :P

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25 minutes ago, Boildown said:

I kind of want this but I question the utility of diving behind cover while your weapons cool down in space combat.  What's to take cover behind in space?  The nearest asteroid might be AUs away.

Yeah, and during that time your opponent will just regenerate their shields. So it's marketing bs where they try to turn a negative into a positive. Overheating weapons is bad, weapons that overheat even faster by design is worse. :P

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I realize that we won't know for certain until the new flight model gets added in, and even then until we get our actual hands on the ship it's still just theory crafting, but is the general consensus so far that this ship is likely going to underperform in combat compared to the Sabre and Super-Hornet?

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6 minutes ago, Dabclipers said:

I realize that we won't know for certain until the new flight model gets added in, and even then until we get our actual hands on the ship it's still just theory crafting, but is the general consensus so far that this ship is likely going to underperform in combat compared to the Sabre and Super-Hornet?

I actually just got back from scanning reddit about this new ship, and they generally think its going to be vulnerable to having its thrusters shot off, like the Khartu, and then its a downward spiral of less maneuverability and getting shot up even more until you're done.  One person was impressed that it had 4 fuel scoops, as small and medium fighters generally have none, rely entirely on stored fuel.

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I think it will be a deadly duelist ship, it's fragility is less pronounced there.  On top of that, it will be able to maneuver around fixed engine craft rather efficiently and keep their guns firing while preventing it's opponent from getting rounds on target.  Naturally the downside is as you've said, in multi-ship dogfights it likely won't have the endurance that a Super-Hornet has, nor it's punchiness that allows it to take down targets quick to level the playing field.

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There are 2 possible scenarios:

1. Human fighters will still be able to bear guns on this in the new flight model and it's hard to miss on that barn door front side which I find to be the most likely scenario. Rotation is cheap in space.

2. This ship will be the uncontested king of dogfighting since it's gonna be a 6-dof ship while all the other fighters just aren't good enough in AC/dogfights so they're either gonna nerf this to the ground or buff human fighters' rotational rates so they can bear guns on it and kill it easily after shooting off a thruster so it's right back to where Khartu-Al is today.

In either scenario, this ship isn't likely to see much play except by its fans. This ship is just too big to fit in human carriers so I wouldn't expect it to be the king of all medium fighters either.

If this ship ends up being a medium fighter that can actually scoop fuel, there'll also likely be another shitstorm about it too, more so especially if it's a really good dogfighter. It also might end up being a niche medium fighter with fuel scoop that really isn't good at PvP but does okay in PvE.

I also think tanky ships like SH and Vanguard, "brawlers", are gonna be good with the new flight model because it's gonna be harder to dodge incoming fire which is a big part of dogfighting in the current flight model.

I know they said multiple times that alien fighters are gonna be 6-dof and human fighters are gonna be main-centric, but you just can't have the two together in the same flight model since 6-dof ships will always beat up on main-centric ones and I wouldn't expect the community to be OK with radical changes in combat balance. CIG also states that this is gonna be competitive against Sabre/Hornet and only way that happens is that human fighters can consistently bear their weapons on it, meaning having good enough rotational rates even if they're a bit drifty.

There's also another issue with main-centric flight model is that if the single seaters end up with artificially limited rotational rates in space and super-restricted yaw in atmosphere, medium sized or bigger ships shouldn't really be able maneuver in the atmosphere at all except VTOL ones so that doesn't really make sense.

There's also the fact that they keep producing things like Arrow commercial where it kinda goes crazy on a Cutlass and that's really not a representation of a main-centric flight model.

Anyways, it's my 2 cents but it's a hard to predict subject so we'll all wait and see what happens together. Just don't pull the trigger on CCUs etc. Remember that Khartu-Al was first pitched as a 2 seater, 4x S3 loadout, long range scout ship and ended up as a light fighter with 1 seat, 2x S3 loadout and without scouting ability nor long range capability.

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Looks like a lot of people really haven't fought with a Khartu-al  and don't realize the advantages of maneuverability which will only be magnified even more with the new flight model. ... so trying to say that the human Fighters are still going to outperform just shows that you haven't flown one of these yet.

The comments about the ships being vulnerable by having their engines blown off that is true and you don't want to compare it to a Vanguard or Hornet but the whole idea behind these Xi'An ships is not to get hit and to be more maneuverable and I've been able to fight with the Khartu-al  by wearing people down and out maneuvering them😎

Here are some YouTube videos on the ship

 

 

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