Anvil Carrack - Dedicated exploration ship

[Devil Khan]

However, my statement was  why do you want to replace the  two manned turrets with basically gimbals.

You can't really  give any judge on the AI turrets until they are released, otherwise it's merely CR's word of mouth. 

[Caldon]

True, true. The AI of the enemy is also a factor to consider and one I forgot. I just hope that there's just options for us poor, poor humans.

1 minute ago, Devil Khan said:

However, my statement was  why do you want to replace the  two manned turrets with basically gimbals.

You can't really  give any judge on the AI turrets until they are released, otherwise it's merely CR's word of mouth. 

And I said that it's (imo at least) more practical, and more for the enjoyment of the pilot. And I didn't want to just replace them, just switch them around - make the AI turrets/slave turrets be on the wings, and the manned turrets be on the bottom/top.

Your second statement is true, though personal experience with game AI tells me that having to rely on a computer to keep you safe in a game where your virtual life is precious is going to get very frustrating.

[PaulC2K]

18 minutes ago, Caldon said:

Which is why, imo, the AI turrets are a bad idea. Either they're horribly OP or they're frustratingly incompetent. Rather have people (be able to) control them.

This is nonsense. They'll operate within a window that CIG feels is appropriately balanced. Saying anything otherwise is just being facetious and unhelpful to any discussion.

There will be strengths & weaknesses to anything.
AI Targeting = Expensive to buy, need additional power, cpu cycles and cooling to operate. However they dont demand a wage, cant be somewhere else where they might be needed (also cant go wandering off when they're needed) etc. They also dont need life support to function, and maybe if you're soloing (just an example) you might be able to downgrade that to 1 soul and beef up the powerplant etc.

As for how good they are, well they'll be exactly the same as anything else, weapons, ships, systems. You'll go with whatever option you think is best, but there will be drawbacks that arent simply price related, and everything will have its toll on other areas. You want an uber AI, it needs an uber CPU, that needs more cooling, and they all need more power, and before you know it you're sacrificing something else, because i dont believe the perfect build will exist, so you'll have insufficient something as a consequence.

Its all getting rather off-topic though. Until we have things in our hands to assess whether they're better or worse, on a ship that isnt finished, its not going to have any conclusive answer.

[Caldon]

2 minutes ago, PaulC2K said:

This is nonsense. They'll operate within a window that CIG feels is appropriately balanced. Saying anything otherwise is just being facetious and unhelpful to any discussion.

There will be strengths & weaknesses to anything.
AI Targeting = Expensive to buy, need additional power, cpu cycles and cooling to operate. However they dont demand a wage, cant be somewhere else where they might be needed (also cant go wandering off when they're needed) etc. They also dont need life support to function, and maybe if you're soloing (just an example) you might be able to downgrade that to 1 soul and beef up the powerplant etc.

As for how good they are, well they'll be exactly the same as anything else, weapons, ships, systems. You'll go with whatever option you think is best, but there will be drawbacks that arent simply price related, and everything will have its toll on other areas. You want an uber AI, it needs an uber CPU, that needs more cooling, and they all need more power, and before you know it you're sacrificing something else, because i dont believe the perfect build will exist, so you'll have insufficient something as a consequence.

Its all getting rather off-topic though. Until we have things in our hands to assess whether they're better or worse, on a ship that isnt finished, its not going to have any conclusive answer.

I'm not only disputing their targeting skills. If you put it like that sure, the targeting could easily be balanced.

I also mean how do you control the things, how do you get them to shoot the targets you want? How can you get them to hold fire? Can you make them not shoot anything until you give them the command? Does that take more micromanaging from a crewmember, or the pilot? Why not just give control directly to a player then?

Sure, a player can walk away mid-fight to let the turrets do their thing. And I admit, that's a good advantage to have. But I can only imagine frustrations cropping up like a player surrenders, and the AI guns just don't care and shoot them to pieces anyway because you couldn't turn them off in time. Or you're trying to hide in an asteroid field and suddenly, without warning, the guns open fire on some pirate sap because someone isn't there to micromanage them and the AI deemed it necessary to fire.

I'm sure CIG will do their best with the systems. But that doesn't mean I can't express my concerns about it, and offer my views on how I would personally fix it.

But you're right on your last bit. We haven't seen the Carrack yet, or the computer controlled turrets. Who knows what'll come out of the pipeline.

[Devil Khan]

One point of which I am going to stick out that... multi-crew in true meaning means real life (TM) people are designed to work/fight the carrack.

[Minted]

22 hours ago, Danakar Endeel said:

No idea to be honest. I suspect it was just Ben being Ben.

I believe the Carrack is already in the hands of F42. Makes sense as F42 works on all the Anvil and Aegis ships.

So I expect it will end up around 140m in length MINIMUM with a giant STS turret (I call her Vera VoA)

I wouldn't be surprised! It needs space for a small sub vessel and a land vehicle. Also the modular sections are very small so there were suggestions that to make them viable "rooms" it will probably need to get bigger. It is also the premier exploration ship so bigger is allways better obviously lol.

 

9 hours ago, Booster Terrik said:

I have a gemini now which I will probably upgrade to a Carrack when it becomes available but I sure hope F42 doesn't screw up the carrack like they did the gemini. I feel like the mazerunner when I am on the gemini. Like some peeps have already stated it feels more like a Battlefield4 map than a ship  Looks like the whole ship was designed for boarding actions in squadron 42  I hope the Carrack has a more compact feel with less levels and corridors/dead ends/etc. If you are an engineer on a Gemini you better be a marathon runner or you will not be able to do your job if multiple systems fail in battle

It should be a lot simpler really. Its going to very much like the Connie I think but with possibly 2 levels instead of one.

[Caldon]

I wouldn't mind some nooks and crannies aboard the Carrack. Just not so many you get lost trying to find the bathroom.

 

[GeraldEvans]

Btw, all four turrets are manned. The top one is controlled by the player in the little window to the port side of it and the lower one from within.

[Caldon]

The store page lists them as unmanned though. Are you sure?

[Devil Khan]

No it is 2 manned and 2 un-manned the unmanned don't have glass or see thru just basic flat round metal.

Can I just ask how would he see a wide field of view from such a tiny window limited side

 

[Amy Babe]

If I could get rid of NPC or PC turrets for an AI controlled turret, i'd make the jump immediatly.

* no stress in combat, always cold blood. focused on the task. deadly...

* better aiming and efficiency.

PC gunners won't know when the pilot changes the ship direction and it will be a real issue to keep a target aligned... AI controled turret will obviously have a tracking feature that will be of great accuracy (today's state of art of tracking accuracy for statellite ground station is below 0.05° in X-band  and even better if we work in ku or ka band... I can't imagine the tracking accuracy in the future, this with an acceleration better than 30°/s² and a speed bettern than 20°/s. no human can achieve that. This is given just to tell you what Today in 2016, an automatec system can do...).Moreover i assume that the turrets will all the time know the ship attitude thanks to the internal motion unit and any ship movement will immediatly be know then compensated by the turret tracking system.

The only reason a human needs to keep an ey on the AI controlled defense system is to assign a priority over the targets in case there are many of them.

* Human assets can be used to decision making (see above for instance, but not only), fixing the ship, ... anything that needs brain horsepower and could not be handled by an AI (which is a predictive software, ... as long as you are out of the frame of what it can do, it is useless).

 

 

[Devil Khan]

That is assuming the all humans are dead eye cracks shots. Personally the npcs will suit just as well for my taste. Have to wait and see before any judgement.

[Booster Terrik]

Realisticly any weapons fire should be computer controlled because any battle in space will be at speeds which no human can account for. At closure rates which can run into the thousands of kilometers per second (even worse if you get to say 0.1 lightspeed which is 30.000 km/s) no human would be able to achieve a firing solution and execute an attack succesfully. Earth satellites orbit with a speed of around 7 km/s so try hitting one of those if you are not on exactly the same orbit and velocity.

I am 100% certain that in the future any offensive actions by spaceships will be computer controlled and the only human element will be in selecting target priority and weapon type/target saturation before the actual moment of contact (which will be measured in milliseconds if you are lucky).

[Amy Babe]

This!

 

thank you Booster. You adressed the technical point of the thing.

In addition to that think about the crew  in a carrack.

according to today's stat it says 5 people.

 

The following question is for everybody interrested in the carrack ship, not only those talking about the OT on the turrets.

How would you crew your carrack? don't forget that it has the same puropose than a star trek USS enterprise and that you leave for LONG duration expedition

 

For me:

* Obviously One captain: ship management, logistic, high level decisions, not necessarily the pilot, but if does not we will need one.. and we can not afford it.

* One specialist medic

* One system engineer, in charge of maintaining the ship in a good shape, perform repairs

* One defense and armament specialist: in charge of the ship defense

* I have a 5th position ready, and I would choose a co-pilot, able to fly the scout ship (while i'd pilot the carrack), and with skills in language, xenobiology.

 

In case of an attack on my carrack i want:

* the pilot to .. pilot => he can not man a turret, i'm not even sure he could pilot, keep a mental mindset to tell the crew what to do and in the mean time control with joysticks 2 unmanned turrets... the boss should stay above all of this to be able to take the good decisions.

* the medic to be ready in case someone needs immediate assistance. I have a crew of 5. i can not afford a single casualty=>  i can not wait a long time before the medic comes if someone needs him => he can not man a turret

* my system engineer to be ready handling system failures... loss of energy, someone hacking my system, engines out of order. THIS requires immediate actions.

=> my system engineer can not man a turret

* my armament specialist will have to assigne the target priority, focus on situation awareness, shields management. he can obviously not, in the mean time do all of that and fire a turret.

 

Only the 5th guy could man a turret! but he is not a gunner specialist

Really: give me automated and AI control turrets, i don't have enough human resources to defend my ship.

 

 

[stefmarster]

1 hour ago, Amy Babe said:

If I could get rid of NPC or PC turrets for an AI controlled turret, i'd make the jump immediatly.

* no stress in combat, always cold blood. focused on the task. deadly...

* better aiming and efficiency.

PC gunners won't know when the pilot changes the ship direction and it will be a real issue to keep a target aligned... AI controled turret will obviously have a tracking feature that will be of great accuracy

There is also one Little factor that the NPC will never be able to do better then a player.... beeing part of a crew, strong teamwork and Work toghetter.

[Caldon]

43 minutes ago, Booster Terrik said:

Realisticly any weapons fire should be computer controlled because any battle in space will be at speeds which no human can account for. At closure rates which can run into the thousands of kilometers per second (even worse if you get to say 0.1 lightspeed which is 30.000 km/s) no human would be able to achieve a firing solution and execute an attack succesfully. Earth satellites orbit with a speed of around 7 km/s so try hitting one of those if you are not on exactly the same orbit and velocity.

I am 100% certain that in the future any offensive actions by spaceships will be computer controlled and the only human element will be in selecting target priority and weapon type/target saturation before the actual moment of contact (which will be measured in milliseconds if you are lucky).

True, but I think the rule of cool applies here, and realism has to step aside

Quote

The whole post of @Amy Babe which is way too long to quote

That's fair, how you plan to set up your crew makes sense. Maybe there's something to unmanned guns after all. Still, I'm skeptical, but there's nothing else but to wait and see.

Back to my original point, switch around the current manned/unmanned turret setup. Make the unmanned turrets be in the wings. Less hallways mean more space to fit ammo/bigger power supplies.

[Devil Khan]

Does he realise that for the pass decades computer assistance has been a thing on ships, aircraft, artillery and tanks because of their size needed for computing.

The automatic targeting is not being enforced because of various countries at the  moment . Human rights and no human souls etc etc. Star Citizen is NOT A REALISTIC game, it is cinematic. This means more to movies rather than realism. This is the way in wing commander games and freelancers etc etc. Elite is realism while SC is cinematic. The phyisitics stay the same but they can be tweaked and other such rulings of law.

Basically it is cinematic( with arcade fps ) and cc has existed for decades, just size of computers that stops it from getting smaller to infantry. Cost out ways the reach, lucky for them arcade mode is the same.

Anyway, keep on topic ... carrack remember?

[Caldon]

1 hour ago, Devil Khan said:

Does he realise that for the pass decades computer assistance has been a thing on ships, aircraft, artillery and tanks because of their size needed for computing.

The automatic targeting is not being enforced because of various countries at the  moment . Human rights and no human souls etc etc. Star Citizen is NOT A REALISTIC game, it is cinematic. This means more to movies rather than realism. This is the way in wing commander games and freelancers etc etc. Elite is realism while SC is cinematic. The phyisitics stay the same but they can be tweaked and other such rulings of law.

Basically it is cinematic( with arcade fps ) and cc has existed for decades, just size of computers that stops it from getting smaller to infantry. Cost out ways the reach, lucky for them arcade mode is the same.

Anyway, keep on topic ... carrack remember?

Yes, "he" realises that, thank you very much. Because of course computer assistance is a thing. The PIP system implemented in SC right now is a shining example of computer assistance. I'm saying that I'm skeptical about the frustrations that could arise from it in the game, I'm not trying to start some philosophical debate on human rights, nor am I questioning that SC is not a realistic game. Because of course the rule of cool triumphs if it makes the game more fun to play.

[Amy Babe]

hello mates,

i'm deeply wondering atm:

is a carrack somehow redundant with a constellation andromeda?

one day i feel yes, the day after, i feel "no"...

is there a reason to keep both in my line up (see signature) (knowing that i try to avoid as much as possible frepower relying on missiles)

 

thanks for your inpuuts

 

best regards

[Caldon]

14 minutes ago, Amy Babe said:

hello mates,

i'm deeply wondering atm:

is a carrack somehow redundant with a constellation andromeda?

one day i feel yes, the day after, i feel "no"...

is there a reason to keep both in my line up (see signature) (knowing that i try to avoid as much as possible frepower relying on missiles)

 

thanks for your inpuuts

 

best regards

Well, the Carrack has better sensors, packs more fuel, has more crew ameneties, has a rover for land exploration, has an advanced jump drive, etc...

I also think the Carrack can carry more/same amount of cargo. The only real edge the connie has over the Carrack is the missile racks and that it's more agile, so better suited for combat. It's also smaller, so it may be able to fit through smaller jump points. The snub fighter on the Connie is also better suited for combat.

[Devil Khan]

The Carrack is longer range and more dedicated to exploration (for long times or is just has a massive fuel tank). It has everything you need rovers and shuttles and 3 modules?

[Amy Babe]

i know all of those aspects. i just wonder if i should keep both... knowing i can only be in one ship at once...

 

to me carrack does better on everything but combat, and a have an heavy combat lineup.... though there is an angel voice in my head that keeps on saying "keep that andromeda", and a devil voice that says "you already have all you need! why do you keep this bird?"

 

i just would not like a ship to stay unused in my hangar...

[Devil Khan]

In size it's the same length of a a corvette class. The Armor is better on the Carrack and I think it is definitely stronger shields 

 

"Gotta catch 'em all"

Keep in mind the large ship can't get through a small jump point,

2 manned 2xs4 and 2 unmanned s4 and possible 1 snub?

4x s4 gimble 1xS4 manned 2x 20 s2 missle

[Devil Khan]

I have a few Connies, but only at stock IE not going to upgrade them until they have at least been re-designed. You can always CCU to a connie phoenix instead

and take it with you in the Carrack.

[Caldon]

8 hours ago, Devil Khan said:

I have a few Connies, but only at stock IE not going to upgrade them until they have at least been re-designed. You can always CCU to a connie phoenix instead

and take it with you in the Carrack.

Take a connie with you in the carrack..?

Clearly you overestimate the carrack's size