Around the ‘Verse – Eclipsing the Competition
The Frankfurt studio is working extensively on AI. They’re trying to finish up human combat and are working on the AI modules that can be added to seats or turrets within ships. The AI modules will be able to do anything that a player sitting in that seat or turret can do!
All doors are now modular and can connect rooms in order to track and change entry as well as pressurize and depressurize adjacent rooms. These systems will affect the implementation of breaching and hacking.
Contextual screens are getting worked on. These can display pertinent information depending on the player that approaches them.
They also made several advances on the backend to include better information streaming and fixing memory leaks causing server instability.
The Levsky environment is coming along and is nearing completion. They’re also continuing to work on the area surrounding Levski.
The FPS weapons team is working on weapons skins and customization and the ship weapons team is working on the Preacher Armament Scattergun and Apocalypse Arms Ballistic Scattergun.
The Eclipse features a rotating launcher on its underside to launch its torpedoes. This was needed because the size 9 torpedoes take up so much room and the Eclipse is much smaller than other ships that carry the same torpedoes.
Eclipse Q&A
The Eclipse Q&A gave us a lot of information about the Eclipse, but the best information wasn’t necessarily specifically about the Eclipse.
Stealth in Star Citizen is based upon being difficult to detect by systems in game. These are primarily radar and scanners. In order to be less detectable, ships can equip stealth class items. Currently the item/component classes we have are Military, Civilian, Industrial, Stealth and Competition. None of the different classes of items/components are locked to certain ships as of now. The Sabre is also designed to be a stealth ship but it includes a mixture of Military and Stealth components where the Eclipse has all Stealth components.
The Eclipse is currently about as maneuverable as the Gladiator and about as durable as the 300 series. Its speed in a straight line is roughly the same as a Gladius.
It is not a dogfighter and only has ballistic weapons as a last resort or to finish off a damaged enemy vessel. With its three size 9 torpedoes it is designed to hit far above its weight, meaning it can attack and disable or destroy much larger ships, but then should run away as soon as it has delivered its payload.
It cannot land in a Polaris but it can fit and operate out of a Javelin.
The Terrapin should be able to detect the Eclipse if the sensor operator is paying attention but it won’t be easy.
In game sale of the ship may be limited due to in game production times and faction requirements.
How the bombers stack up against one another:
Duration and distance: Polaris, Retaliator, Harbinger, Eclipse, Gladiator. The first three all have support for long duration trips with on-board facilities while the Eclipse and Gladiator do not.
Speed going from fastest to slowest in a straight line: Eclipse, Gladiator, Harbinger, Retaliator, Polaris
Maneuverability will be the Eclipse’s “Achilles’ Heel” and it can be out maneuvered by both the Gladiator and Harbinger.
To summarize the intended roles between the four bombers:
- The Gladiator is the short range bomber, capable of absorbing and dishing out damage.
- The Eclipse is the mid range stealth bomber, capable of sneaking behind enemy lines and delivering a high damage strike, but should not stay in combat due to its defensive shortcomings.
- The Harbinger is the mid to long range endurance bomber, carrying more weapons and armament than the Gladiator and able to take more of a pounding and survive deeper into space, but without the stealth capabilities of the Eclipse.
- The Retaliator is the dedicated long range bomber, able to carry the most ordnance, the most men and the most weaponry to defend itself via its turrets. It can sustain itself and its crew much deeper in the verse and is ideal for striking targets a long way away. This is a good opportunity to mention that we are well aware of many in the community’s issues with the Retaliator (capacity, turret behavior, layouts, etc) and whilst we can’t commit to changes presently in the short term, it is on our radar and we’ll be reviewing at some point in the future.
There’s more ship reviews and original content here.