Star Citizen Devs Talk About Capital Ships & Tractor Beams
The Star Citizen Devs have talked about Fleets and where they see Capital Ship Roles and where the Perseus sit’s in that Pantheon AND we have our first look at Personal Tractor Beams WHICH ARE COOL!
Firstly In my last video (Where I was talking Ship… in more ways than one apparently) there was a mistake I misspoke when talking about the Hercules Capacities to CLARIFY the Hercules C2 and M2 can carry upto 2 Nova Tanks and the A2 upto 1. I have previously said the M2 could carry upto 1… which is wrong… it’s 2.
Let’s talk about Capital Ships… Fleets in SC are built around having a Capital ship or ships at their core.
The Javelin is a Destroyer… It can juke it out with other massive ships.
The Idris is a Carrier which will deliver fighters or other smaller ships safely around… giving them an operating range that would be impossible without the carrier… also the Idris does have a big railgun on it’s nose so it’s still useful in combat.
The Polaris is a long ranger torpedo boat.
The Hammerhead is a anti-fighter screen.
The Perseus is a military ship that is about destroying other big ships. It sits somewhere between the roles of the Polaris and Hammerhead… Mid – Long range consistent sustained fire primarily at larger targets.
The bridge for the polaris (which is located near the centre of the ship and at the top) causes the main front turret to have a blind spot… tho the point defense turret covers that spot and the bottom large turret doesn’t have the same issue.
The Original briefing was to build this ship so that a 4 man crew could run it tho that’s softly expanded out to 6… Pilot, Captain, 2 Turret Gunner and then 2 more flexible roles that could have players repairing the ship,
The Lower Deck is Cargo and lower turret access… the Mid Deck is the main deck with almost everything else and the top deck is the bridge, engineering and escape pods. The ship does have a central lift system and should be easy to navigate.
Personal Tractor Beams are being added to Alpha 3.12. It’s very much a sandbox tool with massive utility!
You can use them to move small items like weapons, gear, debris but more importantly cargo crates. You can use it both in Space but also in gravity on the ground… tho the multitool will struggle more the “heavier” an item is… it can carry around 250kg allowing you to lift most of the cargo crates CURRENTLY in game.
The more the beam struggles with larger or heavier objects the “weaker” and more laggy the beam will be.
They showed someone using a crate and beam to surf… it’s a work in progress.
The module has a 2ndary function too… it acts as a grappling hook, pulling you towards where it hits as long as they are heavy enough, it looks like an amazing traversal tool.
And that’s it for a bit of a quicker video today… Alpha 3.12 is in evocati and we should be seeing Wave 1 in the next week or so.
Players that are waiting on their IAE skins and carrack helmet should have it added to their accounts within the next couple of days too.
What do you think of Tractor Beams are they an awesome addition at this stage OR do them not have enough other systems online to make them useful yet?
What do you think of CI’s thoughts on Capital Ships? And what do you think of the Perseus… Have you picked one up? Whatever your thoughts I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.