The Banu Merchantman FINALLY IN DEVELOPMENT!
Cloud Imperium has given us a big Star Citizen ship development update. We have a few more details on the Odyssey and what it sits on the Exploration Pantheon, the Banu Merchantman is in active development as are many other ships, let’s just right in with some ship and vehicle updates.
The Vehicle content teams are currently working on the Hull A and Hull C. Those mini and mighty cargo expandable haulers. They are being brought up to current standards and metrics as part of the incoming cargo overhaul.
The Hull A is in it’s final art exterior and graybox interior phases.
The Hull-C is much further along and is in it’s final art and lighting passes.
They are even experimenting with some new UIs / Displays for tractor beams.
The Weapon content team has began building out the Tractor Beam components. These S1-3 units will be able to be equipped to a wide range of ships and vehicles.
Updates are underway to the Starfarer, it is confirmed to be the first ship to be able to use the refueling mechanics (in 3.17) BUT it’s also the first refining vehicle as well.
They have madd additions to its walkway that allow it to take canisters of newly mined fuel from other ships to then be processed.
They will be updating the interior in the future too.
The Drake Vulture Light Salvage ship has seen a lot of work and is in it’s final art phase.
They showed the habitation area and cockpit.
The Scorpius heavy fighter has began development and is in it’s early whitebox phase.
Work is apparently going pretty well on that!
The Banu Merchantman is now in active development and in it;s WhiteBox phase. Admittedly it is really really early whitebox but the fact it’s being worked on now means it could be in game in 2022.
They then did show off more areas of the ship that had seen some work.
The Engineering area might have some movement and whurlyness to it.
We had some various colored MISC Rafts shown at the end of ISC as well. That then formed Raftron.. With a pico head not even joking.
Now let’s move onto some more details and reiterations about the new MISC Concept Exploration ship the Odyssey. There was a little concern about how this ship stacked up against the Carrack and although some of those questions are a little more clear there is still a Q&A an SCL to come.
The Odyssey will be able to explore out to the far expanses of the universe and keep going.
It will appeal to players that want to largely avoid traditional combat.
It’s designed to allow you to go off and explore.
There is some Xi’An tech with the ship, so the elevator that allows entry and exit to to ship for some of the crew is based on that gravlev or magnetic tech that they use.
The top of the ship opens up and folds away allowing for it’s stored ship to have hangar access.
The ship is split over 3 decks. Top deck is engineering and refinery.
The middle or main deck has the bridge. It looks to actually have 6 stations. As well as a holo/mapping table. Every crewman has their own room and ensuite.
The Lower deck has the hangar, which is pretty large… the sabre easily fits in there with a good amount of room left. You could bring a prospector or a huge range of other ships.
The mining control is at the front and underneath the cockpit of the ship and has 2 stations one for the mining and another for a tractor beam.
You can mine quantanium and refine it in the ship.
The neighbouring cargo and vehicle bay has a good amount of room… and looks like it could store most vehicles, probably not a ballista or Spartan tho. I want to try and fit a nova tank in there.
Theres a solid sized T2 medical bay. And even a viewing area for looking out into space.
CI see the Odyssey as the multi-tool of the spaceship world and a competitor to the Carrack but also as the ultimate exploration ship.
The Odyssey is however not as good at pathfinding and scanning down certain things.
The Carrack has drones and advanced tech for charting courses, mapping jump points.
You want a pathfinding the Carrack is your ship… you want something that can do a bit of everything and stay out in the Verse indefinitely then the Odyssey is your boy.
There was a fantastic email apparently that Zyloh the CIG Community Director sent to John Crew the Vehicle Director about the Carrack and Odyssey. That they shared:
Boom, that’s it for your vehicle updates this time. I am glad they have said the Odyessy is different to the Carrack and really happy the MM is in active production as well as tractor beam components actually seeing work… I hope that we see ship tractor beams with the cargo overhaul next year.
Anyway what do you think? Who is best Carrack or Odyssey? Are you excited to see those ships getting work? What do you think we will see next year? Whatever your thoughts I’d love to hear from you in the comments below.