An Architect Reviews the Scorpius - Star Citizen 

I can definitely see that it's supposed to be carrier born. folding wings has been standard since the start of carrier aviation

I feel like the Scorpius is one of the most succesful design in SC at theis time. If you forget the obvious reference to the X-wing, it fits perfectly into the RSI line-up as you mentioned with many cues taken from the Aurora and Mantis which in return take much from the Constellation. CIG really nails it with their design guidelines lately.

Other than the X-wings, it's entirely different, but I can see why they will often take design queues from popular sci-fi, so as fans, we all have something that appeals to us, when wanting to feel like we're inside our favourite show/film/book/game. The Alien feel of the Reclaimer, or the Millennium Falcon style of the MSR; there are many good homages to our favourites in SC, which is likely another part of its appeal.

They shared a 20min look on the Merchantman this week... Sure i'd like to see it in game, but what i'm really looking forward to is a reeeeeally long An Architect Reviews episode on it once it is.

I like the scorpius, for me it kind of reminds me of the ornithopter from the new dune movie than the x wing, especially with how the wings deploy. But I can definitely see the other designs in there too.

It actually looks closer to Starfury or it's more advanced version - Thunderbolt, than X-Wing in my opinion, but a lot more people know Star Wars more than Babylon 5 and that's why most compare it to X-Wing

The repositioning of the turret could make it a good ground attack craft.

upvoted for describing the design process

One additional thing I thought you might touch on is the fins that shoot out when the wings are in; they put a physical barrier between the engines and the wings and I just love when they slide out.

The shot selection was on point in this vid. Usually great, but noticeably exceptional this time around. The low valley formation shots and smooth panning around must have taken forever to get just right. That opening sequence hit hard.

I really like those two-seated fighters, even if one might argue that it is a bit inefficient, the feeling to fly such a thing with a buddy must be a joy. Also great video, you just always manage to show this game from its sweetest sides ^^

this ship took me thru MRT, HRT and VHRT bounties with ease. i have yet to figure out a flying strategy for doing ERT in it, and that hammerhead chews it up when you get close. Mind you that was all solo play in the ship with no turret gunner. You can kinda fix the convergence issue of fixed guns, similar to the turret being able to move from top mount to rear, the wings can be folded up without putting down the landing gear, which tightens up the firing pattern. See Flight-Movement Cycle Configuration setting to map the function. I havent tested how much that affects the flight characteristics flying with folded wings.

I don't even play SC but designs like this make me interested in trying it some day, I think the design is WAY better than an x-wing, whose cross ssection stays virtually identical whether or not the wings are opened or closed. with something like this I'd imagine they're easier to park next to each other and take up less space, or make them able to be launched from narrower launch tubes. Absolutely love it.

I really love the Scorpius. Its a very maneuverable fighter and is a lot of fun to fly. It's become my go-to flyer for missions where I don't need a lot of cargo space along with the Banu Defender which I've had for a couple of years.

I love the ship, has decent forward firepower but after it becomes available for UEC, I can't justify the $240 tag on a small ish fighter, when you can get a Connie for the same price, or heck a vanguard with much more useful design in terms of the survival game we will have. I'm going to ccu mine at the next IAE expo

Turret gimmick aside, I feel the ship looks odd when the wings are deployed as the fuselage appears very short (there is literally no empennage) otherwise it looks good.

The turret change actually makes it a good stand in ship for Close ground support. Since the turret can shift, allowing for a forward and rear stafing run. In space, not so much..but if you're in a squeeze. Having that second turret ward off a ship trying to roll onto your six while dealing with a front target helps until backup arrives. Also some fixes for weapon convergence. If piloting solo, allow for slaving the turret to the first seat. It wouldn't be difficult to add weapon groups and allow a Scorpious pilot to fight AR shorter range or allow the pilot to set convergence between 2 range brackets (300m and 150m) this would all the use of all guns hitting a target at the cost of range for both brackets.

To me the turret rotation mode is for the turret to fire forward to targets below the Scorpius (i.E strafing ground targets) - plus in the bottom position the Scorpius will take even less height when stored inside a ship. So it could also be for storing in a capital ship.

Glad the Starfury got a mention here - not many people have mentioned this when discussing the Scorpius.

Fun fact the panel on the belly of the x-wing right behind and below the cockpit is actually a storage bay. Luke uses it in ESB.

With the wings folded back the shape reminds me of the Eclipse Intel Cruiser from Star Trek Online.

I really like the design it gives me vibes of being a bounty hunter whilst also being a rebel cell member from star wars. I would like to see a version for solo pilot cockpit version of this craft where it the gimble turret is removed in favour of either additional turrets (lighter or heavier) or make the ship even more lighter with the current weapon set still in tact making it more agile and faster to navigate.

My big takeaway is the Aurora Redesign inspired by the Scorpius, where the Aurora's wings would deploy similarly. It is something I really really want.

Turret movement to the rear position would be useful if you are engaging a target to the front and another target engages from the rear allowing attack/defense at the same time.

I love it. It's an evolved Aurora with Mantis engines. The only thing I wished they had done different was let those wings pivot more forward to give it a delta wing claw appearance. That with the flippy turret it would have more strongly invoked its namesake.

X-Wing: general shape never changes, the wings just open up a little and don't fold. Scorpius: ship compacts when landed, the utility droid is replaced with a gunner.

The turret: The more mobile/maneuverable the turret, the better. The pilot has enough to worry about without having to pay extra attention to a ship orientation that best benefits the gunner. Giving the turret greater freedom also gives the pilot greater freedom. When flying in a space congested with other ships, wreckage and asteroids, freedom of flight path and the time of execution is extremely important. Wing design: From an engineering perspective, I am curious about X style split wings. The upper wings are dihedral where the bottom wings are anhedral. In an atmosphere, dihedral wings offer stability, where anhedral offers a more snappy response. Combining both together is interesting. I would like to see real world data as to how they work together. It's sci-fi, so it doesn't really have to make real world sense, but, it would be fun to know.

The way the wings fold reminded me of the Thopters from the Dune universe.

I still can't see it as an X-Wing, it's a Starfury if anything.

I'd say it's also inspired by the F-14, it has a very Tomcat-esque 'shoulders' when the wings are swept back.

It's amazingly good fun to fly PVE missions in the Scorpius with a friend! Ideally couple it with with an F8C for solo play, and you are pretty set for a lot of the gameplay SC has to offer.

Great cinematography as always Morphologis, always the icing on the cake with your take on ships.

I think the ideas of offense/defense came into mind for the moving turret. While the ship is on offense, the turret is best placed on the top. But if you are defending, or trying to run away you would move the turret to the rear.

The idea behind wings that fold and spread out make a lot of logical sense from a fighter ship point of view. More wing space equals manouverability (normally) and realstate to put guns and missiles.

I sort of like that it accelerates like a drunk cow. It makes it very good in the area denial role will still leaving space for other heavy fighters to carry the fight forward. Basically, if you were to use one in an org battle, the Scorpius would hang back and support the cap ships or bombers, boosting their point defenses and punishing light fighters that stray too close.

My main issue with this ship is still that they decided to take the X-Wing homage so far as to place the guns on the wing tips, the most inefficient place they could be. Convergence will always be a major issue that way and on top of that the pilot will lose a lot of firepower once a wing breaks off, which tends to happen a lot. It also robs the ship of the possibility to operate properly in both flight modes. It might make a bit sense balance-wise (trade-off between being able to fire but then having a much larger cross-section), but is such an obvious flaw that no amount of suspension of disbelief can overcome the feeling that no military engineer in their right mind would deliberately design something like this. Another issue is the turret: When in top position, its view angle is obstructed by the upper wing pair, which also poses the risk of accidentally damaging your own ship. This would not have been a problem if the upper wings would just fold out horizontally and only the lower ones would fold downwards (so basically ⦢ instead of >). But of course then you wouldn't get the intended X shape, so again, practicality was sacrificed for aesthetics. Even though a shape like that would have been truly unique and could have become something iconic for SC, instead of pandering to other iconic SF tropes. And yes, it still wouldn't make much sense from an aerodynamic point of view, but then again, the X shape is even worse - there is a reason the wing extensions of the Starfury Thunderbolt do not, when folded out, follow along the shape of the craft (which also is not an even X, as is the case with the original Starfury). They lock in a horizontal position, parallel to each other, not unlike a WW1 era biplane (search YT for "Babylon 5 Data Files - Thunderbolt" to see for yourself). That is because the X shape is terrible for generating lift. So, having the top wing pair be horizontal would actually be better for flight in atmospheres and then the lower one could be argued for by saying it gives better maneuverability for tight turns or something like that. Not exactly accurate but likely enough to justify the rule of cool. Those design flaws are such a shame, especially because everything else about this ship is brilliant. The cockpit is one of the best CIG has ever created, the shape of the hull and four engines is brilliantly designed and the component placement is very well done as well.

You can separately fold the wings from the landing gear, which actually makes it More nimble, harder to hit, and brings the fire cone greatly inward

For me personally one of the most favorite fighter ships in the game so far. It looks very good and packs a good punch as well

I personally love the callout of Strange New Worlds in the ad break. I’m loving it! Huge Trekkie and this is the first of the new shows that I’m loving every episode

For me the scorpius looks like an X-Wing and a Y-Wing had a baby : the turret on top behind the pilot and the fact that it is a two seater, as well as the shape it has with its folded wings and heavy missles payload, takes inspiration from the Y-Wing for sure. Then of course you have the unfolded wing patern, remenescent of an X-Wing. Im pretty sure of my theory that CIG decided to see what it would look like if those legendary starwars spaceships were to combine.

Maybe they intended to design it as a hit and run in atmosphere for pvp. Use the high top speed and rear turret to gain distance and turn around for another run

The wingshape is informed by the original variable geometry wing of the F-14 Tomcat. Coupled with the X-Wing lineage, it's like chocolate & peanut butter. (Admittedly, delicious - but all that sweet can be bad for your teeth.)

I saw a Reddit post a while ago that sketched the Aurora splitting it's wings close to an X-wing... Which would be really cool. But I guess we got this now.

I think with folded wings it kinda looks like a beefier Aurora in 2:29. Since the wings are tucked in behind and swivel all the way around, I think it's far enough away from X-Wings, which always have the wings fixed to the side. But the back is pretty similar..

Haven't watched any of your Twitch streams in a while, but this Star Citizen ship looks awesome. I'm not sure if you saw it or not, but when the engines are folded out and the ship is flying, I saw of what looked like a hint of J.J. Abrams' Star Trek. It could just be the graphics of the game that is making me think this. But I can tell you this, this is the best ship that has been made for Star Citizen yet.

Moving the turret backwards is very useful when attacking ground targets, which is what it is actually designed for.

i dont see the xwing analogy aside from the 'x' pattern... they look more like the starfury thunderbolt

Don't forget, this ship will be able to use computer blades to slave the quad-turret to the pilot. This is why the ship is so special and also expensive.

Scorpius looks so much better with fixed S3 at the wingtips. If you get used to fixed weapons, it makes even more fun. Little note: fixed guns do gimbal a little bit. if you lock a target, the convergence sets to it up to like 400-300 meters, closer than that you can notice the distance between the guns. Buy Behring M5 laser cannons and set their firing mode to Staggered Fire, then you have the ideal Star Wars X-Wing experience. Those M5 really have a similar sound to the X-Wing laser guns, and they have a nice sleek long barrel

Great stuff! The enclosed missile racks really choose form over function. I suppose it's in-line with CIGs push to ensure you need two to operate this ship effectively, although the ability to upgrade the missile size would be nice. The single entry ladder two person cockpit is a pain. The time it takes for the pilot to open the canopy, extend the ladder, climb the ladder, sit down, retract the ladder, close the canopy, gunner opens the canopy, extends the ladder, climbs the ladder, sits down closes the canopy and retracts the ladder is ridiculous. The Vanduul have already wiped everyone out by the time you're ready to launch. Wing-mounted weapons are iffy. Looking at you, Buc! Not sure if I like the view through the windscreen yet or not. "Heavy" Fighter is right. For being new, she's a bit of a tired and slow gal.

The missle holes theoretically could do more than just look sleek. It could reduce the cross-section of the vessel. Good functionality, in my opinion!

@Morphologis you are incredible, came here to check the new ship as I gave up on playing SC some time ago due to the bugs and you amazed me again. Such a wonderful talk about design! Your channel easily grown to be my top watched thing nowadays.

Of a Polaris or those other ships with the hangers and load up about three or four of them with the wings folded in so they can launch and land and as soon as I cleared the hanger they can spread open their wings to attack

new title cards are looking great

I thought the moving turret, was a little goofy, at first. Though I think you may be correct about it being good for atmo. In space, it's easier to keep your gunner pointed at the bad guy, if it's on top. Where as, in atmo, having it on the bottom, would be ideal for attack runs on an encampment, or ground vehicle.

One thing I feel is sorely overlooked in all the CIG designs are landing and exterior lights. !I would like an option to illuminate the ground below my ship for night ops and landings but the current "headlights" setup forces you to point your ship straight at what you want to light up. Adding some downward facing lights or giving the current lights the ability to toggle between various modes/directions would be a great addition to the game!

I think the option to move the turret underneath is more for strafing runs on ground targets than anything else

I bought one and love it, but holy is it hard sometimes to fly in atmosphere with it - you have to use the boost so much to not kiss the ground. For me its a hit and run ship. Flying with full speed at your target, lock on a rocket and bust the enemy with your turrent buddy down. This with an Arrow as backup ship, is the perfect bounty hunter combo.

Love this ship !!!!!! bought it and i just have a smile while entering it every day ! can't wait to have people with carriers and join their team in the battle !

the shifting turret on top is really sexy. im sure its not the only one in the game but the idea of a shifting turret is so cool.

this ship is dope. it looks like a weird cross between an aurora, nomad, mantis and x wing. ive been having too much fun flying it around and the guns definitely get the job done

The subject of constraints is enormous in engineering, where too much can shut down the whole project but just enough can make it so much better. Too many constraints is giving a child a crayon and no paper, you either get nothing or a drawing on your wall. Too little is the box of 128 crayons, the child spends more time admiring and choosing colors than making a drawing, but with 8 or 16 crayons they have just enough to make something good. All the beautiful architecture and design in the world today is entirely because of restraints like cost and weight and durability, and some very impressive design can come of making people think a little longer and find more clever solutions than "huehuehue money solves this"

I was not expecting the in depth design insight. very well spoken!

I always get so happy when you upload. You are the only creator I am subscribed to that uploads in ultrawide. Amazing video !!!

I mean if you have more speed, and you're beeing chased by 3 to 4 or even more ships, that are slower, beeing abble to shift the turret at the back, is definitely a plus, specially if they approach from the top and the bottom but the pilot either isnt confident or just cant risk rotating "upside down" i'd say its usefull (maybe in an asteroid field or some times later we could have the debris of a big space station or whatnot, where going upside down could potentially throw off the pilot) . Of course it's situational but well. It is a neat feature that can have uses.

I know the X Wing is the first thing i felt when i saw it, after a bit i felt it closer to the X-83 TwinTail with how the hull and the wings sit in flight mode

Only problem I have with the bespoke launchers is no option to change them out for different sized ordnance. Would like to have an option for bigger and smaller missiles [or later, units like EMP/EWAR modules, like the EWAR pods on a modern EF-18 Growler] For the record, I am a fan of the design, with the rotation rate being similar to the Sabre, but I wish they'd bump up the thruster accelleration... shes supposed to be a competetor to the F8 Lightning, after all.

There are just a few things I would change about this ship. 1. Move the wing tip guns to the spots where the wings mount to the body. They would be much better there because you wouldn't need as much convergence in the firing and you wouldn't lose a gun if you lose a wing. 2. Make the turret slavable to the pilot, so if you don't have a gunner with you, or they get killed, you don't lose over half your fire power. 3. Make the wing positions independent of the landing gear. I would like to flying in the folded position without the landing gear having to be down.

The only thing this starship has in common with the T65/T70 from Star Wars, is the X pattern wing arrangement. It looks pretty good though. I like how the turret can move and it's got folding wings like a carrier based aircraft usually does in the real world.

I really like the design. The influence from the X-Wing and Starfury is clear, but CIG managed to make it look unique and fit the Star Citizen universe. I took one on some missions during Invictus and it just seemed more fun to fly than other fighters.

Games like star citizen are all about facilitating the simulation of our sci-fi dreams, from decades of movies and other sources. Nods to iconic ships like the famous x wing are actually needed to help us live out those dreams digitally IMHO

The inset missile launchers do look sleeker.... But, with outside mounts, there could be the possibility of mounting other things on it, like fuel drop pods. Will have to see if that comes to pass.

This might be the coolest ship I've seen on this series. I'm a sucker for these kinds of designs and I love your analyses. :)

As shown in the reveal trailer, Scorpius seems to be designed for the role on defending a perimeter. This could explain why the acceleration is poor in the Scorpius. Meanwhile, to finish the VHRT in microTech is a lot easier with the Scorpius over the Sentinel. Apparently the cold temperture around those planet and moons makes the atomsphere much denser than anywhere else. And the Sentinel becomes very slow, whereas the Scorpius in comparison becomes a lot quicker. I would like to see CIG keeping the superior air speed in Scorpius so that no one single ship is good at every situation. And the Scorpius is superior in air-to-air and air-to-ground combat. If Pyro would feature very dense gas cloud, it could be very interesting for Scorpius owners.

My experience with the ship is that you should still run fixed weapons on the wings, and if fighting smaller craft, just deploy your landing gear, and then convergence is no longer an issue. I actually run it with 4 scattershot just for memes when I have a gunner.

You're right, restrictions creates more unique and complex solutions. A lot of examples you could see in engineering and industrial design.

8:18 is a incredible scene!

Every time a new ship comes out I'm more excited for one of these episodes lol

with the Scorpius, you can see the X-wing inspiration, but it's fairly easy to distinguish between the two. now, if you wanna talk about copying someone else's homework, look no further than the Esperia Prowler and the Copperhead dropship from Final Fantasy: Spirits Within.

If you going to PvP with this ship make sure you're Gsaf is off!! This helps ALOT me and my guys have used this ship against others players with great results! You need a good gunner too. Press the "x" key to turn on gyro mode, big help!

It took a while to come around to it but when I tried one at Invictus I couldn't help but fall in love with it. I personally got WAY to used to the hornet series controlling the top turret so I'm hoping we get shards soon so I can fire all 8 guns myself but other than that I mirror your thoughts completely here.

The Scorpius is a B-Wing masquerading as a Starfury mk3 'Thunderbolt'. At least, that's been my opinion ever since I first saw this when it came availabel as a concept.

Love the look of this ship, it looks fast and deadly. Even more so with the wings folded back, it looks like some bird of prey diving on an unsuspecting meal.

Awesome. Can not wait to see your review of the Merchentman and Railen.

X-Wing+Star Fury+Aurora=Scorpius. I like what ships it draws from, but it is it's own thing.

From far away you can confused with an X-Wing, but up close has his own take on design of the iconic shape. P.S. It has the general outline of the X-Wing, but it's individual components come from RSI family.

I swear the Aurora is supposed to have fold out wings similar to the Scorpius. I think they haven't implemented that feature because CIG were afraid of criticism in bringing out an X-Wing-like ship right out of the gate.

I'd love to see some Architect Reviews of other ships from science fiction.

in the meanwhile the scorpius got a buff getting it on par with the hurricane. and its a blast to fly! if you're looking for a two seater, the scorpius is one of the best in game currently!

One issue that I see with this ship is the placement of the cannons on its wings. They can be easily shot down.

5:15 that just looks like it changed from x wing to y wing

Really great ship, fun to fly and the view for both the pilot and turret seat seem really thought out compared to the average ship. I think you run up with small fighters or a vanguard to get the enemies attention allowing this ship to come in position and deliver its 8 size gun’s on a single target. The only thing I can hope for is that they give more function to the person in the extra seat. Even in the current version of the game if they could even select the mission, chart a course, and request landing would be a start. That way the pilot can focus 💯 on flying. Either way I have one and it fits the small fleet my friends and I have put together.

I like it and I 100% see the aurora reference in the folded mode

I would love to see Scorpiukses mid hull with the wings replaced with connie engine pod

Paused after getting g the above view- before the analysts, and before Morph exoplaons everything to me, i do see a few common traits with the Aurora as far as some of the lines and shapes that compose the fighter- feels like a continuation in f it.

Looks like thw X-wing and U-wing combined with how the wing moves.

I'm fairly certain I am quite a bit older than Morph... but the way he presents his information... man... I want to be like Morph when I grow up.

All they need to do now is rework the Aurora to have folding x-wing configuration, and it'd be perfect. (There was a reddit post where someone did that in PS, and it looked amazing!)

Nice review. Excellent production values as always. The Scorpius is fine but I think it unnecessarily suffers from the convergence problem because they wanted to keep the wingtip weapon aspect of the X-Wing. Mounting the pilot’s weapons inboard would make the most sense; especially due to the flimsy-looking nature of the (let’s call them struts because they’re not really going to function like wings). Its profile is honestly more similar to a Babylon 5 Starfury when the struts are out due to its foreshortened forward fuselage and strut sweep. At least it looks nice flying around with its struts out…

People comparing it to X-wings and things, but i think that comparison pretty much ends at "X shaped wings with engines at the base" since the rest of the ship is very different and even how they deploy the wings are different.... The thing i can't really get over is because of it's "short, chubby neck" or how to call it, i think it looks like a flying caltrop. The coolest flying caltrop.