Star Citizen: Should you buy the Aegis Nautilus? 

every ship can be a minesweeper, ...once

Dear Star Citizen. Please stop designing new ships to make money to design ships to make money to design ships. Just focus on what you have and make the damn game. Yours sincerely, a Redeemer owner who would really like to play the game at some point.

I was excited to hear it is a minelayer. The $670 warbond price. Not so much.

To be fair a minesweeper is a extended trip ship. Far from reinforcements two size 7 guns is a definite deterrent.

I want to start seeing gameplay mechanics. We don't even know if any of these roles will be fun.

Respect for giving your honest opinion and not just getting behind every ship put out. Good video.

All military ships sound absurd per dollar basis imo. Sentry mines are akin to small automated fighters, making the nautilus a quasi carrier. They will probably be poorly armed (2 size 2s), but being used to swarm targets, dealing with shield regen rates, while the STS plataform makes the main effort of dropping down targets. Or just get the ones that goes boom. The turret is not out of place, it is a mere alternative to the Hammerhead (many turrets, good for fighters) or the Polaris (long range alpha striking).

The size 7's are literally for going against capital ships; it's not solely a mine layer, it's a capital hunter

note: the mines do s5 torpedo dmg, and iirc it was said that the gun 'mines' are quad s2 guns. and its not just a minelayer, its not like a homeworld 2 minelayer corvette. its big and its strong. its big front turret is effectively an anti capital STS gun and its armored to shit. it (obviously) could work very defensively. say you have a meeting being set up, bring this in, shit out gun turrets all around the 890 that is going to be used ( which itself has such heavy shields it takes like 3 hammerheads to even drop a shield facing) and if anything big comes, which the 890 isnt able to kill you have the sts gun and the armor to face that ship

Seems like the size is based on the size requirements to store mines, and the cost associated with spawning the ship with a full complement of mines.

Thanks for the honest approach. I actually hoped CIG would start giving a design document for the mechanic before putting out a ship with new mechanics, no lesson learned here. Somehow sad.

If it can lay down seeker mines this ship will be amazing, size 7 guns can take out large ships easily.

I could see this being really useful in defending slow moving or stationary operations. Maybe you have a major mining operation happening and it gets attacked by pirates, drop a bunch of automated gun turret mines around the ships you are defending so pirates are suddenly having to deal with a bunch of extra firepower in the middle of the fight. Maybe your fleet is fleeing another enemy group, dump a bunch of mines behind you as you run so the chasing fleet now has to deal with those while they are chasing. Or maybe you are attacking an enemy station, drop a ton of mines and turrets right outside their bay doors so enemy ships joining the fight get a nasty surprise right from the start. I do agree that the situations where it will be useful are niche though.

I own an Idris-P, 890J and the rest mostly big industry ships, but I'm on the hunt for a dedicated ship killer, I have a Polaris on buy back, and I'm going to wait a year or so before making the final decision. I believe CIG will release another big ship from Anvil this year in October so I'm excited to see what happens. With CIG and SC it pays to be patient.

Seems less like a minelayer ship and more like a heavy defense ship that augments it's defenses with mines.

Youngblood, you had some good points. More than likely the desired mine capacity and crew capacity are what made the ship the size it is. Minelayers were around Corvette sized ships and the Retaliator has 6 Size 9 Torps while this carries the equivalent of 24 size 5 Torps in the explosive mines fed via 6 magazines to 4 launchers at the top/bottom (very prominent) with the two rearward ones dumping mines to port and starboard. Lot of mechanism and storage it appears. Plus the requisite, as you stated, drone room, mess hall, crew quarters, captains quarters, escape pods, bridge, 4 turrets, and whatever I left out. I do not know what made this ship and the gameplay come about but start to finish was only six months or so. I for one like the defensive and intriguing idea of mine laying and sweeping. Mining a jump point to secure it, creating a perimeter defense with Sentry turrets around a Reclaimer doing work in dangerous territory , or sweeping an enemy minefield all seem kinda cool. Thanks for the video.

Lots of unknowns but I'd anticipate if you roll gun pods this turns into a torpedo point-defense platform. A good foil for the Polaris and fast raids on shipping or fleet presence.

Not for me at that price, but damn that's a nice looking ship. If you can modify it to fit more useful roles I'll certainly aim for one in the verse. And it looks to me like there are 4 flaps for making mines. The top and bottom ones then two more on the rear either size of the engines.

I wonder if they even contemplate when this type of gameplay will be in game. Considering so many other game mechanics have yet to be built, I kind of doubt it.

2x S7 ~= 16x S4 weapons. The front 2 guns are ~= 4 of the Hammerhead turrets. I don't think I would use the Homing mine, ever. S5 torp is pointless, just take a Gladiator at that point. The Sentry Drones on the other hand are a whole other matter. You are basically making an area that is denied to small fighters, missiles, and torps that can be shot down by a cloud of automated turrets.

The answer? No. They are not going to have that game play for several years.

Interesting that Bored was recently saying that a drone carrier would be an interesting ship.

Oh the DEETS! Nice details, STL. You got it out fast. Appreciated.

How about fulfilling older ship orders before releasing more ships that you have to wait for

I think it's great ship personally think this will be great for solo player grinding mission.

Mine field data will be more to sell, missions to sweep and clear fields will be lucrative due to dangerous conditions and counter attacks. I honestly can see decent gameplay around this ship, though I'll be adding it to my own fleet with INgame currency and effort.

No you shouldn't. Its 700eur. That's a paycheck for some people.

I hope they add a parasite fighter carrier, so it would be capital ship sized, like a polaris, but have like 20 parasite fighters on it. They could launch from the sides of the ship instead of the front. Or maybe even a drone carrier, small fighters, due to the fact they are drones, they could carry more weapons but be small, ship could carry 30 or so drones and have 15 terminals to control the drones, if one was destroyed, each "pilot" would have a backup drone.

Bingo, main reason I want to pick this up is to help provide defense to areas I'm working in. For instance mining in my Orion or salvaging in my Reclaimer. My understanding is they aren't just weapons, but will activate an alert system to advise you they have been activated. As such you can use this to rally the troops to go and protect the item of interest.

I can see this ship as a workhorse combat ship that has the added benefit of bringing mine/minesweeping. This ship seems like it can take some pretty hefty damage and even punch back with that nose turret

I don't think i will get this at all but I love the addition of this to the lore. Area of denial is so so important

I think the whole "Was the ship there before the cost or was the ship buffed to satisfy cost" is a GREAT question!

Seems like you could use the weapons platform variation could be great for single-op players. Boost your own firepower and defense or ambushing tactics. Mini flotilla tactics with dedicated drone support.

Great video as always. The “lone wolf” gameplay is intriguing. Would like to know more but the price does seem a little silly.

4 different deployment chutes. Dorsal, Ventral, Port and Starboard.

interesting for sure. I love Aegis designs

Aside from the issues mentioned: I think it got this big/expensive for rarity because there's a big issue: Players dropping AI mines means multiple combat AI potentially in a small area, if you'd team up with multiple of those ships, the area would literally get closed down because people would die to mines @ 1fps. Then what about crimestats for killing innocent people with said mines to prevent it becoming a griefing simulator (and no, cost for mines won't balance that)... and would advocacy ignore potentially hostile mines... and wouldn't the "9 out of 10" AI ships "clean" up the mines anyway? I think it's a very dangerous approach, keep in mind we have long travel times, permadeath, component replacement mechanics and what-not, dying to mines of someone who doesn't even have to face you and possibly no consequences either would be infuriating.

I think you don't understand the Nautilus like quite a lot of people, it's not a large scale minelayer, it's in the name: it's a **Strategic** Minelayer. The mine are meant to be used during a battle to defend the ship at close range that's why it has a 2xS7 turrets, it's meant to be used in battle not to avoid them, it's like a kind of smokescreen attack. Let's say you escort a fleet, you spot some pirate, the Nautilus head toward the threat, pop some mines and/or some turret mines at close range to shield your fleet and act as a screen between the pirate and the fleet. Your fleet can either escape or wait for the Nautilus to deal with the threat. IMO if you want to use the Nautilus to camp behind an asteroid and wait for someone to hit one of your mines, you're using the Nautilus wrong. Just my 2 cents

dear STLYounblood the polaris only has size 10 torpedo's and we know the javalin has size 12 torpedo's curently the bigets torpedo's we know of

Does the $670 ship come with 7 friends ?

I have a feeling they will say S7 were the old turret sizes and its a typo. lol

I really like this ship. It's a defensive tactical ship. Most ships in this game are offensive. This ship is good for laying traps and ambushes. Protecting bases, or jump points. it's a good strategical ship that rounds out the uee fleet. And it has enough fire power to patrol and protect its self

If it can deactivate and retrieve mines from “any enemy ship” in game including Alien, it would be worth it. It does have a cargo bay so if the mines are large they could go in there.

I can see a use for a minelayer near a base made by players on an asteroid

It's a base ship and sniper! Have a Endeavour in the backline acting as a hospital? Surround the area with these mines.

i see the naut as a way to be a single ship blockaid thus it needs to be big armored and heavy shielded to support its drone mines or explosive mines

If the mines have the ability to seak "enemy" targets, this ship will be a game-changer. Think Rattler missile system but with mines packing four guns, size two. That equates to 24 seeker mines, each with the equivalent firepower of a Wardens fixed nose gun. If that's the case, the Nautilus is worth a buy. Just speculating though. BTW... I'm not suggesting the mines will be deployed like the Rattler.

"Hey guys, Youngblood with ya and today we're doing a 'Should you buy?' video on the new Aegis Nautilus. No."

I think the more pertinent question is how long will mines persist after the mine-layer leaves the area or the players log-off. Given that ship de-spawning will continue to be a thing forevermore. It seems like an odd game play mechanic to add to the ever growing list of game play mechanics that have been announced, but never seen the light of day. CIG really need to double down on what they've already promised instead of constantly promising more.

Dude, I know it's an old video, but, NGL, I love your videos. Thank you

That is surprisingly sexy for a mine layer.

I am a Legatus level backer but... nearly $700 is a bit much.... I am not a fan of the price tag being close to an A2. It's artificial quantity control. They'd sell tons more if these were $400 each.

Small ships probably be easy to dodge and/or less likely to trigger the mines. I’d be worried in a medium size ship.

Yeaahh i get your point...gonna buy one today ;)

Thanks for the info, Youngblood!

Tactical mine layer. never thought it would be the new ship.

The most useful upgrade (for me) would be an EMP defense system (blast an EMP and run)... my ship is not made to be a fighter, & that isn't what I want to do anyway.

I'll buy first read the QA and melt later. Thanks STL.

They are 24 size 7 mines wich are 4 by 4 meter. They will hit as hard as like a size 5 torpedo and will be homing, they can detect other ships form 5 to10 km distance depending of size by the ships and how "stealth" the ships are. And EMP's can shut them dowm for a short time..

It's funny you mention the Hammerhead, because I see them having good synergy or being good counters for each other. Working together on defense, the hammerhead can take out fighters small and mobile enough to evade/engage the mines, while the mines and heavy cannons slow or at least wound larger ships that could pose a threat to the hammerhead. As for countering each other, the Hammerhead should be able to shoot the mines down, but the Nautilus can shoot it directly with some hefty firepower.

I think that as a minelayer it will be very slow. Whilst small ships individually probably won’t be able to take it down. A larger ship would think it should be easy prey. So give them a large gun to help defend against the bigger ships. Or at least give them a fighting chance than being sitting ducks. As for the size of the ship in general. In design terms it needs to be slow so make it big. In justification terms. It’s big so it can hold vast amounts of mines to create a large Denial of access or no fly zone. Space is big and you’ll need a lot of mines to lay an effective field. Or people could just go around them.

I really like the idea of this ship! But tbh, it's too much for me.

Size could be to have enough room to carry enough mines to lay a field of them. One reason for large weapons could be to destroy mines from outside their engagement range.

Very nice looking ship but the price is beyond ridiculous.

The proximity mines apparently do as much damage as a size 5 torpedo. But I agree the classification of it as a minelayer is confusing. The size 7 turrets however seem to make it more like a anti-capital version of the hammerhead. This could have easily been two ships.

Minesweepers would often take up combat roles when not, well.. minesweeping. It's a combat ship vessel first, a military corvette first, a minesweeper, mine layer second. CIG seem to be following WW2 and Modern naval tactics in terms of warship design and intention, considerably so, with this vessel. We have the Polaris, you could all it the nuclear submarine of corvettes. The Hammerhead, clearly the Aegis Destroyers of the Corvettes and now the Nautilus, the forward defense of the fleet, meaning.. they're also well armed and armored to be capable of taking hits and or dishing out hits whilst they sweep mines and clear the way for the fleet, of the corvettes. If we take away its teeth, STL, we make it unable to do its job as a Minesweeper. If its unable to project any sort of threat level forward of the fleet, all it'll become is a dangerous bomb waiting to blow up as it sweeps mines, thus worthless and pointless, may as well not have it around, because at that point, the Hammerhead would do a better job as its capable of projecting significant amounts of threat forward of the fleet, whilst also able to visually identify mines and shoot them down with its considerable amounts of firepower. So again, it needs those size 7's which I highly doubt it can fire all that frequently, it'll highly likely be a weapon system that can only be fired once or twice every few minutes at whatever enemy it needs to project threat towards, as I doubt its powerplant would be capable of handling the size 7's firing off constantly when a single size 7 is equatable to 8 of the Hammerheads guns, which we all know, can drain the Hammerhead's powerplant very quickly, even when firing just the forward arching systems. So the Naut, I atleast believe will be relatively balanced in that regard. As for its mechanics, I think we can all take a guess.. if you've ever played any games with spaceships in, like the X series, its pretty easy to imagine it being able to hone in on mine signatures and disrupt them, disable them, destroy them or perhaps even turn them. So I for one will try to keep my hopes for once that I might actually get the ship I've been wanting for ages, the Hammerhead turned out to be a bust, I'd rather not this one turn out to be a bust. Plus, if they removed those size 7's what would they replace them with to equate the cost? cant just slap smaller guns on then call it a day and say, oh yea the price? okay. If they're going to stick to this BS pricing where they 'Price it closely to its UEC cost in real cash' then we need them to stick to that without ripping us off like they have been for awhile because of the sort of changes you are suggesting.

It is basically a CQB ship, which is able to plant an area of denial. Sounds like quite complicated gameplay to me. Might be useful to take on isolated capitals. But only, when the Nautilus fast and nimble enough. And I highly doubt it, due to the heavy armor.

I saw somewhere that mines would require upkeep. That may be another reason for the ship. But yeah, that's a high price tag just to lay mines and have a couple of size 7's strapped to your cockpit. Of course, the RSI site says they are turreted S7's.

I am worried about mines moving toward a ship. That creates a mechanic that can be used to gank or troll others.

I'm honestly surprised that the ship is so big.. When it was discussed, I really thought it would be ~Cutlass sized

Think it’s going to make an excellent long range smuggling ship. Assuming it’s capable of the same degree of stealth as it’s namesake and is fast in a straight line. Figure being able to deploy 48 size two guns will discourage double crosses during cargo trades in deep space or when meeting up with strangers to talk business. Dropping mines as you run also sounds like a good time, watching both pirates and law get caught up in them or just breaking off pursuit long enough for you to jump away.

I almost pulled the trigger on this but something held me back. Needs more information on the mine gameplay. Think it’ll be an in game end game for me. I almost melted the Warden for it but I was making a video on the Warden for my channel and realised how much I love the rework!!

If your doing a military group in your fleet should have max of 2 rl mine layers are specialist auxiliary ships. Worth havin in the fleet but not more then 1-2 during a large engagment they would lay down heavy hitting fire power wile laying down the turret deones in cover for ur larger javalin. If you have soethign to defend its almost better to just hire or subcontract someone to do the work

today i thought really hard about the usefullness and the potential of the s7 in combination with it and it really makes sense... at least if the option is as i think it is. what about a potential stationary weaponsupport base? or even as a loaner it could have potential, given the size and its obvious turningpotential it gets clear that you wont fly after people, so i thought, why not throwing out and spread some gunbots behind you leaving behind a deathzone for smal/medium size ships that attack you up to 360 degrees and an area of lets say 4-8 km within a minute depending of deploytime and "throwingradius"(+flyspeed), this would prevent any form of attack from back to top to right to left at least on the back half of the ship not only giving you protection but forcing the opponent to attack in the radius of the S7 or at least the s3´s. also if you consider that every Size higher of weapons having bigger range youll be a threat to anything that is smaller than a HH. this thing will onehit a looot of ships before they are even in range just imagine the horror xD!!! The worst thing is it will be highly effective against interdictionships, due to their paperthin but hardhitting design there will be not much option for them to even think about interdicting if you cant turn or fly by this thing since a tonne of gunbots will be just waiting for you. i also think it will be a horror for bombers although they will have the most potential to even go against this one, because of the logic of how they want to combine heat/electric power and aiming rockets. i dont see us going effective against bots and mines since those are inactive or at least in standbymode until your near enough for them to shoot or to follow, even worse being near them with your nautilus would eat up them being even a target at all. aaaand that brings me also to the idea of the bots being good or perfect against any form of torpedos and rockets so the only option where those would be effective is the front of the ship and that would be the weakpoint this ship needs... because of all the stuff that i said it really doesnt have much left to deal with it xD! ... although youll have again to consider that a frickin S7 will w8 for your ass if you come too close x_x ... what i also thought about was the potential of throwing them around you with just a 180 degree move. Where i see this ship will have the golddigger moment is if it lays his eggs near routes or even close to gates where transporters will go and there will be prefered travel routes since winmaxing is always a thing... especially if your cargo is full with all your money ^^... what i also think and this is why i belive the guns on the bots will be only s1 is because of the mass, on the pictures youll see like 6 oppenings those leave and lets just assume of everyone of those having 4 to throw (wich is more of the lower end given the size of this thing) making it 24 potential gunbots all with 2xS1 wich is already a frickin tonne and also the reason why i consider cricling around stationary and throwing them around you. ... what you guys think?

I feel like this ship is the fantasy MMORPG equivalent to a 'pet' class. If anyone attacks you, just summon your pets... er... poop out your sentry gun/proximity mines and let them take care of business while you fire from beyond your screen ; )

Just think of it as a capital ship killing alternative to the Hammerhead. Same calibre of ship.

I figured out why some look like they’re coming from the rear of the ship, if you look close at its aft it has two horizontal flaps also deploying mines, it’s hard to spot but I spotted it right after this point was mentioned

I agree. Its a huge mine dropper/collector. Its a quite large ship with mine functions and a huge 2xs7 gun turret with heavy armor. Thats just too awkward for me. I would have prefered a pure large ship brawler and a $300-$350 mine ship about the size of a connie. In its current state with currently available info its not for me. Thanks for the vid. 👍

Agree that it seems like these would have to be concentrated at some point of interest to be relevant. Seems unlikely just laying them en masse along some trade lane would do much...space, even scaled down, is big af. Maybe if you could know a ships approximate exit point when using an interdictor they could be useful? Otherwise seems like anything else wouldnt be super economical.

Cons: - cost - delays older concepts and mechanics Pros: - req for sq42 means it will be fast tracked - mines favour the defender/strategist - 2xsize7 on front is pretty hefty firepower. Crew 2 of these for every HH assuming limits on npc hire/effectiveness. Huge alpha damage. - Heavily armoured+3x large shield = tough - drones = massive automation of weapons .. IMO this is a huge force multiplier in a ship designed to take a beating.

Nice vid! Glad you made the comparison with the Polaris

imho i believe its an "end game" mine ship i also believe that herald and mercury should excel at finding those mines and relaying info to the fleet...this could setup data running and mining gameplay

it's an interesting ship kind of looks like they were trying those ships during ww2 that dropped depth charges. Question I would wonder is how many mines can it carry.? cant the mines be directed or are they stationary or both.

Size makes since if the mines are as big as the data scanners but with the solar cells

Having mines on a corvette keeps them an org-scale issue, maybe; it would suck for most players just tooling around in Cutlass and Connie-sized ships to run into a big minefield unexpectedly, but this size of ship shouldn't be that hard for an org of any reasonable size to field. If it has a multi-role case vs. the Hammerhead, along with more of a hunter-seeker style of multicrew gameplay, that'd be a huge plus. It also seems like it can scale down a lot better than the Hammerhead or Polaris, so if you have 4-6 people and don't want to automate half of your ship, this would be a good alternative.

I know I'm late but I think the lore would have this ship working by itself laying mines. Then if it came across an enemy it needed large weapons to defend itself. I think this is why it would be justified in have those large size seven

Old video, but I'm really hyped for this ship, more so than the Polaris

lol... yet another new niche ship where the game play they imagine won't be ready for yet another 5 years. Also, STL, when was the last time you updated your description text??? Your text says: "It's currently in the Alpha of it's open develpoment with the hope that SQ42 will be released Q2-3 2017."

Should you buy the Aegis Nautilus? No, its a really poor concept for a ship, and its stupidly overpriced (even in digital spaceship terms).

This says pirate ship to me through & through. Built to be able to operate on long trips independently. Setup traps & put down prey. Especially once you mention, that the drones the Vulcan employs are basically the same model, you might infer this ship might be capable of a degree of self repair while on mission, extending it’s operational scope. This is a shark in the water. I think I really like it!

I totally agree with some comments below. Give us gameplay or how or when to use this ships. Give it a purpose, so "a few" people could consider buying this one. Also they mentioned this would be for lone wolves. Cant read anything of that.

I did see somewhere mention of 'lone-wolf' play. Is that because they expect the ship to function in a lone-wolf fashion. Going to the front without cover of a fleet to mine the area - that might explain why it is so well armed. As you say the fact that we have 6 directions of movement means that the mines need to be either highly movable and\or hard to detect... or there has to be massive fields of them... either way yeah not fun game-play. I do however wonder if we can remove the 'mine' section of the ship and replace it with plain cargo or similar. Otherwise it is the GUN alternative to the capital ship hunter... the Polaris is the TORPEDO option... The last option would be to have true hunter\killer drone that can be deployed in combat... something like a semi-automated unmanned dragonfly that can be dropped and the collected after combat.

I think that large ship battles will mostly be against the Vandul in some kind of instance style battles. So this maybe for that kind of game play.

The explosive mines having the yield/explosive power of S5 Torpedoes makes them... less than ideal, if not downright underwhelming IMHO. Unless Size 5 Torpedoes are going to get even further beyond I guess. Unless the "can tackle capital ships" is because they expect a LOT of those mines bearing down a capital ship,and/or the power in those two S7 guns being just ridiculous. As the rest of the guns, while more than capable ny something even Connie sized, for the large ship size being they kinda become basically Self-defense only.

I know this is an old video but you’re CLEARLY saying “shit” instead of “ship” on occasion. 3:20 in this video is the best example I’ve heard yet. 🤣

don't know if it's true but lot of people have call the Nautilus a "corvette" (yeah like the Polaris)

Really like the idea of the ship, but why is it so big? Could a ship half the size not do the same job just as well?

I wanted this ship but I'm concerned they'll make it smaller and i won't get my moneys worth. I'll probably opt for the Polaris.

I wont support feature creep until more of the "known" mechanics actually start to get more into the game.

Hahaha, Nope! Nice ship though. ...LOL, "Kinda" absurd -->$$!