Almost feel like the Cutlass Steel, as well as some other ship variants, should have been in game modification only. Take your Cutlass Black to a dodgy shop somewhere, in Grim Hex or somewhere in Pyro, and get it outfitted with the door turrets then the extra armor and shield generators or other likely needed modifications to make it into this role.
I actually really like that idea. Having chop shop janky upgrades seems to fit right in with the kind of universe I want to play in. Kind of like the millennium falcon that had upgrades, or a hot rod with a bunch of questionable bolt ons.
@@Morphologis It makes the most sense for Drake ships too. But I also feel most ships variants should be acquirable this way in-game from a select base model, at least to a degree depending on how extreme the revision is. Maybe not a Constellation Andromeda into a Taurus or Phoenix, or a base Freelancer to a MAX, and not for Origin ship variants mostly for feeling right in lore for their reputation, and for similar reason for some military variants needing specialized hardware.
@@Morphologis Honestly, this is how a lot of ship variants should be. The F-7C should be able to be "modded" to a Tracker or Ghost, and vice versa. The Avenger Titan should be able to be "modded" to a Stalker or Warlock, and again, vice versa. This would of course cost money, but you keep the ship hull and any insurance attached (though any in-game costs for said insurance would change to match). Backwater chop-shops might be able to "downgrade" on the cheap or do "low-quality" upgrades. As long as the basic hull geometry doesn't change (as is the case with the Sabre Raven or the Super Hornet), I don't see why a ship couldn't be retrofitted to one of its variants. Essentially, I would really want to see a bi-directional version of in-game CCU, limited by hull. "Downgrades" in this case would still cost money and materials and take time.
I think a good thing to note is that the common element between all the vehicles on this list is that none of them were available for testing on a PTU before players got their hands on them. Many of these issues could have been discovered and addressed if they were properly tested. But instead, all of these ships went right to live...
That's because CIG will tell you what you need and you will like it - so much that you're expected to part with your hard earned cash in order to fund a litany of poor decisions, perpetual mistakes, and constant errors. One needs to see through the CIG hype and examine the actual in order to determine whether it's worth it or not on a personal basis.
They also tend to be the most specialized or artificially limited. The Cutlass Steel in particular is one of the worst offenders. It's literally something no one asked for (ANOTHER dropship? Why?) with slightly better guns thanks to an extra remote turret in the rear and a couple of door guns, with absolutely nothing else going for it. The Antares still requiring a co-pilot to push a button, wait for a charge timer, then push that same button a second time is an absolute joke. No reason whatsoever to justify that (ESPECIALLY their excuse about it "being too much to handle for a single pilot"). It also makes the Mantis completely obsolete and even more pointless than it was before. I guess having the actual interdiction functionality is almost useful... Until you actually see how massive the playable space is and how low the chance of actually catching someone, even an NPC with it is.
@@Raptor091288 No you NEED a 2nd Person to use the system so the Mantis which works with just the 1 pilot still has a role. This was done on purpose None of these ships are meant to work alone. Most of the True function of these ships will not be actually practical until more of the games systems are complete, you all are looking at Today CIG is looking at 4 years from now. They have said it for years now a Co Pilot will be a Game changer when all the systems are in place..they are not so these ships "Seem" to be not very good but that easily changes when you have a bunch of systems that a co pilot can then control while the pilot is busy not dying.
@@AlbertoMartinez765 sounds like a good excuse for poorly implemented mechanics or bad designs of ships, actually they need to improve upon this or we will not have a game 4 years from now.
You’re absolutely right on that point. None of these ships were tested. However, it would be quite late in the process to make any major changes even if feedback for these were given in PTU. I suspect not releasing in PTU is purely a business decision, and that they’re aware of the weaknesses of the concepts. By not giving time to review what will be a lackluster design, sales wouldn’t be too detrimentally effected. That doesn’t mean though that CIG put out these ships without intending to improve them over time, nothing indicates that’s the case. They’ve been going through older ships regularly to update them, and it may be they just plan to fix these at a future date. Who knows though, I prefer not to lean to cynically minded reasons.
IMO they should have kept the turret for the co pilot and switched the pilot weapons for the EMP and QT jammer, that way both Antares players have something fun to do
I think it should always be a consideration how a ship behaves undercrewed. I don't think ships where the pilot has no actual weapons are good designs from a gameplay perspective, since there's always gonna be people who buy a ship "with" their friends but but end up playing solo every now and then. It also makes more sense to me to have the "complicated" systems be with to co-pilot. I think a nice compromise would be to keep the turret but only 2 small guns. Make the co-pilot *feel* more important than they are :)
That’s sounds like a really good way to change it up, If I were the pilot I would definitely want to focus on dodging and getting the emp deployed and have the gunner focus on keeping other ships away.
I think this is actually the most useful feedback on the Antares. It's just a half-baked idea, but shift *more* functionality to the co-pilot makes such as radar operator and systems managment and suddenly you have a communication loop that would need to be practiced and refined and makes room for real and significant teamwork. I like that.
Yub in the Tomcat IRL there is a significant split between the seats, where the pilot handles flying, the firing of the weapons, Visual ID via the Television Camera Set, anything regarding engines and other flight systems like the wing configuration, as well as front lookout. Whereas the RIO handles the Radar, weapon prep, targeting pod, Navigation, usually most of the comms, most of the non-flight systems and rear lookout. He can also fire the long range missiles. During critical maneuvering like dogfights or landings the RIO will also support his/her pilot with Information about airspeed, threats etc. This split in resposibilities, unlike say in the Strike Eagle/Mud Hen, where the Pilot could fight the aircraft on his own, has led to the RIOs in the Navy being much more respected than USAF WSOs. P.S. Whoever designed that canopy needs to do 200 push ups! Putting up that massive bar in the middle kills any upwards visibility along the lift vector, aka among the second most important vector in combat.
The delays required for communication would put the ship at an even greater disadvantage in dogfights vs single-seater craft. Combat between fighters in Star Citizen usually comes in the form of dogfights, so two-seaters with split functionality are much less viable than they are in real life where most air-to-air combat takes place at very long ranges. Ideally, in Star Citizen, a copilot will add functionality to a ship, rather than just take away functionality from the pilot.
@@jodofe4879 all dogfight capabilities would be pilot controlled per OP as with irl aircraft. The copilot becomes support and long range attack. Having someone to launch missiles and disable enemies/manage ship systems is much easier than having to switch lock/systems/shields while flying
@@Dunkopf Exactly, and when you think abut communication, a good crew can say a lot with very few words. It's not like they are spewing big sentences instead of very clipped telegram style codeword sentences. @JoDoFe if you listen to the actual crews talking, you'll notice that most RIOS talked about shifting 90% of their attention outside the cockpit as soon as it went WVR (Within Visual Range) aka before going to the Merge and the dogfight. The Tomcat for example had a few PAL (Pilot Lock On) Modes which were highly automated so that the pilot could just point his aircraft roughly at the target and get a lock on. The F-16 and F-15 run the same, with the JHCMS basically using a submode of Boresight. In a dogfight it would be like Dunkopf said, the RIO/WSO would shunt energy as needed, manage the shields while keeping a lookout for enemies or threats like missiles. Or talk his pilot onto a target, keep track of the fuel state etc. All too keep his pilot's mind free to fight the enemy. The pilot in a two-seater has a lot more brainpower available to compute the tactical problem of winning the fight. He's also got vastly superior Situational Awareness, because there is another set of eyes looking out and other brain filtering the information. It's much harder to task saturate a two-seater crew vs. a single-seater, hence why the two-seaters seem to make a comeback in sixth gen fighters, given their high reliance on sensors and drones (loyal wingman UCAV/Missile trucks). They thought, in fifth gen, that they could replace the GIB/RIO/WSO with sensor fusion, but that hasn't worked out yet.
This is great feedback, the Antares looks cool! It's just... boring. The Steel could be nearly saved if it gained a single mounted grenade launcher. The ROC-DS will always be the dumbest.
Until you can only reach something with the DS thats not yet in game. Balancing is not yet really a prioroty i guess. I can easily see how you can make the DS worth it after rework of mining. Same as they will need to balance the mole and orion one day.
It's the cheapest cutty on the market. Looking at it right now, the steel is 50k cheaper than the black. More importantly, it's a great ship for introducing new people to space combat or ground combat. The rear turret negates the ever annoying m50 problem, and the only thing it lacks from the black is a place to put boxes. It's an amazing ship for people who play in a group and have zero interest in cargo running.
“Lazy cash grab” definitely comes to mind with several of these. Maybe someday with the implementation of the engineer role some more compelling game play could come for the ROC DS and Antares. Like tuning of systems or managing EWAR systems beyond tackling ships.
Id personally put the Mercury Star Runner on this list. Imagine this. A Fast, slim, size 3 Data Runner ship, made to get quickly in and out of places. Well Shielded and armed for its size. Smuggling cargo in small vents under its interior. Optimally made for 1 to 3 people. But then, CIG figures out that "WHY NOT GIVE IT SHIT TONS OF CARGO AND THE ABILITY TO CARRY A SIZE 3 VEHICLE??", makes the ship go from Size 3 to 4, Loosing not only its gigantic back thruster (exchanged with 2 small ones on the wings) which aesthetically looked pleasing, but loosing its slimness, bloating the ship up to just look like an oversized pancake. Speed? What Speed? Instead, lets make the ship weigh about 2-3 times that of the Constellation, make it chugg more fuel, and then also give its TOO MUCH fuel to make it an expensive thing to fly. That shield and armament? Nah. Keep it to the OG design. Its a Datarunner (that cannot run anymore), therefore it doesnt need more shields or more weaponry. Ventilation system takes up so much space, that its better to outright remove it from the ship, make it flatter, cause guess what, that system wasnt used for Secret Smuggling, they added a LITERALL smuggling bay next to the cargo bay, so the whole point of the vents are not even there anymore. Kitchen? Yeah we have a small kitchenette, but no actual eating area. No table to eat from, BUT we have chess tho. Ship doesnt have escape pods, despite having room for it. Ship doesnt have an extra entrance / exit, yet has room for it. Ship has no docking functionality, yet.. again, has room for it. If the ship didnt have the exit ALL THE WAY IN THE BACK, that wouldnt been a problem. Lastly. The use of Manned Turrets over Remote Turrets is such a weird and dumb design and only stems from the fact this is a Millennium Falcon homage. This ship would benefit from having Remote Turrets like the Hercules, cause Remote turrets could retract, and make its profile slimmer, specially allow it to land better, as the turret will almost all the time bonk the ground. Overall. Great idea of a ship, but pure disappointment in execution.
I simply cannot fathom how that and other ships left the design phase in this state. Anyone with common sense and a bit of logical thinking can see that there's something wrong there.
Great video. Morph forgot to mention that the Cyclone MT needs a second player to man the turret/weapons, whereas the Cyclone AA is single player. This is why you will still see the AA variant in use.
Finally I thought I was the only one who thought they were just phoning it in for the cash. They are cash grabs and "time" could have been spent on unreleased ships in my opinion. Thanks for the video. Keep up the great content sir.
One issue is that people buy things before they've been play tested, so it really makes it hard to make big changes to them without upsetting a bunch of people.
I think a big issue that SC has is that it does not design their ships around the gameplay and systems but a lot of the times the other way around. The gameplay is built around the ships they want to add (or have to add because people bought it in the past). They design something that would be cool, like a cuttlass that's a dropship or a ship that can mine, or do scanning or salvaging without thinking about how the game might work in the future. The way different gameplay styles and systems will interact will have to account for the ships that are already there or ships will have to be reworked completely. Imagine they now decide that they want to change how salvage works but they can't because the older ships would need reworks... so they just make a new ship for that gameplay style instead. Someone needs to sit down and think about what star citizen should be and what players do when they play the game. That way they can make better decisions on what new ships they should make. They should also find a way that allows themselves to GET RID of certain ships that break balance, are useless or do not fit the game.
I think the Cutlass Black is a very well rounded early game ship but it needs a toilet/sink in the foreword compartment. They might have to relocate the crew personal lockers to the other side to make space for a flip out toilet and sink
I think Morphologis' suggestion for fixing the Black makes a lot of sense, there's a lot of empty space in that "triangle", adding a turret that comes down from the ceiling like on some other ships seems like a good way to go about it. Then the space the turret seat takes up right now could be used for shower/sink/toilet. Some sort of door between the cockpit and the rest of the ship would also be nice. Kinda odd the Cutter has it but the Cutlass does not.
I can always picture the turret being stowed in the up position, and the forward access door being under the turret. Then put the amenities where the current door is. A lot of turrets in game are stowed upward. I'm not a fan of how the cutlass looks, but damn if it the handiest ship to have. I finally got one after many years, and wish I had done it sooner. I always recommend it as a starter, if the player wishes to make that investment.
So personally, i think they should make the emp and quantum thing work in a like a beam turret kinda thing, that way instead of dealing damage via a turret, the gunner could simply limit the enemies ability to fight/flee
That could add a bit of realism as even modern fighter pilots have to constantly fiddle with their jet's attack radar to gain and hold lock on the enemy planes.
The failure of the Antares and Cutlass Steel are extra sad, as they are almost really awesome. Maybe the Antares could be fixed by forcing size 2 gimbals, then giving them full control over the QED and EMP. It could be power or heat related in lore. The cutlass fix as described in the video is perfect. I appreciate your and Avenger One's perspective on this ship- this was a great video.
@@CapnSnackbeard engineering will be copilot. Copilot will take care of shields, power, flares etc. Which isnt much on a 2 seater ship, but on things like the Cat it will be a flavor of the engineering gameplay
easy fix for the rocds, make the gunner be inside a shield that functions like a cockpit, and give to more storage. If its gonna take twice the room better hold twice as much.
Thanks for giving us a bit of high quality content to enjoy while we wait for the tyre fire of the 3.18 launch to slowly get sorted out. Amazing footage and great takes as always Morph. EDIT: I still like your old proposal on how to improve the ROC-DS and hope CIG will eventually see the error in this sort of forced multicrew setup and change it accordingly.
I love the optic of the antares. The big Turret was not looking that good. But they have to fix the Antares. The Co Pilot has to get a radar, energy control, MFDs for the Jammer and EMP control and Missile Mode.
Yep. I honestly don't know if there's even a single ship that has a copilot seat and missles that has any reason to NOT have missle mode. It just fits so well.
1. Cyclone MT - Spot on. 2. Cutlass Steel - Spot on. 3. ROC DS - Spot on (Morphs own redesign was better) 4. Antares - Tentatively agree. All these summaries are great. The Mole is one that has been bugging me for a while, and since day one, I felt it needed a lot more cargo space, to make up for its crew requirements and payout split.
@@readyforlol You're talking about the combat mission payout split? I agree, in another MMO I played, there was a boost to payouts for being grouped and within a certain distance to group members. In SC, if you're in the same area, doing the same mission, or in the same ship, everyone should get the same payout, plus a bonus, for being grouped; this would give a big incentive to groups missions, instead of the opposite.
Now the snare is gone, it doesn't NEED a second seat for 'balancing'. Make the rear seat a prisoner seat like in the Hawk, since they'll be doing similar roles IMO
For the Antares, I think I'd have just given the copilot a 2 gun S2 turret, so it's not outright better for combat than the base Scorpius, but the copilot also could have something to do apart from press 2 buttons
I feel like having the Antares DO both things isn't such a bad thing if it's both more pricey than the competitors like the Mantis, AND less effective (having less range, duration of the effect, etc.) That way the dedicated ships LIKE the Mantis are still undoubtedly superior as far as price to performance goes... but the Antares has you pay a bit extra and sacrifice a bit of performance in each of those specialty roles, to gain the versatility of having them both in the one package (while also being a superior chassis like you mentioned) Haven't looked at Star Citizen since IAE this year, so I'd not even heard of the Antares until yesterday when I saw Twitter blow up about it. No idea its price compared to Mantis for example, but I definitely agree the UI of that second crew position and the experience that player is likely to have is the bigger issue... just looks like non-gameplay
In general I think variants are a great idea when executed properly. They save on dev time and reflect the real world where a chassis would be used for multiple roles. Just don’t try and bang a round peg in a square hole.
I think what makes Morph’s videos so great is what these videos can do for the state of the game. I especially love how he encourages the community to talk these issues through with the QA team. Remember guys, the game can’t get better if we don’t speak up, and make suggestions.
Completely agree with everything you mentioned here. I usually cut them a lot of alack but it’s kind of appalling that CiG keeps making the same mistakes with marketing and these ship “variants.”
Only two light critiques with your assessment, first there are temperate Earth-like planets where the person on the outside seat of the mining vehicle will not have to worry about anything and it could just be a chill fun thing to do with friend, or more to my point, a child. Secondly the Scorpius Antares similarly gives the opportunity for a parent to play with a child without them being overwhelmed and legitimately being able to contribute.
The Antares in its current state seems like a ship you multibox and fly with just one player. That said, I think quantum interdiction could do with a whole lot of extra UI and functionality to allow players to plot trajectories, maybe even share location data between ships to triangulate positions, and intercept targets. If they stick that functionality on the co-pilot's MFD(s) for the Antares, but allow ships like the Mantis to let the pilot have access that functionality directly, you'd end up with far more interesting gameplay.
That idea before suggesting with the new proposed facilities having one being a mining facility would be the perfect way to fix the ROC-DS. Create pressurized sections or areas with breathable atmosphere and you got a good place to return to as you drive your ROC-DS into the larger mining tunnels. So long as the ROC-DS can get you more resources in less time compared to the other model then it could be a good long term investment.
One point on some ships being better than others in their role: I think it is perfectly fine to have a ship being better than others. We have this in other games too. The only thing required for this to work is better ships being harder to acquire (cost, reputation). Because than it's simply progression. I would be fine with the Antares being a single seater with the pilot controlling everything if the Antares would be highly expensive compared to other ships which are just QED ships or just fighters. Same goes for the Cyclone MT. It's okay if it is better than the other two combat Cyclones as long as this is reflected in price and reputation cost.
That's a difficult proposition in an open PVP MMO. If there are objectively better ships than others in a same role without trade offs outside of the difficulty to acquire them, you inevitably have one bigger group of players controlling the access to resources to acquire said ships, because they have access to them and others don't. Power consolidation. The only choice for new players joining that server is then : join the big org, or be massively outnumbered and outgunned. Which compounds on itself in a positive feedback loop until all you have is a gigantic, uncontested (and incontestable) guild and a handful of lone wolves trying and failing to make a living. Either try to beat them which is impossibly hard, or join them and make the game trivial because there's no resistance left.
@@readyforlol Sorry, but that's just not the case. As Star Citizen is right now you do not compete with other players for the whole time and such a scenario is also explicitly not the goal of the project. Also if the goal was to make every ship equally as good there really wouldn't be any need to have over a hundred different ones.
@@readyforlol I agree with this, it was a massive problem in elite Dangerous. Most players gravitated towards the Fer Der Lance mid game, and the Anaconda end game. The Anaconda in particular was broken. It wasn't that it was OP in any one area, it was just pretty good... But it was pretty good in EVERY area. Specialist ships in its weight class tended to be only marginally better in one specific category, while taking a huge hit in most other categories. The Beluga for example, could carry somewhat more cargo or passengers, and could carry special luxury passenger bays... Whooptiedo, the luxury passengers never really had noticeably more payout because the missions were so RNG out the @$$. And the Beluga was far weaker than an Anaconda as a combat ship (it's literally a small cruise ship). You can take penalties for taking damage with passengers on board, and the Anaconda was better equipped to prevent that. The type 9 heavy is a good bulk cargo carrier, and can even be a bit tanky if equipped right... Again, sacrifice a little cargo space, and you get a better combat ship out of the Anaconda if you get jumped. The much smaller Asp Explorer famously has the most jump range, which immediately translates to the fastest interstellar travel and least time spent refueling from star lifting. But you get way more ship for your ship in the Anaconda. You can simultaneously carry a fighter bay, repair limpets, and a massive amount of SRVs, mining stuff, which all makes for a fun slower explorer. Or you can strip it down, and make it jump almost as far as a stripped down Asp Explorer, but with more base durability. That's actually one of the biggest reasons why people like the Anaconda. Even with lots of equipment installed, it still has fairly big fuel tanks, and a somewhat larger jump range than similar sized ships... And in that game, you spend SO MUCH TIME traveling from A to B, that simply having a "good enough" multipurpose ship with better range and fuel tanks than most other ships its size, makes it an instant winner over better ships in any one specific category. And this is ostensibly a 100 year old combat ship in universe (meaning its supposed to be outdated tech in the lore, lol). And it IS a good combat ship. Equipped right, it can stay toe to toe with the Federal Corvette or Imperial Cutter. Those ships may be marginally better than the Anaconda but if they are, it's hard to tell. With the slots available to all three, it comes more down to who has better and more engineered equipment. And here's the kicker where combat goes... Both the Federal Corvette and Imperial Cutter have worse range and fuel (from what I've heard, a decent amount worse in the Cutter), and the worst: They are reputation ships. This means you need the top reputation rank in their respective factions to even be allowed to buy those ships... As someone who started on faction reputation super late... F@ck no, I'm not going on a whole other grind in an already grindy game. The Anaconda however, is the only 1 of the 3 top combat ships that isn't tied to reputation. If you have the cash, you can buy it. Considering all of this, why would anybody pick anything other than an Anaconda 99% of the time? And that's partly what happened, Anacondas dominate the PVP in terms of sheer numbers, out of a wide array of imaginative ships. In PVE, I didn't care, I liked my Beluga, but even then, it was like a novelty I flew around in sometimes, but just wasn't that much better as a passenger or makeshift mining ship, to justify flying it as my main. Even in PVE, it was hard to deny the Anaconda's sheer usefulness. I like swiss army knife ships... But they really shouldn't be performing near, or even outperforming, the specialist ships IN those specialties. Otherwise, yeah, the game starts filling up with players only flying one kind of ship in PVP. That's just boring. There should be a cost to running jack of all trades ships.
One thing I thought was really weird about the Antares Q&A is that it kept mentioning the Sentinel's EMP... but its EMP was supposed to be a placeholder... wasn't it?
For them to fix the RSI Antares, it really needs CGI/RSI to understand what a Rio is and does. This varies by Aircraft, as the work that a Rio would do in the old F-14 Tomcat is drastically different than in the U-2. I think the Antares really needs to turn that rio into a fully fledged Electronics Warfare Officer. In this scenario, the rio would be able to monitor radar, initiate scans, identify and flag targets for the pilot, hack nearby ships and other electronically controlled assets, and act as strategist and coordinator when the Antares is part of an attack or offensive wing involving many fighter craft. The nice thing is, none of these roles needs the rio to have any form of visibility. While not all of these features are in the game yet, many (like the scanning) are. To be honest, I think it's a reflection just how little attention to detail and how little consideration CGI puts into things that aren't at the forefront. My guess that the rio position was even included was a nerf to keep the Antares from being too powerful. It was a "one and done" solution without really thinking through what that solution could look like.
What they should have done: - Smaller dual S2 turret for the copilot - QED Dampener - No Emp Now you have an interdictor with usability... Oh, wait, that's my Cutlass Blue...
Great video, which brings up some very good observations. I have been waiting for some real compelling fighter multi crew gameplay for a while now that doesn't just involve manning a turrent, and I think the Antares really had the potential to be something special. I hope that CIG takes some of this feedback and really leans into creating a more compelling RIO role, allowing the back seater to manage the ship functions like power, shields and missiles. This seems like a no brainer, taking a lot of the mental load off of the pilot really allowing them to focus on flying, which creates a real and compelling reason to bring a 2 seater fighter as opposed to each person manning their own ship. Maybe CIG can take a little less inspiration from WW2 backseater turret operators, and focus a little more on a modern RIO pilot role who manages tracking aircraft, weapons systems, and defensive systems. Thanks as always for the great content, and well thought out pieces Morph!
Indeed. One thing you might find interesting is that the Q Snare was originally in the marketing material for this ship. They may have taken it out quite late in the process due to balance concerns.
@@Morphologis i can see that. I agree that they need a more comprehensive WSO/RIO suite in the back for ALL two seaters. Right now none of them have the kind of functionality you see in real world 2 seat craft like [in the case of fighters/ewar] F18F/EF18s, or even the old F14s and F4. They should have fixed that across the board before releasing another gimped craft. The Super Hornet has the same problem (rear seat no longer controls turret), as do all the cutlasses (rear seat has no system control)
@@Morphologis Dev comment specifically said they designed it with only 2 mfd's because helmet based mfd's are coming eventually and they designed it with that in mind.
@@Morphologis Ah, could have sworn the comment was in direct reply to someone talking about the emp operator but I wasn't paying too much attention as I have no intention of ever owning one.
In a game which lives and dies by its vehicle design, these quick STF variants have been disappointing. I think a similar video highlighting the ships still awaiting gameplay would be interesting (as you alluded to with the Herald), with suggestions about what T0 should look like.
We need to start iterating with proper exploration and cyberwarfare systems, now. Tech isn't the only thing that need time to iron out kinks. These systems will suck when they release and only get good after trying things and seeing what works. The sooner they get on that, the less tech debt they accumulate by making ships for those gameplay loops that don't even have an inkling of a vision for their final purpose. So many ships will have to be basically redone to fit their role when those come out, and it's gonna suck for everyone involved.
I love the break down you put into why you feel these ships are worth ships in game. The Banu defender kind of fits on this list for me. It's fun to fly and has big guns for the pilot plus two beds and 2 gun racks... and then two offset pilot seats. The idea is kind of cool as it's an alien ship that uses two pilots at once kind of thing. But that wouldn't work with human operators. So we're left to picking one side to awkwardly pilot a symmetrical ship. The second person to hop I'm a polit seat is left to stare at MFDs. I absolutely love the way the wings expand from landing gear to a pod racing looking ship, but they do obstruct the pilots vision. Furthermore the arms block the lights on the face of the ship so if your in a low light place you are forced to fly with your landing gear out. Aside from that I do absolutely love this ship, the look, the sounds, biomechanical feeling.
What i would change with the Antares . -announce that the EMP is only a temporary addition and will go away when new gameplay are added to the game. -The EMP will later be replaced by an E-War suite for the copilot and allow hacking gameplay.(2 new screens for the copilot ?) -Reduce the size of the QED area (half the size of the mantis) This would allow the scorpius antares to hack targeted ships and denied them to leave the fight.With his short QED range the pilot would need to stay close to the target for the QED and hacking.
Accordingly with a theory from other channel , the Antares has a great potential of being used by the same player with 2 computers and 2 accounts. The only thing the player will need to use in combat for the 2nd seat would be the 2 mouse buttons. The player would react faster then with 2 different players which would need to communicate between them. This type of simplicity in the design of the Antares for the 2nd seater may open the way to make use of this type of exploit given the fact that gamers may have more than one computer to test the concept for free in the free fly events creating another account and netting a free ship to his account for inviting a "friend" that buy a starter package(if they do not already have another account) with it´s code during the event.
I would definitely add the Mole to this list. Most of them are what I have dubbed "multiplayer for the sake of multiplayer" ships, where multiplayer is not well integrated or makes no sense. The Roc-DS still makes me mad as it has an enclosed cockpit, something the base model desperately needs (honestly all the ground vehicles that are not bikes should have enclosed cockpits)
The cutlass steel is so bad that not even CIG uses it for NPCs. You'd think it's the ideal ship to use when NPC reinforcements arrive at an outpost, but they use the regular cutlass black instead.
Minor correction that the Antares' QED only has a quantum dampener, not a snare, so the Mantis is still the only snare-equipped ship in the game (snare catches people from quantum, dampener only prevents quantum spooling). It's also (imo) a pretty good in-between of the Vanguard Sentinel and the Cutlass Blue, being entirely outclassed by the Sentinel and lacking the storage space/hull health/turrets of both Sentinel and Blue in trade for having both the QED and EMP on hand. The copilot situation on the Antares will hopefully get better as engineering and copilot gameplay options are added. In the current state of the game the seat feels vestigial at best, but many other ships have copilot seats that are equally or more useless, like the competing Cutlass Blue (and Cutlass Black, plus arguably Red/Steel). The Constellation family, MOLE, Defender, Freelancer, MSR, even Hammerhead/Carrack/Reclaimer/Starfarer/etc all have copilot seats that are wholly useless at this point in time. Others like the Super Hornet, Prowler, and Reliant let you run a turret, but they're not dedicated solely to copilot. In the meantime I think it'd have been wiser to let the pilot run the EMP *or* QED, either by making them switchable components or by restricting both from being powered on with "there's just not enough power available" handwavium, but that's just my opinion & both have significant pros and cons. I still don't know how they can save the ROC-DS without a complete overhaul....
Here's what you do. The mantis gets a larger range and can jam bigger ships. Also make it interactive like Elite. This means the co-pilot has to actively do something to pull someone out of jump/keep them there
I’m thinking for that new ship variant, maybe they can give the second player more stuff to do, “guy-in-back” stuff, like balancing power to various subsystems, or sensor operation (a RIO), or things like that.
Great video about functionality issues with some of the ships! I know in the beginning, you mentioned the Drake Herald as not really being talked about here as its primary purpose doesn't really exist yet, but I'd actually venture to say that even then, it still has one massive, glaring problem. For those that haven't really messed with a Herald and flown it, the entire thruster setup is a gigantic mess. The primary thrusters for the ship are placed in such a way that they are not in line with the CG (center of gravity), thus anytime the pilot wants to accomplish a major acceleration of any kind, there is an immediate massive moment arm being created that shoves the ship nose down. The entire aft section of the propulsion system has what seems to be zero thought behind it, and I'm not sure it's really salvageable without some major changes to its overall systems and most likely a total overhaul of its silhouette. I know we don't really see the Herald around because data-running isn't a thing yet, but as much as I love sci-fi tech and the wizardry around games, the aerospace engineer in me dies a little every time I see that ship
I really hope CIG puts more thought into copilot gameplay for two seater ships and incorporate better co-op gameplay into the HUDs and screens. Maybe they're afraid 2-seater ships may become too OP, but that's no excuse for what they did with the RSI Antares. Copilot gameplay can actually be a lot of fun, and for less serious or hardcore players who are not proficient in multi-tasking, it can be a great way for them to experience co-op gameplay with their friends and as a way to entice more casual players. I remember when I was 12 years old, playing the X-Wing, Tie Fighter and of course the Wing Commander series on PC that my three friends and I would each take turns playing the missions and rotate between the roles of pilot and co-pilot. The pilot would use the joystick to fly, shoot and give orders to the co-pilot who handled the keyboard. The pilot would give orders, like "Match target speed", "All power to weapons", "Balance power", "Next Target", "Target objective" to the co-pilot who handled all keyboard commands. Having a co-pilot was especially useful in escort missions and large battles where targeting specific objectives was critical. Overall, it was a lot of fun and it was also a way for all of us to get better at learning the keyboard bindings. Like others have already said, a co-pilot doesn't just have to be gunner. They can help in so many other ways. Speaking of co-op gameplay. When playing with other ships, it would be great if CIG can update the HUD so that players can see what their friend's ships have targeted. That way friends can all easily focus on a single target or each take a separate target at a glance of the HUD. Perhaps color code your friends and their targets can have an indicator that will take on a shade of their color. So that we don't get overwhelmed with too many colors, CIG can limit the number of friends that can share information to a single squadron. Perhaps, better targeting systems can handle more targets and that can be a part of ship customization. Capitol ships would have the best targeting systems and can take on the role of Air Force Command and manage all the wings in the field. With how big organizations are in SC, I think CIG really needs to start thinking about how they are going to incorporate squadrons, groups and wings into the gameplay and how they will be reflected in the menus, HUD and communications.
Okay, I agree on all points. Here is how I would fix most of these. Antaries: since EMPs generally are very limited an weak, I would buff RMP range (maybe 2KM, would still keep it close, but not suffocatingly so.) And make EMP's in general more powerful, especially on the raven which has 2. Next give the copilot missle and power control. The Quantum suppression doesn't need too much, but the mantis for which this is it's only real trick needs some buffing. ( I'd say give the mantis size 3's and more hull hp or a second shield. Additionally, let the huge cockpit on the mantis have some storage, with an easy access docking port. ) The cyclone I agree with your suggestions. The rock make the mining head more powerful/faster. Then enclose the second seat, and mount it on a better position/give some movement to the seat so that it can get better angles. Mole, just add some rocks which you just can't break with a prospector. Give them a higher yield, to justify the extra time and ship. Increase it's storage as well. It's basically 3 prospectors together right now, so makie it so that it has an advantage over 3 prospectors. Lastly the steel, well all it needs is a shield for it's guns. It's meant to be a a drop ship in an area with heavy fps footprint. So give the guns some sniper protection. It doesn't need more shields. Just something to make it's role more effective. The cutlass is already a formidable mid tier gunship, improving it's shields would make it OP. However if you can't snipe the gun turrets then it now makes it an nearly ideal drop ship to areas where you need a heavy ground presence. Right now no turret in the game which isn't protected by the ship is any good. Heck the ones at JT are just death traps. But just putting an armorer glass shield would be enough to stop snipers, and allow them to do their job of laying down suppressing fire. Bonus the centurion, also needs some work. Nothing about it is directly bad, it's just that it is meant to take out air targets. The problem is that you can tell exactly where it is attacking from. So, it needs a massive shield buff since it can't move and unlike the balistia it calls out it position. Additionally we need better AA guns in the game which should fit on this. Heck launching exploding rounds like grandes into the air, then have them detonate when they either hit something it hit their range would be very useful for this. (Basically what we have in real life.) Without something like that it's basically a stationary target the second you open fire. At a minimum if a gladdy and this were to open fire on each other at the same time, this should be able to win the fight with minimal damage.
The ROC DS is generally used as a single crew vehicle whenever I've seen it. With the driver switching seats. Basically offering a bigger ROC for people who say have a MSR and have the room.
Putting the aside the Antares "co-pilot" issue, i think a good way to balance that ship having BOTH EMP and the QED is either cut back the effective range/power of it (smaller versions to fit both in one hull) OR buff the stand alone ones in the other ships (larger units = more power/range) Looking at the Mantis, it looks like the QED uses up a significant portion of the hull. Imagine if they did a third variant ( or a new ship around the same size) of the Ares Ion/Inferno that had BOTH weapons, it wouldn't make a lot of sense because those weapon systems take up a LARGE portion of the hull capacity.
Here’s some ideas for the Antares based on what I know from a few multi-crew aircraft IRL. I’m not well versed on how the radar actually works in SC, but I think the Antares should definitely have a more powerful radar or a much more detailed radar display screen for the EW operator. More range than some other ships, or a 3D/spatial display that you could possibly manipulate with assignable controls. If it’s an advanced electronic warfare interdictor/support vehicle, give it better EW capabilities. I’m not really sure how other ships work in SC, but they could also give the co-pilot/sensor operator more control over cooler, shield, and electricity management. One of the major reasons aircraft are designed for more than a single operator is to reduce load in a way that lets a pilot pilot the aircraft better while also giving the aircraft more capability than it might have otherwise. In the F15E, the pilot can do pretty much everything, but it’s a lot harder to be as good as a two man crew.
There are a few ships that I am honestly convinced are only separate ships because they haven't figured out the tech and methotology with modifying ships deeply. The Cyclones are all just a single vehicle with modifications to the back section. Basically the concept I have gleaned from bits and pieces from CIG is that their intention is to have players get ship chassis as a base and modify them heavily as far as the system lets. Basically you wouldn't be buying a MISC freelancer. MISC just makes the base chassis that then gets modified into a pattern by some second party and you buy the ship from them. My personal pet peeve and thorn in the heart is the Mustand Delta. The entire Mustang line is a modification on a base chassis that has the lower back section dedicated to modules for functions. Be it cargo, habitation or a third engine. Alpha, Beta and Gamma/Omega respectively. The Delta however has that space just plugged up with no functionality, uparmor for decorative purposes and slap on some missile pods that, unlike the original bespoke design, should be replacable with missile racks or guns. They mean to tell me that in-universe no one has looked at a stripped down mustang and a Horner ball-mount and thought "I can flip that mount upside down and fit it in that mustang." for a pretty decent approximation of an in-atmo air-to-ground light gunship/fighter. Or hell, even just a hardmount for at least a gimbal with S4 gun mount for an "underslung" weapon. Basically filling the role of an attack helicopter rather then an air/space superiority fighter.
Although it is technically functional, I would say one of the worst ships in the game at the moment is the Retaliator. It only has 6 size 9 torpedoes compares to the eclipse's 3 due to terribly inefficient placement in the large bays, so will still have to restock them fairly often, and a a few of it's turrets are awkwardly placed in terms of visibility and obstructions. The functionality side really only compounds the main issue of a convoluted interior layout, with wasted space on additional corridors and turret access in a already narrow ship. Hopefully the gold standard update we've been hearing about will also address some of these issues, but I'd be interested to get your thoughts on what you'd change about the retaliator while still keeping the function and theme of the vessel intact.
The Antares is worse than you think because the due to the lack of backseat interaction, whilst it requires a second account, means the ship can effectively be dual-boxed by a single player... so long as they can reach a mouse connected to the second PC. In fact, in light of the points you made it is perhaps even better piloted by a dual boxing player. Personally I'd also add the Starfarer to your list but hopefully that'll be getting some serious rework at some point.
For the Antares they should allow the copilot of be a weapons officer and handle countermeasures and missiles. Then they have much more. Also give them a better field of view. Also add a turret camera view for locking those missiles and in that HUD add indicators for QED and EMP status like in the Raven and Mantis.
I like the Antares. It's fun to fly as a solo fighter and if someone needs me to pick em up I put em to work. I can concentrate on flying and fighting and let them know when the shield is down the enemy
the issue I see with your critique of the Cutlass Steel is that It's not a typical space combat ship. It's an anti infantry drop ship. The Steel's shields are indeed ineffective for long drawn ship combat, but against infantry weapons such as rifles it would be quite effective at producing cover fire while it drops infantry troops off. It's meant to be a drop ship not a zone protector. lol
Have to disagree with you about the ROC-DS on pretty much every point except one. It doesn't fit in many ships. But the things I disagree you with on that vehicle are: 1: It's not a two person vehicle. I don't care what CIG say, if you're using it multi-crew, you're using it wrong. It makes no sense as a two man miner and is completely counter-intuitive to it's design. For all the reasons you mentioned and especially because of the crew cabin protecting you and only you while driving. 2: The DS isn't just 3 times better than the standard ROC, it's actually 4 times better than the standard ROC. 4SCU on the DS instead of just 1 on the ROC. 3: The turret seat is actually a lot better and easier to use for mining on the DS than the ROC is from inside the cab. No seriously, that turret seat is great. But as you said, you can't just stick a miner in the turret seat because they will be exposed to the elements. And it's not like you're going to be able to use the extreme elements armor on the turret seat forever. Makes far more sense for just one player to drive and find resources. Park in a good spot. Get out of the cap and get in the turret seat. Mine everything up. Get back out of the turret and into the cab and find the next mining spot. At no point will you be in the turret for longer than you need to, nor longer than your survivability will allow before you're back in the cabin recovering. And with the DS' four times bigger cargo hold you stay out longer and mine a lot more minerals before needing to head back for a bigger pay day. As a multi-crew miner, the DS makes absolutely no sense. It's counter-intuitive and counter-productive. But as a solo miner, it's absolutely incredible. The only "real" downside's are it can't be carried by as many ships and it can't get into as many small spots for mining like the standard ROC can. To be fair, the DS turret can also reach spots the standard ROC would struggle with. But in every other way, the DS out performs the standard ROC by a wide margin. Every other ship you mentioned, I completely agree with. I only disagree with you regarding the ROC-DS. I especially agree with you regarding the Antares. I've said many times that if they want to split roles for multi-crew, they need to make sure NOT to split role arbitrarily. Nobody is going to want to sit and stare outside of a wall with nothing to do. You need to keep everyone sufficiently occupied. An only 2 button job is a waste of an additional seat. And honestly, I don't think missile operator mode would've been enough offset the light workload due to the poor visibility. Maybe giving them counter measure duties, or adding some additional e-war functions like those expected to be in the Sentinel via the MFD panel in the rear seat. But two buttons and only two buttons. That's just a waste of a seat and a person's time.
the Antares feels like its very easily "fixable" unless there's a long term plan we dont know about at the very least, they could drop one of the two countermeasures and affix the turret to one of the two positions perhaps CIG could release "fixed-position turret kits" for the Antares (aUEC only obviously), so the pilot could choose which of the countermeasures they drop depending on what they need this would work the same way as it does with (i think) the Hornet, which has a modular section at the top, one of the options being a ball turret
The Antares really is a shitshow, sadly. I would have loved if the second seat was a proper RIO type of seat with its own HUD and controls - able to use a Scanning mode that wasn't coupled to the vehicle's nose, allowing scanning in a narrow cone, as well as Missile Operator modes in a narrow cone as well. That would let the Pilot focus on flying and shooting and give the RIO something to do - scanning, missiles, jamming, and EMP.
One minor discrepancy regarding the antarese and mantis I just want to point out. The antarese only gets a quantum jammer like the cutty blue, while the mantis has both the quantum jammer and QED. But taking a mantis and a standard scorpius or any other fighter is a much better option than flying an antarese. If anything, flying a cutty blue is a better option since it gets cargo space, a quantum jammer, and a turret
Honestly a great video. With the antares, both seats should be able to operate the emp, jammer and missiles, and the other emp and qed ships should be buffed to remain good options. Right now if I were to say, do a piracy operation, I would rather operate a mantis and an emp ship. This still takes 2 players, but now you can also snare people. The best reason to pick the antares is to save space on a carrier.
A lot of the problems with the Antares might be mitigated once HUD MFDs are a thing. I think the utility of the co-pilot in general still has a lot of potential growth as shield and capacitor management etc. get deeper and more important.
Agreed with all points. I don't see a problem with the Antares as long as the missile operator mode is functional via copilot seat in order to fire the 16 S2's. So the pilot can focus on solely maneuvering and gun combat. I do agree with your UI issues. I believe they should have thought that portion through.
Star Citizen started as my dream game and I'm still really excited, even though I might never see it finished. I'm not a fan of varients. I understand that they are selling ships to continually fund the game, with it being in development for so many years paying salaries has no doubt used up a good portion of their initial capital. I'd rather see more deal on existing ships or more of a push on new ships rather than varients though. When the cutlass was announced, I think it was around then anyway, they talked about modifying your ships. I bought the cutlass under the impression I'd be able to add bounty pods, turrets, more seats later down the line. I really liked the idea of outfitting my ship for my needs. I'm not sure if they intend on doing something like that anymore, with varients like the cutlass blue I'm worried I'm just going to have to buy a new ship if I want to take in bounties or something. Co-pilots really need more to do. I feel like co-pilots should be able to use missles or something more effectively, have a larger target range or lock onto more targets at once. Another crew position for much larger ships down the line could be point defence, tagging the most threatening missles for pdcs to take down in priority order or ignore ones that are already off course or still out of range. Yet also not handicapping the ship without that position, letting it happen automatically without a crew member but it just shoots at everything that gets close and is less effective. Big ships are way down the line though and from what we've seen so far they are probably going to be more of the same but bigger, with more seats, and further split features. I dunno, getting kind of negative about the game the more I see it progress and as a mostly solo played I have concerns about my place in the game going forward.
I don't think they are making mistakes since it's still in alpha and developing a game. Won't know for sure what any of these ships will be like until late beta or after release. Heck I was alpha and beta testing Eve Online and they were still balancing ships a year after release.
How to use the Antares solo? 1. Obtain a second account. 2. Put it in the copilot seat. 3. Shortcut the commands of the EMP and Interdictor. P.S. I never tried this.
simple fix for the antares. drop the weapon size/count or missile size/count and give the pilot and co pilot access to a qed or emp. if being too op is the worry then that solves it. you trade some dps for utility while still allowing both people to play the game.
Personally, I think that the Antares copilot should also be able to handle the ship's systems to pick up the extra requirements from the pilot like navigation and power management & missiles operation. They definitely need to give power / charge indicators for the EMP and QED.
Yeah, as aesthetically-hideous and internally-maddening as the Starfarer is, it's still a very functional vessel and quite capable in a fight, especially with the upgunned Gemini.
One of the biggest issues with CIG's pledge model is that if they release a flawed/failed design like this, it's *extremely* difficult to make major changes or remove the design, because now people have their real money tied up it. In a normal game, it would be perfectly viable to say "hey, we really botched this one so we're just gonna remove it and try again," but that's really not possible here unless they set up some kind of buyback program for store credit and get people on board. With this in mind, I think CIG definitely needs to reevaluate the "straight to flyable" model - without the opportunity to get feedback on a design before release, people aren't gonna know a design sucks until they've already sunk money into it. This is made even worse by the fact that ships are pledge-exclusive for the first patch following their release, so for 3-6 months after release there's absolutely no way to test a ship in-game without either buying one or working with someone who already did. CIG's limited sales windows and warbond deals further encourage people to buy on release rather than wait, making this problem even worse. While CIG could definitely improve their design philosophy for variants (particularly with an eye towards game balance and intended role,) I don't think that's really the biggest moral of this story. CIG is *gonna* screw up designs sometimes, it's inevitable. I think the real lesson here is that CIG's own systems for selling ships *greatly* restrict their options when they release a design they'd be better off changing/removing, as it creates FOMO and encourages people to buy unproven and untested ships entirely on faith. I think an objectively better system would be to implement a free-fly period for new ships prior to putting them on sale, allowing the entire community to try the design and generate data and feedback; this would allow CIG a little extra time to make final tweaks or even go back to the drawing board, and it would ensure that people who *do* subsequently buy the ship understand what they're getting, hopefully reducing negative feedback. This approach isn't perfect, of course, and leaves room for a few questions. Does CIG have to run this free fly every time they tweak a design? What happens if people liked a design CIG removed? What happens to all the promotional material and brochures made for a ship that gets canceled? There's even an argument to be made that this could reduce sales, as players might realize that they don't actually like the ship they were thinking about buying (though this is the purview of the popular "does CIG care more about transparency and player satisfaction, or just sales numbers" debate.) Still, even with its imperfections, I think this approach would be preferable to the current one, which in my opinion borders on predatory at times. While the CIG staff like surprising players with unexpected new designs, I think that transparency for the buyers should take precedence here - especially when it gives CIG themselves more flexibility and options for how to respond when a design doesn't go over well.
nice video morph. I think the problem here is that CIG wants to milk the cow. Presenting ships that seem better than other will make ppl melt their own and invest cash to maybe buy the warbond version. That is a strategy, not a mistake.
Nailed the feedback dude. One thing that confused me. It's stated that you can't judge the distance to targets but there is a clip of you having a target with its distance in at 10:12.
(my opinion) For better multi crew gameplay (which is what CIG seems to be attempting to force with the Antares) is allow for the pilot to use everything on their ship from the pilot seat with drawbacks that would be mitigated by having a copilot. first off we would need these (even if dumped under a generic name of AUX Mode) EMP master mode QED master mode EMP is a swap-able equipment with different grades/ purposes QED is a swap-able equipment with different grades/ purposes (ex: one better for puling targets out of quantum and one more stable at holding ) ex: EMP mode requires someone in that mode hold the trigger to charge before firing the EMP (could be used for the QED as well) this makes it more of an active weapon ..building charge while managing heat buildup would be a good reason for a copilot but a highly skilled pilot might be able to pull it off on their own QED requires maintenance of the interference field but also manage heat buildup, again this would make a copilot invaluable but a skilled pilot would be able to do it as well. fixes for the Antares: a dedicated light turret with access to missile mode + AUX mode + 1x size 1 weapon would mitigate the issues significantly. It doesn't even have to be able to move just have a decent ~360 spin with some blind spots..possibly under the tail (further giving specialty to the scorpion) Forcing the QED and EMP to be separate equipment would force the pilot to choose the role they will play in the next fight and forces the separation of concerns that the Antares is lacking (its an everything ship..the only things missing are refueling and cargo capabilities) Morph already has a good video on the ROC-DS
I'm not surprised the antares is on the list. The idea was pretty hype but the execution is just a lesser fighter than the base variant where I pity the co-pilot.
I like the Antares as being a pilot... but for sure, it needs a lot more for the 2nd seat. Targeting and pinning for the pilot/copilot communication, and a "remote turret" view for the copilot. Some sort of indicator if the EMP is charged and ready, along with the QT jammer are kind of necessary. I mean, I actually paid for it, but only because my thought process was to have store credit available to get a Galaxy when they are on sale, to have the Carrack as a loaner for a fraction of the price...
Hoping for an E-War operator mode usable on all appropriate ships. Then they can give pilots and copilots a differetn set of operator mode options per seat. Example with the Antares: Guns and missiles for the pilot, missiles and e-war for the copilot - or something like that.
9:01 Hey Morph, just a thought maybe for the Antares CIG should increase the missile rack a bit and give it more missile and let the co-pilot be the only one who can lock on and fire missiles. Giving the pilot something to do in between EMP pulses
The Cutty Steel is a singleplayer asset they ported into the PU, and yeah it's flimsy, but against infantry without ships for backup, it's adequate. The Antares just needs the special abilities to be directional like scanning rather than AOE. I also strongly suspect it's a singleplayer asset they threw into PU.
Srsly how can something like the antares happen? This should have been dead, the moment after this moved from pitching the idea to whatever director decides what to produce. It really makes me question CIGs upper management. The producer/s have demonstrated that they have no understanding of the state of the existing game, lack a proper vision for the future of the game on many levels (balance, playerengagement, art direction, UI support, ...) In this shipversion there must have been multiple people involved, who have atleast a basic understanding what the endresult will lead to and yet it didn't get stopped or at least put on hold. Are they afraid to speak up, are they "just doing their job, no questions asked", or don't have any way of influencing decisionmaking?? Not a single thing about this ship can be praised in regards to development management from our perspective as players/consumers. Also from the Q&A: "Gameplay-wise, having all that on a single player would be quite overwhelming compared to splitting the load between two" just wow, thats their reason. Not "balance", but they think you as a player are to stupid, and incompentent, so they completly take away the capability. So sad to see that CIGs "mulitcrew design" fetish, is only really taking away gameplay from singleplayer, creating an arbitary "new" role just for the sake of multicrew. Instead of giving the multicrew the option to choose what to diligate to each other. There are multiple ways to balance out the all acess singleplayer fighterpilot vs two+ player operated. CIG themselvs hint at it beeing "overwhelming", so thats a natural balancing factor to being with. And they could put artificially boundries in, like debuffs for use on the pilot mfd, compared to secound player controlled ones (as in oh two computers instead of one having to doll al the mfd stuff blabla)
Also their insistence on splitting income by the amount of players in the party. They SAY they want the game to encourage crew gameplay, but go out of their way to punish anyone partaking.
Ok, so, I'd say if you'd add a target status MFD and weapon status MFD (probably both coming with the helm hud displays they want to add back in once they are updated) and potentially let the support seat operate the missiles, then the Antares would seem like a viable option. I don't think that other QED or EMP ships are made obsolete though. The Mantis is still the only ship that offers a snare which is still a steep competition for the Antares. The Cutlass Blue, while neither as fast, nimble, or hardy, offers an additional turret gunner and interior, as well as the option for a Co-Pilot to additionally take control over the missile system, so you could potentially attack a ship within the entanglement effect with the main weapons, the turret, and missiles at the same time. The EMP ships on the other hand come either with some interior room for added functionality, a turret for added weapon prowess, or a prisoner seat to take someone into custody with, so they also offer diverging options in the gameplay. I believe that the Antares is in its role more of a supporting vessel than the other ships with QED or EMP devices. It needs to be paired up with an additional ship in any given job. If the goal is to create a roadblock it needs a Mantis because it can't snare ships. If the goal is to pirate someone it needs a ship with interior to bring cargo in. If the goal is to take someone into custody it needs a ship with prisoner capabilities. Even if the goal is to destroy another ship the Antares likely needs to be paired up in order to finishe the job (although since both the Scorpius and Antares are essentially as nimble as medium fighters while being on a heavy fighter chassis it's less of an issue in this regard)
