It's so sexy, and this is the type of ship I like (the more unusual, niche role... Not another standard fighter, etc). I want it... But not when I saw the price. Shit, for that much I might as well go all the way and get an 890.
I got it without a doubt. But I doubt if I am going to keep my 890J.
I really love this ship. It is just too big for me. (I'm actually still tempted. Maybe one day we will get a smaller ship which can do something similar. (Or gimme a mine layer module for my caterpillar)
Never big enough! And it is a ship with multiple roles so... Fun
Compared to an alpha strike ship like a hammerhead and Polaris this seems to me overpriced for its perceived functionality or lack there of. The only thing I'm confused about is the forward facing S7 twin guns and the fact that all its turrets are manned. I would think that this ship would stealthily lay mines somewhere and leave. Should it encounter hostiles, I highly doubt the enemy will line up in front to get hit by the S7's. The Polaris in comparison has front facing twin S5 and its powered by a capital powerplant.
Suddenly the Hercules seems a far better buy.
Nautilus is nimbler than Polaris, and better defended so it can ignore fighters and such so the arc of te S7 is not so important. It can as well lay mines in its back. It have fixed thrusters so more points to its 'nimbleness'.
Its a nice looking ship, just a pointless concept.
The mines wont be troubling large ships unless they ignore shields, which would be game breaking, and it doesn't carry enough mines on its own to cover enough of an area to deter small ships unless you drop them right on the thing you want to defend.
Its the first of the large combat ships that I can safely say its a hard pass on for me.
Mines are area denial mostly unless the enemy is crazy, or you prepare some type of trap.
And yeah, During escort missions/operations it can lay mines and sentry guns.
It doesnt have 5/6 of the dps of a Hammerhead, go do your sums agan.
It is true, I was conservative.
If we get the literal CIG statement: 2 S7 = 6 S6 = 18 S5 = 54 S4, so like 13.5 Hammerhead turrets, just with an unique S7 turret. Amazing! (And logical)
But being conservative about what "x3 in power" means we could say that a x2 to DPS is a nice number (the rest of "more power" would go to other parameters), so 2 S7 = 4 S6 = 8 S5 = 16 S6 so like 4 HH turrets so 4/5 the DPS of a Hammerhead (Hammerhead can only focus up to 5 turrets on you usually) plus more range and penetration power.
Ive also just said on Reddit- if these are using radar to lock on, then surely your EWS will pick up the radar lock, and if you are flying say, an Idris M or K your 4 automated defence turrets will destroy these before you even know whats going on?
Probably, but you can pile more mines as well to try to saturate enemy PDSs, so the balance would come on expenses and time deploying mines vs more or less PDSS and detection capacity.
i mean is this the big citizencon reveal or are we getting something else?
Something else!
Its interesting, the only thing I think is weird is the whole point of mines is remote weopons, but this thing has a higher crew than the hammerhead. Its the same cost as the hammerhead and I think it has more flexibility but that's mainly because combat still sucks and that therefore includes the hammerhead. I think I would ccu but no 0$ CCU.
HH: 1 pilot + 6 turret handlers + 1 engineer = 8
NT: 1 pilot + 1 mine manager + 1 engineer + 4 turret handlers (you can reuse engineer and mine manager as the drone pilots) = 7 (and +1 if you thing you are going to need to repair while retrieving mines with the drones, but you could depend as well on an AI blade and reuse the turret handler as the other drone polit freeing the engineer to repair)
You can use AI blades in both ships of course and, as they (HH and Nautilus) should allow to use 4 blades, you could get the Nautilus and blade all the turrets so you can solo it (optionally use an slaving blade instead of the AI one so the S7 is enslaved to the pilot), but you will miss the chance to use mines during combat unless you leave the pilot seat...
This new Nautilus is not really a combat ship. The devs put emphasis on the fact this ship is a "Lone Wolf" ship when it comes to gameplay. Its a little late to lay down some mines if you are already in combat. Good thing it has a ton of armor though!
I will lay down mines during combat. And sentry guns!
Why not a combat ship? Great defense, offense and mobility is enough to consider it one.
I recall that CIG committed some years ago to sensor buoys, and there was the question whether they could be stealth or not. I have to wonder whether the Nautilus can deploy them as well. I suspect they'd be smaller than S5 mines, and deployable by much smaller ships; but it would be cool if the Nautilus could stealthily deploy hundreds of bouys as well. Sensor buoys are again going to make huge changes in gameplay.
No one has said anything about the ventral weapons. It appears there are to be three, S3 missile racks with just 2 missiles each. Shame they didn't put twice that under there.
Given this thing is supposed to have lots of hull, it would seem to me it could make a decent ground assault ship. The design looks like advanced VTOL for hover, which is very surprising in a design for the mine laying task, but Aegis does always seem to favor aerodynamic designs that function well in atmo; so it's well to consider the Nautilus for the Close Air Support role. Could be this is the A-10 we've been waiting for--a true tank buster. Certainly if you can lock S3 missiles on a tank, this thing could have a use in that role.
Also given this is Aegis and carries S3 missiles, that means it can probably lob the Arrestor IIIs, which means it can disable ships from great distance, and apparently there is room aboard for lots of NPCs. You might be able to use this for a boarding ship.
True, it can work as a bomber and tank buster :-)
24 S3 missiles and the S7 turret both facing down... ^^
Fun!
Pretty sure if you want close air support you are looking for the A2 or a fighter like the Super Hornet. There's a reason mine layers/sweepers/tenders aren't combat ships and are only armed for defense in the real world, you really wouldn't want a round making it through the hull and lighting off one of the mines onboard. And yes you could just not load mines and go out looking for a fight but then it's the equivalent mounting a .50 Cal on the cross bar a Jeep Wrangler and using it for convoy duty. Will it work? Kind of. Is there a better option? Absolutey.
Long story short, sure go ahead and use the mine layer as an anti-tank ship. It'll be most effective if you can point it directly at the tank as it's falling out of the sky when it runs out of gas.
Common IRL mine layers are not combat ships, but Nautilus is a mix of a mine layer and a heavy gunship.
This ship is truly good attacking ground targets... Just use missiles and all the turrets (including the S7 one) to lay waste to them.
My opinion --> I think this is going to be a really narrow role, "niche" ship, BUT, that it will be fun to crew and run, as you will need not only a pilot and turret gunners, but also people to man the scanners and run the drones either laying the mines or sweeping for mines. I'm pretty much sold on this ship. If all else fails, I can always upgrade it to a Polaris, or something similar.
Thanks it is just your opinion! I see Nautilus as a truly multi propose ship :-)
The best Close Air Support craft are not fast. They are tanky and have overwhelming firepower sufficient to destroy hard targets like tanks. Just as in SW Combine, many ships in SC are of a class sufficiently larger than vehicles that they will overwhelm the vehicles. However, to be effective, the ship should fly slow, have very powerful shields and a big lower turret.
The Nautilus doesn't have a turret, so it is less than optimal, but it is close to the best sort of ship for this work. If you think about the Polaris, HH, A2 and Nautilus for this role, they all have 2 L shields, save the Nautilus which has 3. That's a lot of shield power for it to linger low and slow over the field, firing at will. However, 6 S3 missiles is not enough. It might have to drop kegs of skunky Canadian ale over the side for added effect. Just not sure how CIG feels about introducing the horrors of chemical warfare to the game.
The Nautilus have 4 turrets, all of them can fire downside
. The missile turret have 24 S3 of them.
^ This is exactly how it's meant to be played.
My Nautilus is prettier and shinnier and my baby (Because it is mine, not other meaning is intended!) and have several more uses :-p
Finally did the dirty deed & bought one. Damn, the trim on the special Solstice edition is nice!
Congrats!!! 263th here!!!!