Yeah, I really want to see how the damn thing shakes out. I keep waffling back and forth. Harby with Sentinel BUK, Sentinel with Harby BUK. If you can mix and match all the pertinent parts, cool, but if say, the stealth stays with the frame, then damn, I need to own the Sentinel, haha.
the Sentinel
- Thread starter Shadow Reaper
- Start date
Many thanks, I owe it to three things:
1) @mr-hasgaha who demonstrated exactly what you can do with the camera in SC to excellent effect on a regular occurrence. What I might do by luck once every so often he can pull off pretty much every time, check his stuff out for some really beautiful pics :)
2) The devs for making the camera ability in the first place.
3) The ship teams who made that fantastic interior, the blue and orange is spot on.
The Sentinel has much less armor and shields than the Harby, but it also has about half the EM signature with everything turned on 40k v 22k. It appears someone input the wrong reactors in the Hardpoint for the Harby and Sentinel, because the Sentinel's GammaMax dumps 3,866 EM for a ship total of 6,052, while the Harby's TurboDrive only emits 1,042 for a ship total of 1,092. Obviously something is wrong here. I think whomever input the numbers has the Harby and Sentinel backward.
When you scan the Harby reactors they start around 1k and actually go down from there. So what I did to test this is I put the same reactor in both frames. In the Harby, the SparkJet emits a mere 926 em. In the Sentinel, it emits 3,436. This appears to me to suggest that one of them has a better box around the reactor, shielding the EM from escape, such as we see in all true stealth frames. I think they just input these two backward.
Take away for the time being is that they intend the Sentinel to be a real stealth ship. If you intend to sneak around and fire missiles from a distance, you'll likely want the stealth frame. If you're not going to do that you probably want the sturdier Hoplite frame. It looks like the Sentinel does come with both a reactor box and stealth armor.
My personal opinion is that if these numbers tell us anything useful (which they may not) it does appear the Vanguard can be run silently when turning off everything but one reactor, and you can choose that reactor to be as low emission as possible (with the other one very high). The difference between 1k emission and 6k is huge. 1k is probably low enough to get inside the Arrestor III's 9k targeting range against most small and medium radar, given the impunity the Eclipse seems to have against both those classes.
The Harby's S5 missiles target from 15-20k. You might be able to launch those against large and cap radar targets without detection, if you have the Sentinel's stealth frame.
When we think about how to use these ships we most often consider how we would use it alone, but I would urge you the most powerful use of the Vanguard is going to be in strike teams made up exclusively of Vanguard, but including several types. So if you consider one task and feel one way about it, and then consider another task and feel differently, could be all you're identifying is the need for teamwork.
But given this, right now I would take the Sentinel with Harby and Hoplite BUKs, since I like the stealth role.
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neat
:p
i quite like the sentinel
i am mostly happy with how it turned out
:p
i quite like the sentinel
i am mostly happy with how it turned out
right there, and more than in just combat in SC.
A friend asked how I would equip this for general use. I would certainly fly 8 S3 missiles and be the first to fire in any engagement. You have medium radar and should seek to fire from stealth mode with shields down. For guns I would go all Ballistic--six Scorpions and a Revenant. They don't need much power, and run a long time before you're out of ammo. Certainly I would run the smallest signature reactor as primary and run the shields only when the secondary is up, which I would want as powerful as possible. FR-76 shields. Basically you have two setups, one with the shields and one without, which is stealth. 4 Scorpions on secondary trigger, Revenant on primary.
I think the turret needs to be ballistic. This ship carries 4 max, and if you need to cover a landing team from the turret, you want ballistic so it also fires on just one small reactor. Harby or Hoppy BUK as needed--S5 torps or troops. Secondary reactor and shields on voice command.
Can we pay to have the blue painted black?
Had my first combat in the sentinel against a villain Connie Andromeda attacking a civilian Cat which I fell out of Quantum and stumbled into. Did an initial fly-by hitting it with the EMP and then just plugged away with the distortions and the Attrition on the chin. considering I only had one damage dealing gun, it was taken down surprisingly quickly which suggests the first fly-past had the effect I was wanting.
I know good against NPC's is one thing and good against the living is another, and once balance comes armour and shield points will mean it won't be so quick or easy but for the moment this thing is beciming my go-to over the 350R which has speed in SCM, good for path-finding, does not have anything else like speed in quantum, armour, shields, EMP, weapons etc etc etc. 350 is just not the ship it once was now it's loosing it's edge in manuvering as well.
Do we know what the health points of the Sentinel are compared to the Warden and other ships like the Hornet, arrow, saber, gladius that I willl be coming up against? I don't mind it being lower than the Warden but if it's lower than some of the other options I may have to take a look at what's cladding the thing.
I know good against NPC's is one thing and good against the living is another, and once balance comes armour and shield points will mean it won't be so quick or easy but for the moment this thing is beciming my go-to over the 350R which has speed in SCM, good for path-finding, does not have anything else like speed in quantum, armour, shields, EMP, weapons etc etc etc. 350 is just not the ship it once was now it's loosing it's edge in manuvering as well.
Do we know what the health points of the Sentinel are compared to the Warden and other ships like the Hornet, arrow, saber, gladius that I willl be coming up against? I don't mind it being lower than the Warden but if it's lower than some of the other options I may have to take a look at what's cladding the thing.
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Yes, you can view them quickly and easily at Hardpoint. https://hardpoint.io/#/ Note, if you scroll right there are many other stats open for quick appraisal/comparison. The Sentinel is nerfed in many ways compared to the other Vanguard, so for example it has less quantum speed and range compared to the other Vanguard. So if you buy one you'll probably want to spend on toys to fix her up. Fiberglass whale tale and all that. My guess is the only stats you can't improve will be the hull points. Eventually we should be able to replace even the engines and thrusters. So for example, for most tasks in the stealth role, the Sentinel will definitely be improved by equipping ballistics and a smaller reactor as it will hit harder, and be less observable.
Use Hardpoint to learn and check the numbers you ask about. The Arrow, Sabre and Gladius should all go down with 3 Arrestor III's, whereas the Hornet needs a forth. The Vanguards can all fire 4 S3 missiles in a single salvo and they hit out to 9 km. Just hope they actually hit. Missiles are expensive, so I suggest you keep what you kill.
Has anyone checked to see what it takes to shoot out a cockpit windscreen with a Demeco?
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Wow thanks that site is super useful. I know it's not set in stone but that site gives a great indication of the general direction :)
Well shit. I always thought that I'd get the capability that I wanted simply by putting the Sentinel BUK in the Harby body. But that's looking less and less likely. When the Sentinel was originally sold, it was never stealth. That changes the whole damn dynamic now.
It's kinda frustrating because originally it was touted to be completely interchangeable with the BUKs. I understand that holding back certain capabilities is a great sales tactic, but I wish it was clearly communicated. If I had known from the beginning that stealth was a feature of the Sentinel, and that that feature was NOT part of the BUK, I'd never have had a second thought.
As far as I can tell there is no magic just-because that makes the Sentinel stealth - it's got low-signature low-heat components that don't give it away as easily as the other varients. I Don't think it has anything like the Void Armor that the Hornet Ghost has and according to the website supplied it still have double the hit points than the Superhornet so it's not like it isn't tanky still.
It does have half the shield points of the other versions, but you can swap out your shields and again even at this "Weak" level it's still double the Super Hornet.
Don't confuse low detection with designed stealth. Any ship can by stealth if you turn off the power and the engines and just let it drift, but the Sentinel still has the same airframe as the other versions and will still suffer cross-section detection unless the E-War functions can hide or adjust that...?
Yes, but remember there are two elements designed into true stealth birds that other ships don't have: radar absorbant armor (which should be possible to add in the future to any bird--the "Void Armor" CIG spoke of) and the EM resistant box around the reactor cores. That box is key as I showed above. The same reactor in the Harby and Sentinel gives very different EM sigs, even in the Hardpoint calculator, so obviously there is something there, like the box CIG spoke of years ago. To get that box, you need to buy a stealth frame. The Ghost has it, and that's why none of the other Hornets can match the Ghost's stealth capabilities no matter what reactor you put in.
Richard Bong
Space Marshal
the Hoplite has more armor than what?
The Harbinger has more armor than the other variants. The Hoplite and Warden are the same. The Sentinel has less armor than the other variants.
I have a Sentinel and a Warden BUK. In the 3.7 PU I have a Warden and a Sentinel available. (Though at the moment neither will fly, they both worked yesterday.)
Richard Bong
Space Marshal
The stock Size 4 weapon on the Sentinel is an Attrition 4 which is a laser repeater.
Richard Bong
Space Marshal
The Sentinel page description says "EMP Charges" so it was always intended to have EMP, the question is what is a "charge?"
The "charges" are, for now, a Warlock EMP Generator.
AntiSqueaker
Space Marshal
I'm not super knowledgeable about the Vanguars over all but isnt the EMP generator a relatively new addition to the Sentinel? I dont remember it being included in the BUKs when that whole kerfuffle was around.
Makes me wonder what they'll do with the Herald, afaik it's one of the only other ships aside from the Sentinel to have a dedicated EWAR station
Richard Bong
Space Marshal
It has, in the original description, "EMP Charges," whatever those are.
The Warlock EMP generator is, apparently, a placeholder until they get the E-War mechanics fleshed out.
From the tech overview, it's the only thing I can find in relation to EMP:
I'd rather have the generator over missiles as the generator can be used again and again gratis whereas I assume the missiles are going to be single use and expensive to replace... unless you have them boomerang back to you after discharging.
EMP missiles also puts the ability on any ship in the 'Verse capable of holding a rack which takes away one of Ageists USP's.
i guess the issue with missiles is that once they're ingame every ship can use them. (should be able to use them)
I also would like the ability to shot an impulse from the distance, but that might also be a balancing issue.
Yeah, I'm switching my Harby for the Sentinel. I think. Lol.
Yeah, the way it originally read was that it would have EMP missiles. Which is why I'm surprised it has a generator.
Exactly this. Also, the stealth armour is something I don't remember reading before. Changes the whole game.
Ok, so it may end up wioth something different. It'd be nice to get some fidelity on this.
This is what I remember. Missiles. Which is one of the reasons that it wasn't super important to have the Sentinel base, just the BUK. But if it indeed has this stealth armour, and the ability to mask it's signature, well, that's pretty awesome. Also, I really want to see what the actual capability is in regards to EWAR. If is has this "station" built in, how does it utilize it? What are the actual functions?