The Tally

[Talonsbane]

Here's what I know:
* I like awesome looking vehicles (yes, I know that's subjective)
* I enjoy Star Citizen & have nearly endless supplies of hopium for what it'll become
* According to CIG themselves, "DISCLAIMER: These are our current vehicle specifications. Some of this may change during the 3D design and game balancing process. "

 

[NaffNaffBobFace]

The joy of theorycrafting. No one can know for sure until such time the game is finished, we've passed the Beta Balance patch and the product is released and on store shelves.

And even then it can change if it turns out something is too OP or has fallen into Meta.

Craft your theories fair TESTies but be forever mindful the only person who gets to choose what it's going to eventually be is the head Dev... And they might change their mind.

 

[BUTUZ]

Plz dont turn my beloved tally thread into a big load of arguments about things that do not exist - I will NOT be pleased.

 

[Richard Bong]

Richard, we’ve had this conversation before about your blanket statements concerning what you are sure does not exist, so I’ll just remind—it is logically impossible to show evidence toward a negative proposition. You can have no evidence for your position and there isn’t anyone who thinks you omniscient. There have been things posted this last decade you haven’t seen, and what you mean to say is you are “not aware of any promises about void armor becoming available when the armor refit comes”.

I guess we’ll see. Armor isn’t that far away. I do recall those statements and no, your complaining isn’t cause for me to look them up. We can wait and see.

As to applying rear turrets to the pilot, well there is indeed a hemispherical target zone on the aft ventral turret, so you can target anything below the ship from there. There is greater than hemispherical targeting from the fore dorsal turret, so both ventral turrets and the foreward dorsal turret can target simultaneously on the same subject so long as it is within a few degrees south of the horizon forward of the ship.

The same thing is true of the forward ventral turret—it can target above the horizon and share targets with all three dorsal turrets, so long as the target is just a few degrees above the horizon and foreword. It however has a smaller fire zone opposite its horizon than the forward dorsal turret.

Both of these “sharing zones” where 3-5 turrets can fire simultaneously on the same target are close to the pilot’s center view, but not center. So he can make use of them. He can’t make use of the very large shared zones abeam, not because the turrets don’t target there but because the pilot can’t see there.

And you know this. And you know we won’t know whether we can swap on Void Armor until we can swap armor at all. You know.

So tell us what else you know about why this ship has 2S2 reactors and 2S3 coolers. It’s the only ship like this.

We need to agree to disagree about the Tali emulating PT boats from WWII. PT boats were the fastest thing on the water and the Tally is obviously not that. But what does it matter? It is what it is.

Our job is to figure out how to use it. If we ever see a galley/mess for the rear module, I would fly this for bounties, exploration, etc. Could become a daily driver despite the less than stellar S2 scan. It feels like it could become home with the right module.

I never said prove anything.

Void Armor is pecular to the Hornet CS for civilian use. There is no Civilian version of the Retaliator, it is straight military surplus. There is no stealth version of the military Hornet. That is what we know about void armor. What we don't know about things is irrelevant. There is no indication that we can just swap armor, in general, though it was mentioned, about 10 years ago as maybe for the Hornet Civilian series and not mentioned since. I may have missed something, it has been lots of information, for many years, some of it is no longer relevant but I can't find anything about swapping armor as even in the plans besides that one 10+ year old mention, specific to the Hornet Mk I series.

The Taly has too much power output and shield power to be anything close to resembling Stealth, in any event. 2 S2 Power plants, 2 S3 Coolers, 6 S2 Shields, and all those guns is a huge EM Signature. And that doesn't include the sensor suite, which we have no game play for.
For Cooling with all the guns, all the shields, the powerplants, the size 3 cooling is pretty much needed just to keep components from overheating.

So you want to give up any top or bottom defensive coverage and limit your pilot fire away from your direction of travel? OK, I guess. That doesn't seem practical.

As for the PT boat analogy, compared to the ship's targets, the Taly is significantly faster and smaller. Compared to aircraft, PT boats were slow. Star Citizen conflates water and air, but you knew that already.

How to use it? Sure, but based on what we know, not what we wish CIG could implement. The way CIG development is going, they aren't going to deliver half ofwhat they said they were delivering, much less thins we may want them to deliver that they haven't said, recently, they were delivering.

If we get the Bounty Hunter module,, mentioned when they sold the original modules, then I intend to use my Taly for Bounty Hunting when there is group play, and I have a large team. If the Bounty Hunting module never appears, then my Tali will be used as Org combat support similar to PT Boat use in World War II.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

There are at least 8 kinds of armor in game already. Their coefficients are listed in both calculators. The Ghost’s stealth suppression is quite mild, at only about 15% for all three. Compare that to the stunning suppression of the Prowler, which I think is up around 60%, and the Talon and Sabre at 40%. Some birds like the Mustang and Reliant are stated in their descriptions to have stealth reduction and do not. I think the Mustang says it’s “Cavalry Armor protection provides 25% stealth” but that never showed up. So there is a lot to expect when armor comes. But yes indeed, I absolutely recall we were promised we could select armor types including “void armor”. This doesn’t mean we can find and equip the same armor as any specific ship. I suspect we’ll never be able to choose what is on the Prowler, but let’s wait and see! Maybe that will be a big mission prize.

Shields and weapons do not generate significant heat. They generate EM. Systems, reactors and engines generate heat. There is an instructive bar chart on each ship in spviewer. So when CIG puts special cooling in a ship like the Tally and Terrapin; it seems to me a sign they’re expecting us to stealth it. I don’t see another implication.

 

[Richard Bong]

There are at least 8 kinds of armor in game already. Their coefficients are listed in both calculators. The Ghost’s stealth suppression is quite mild, at only about 15% for all three. Compare that to the stunning suppression of the Prowler, which I think is up around 60%, and the Talon and Sabre at 40%. Some birds like the Mustang and Reliant are stated in their descriptions to have stealth reduction and do not. I think the Mustang says it’s “Cavalry Armor protection provides 25% stealth” but that never showed up. So there is a lot to expect when armor comes. But yes indeed, I absolutely recall we were promised we could select armor types including “void armor”. This doesn’t mean we can find and equip the same armor as any specific ship. I suspect we’ll never be able to choose what is on the Prowler, but let’s wait and see! Maybe that will be a big mission prize.

Shields and weapons do not generate significant heat. They generate EM. Systems, reactors and engines generate heat. There is an instructive bar chart on each ship in spviewer. So when CIG puts special cooling in a ship like the Tally and Terrapin; it seems to me a sign they’re expecting us to stealth it. I don’t see another implication.

There is Stealth in game already on multiple ships. That does not mean it is "Void Armor." That also doesn't mean it can be removed from one ship and put on another, especially since ships have different shapes.

If you remember that you could choose different armor types on ships other than the Hornet then I missed it, please cite that.

According to Erkul, the stock, on the Tali, shields require 89,683 worth of cooling, each. The turrets and pucks are 20 each, and the guns are 120 each for an additional 1800 (Overall not that much but things add up). The stock Power Plants add 52,498 each. The stock Quantum Drive another 110,136. Even the torp racks are 20 each. The Size 3 coolers are rated at only twice the size 2 coolers and, unlike shields, haven't been balanced and differentiated yet. No overclocking, those are the stock numbers. There is lots of heat being generated and lots of EM being output.

About the only thing stealthy about the Retaliator is the minor amount of faceting to make it look a little stealthy.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Well look, you can believe whatever makes you feel happy. Like I said, no, hell no, I am not going to look for stuff from a decade ago.

And FYI, if an FR-76 actually generated 98k heat/second, there is not a single ship in the game wouldn’t melt down in two seconds using it. That’s obviously not what that spec means. Here below is the Tally in spviewer. Tap on a shield and look at the values that pop up. All shields yield zero heat. Now go to the panel just below the power utilization triangle and look for three, full width buttons. The second of them is the emissions breakdown. Note the largest single chunk of emissions is the “systems” portion of EM. Systems includes the shields. This is why shutting down shields is the single biggest contributor to stealth—it makes more difference than anything else, but it is all EM. Also note, the largest heat generation is propulsion, and the chart doesn’t include afterburners, which would hugely inflate this part of the chart. Extra IR cooling is what you get with the stealth switch, it’s what we see in stealth craft like the Terrapin (which has 3S2 coolers), and we see it here in the Tally 2.0.

As with erkul, some of this calculator does not work and gives misleading data, but the ships in game likewise do not act as they should. So in this calculator, removing weapons will completely remove their EM contribution—they make it 0.0. However, they don’t remove the IR contribution. So shutting down shields and weapons in game should yield better signatures than the calculator, and this has always been true of erkul too.

This is of special note with ships like the Tally, Polaris and Firebird that hunt with missiles and torps, because you can shut down many systems including shields and guns, without compromising your ability to kill your opponent. Missile and torp mounts generate trivial signatures.

Richard, since you own a Tally I would urge you to do some real testing for us and report back here. Let me suggest a few quick tests.

Shut down your weapons and see if this reduces EM and IR and by how much. Then remove them and see if the result changes. Then shut down shields and record the change. Then remove them and record any change.

Put a single Eclipse reactor and leave it on. Shut down the second reactor and record any change. Remove the second reactor and record any change. Shut down all engines and record any change.

* I consider engines off and drifting a special case, and call it “super stealth mode”. It’s handy for extreme conditions.

If you can run just one Eclipse, no weapons, or shields, no Q Drive, engines all idling or off, and get a baseline for lowest signature, my novel notion is that the EM will be so low compared to the IR, that you can add and run a single Sukoran, and this will not pop the EM up above the IR, even with the stealth switch on. If this is true, you can fly this in stealth mode with a single shield running, which is not the case for any other ship I am aware of. It’s likely not the case running an FR-76 either, but you should check. I think the low signature of the Sukoran makes an unique contribution here.

If you record all these figures, you will probably find they match neither calculator. Both calculators have errors, so your empirical data is very valuable. You can then take those figures and input them manually into the ship performance viewer radar detection calculator and it should give you reliable figures about how well you can sneak in your ship. That’s super valuable information. I would not blame you if you chose to keep it to yourself, but I for one would love to see it. You can do all this in your hanger. I also recommend you fly it in stealth mode with a pair of the ChillMax coolers, and feel out how long it takes after standard engine burn, and after an afterburner use, for the heat to come down. I recommend memorizing how much heat per second you lose so you can calculate in any situation. You will find some heat number you want to avoid going over, and know the number of seconds to get from that back to where you can sneak. That’s just knowing your ship.

The outcome of all this is, you can get fantastically closer to targets than you would otherwise, and far fewer of your Typhoons will get shot down.

SC Ships Performances Viewer

Star Citizen ships and vehicles performances database. View hydrogen consumption, fuel scoop, endurance flight time, capacitors, components stats and much more.

www.spviewer.eu

 

[Richard Bong]

Well look, you can believe whatever makes you feel happy. Like I said, no, hell no, I am not going to look for stuff from a decade ago.

And FYI, if an FR-76 actually generated 98k heat/second, there is not a single ship in the game wouldn’t melt down in two seconds using it. That’s obviously not what that spec means. Here below is the Tally in spviewer. Tap on a shield and look at the values that pop up. All shields yield zero heat. Now go to the panel just below the power utilization triangle and look for three, full width buttons. The second of them is the emissions breakdown. Note the largest single chunk of emissions is the “systems” portion of EM. Systems includes the shields. This is why shutting down shields is the single biggest contributor to stealth—it makes more difference than anything else, but it is all EM. Also note, the largest heat generation is propulsion, and the chart doesn’t include afterburners, which would hugely inflate this part of the chart. Extra IR cooling is what you get with the stealth switch, it’s what we see in stealth craft like the Terrapin (which has 3S2 coolers), and we see it here in the Tally 2.0.

As with erkul, some of this calculator does not work and gives misleading data, but the ships in game likewise do not act as they should. So in this calculator, removing weapons will completely remove their EM contribution—they make it 0.0. However, they don’t remove the IR contribution. So shutting down shields and weapons in game should yield better signatures than the calculator, and this has always been true of erkul too.

This is of special note with ships like the Tally, Polaris and Firebird that hunt with missiles and torps, because you can shut down many systems including shields and guns, without compromising your ability to kill your opponent. Missile and torp mounts generate trivial signatures.

Richard, since you own a Tally I would urge you to do some real testing for us and report back here. Let me suggest a few quick tests.

Shut down your weapons and see if this reduces EM and IR and by how much. Then remove them and see if the result changes. Then shut down shields and record the change. Then remove them and record any change.

Put a single Eclipse reactor and leave it on. Shut down the second reactor and record any change. Remove the second reactor and record any change. Shut down all engines and record any change.

* I consider engines off and drifting a special case, and call it “super stealth mode”. It’s handy for extreme conditions.

If you can run just one Eclipse, no weapons, or shields, no Q Drive, engines all idling or off, and get a baseline for lowest signature, my novel notion is that the EM will be so low compared to the IR, that you can add and run a single Sukoran, and this will not pop the EM up above the IR, even with the stealth switch on. If this is true, you can fly this in stealth mode with a single shield running, which is not the case for any other ship I am aware of. It’s likely not the case running an FR-76 either, but you should check. I think the low signature of the Sukoran makes an unique contribution here.

If you record all these figures, you will probably find they match neither calculator. Both calculators have errors, so your empirical data is very valuable. You can then take those figures and input them manually into the ship performance viewer radar detection calculator and it should give you reliable figures about how well you can sneak in your ship. That’s super valuable information. I would not blame you if you chose to keep it to yourself, but I for one would love to see it. You can do all this in your hanger. I also recommend you fly it in stealth mode with a pair of the ChillMax coolers, and feel out how long it takes after standard engine burn, and after an afterburner use, for the heat to come down. I recommend memorizing how much heat per second you lose so you can calculate in any situation. You will find some heat number you want to avoid going over, and know the number of seconds to get from that back to where you can sneak. That’s just knowing your ship.

The outcome of all this is, you can get fantastically closer to targets than you would otherwise, and far fewer of your Typhoons will get shot down.

SC Ships Performances Viewer

Star Citizen ships and vehicles performances database. View hydrogen consumption, fuel scoop, endurance flight time, capacitors, components stats and much more.

www.spviewer.eu

98,000 isn't a temperature, but a standard unit to measure for cooling. For example Joules, or milijoules. So, no, that doesn't mean a ship would melt.

Shutting down systems presumes there is no threat in an ideal scenario. Ideal scenarios don't exist.

Size 9 torps are guided weapons with a 50+ KM range.

You don't take a B-2 and fly right up on top of a target and unload with JASSM missiles, you launch from 200+ miles away. That is the entire point of carrying long range guided weapons.
There is no point in "sneaking in." The real world reason for stealth is for minimum detection to avoid defenses on your way to launch range of the target, not to get to point blank range of the target.

Retaliators fly in flights and squadrons to deliver overwhelming firepower in a short period of time and saturate the target's defenses. They fly in groups so they can provide interlocking fields of fire and mutual defense. That isn't a stealth mission profile.

As far as testing it, given the added tedium, the unfun "master modes" and the apparent direction, I can barely bring myself to log in.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

Well you can say all that, but the players landing torps say the reason they ever miss a hit is the torps get shot down. Typhoons have a reputation of being hardest to shoot down. However, most important of all variables is the readiness to shoot a torp down, and that readiness depends entirely upon whether the target is aware.

So it matters. S9 torps have a range of 30km, which is a time to target of 60 seconds plus lock and arm time. If you launch at 8km without previous warning to the target, they get a mere 16 seconds. The torp’s time in range of a turret doesn’t change.2,600m range means 5 seconds of shooting, unless that gunner doesn’t have his ass in the turret seat because you surprised him. That’s exactly the dynamic we witness with current play.

And of course, before you get to your target, you have fewer hassles if no one knows you are there. I know I have an atrocious bias toward stealth and surprise, especially when there is no concealment nor cover. I am biased. I don’t believe in fighting fair. That’s not the point of war.

 

[Richard Bong]

Well you can say all that, but the players landing torps say the reason they ever miss a hit is the torps get shot down. Typhoons have a reputation of being hardest to shoot down. However, most important of all variables is the readiness to shoot a torp down, and that readiness depends entirely upon whether the target is aware.

So it matters. S9 torps have a range of 30km, which is a time to target of 60 seconds plus lock and arm time. If you launch at 8km without previous warning to the target, they get a mere 16 seconds. The torp’s time in range of a turret doesn’t change.2,600m range means 5 seconds of shooting, unless that gunner doesn’t have his ass in the turret seat because you surprised him. That’s exactly the dynamic we witness with current play.

And of course, before you get to your target, you have fewer hassles if no one knows you are there. I know I have an atrocious bias toward stealth and surprise, especially when there is no concealment nor cover. I am biased. I don’t believe in fighting fair. That’s not the point of war.

The torps cross the engagement zone, regardless of where you launch them from, in 3 seconds. Fire more than 1.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

S3 guns range to 2,600 meters and the torps fly about 500m/s, so ~5s to shoot them down. Suppose you’re shooting at a Tali. 5 turrets are trained on incoming if you give them a full minute warning. With only 20s warning, they might catch all unprepared.

Plus. . .sneaking is cool.

 

[Richard Bong]

S3 guns range to 2,600 meters and the torps fly about 500m/s, so ~5s to shoot them down. Suppose you’re shooting at a Tali. 5 turrets are trained on incoming if you give them a full minute warning. With only 20s warning, they might catch all unprepared.

Plus. . .sneaking is cool.

The weapon spread makes the fire ineffective at that range.

 

[AccidentProne8]

Test Tally is love. Test Tally is life.
View attachment 25946

I wish there was an option to store it with the engines down LOL.

 

[Shadow Reaper]

The weapon spread makes the fire ineffective at that range.

Depends. Against torps you only need 1hit. Attritions fire~5/s so 5s is 25 shots/gun. 100 attempts is enough to kill the torp if there’s someone in the turret. Cannons have a much lower chance.

 

[Richard Bong]

Depends. Against torps you only need 1hit. Attritions fire~5/s so 5s is 25 shots/gun. 100 attempts is enough to kill the torp if there’s someone in the turret. Cannons have a much lower chance.

Yet a Hammerhead at 2500 meters was unable to hit a Prospector and that was said to be "working as intended."

 

[Shadow Reaper]

I’m not familiar with the incident you mention, but I know for certain the Firebird can eliminate targets at 2500 meters quite handily with laser cannons, which are about 20% more accurate than repeaters. (0.4 spread instead of 0.5.). There’s a vid I posted in the Firebird thread just a few weeks ago, with it flying inside its stealth envelope and murdering targets while unseen. That’s a rare use of stealth. In any event, players and NPCs shoot down S9 torps often enough that players using torps have identified Typhoons as much harder to shoot down than the others.