Released! It is in Erkul and the Ship Performance Viewer. Rigged for silent running it has an insane low signature of just 3.6, or perhaps even a little lower with the retros off; so very broad use possible. Note the cargo grid added. SCM of 175, boosts to 340. Mass is high. Hull points are very high, 150k. Rotation rates are painfully low—the Achilles heal I think. So significantly slower and less maneuverable than the Redeemer but with 2 1/2 times the hull and twice the shield. And to remind, the Redeemer has 2S3 reactors so cannot be stealthed. This has 3S2 reactors. 6S2x4 missile launchers; no note yet how many are available at once. Decent storage aboard, but significant wasted space. He skipped over the location of each component, but I would suggest at least two Q Drives, and practice moving them from the cargo grid to the actual install. This ship really benefits from the choice between a slow, very long range drive, and a fast military drive.
The ship performance viewer lists 3.85 quantum fuel, so looks like they gave this the long range role taken from the Vanguard. Needs a couple quantum drives, 2 Industrial A coolers and 1 stealth reactor upgrade. Guns come all fast energy, which is great for fighters. Against bigger ships, quad Deadbolts is more shipwrecking than the twin S7s on the Perseus. 170 seconds fire time for the Deadbolts is quite good.
No details in Performance Viewer on strafe, which says to me they intend to tweek this.
Given all the guns are turrets, the very poor rotation may be less an issue than in some other ships. He did not check the big turret’s range of motion but you can imagine flying orbits around a target, faced dorsal or ventral, with the big turret faced straight up or down, so determining the full range of motion is key to how you fly and fight. First thing to check, IMHO.
This ship is designed to take hits in a fight—reason to have a third person on board to man the engineering station, without which I think you will have serious trouble. Looked at in a more positive note, you will certainly get more out of this hard-shell bully if you plan to take hits and do active damage control.
Hard to say how it will fly until the strafe stats are firmed up but certainly the best Close Air Support ship in game with the heavy shields and hull and quad armor busting S5 guns. Could be a great daily driver for 3-4 players. Adding just a little cargo grid really kicked this up a notch.
The massive hull points and shield make this able to stand up to Stalker V S5 missiles on the Harbinger, Perseus, etc. The Eclipse can one-shot this and it has almost no defense. Crews need to be military crisp, clean and precise to fend off torps manually, but flying in stealth should minimize encounters like this. That’s something the Redeemer can’t do.
Very nice ship! I would assign a Pilot with the missiles , a wing turret gunner on both, a big turret guy and an engineer. Have 6 missile launchers on tap all the time seems the way to go. The Redeemer only has 2 launchers. I have not heard you can assign the crew this way, but I would certainly check. The wing turrets might have to go to the pilot to be combined. We don’t know yet.
I expect we’ll soon see a face off between this and the Redeemer. Given good crews in both, I would put my money on The Paladin.
View: https://youtu.be/CrKE0lHKaL4?si=2TjN4vi2Maz3U9xF
