Reconnaissance Retaliator

In the past, many bombers were fit specially for reconnaissance. In Korea, the US flew dated B-29s, B51’s and even the vaunted B47 as reconnaissance craft, fitted with cameras rather than bomb racks. Recon is super serious and those guys get the first of the best planes. Think Blackbird, and its Bomber version that never was.

So, in the event CIG gets its act together, finishes the Tally modules and decides to rack in some more cash selling the Tally for recon, what could this look like?

First off, one can imagine removing the two ventral turrets and replacing them with highly directional parabolic antennas that together form a synthetic aperture and provide highly directional Capital class sensing, so you get a 1.5 sensing ability within a 60* cone. That’s the primary mission equipment and should require someone working the engineering console but with a different display.

Aegis is able to put the expensive 40/40/40 armor on this that they have on the Eclipse and Sabre, and flying with a single Eclipse reactor, no guns, shields, coolers or Q drive powered, the Tally has a signature of just 3.5. With the 40% reduction provided by the special armor the signature drops to just 2.1. That’s insane low for a ship this size. Its active silhouette would drop from 36 to 21.6, which is nice as well. Cap ships the size of Void Bombers and up would be easy to sense without being sensed by active pinging. That’s what we want in recon.

The fuel tanks need to go way up, but all Tallies should be carrying 10 scu quantum fuel. Bombers should have the most extreme range of any ship just as they do irl.

The rear bay needs to carry the coming habitat module. A man’s gotta eat.

Finally, the question comes what to do with the front bay. IMHO, I think giving it an elevator that can carry an MTV and 4 Vox is called for. Give the ship the ability to recon on the ground. Both the MTV and Vox have low signatures so they are likewise a good choice for stealth recon. Load them all up with Dominance scatterguns and they represent a light recon fighting force as well. These are the guys you send in to set the captives on Orion free from their slave camps. Add several camo paints to choose from.

What do you think? Would people purchase a Reconnaissance version of the Tally? What do you think it should look like?

I like CIG’s general principle that they build both solo and multi-crew ships and the larger ships always provide a distinct advantage. They’re fully aware that putting six or seven people in a recon Tally means you are not putting them in Terrapins, etc. so the bigger ship absolutely needs to do things solo recon ships can’t do, and do some of the things both do, better than the alternative.

So let’s have an example. The Vanduul Stinger has an IR of 33.7. S1 radars have a coefficient of 0.8, so they can see a Stinger at 27 km. S2 radars like the Tracker and Terrapin have a coefficient of 0.9. They can spot a Stinger at 30.3 km. Cap ships are supposed to have a coefficient of 1.5 (though they are 0.95 to 1.0 right now) and should be able to spot a Stinger at 50.5 km. The volume of space scanned is a cubic function of this radius so a Terrapin scans 1.2e5 km^3 and a Polaris scans 5.4e5 km^3, or more than 4X the volume.

You could make the argument that the scanning ship is moving so you use area which is quadratic, not cubic, and speed. The smaller ships will be faster. I’m too lazy to check that too but the bigger ship scans a much bigger volume of space, because volume scanned is linear with speed. The scan radius, be it quadratic or cubic; is going to dominate.

So bigger is better. Add to this the Tally could stay out weeks or months doing recon, and it could recon planet surfaces and send back details of enemy installations and actions. Additionally, we might stipulate that the directional nature of the proposed interferometric scan also permits directional communications over vast distances—something again the Recon Tally could boast as unique. Finally, we might say with all the Tally’s special listening gear, that it comes with a rare ability to ping at a Vanduul frequency and so might manage to get away with pinging in Vanduul space. How cool would that be?

I personally would sign up to fly recon on a Tally. I think it would be an extremely cool ship to do recon with. I can’t think of any other ships that could perform the kind of deep penetration recon into Vanduul space this ship might do. Remember, to get these stealthy numbers you can’t be flying S3 reactors. Certainly, the Terrapin is too small to spend months at a time unless you are a hermit.

And finally, the Tally does not get enough love for its narrow corridors and spartan decor. It says military all over it and living aboard should be like living aboard a nuclear submarine. That’s the cool built into the bird that deserves a better place. Giving it a better place starts with giving it insane long range like any nuclear sub or four engine bomber.

IMHO.

The Shattered Blade is coming in just a few weeks, and with them; combat against the Vanduul. I am suspicious whether Shattered Blade is a rename for the Sons of Orion storyline shared back 9 or 10 years ago now, that is essentially the mission sequence for hunting Vanduul. Best we focus right from the start knowing what they’re doing, and get us a chance to chop some ham meat off their enormous butts.

I don’t personally see how they can introduce combat with the Vanduul in Nyx. It could be all they intend is to tease the missions. Then again, it could be they intend to reveal the jump point from Nyx to Virgil, which is a Vanduul world. No one is talking about this yet. Nyx is cool, but keep in mind it connects with Vanduul space.

Well, I meant no one is talking about it here, and we’re not. I’m surprised. Bringing the Vanduul into the game is huge.

I believe the front module in the Tally is larger than the freight elevator in the Connie, which fits an Ursa, so I think the Tally will fit an MTC and 4 Nox. Nothing new required here. Use the standard front cargo module. The landing gear height may need to be made adjustable so an MTC can fit beneath it. I don’t know anyone has tried to fit cargo into that hold as of yet.

The wings in the Tally will fit 2 large fuel tanks. As you know, CIG does not identify space for tanks in any of its ships, so this ia not a concern. They change such things with a few keystrokes. IMHO all the Tallies should have much enhanced quantum fuel. The Tally needs enhanced range or why not take 6 Eclipse and have 3X the payload of a Tally?

The only other ships with like stats are the Connies. However, the Aquila’s single sensor array is not scheduled to scan at Cap capacity. It’s a medium radar with some unidentified sensor capability. Connie’s likewise mount S2 components and have a silent running signature of 3.5, but RSI does not have the special -40/-40/-40 armor needed to knock the sig down to true stealth class. At least no RSI stealth ships come to mind. Aegis has an almost exclusive monopoly on true stealth, with the exceptions of the Anvil Ghost (which is a much lesser solution that -40) and the Esperia Prowler, which if memory serves is -60/-60/-60. A Prowler scout ship would be welcome but it would not be able to carry ground vehicles.

Both the Connie and the Tally could perform this function, but the experience in the Tally’s crowded hallways seems to me would be much better, and the whole point of the recon Tally is the uber sensor suite. The Connie does not have two turrets to sacrifice on the same side of the ship.

To be clear on this point: the aperture of a radar/sensor is the size of the collecting area, and is the primary limiting factor to sensor range. A synthetic aperture is when you have two or more collecting areas separated by some distance that then use the phase shift created by their different locations to create a much more capable sensor array. It’s the distance between the sensors that then defines the aperture. So technically, using means we have on hand that affect all real radar systems, the Tally should be able to get this greatly enhanced range by sacrificing two turrets that face the same target, but the sensor will be highly directional.

The game loop I can’t answer for. CIG has said the Vanduul have taken possession of several, previously UEE worlds, especially including Orion. I think Virgil may be one as well. So one can imagine players beating Vanduul forces back in Nyx, taking control of the jump point, securing its far end in Virgil and beginning to reconnoiter Virgil’s surface for military installations. To this point we haven’t heard of any. The Vanduul mostly just pilfer the resources. That’s not to say each planet they ravage doesn’t get a cap class sensor array or four. That would just seem prudent. As to Orion, I’m pretty sure there are still hostages/slaves there, or am I mistaken? The obvious thing would seem for CIG to create missions where we set the hostages free. That means a ground assault, at least on Orion. And as I am always an advocate for sneaking. . .

That’s surprising and disappointing. You got me curious though and I found the Cyclone MT will fit.