Reconnaissance Retaliator

Shadow Reaper

Space Marshal
Jun 3, 2016
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Shadow Reaper
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?
 
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Wolfy

Space Kitty
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Apr 27, 2017
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Lilly_Puppy
I kinda doubt a retaliator would be needed for any kind of recon in Star Citizen. You are likely to either see dedicated small reconnaissance ships like the Terrapin, Razor or Raven, which can rely a bit more on stealth and the enhanced SIGINT and RADINT suites, or it's going to be reconnaissance in force with patrol fleets like the Polaris and Idris.

I could actually see a retaliator serving as more of a command-and-control ship for a bombing fleet, with the interior bomb bays stripped out for an extra crew quarters and a combat information center.
 
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