As many of you know, Aegis has been keen to drum up popular support for the Retaliator Bomber. To help that along, they have allowed select individuals to take one of the pre-production models for a twirl and see just how capable this ship really is.
Visually, this ship is classic Aegis. It's very easy to echoes of the Gladius and the Sabre in the Retaliator. It also harkens back to the earliest days of atmospheric flight, with influences from the B-17, the B-1, and the B-2 bombers from North America, as well as the earliest "stealth" fighters of that same war torn era.
However, unlike the Sabre and The Galdius, this ship is no quick and maneuverable fighter. This is a Bomber, and it has one mission...to destroy enemy capital ships by putting a torpedo (or 6) where it counts. To accomplish that, this ship has powerful scanners, able to pick up, lock on, and launch against even small targets such as a pirate interceptor as far away as 18 km. Just don't expect to get any hits against something that small, and that far away. While the torpedos have a huge range to them, they are SLOW. In fact, drop on out in cruise, and it will fall quickly behind, meaning that you will arrive at your destination before your ordinance does.
Because this is a dedicated bomber platform, don't expect much in the way of pilot controlled weapons. In fact, the only weapons the pilot CAN launch are the aforementioned, slow as molasses in winter torpedoes. The rest of the weapons are mounted on (5) turrets. Again, we can see the Aegis influence as Repeaters are used extensively in this configuration. This makes sense as often times turrets have a hard time being able to maintain a continuous stream of fire onto a single target. However, once the pilot has delivered the payload, the ship can maneuver fairly well considering the size, and can ease the front gunners' job by keeping the targets in front until the ship is ready to quantum out.
Armor and shields are decent for a ship this size, but don't expect to be able to stand up and take on swarm of ships on your own. The guns, shields, and armor are there to keep the other side honest, and distract them to allow escorts to make the fighter kills, allowing your ship to concentrate on turning billion UES ships into scrap for your salvage crew.
While the speed is slow, it's will still outrun a Constellation Andromeda in both SCM and cruise modes. Only when afterburner boost is used can the Connie catch the Retaliator. Also, if you wanted to give up your main weapons, you can carry almost as much relief cargo to war torn worlds as the Connie can, but with slightly better protection and maneuverability.
With it's atmospheric bomber roots, we expect this ship to handle well in both the deep black, and on planetary suppression missions.
Since it is so large, this ship is realistically a land based unit. Because of this fact, the Retaliator also has an impressive fuel capacity, giving it the range it needs to hit units in deep space or on other planets.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, this ship is the pre-production version. There are a lot of issues with the ship currently, including walls that disappear on you, blowing you out into space with no notice, the ability to climb into the turrets from the outside, and a wiring issue with the cockpit light, causing it to flicker and pulse.
After piloting it for a few hours, I would give the Retaliator a solid B for performance to the average citizen. You will be able to move cargo, launch torpedoes, and maybe even fit a med bay, but it does not have the versatility to run with a small crew the way something like the Connies do.
Stand by for our in depth review after more extensive testing!
Visually, this ship is classic Aegis. It's very easy to echoes of the Gladius and the Sabre in the Retaliator. It also harkens back to the earliest days of atmospheric flight, with influences from the B-17, the B-1, and the B-2 bombers from North America, as well as the earliest "stealth" fighters of that same war torn era.
However, unlike the Sabre and The Galdius, this ship is no quick and maneuverable fighter. This is a Bomber, and it has one mission...to destroy enemy capital ships by putting a torpedo (or 6) where it counts. To accomplish that, this ship has powerful scanners, able to pick up, lock on, and launch against even small targets such as a pirate interceptor as far away as 18 km. Just don't expect to get any hits against something that small, and that far away. While the torpedos have a huge range to them, they are SLOW. In fact, drop on out in cruise, and it will fall quickly behind, meaning that you will arrive at your destination before your ordinance does.
Because this is a dedicated bomber platform, don't expect much in the way of pilot controlled weapons. In fact, the only weapons the pilot CAN launch are the aforementioned, slow as molasses in winter torpedoes. The rest of the weapons are mounted on (5) turrets. Again, we can see the Aegis influence as Repeaters are used extensively in this configuration. This makes sense as often times turrets have a hard time being able to maintain a continuous stream of fire onto a single target. However, once the pilot has delivered the payload, the ship can maneuver fairly well considering the size, and can ease the front gunners' job by keeping the targets in front until the ship is ready to quantum out.
Armor and shields are decent for a ship this size, but don't expect to be able to stand up and take on swarm of ships on your own. The guns, shields, and armor are there to keep the other side honest, and distract them to allow escorts to make the fighter kills, allowing your ship to concentrate on turning billion UES ships into scrap for your salvage crew.
While the speed is slow, it's will still outrun a Constellation Andromeda in both SCM and cruise modes. Only when afterburner boost is used can the Connie catch the Retaliator. Also, if you wanted to give up your main weapons, you can carry almost as much relief cargo to war torn worlds as the Connie can, but with slightly better protection and maneuverability.
With it's atmospheric bomber roots, we expect this ship to handle well in both the deep black, and on planetary suppression missions.
Since it is so large, this ship is realistically a land based unit. Because of this fact, the Retaliator also has an impressive fuel capacity, giving it the range it needs to hit units in deep space or on other planets.
Now, as I mentioned earlier, this ship is the pre-production version. There are a lot of issues with the ship currently, including walls that disappear on you, blowing you out into space with no notice, the ability to climb into the turrets from the outside, and a wiring issue with the cockpit light, causing it to flicker and pulse.
After piloting it for a few hours, I would give the Retaliator a solid B for performance to the average citizen. You will be able to move cargo, launch torpedoes, and maybe even fit a med bay, but it does not have the versatility to run with a small crew the way something like the Connies do.
Stand by for our in depth review after more extensive testing!
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