Starfarer and troop delivery

[FZD]

So, I had purchased the Ursa Fortuna, and as luck would have it, CIG left the regular ursa loaner in this patch on top of making Ursa Fortuna playable, so I had 2 ursas to mess around with.

So of course I put them both in a starfarer to see how well they'd fit, and there most certainly is room for 3 Ursas that you can then deploy out of the starfarer rather quickly:

So obviously the third in the middle, both of those can back up enough to allow them to drive straight out the door. So fairly rapid deployment.

Of course, if you're drunk enough,you can in fact fit 6 Ursas, like duckforceone did on his video:

But just try to untangle that mess in a hurry...

I think 4 might be the optimum amount of Ursas in a Starfarer, two in the middle can drive straight out the door, one on each side can back up a bit and drive straight out the door. That's a mechanized infantry troop of 24 people, or 4 squads each with 4 heavily suited infantry, a driver and a gunner. To top if off, Starfarer can carry few fuel tanks on the outside, so the troop can have have an extended excursion...

Unless they run into enemies in space. In which case, they're more or less toast without escort. Unless...

Let me introduce you this stationary weapons platform, deployable in space:

And you get 4 of those! With the turrets on Starfarer, it just might be enough to convince the attacker that these people are batshit crazy, and they're better off picking a fight elsewhere.
Have fun picking those weapons platforms up though.

So in conclusion: Starfarer and Ursas. Just do it.

 

[maynard]

with the new flight model, taking a Starfarer into atmosphere might be pretty inefficient

 

[Printimus]

Your best bet would be a Valkyrie (dedicated troop carrier) which can house 20 soldiers plus 4 cyclones or 2 ursas if you squeeze them.

 

[FZD]

with the new flight model, taking a Starfarer into atmosphere might be pretty inefficient

I don't know, I landed on the arc corp mining area, and if anything, it felt smoother and faster with the new system. Is there something I might've overlooked?

 

[Radegast74]

I don't know, I landed on the arc corp mining area, and if anything, it felt smoother and faster with the new system. Is there something I might've overlooked?

The Arc Corp mining area was on a moon, so, very little atmosphere and gravity. You should try landing & taking off on Hurston (give yourself a couple of hours...)

 

[Vavrik]

I don't know, I landed on the arc corp mining area, and if anything, it felt smoother and faster with the new system. Is there something I might've overlooked?

Not really, it is smoother and faster. But still that new flight control model feels contrived to me. That is not how an engineer would build a flight control system. I changed a few things in the setting for the T.16000M so it was more like it used to be. I need to invent more real estate on my desk before I do anything else.

You should try landing & taking off on Hurston (give yourself a couple of hours...)

That is pretty good advice. If you are having issues with the flight model at all Hurston is a better place to learn it right now.

 

[Radegast74]

Not really, it is smoother and faster. But still that new flight control model feels contrived to me. That is not how an engineer would build a flight control system. I changed a few things in the setting for the T.16000M so it was more like it used to be. I need to invent more real estate on my desk before I do anything else.

I finally played again (first time in months) but the controls...I'm going to need about 2 hours to remap everything and learn the new way of doing things. I tried using my old keybindings as a start, but some things were really, really messed up!

 

[Vavrik]

I finally played again (first time in months) but the controls...I'm going to need about 2 hours to remap everything and learn the new way of doing things. I tried using my old keybindings as a start, but some things were really, really messed up!

What I did, is to start with a vanilla configuration, not selected for anything. I started with roll, and then when that was working, went to throttle. Then I tweaked some of the other things based on the way I fly. For example, I do not use the throttle to fly in reverse, so I didn't put a setting for that in the joystick controls.I did the work in Arena Commander, so I wouldn't bugger up someone else when I land on them instead of turning right. It worked well. I'm not entirely sure about the weapons though. I ran out of time due to Easter interfering with my game time.

CIG doesn't seem to have a good idea of how a fighter works. The design and placement of real world weapons, and frankly speed controls for fighters is quite different from their helicopter based idea. They put two control surfaces for one hand right now. What the heck, everyone is going to get killed just looking for their mouse. Even ships with wings have no real yaw. That's how you actually turn in a fighter, because of momentum. Right now SC feels like a cartoon. Sorry if I'm stepping on someone's favorite part of the game. It's my opinion.

 

[NameChangeToken]

Starfarer Gemini will definitely be one of the better all purpose Large ships.
Cargo Runs, Resource Gathering, Personnel Transport...decent shields, missiles and great weapons for an "industrial" ship...

The only catch for planetary personnel transport will be that you had better not be in a hurry for deployment. But if you do find yourself in a hot drop zone, you might be able to hover and blast away with the quad front facing S4's and S3 missiles to eliminate ground threats before completing the drop.

Now if your landing on a spaceborne platform and want to drop off 50-60 troops at one time, it might actually be one of the best currently options available. Rear facing turrets to provide cover, and for good measure you could have a few fighters along as escorts.

Sure you could take 4 or 5 Valkyries instead, but they'd all have to land. With the scenario above, only one ship has to land.

 

[Vavrik]

Sure you could take 4 or 5 Valkyries instead, but they'd all have to land. With the scenario above, only one ship has to land.

Right now, you're probably correct but as things develop this will not hold true.

Later, the problem will be that only one ship has to be blown up too.
The other thing is, the Star Farer is not a big ship. To use a real world comparison, it's the size and partial role of a ocean tug in relation to the known sizes of fleet capital ships. It does not have the landing, defence or strike capacity of the A2, or M2 variants of the Hercules. But I personally would recommend against large cargo designs as landing craft in a hot zone. There's a reason why the real world troop landing craft hold small numbers of troops. If you lose a few, you don't necessarily lose the battle.

 

[Sayora]

I love my Valk, I have been practicing "hot" landings with it, it's fun

 

[FZD]

But I personally would recommend against large cargo designs as landing craft in a hot zone. There's a reason why the real world troop landing craft hold small numbers of troops. If you lose a few, you don't necessarily lose the battle.

True, and I'm not suggesting you'd land in the hot zone with it. Tbh, it's kind of pointless to carry mechanized infantry if you're going to deliver them straight into the hot zone. I was thinking more along the lines of, deploying some 10 miles away, the rovers will take them to the hot zone in 10 minutes or so, and even then they're not going to just drive smack down into the middle of it. Unless that's the drunken plan. Meanwhile, the Starfarer is well on it's way to pick up the next batch.

 

[Bambooza]

True, and I'm not suggesting you'd land in the hot zone with it. Tbh, it's kind of pointless to carry mechanized infantry if you're going to deliver them straight into the hot zone. I was thinking more along the lines of, deploying some 10 miles away, the rovers will take them to the hot zone in 10 minutes or so, and even then they're not going to just drive smack down into the middle of it. Unless that's the drunken plan. Meanwhile, the Starfarer is well on it's way to pick up the next batch.

It will be interesting to see how the Hercules stacks up against the Starfarer once implemented. On paper it seems the Hercules would be more effective at troop transport especially planet side to an FOB. The Valkyrie being used to shuttle troops and rovers quickly to hot spots. Then the role of refueling would be better handled by the smaller Vulcan which would be able to rearm, refuel and repair the fighters, either at the FOB or in low orbit with the fleet.

Or so it would go if we were playing a sim or doing real world fleet tactics. But like most games prior to this one I fully expect the economy to be jacked up and the true limiting factor is the number of players we can gather together in one location. I am still not sure Rovers are going to be that effective and imagine that most ground operations will have tanks and buggies. Buggies will be harder to hit by attack ships as well as the rail gun while allowing players to be quickly moved across the land. It could be that the Hercules carries the tanks while the Starfarer Gemini transports the buggies and they both drop the troops right at the enemies doorstep.

 

[Vavrik]

It's going to be fun working this out in the game, instead of theorycrafting!

 

[Bambooza]

What else are we to do while drinking beer then theory crafting waiting for this game to reach a point of being mostly complete?

This weekend I found myself wishing I had a Cutlass Black instead of the Freelancer MIS (still love this ship) on a number of mercenary missions. I also found out that while the game limits my ability to pull the trigger in the Armistice zone around Grim Hex, NPC bounty hunters do not have such restrictions placed upon them. But yes theory crafting can only lead so far until tested. Like the fact that the Freelancer MIS and Constellation Andromeda can both make the trip from Port Olisar to ArcCorp with out over heating their Quantum drive while the still greatly underwhelming 600i Touring can't (all default settings).