- Sarsapariller
- Aug 14, 2015
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Occasional vampire queen
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Time for the prose section of the forum retrospective, prepare your eyeballs
Okay so I rented all the Anvil ships that I gave a poo poo about, flew back to Port O, and then cruised each one around. Here for your reading pleasure:
SARSAPARILLER'S SASSY SHIP SPERGING
A brief review of autism chariots
Ordered by cost:
Anvil Arrow
Cost: $75
Guns: 2 gimbal, 2 auto turret, no idea on size- S2's? Seemed like "Gladius plus one." Also, some missiles. All guns slaved to pilot, this is a good fighter for that reason alone.
Can It Do Anything But Fight: No.
Speed: Zippy
Reviewer's thoughts: So they basically said "What if Gladius, but 20 bucks cheaper and from a different company." It's kind of funny but most of the light and small fighters are actually the best combat ships in the game, because you don't have to rely on anyone else to run the terrible, terrible turret systems. This thing is ugly as poo poo but seems very effective. If it was priced sanely for a 6 year old MMO and combat was actually meaningful, I'd say "Sure, it's worth 12 bucks or whatever." But since combat means nothing in this game and the cost is seventy five of your hard earned dollars, stay the gently caress away.
Anvil Gladiator
Cost $164 worth of missiles that do not work
Guns: 2 gimbal, 2 in a separate turret that you can't control without another player. Lots of missiles.
Can It Do Anything But Fight: No.
Speed: Sluggish
Reviewer's thoughts: It's 164 loving dollars for a ship that can't do the primary thing it was meant for, because missiles are broken and have been broken for years. Basically for 90 bucks more than the Arrow, you get the same firepower only now you can't use it, and the ship is slower. I think it's actually kind of cool looking, and I like the concept of turreted bombers because I too have seen Star Wars. Unfortunately there's nothing to bomb in this game, and if there were you better loving believe that half the time the bombs would fall upwards or something. In another game, this would be a cool fighter and you'd have to defend a bunch of them as they bombed the mothership. In Star Citizen the mothership is a jpeg, the only ships worth bombing are effectively invincible, and you wasted 164 dollars.
Super Hornet
Cost $180
Guns: 2 nose gimbal, 2 wing gimbal, 2 auto turret. Some missiles.
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Well it can carry a passenger I guess
Speed: Zippy
Reviewer's thoughts: I could review all the other Hornet variants but the reviews would amount to "Not as good as the super hornet" so why bother? This is the combat dogfighter. It used to be even better but at some point CIG decided it was punching too far above its weight, probably when they sold a shitload of other fighters, and so the gun size seems to have been nerfed really hard from back when I owned it. Doesn't matter though- with six guns all slaved to the pilot, this is one of the few fighters in the game where one player actually has direct control of all the firepower. Unfortunately it costs as much as three brand new triple-A games put together because Star Citizen's pricing is out of loving control. Also unfortunately, there's like, one combat mission in the whole game and everything else is box retrieval or delivery. Since none of these ships allows you to store boxes... it kind of ruins the entire Anvil lineup, to be honest.
Anvil Hurricane
Cost 195 big ones
Guns: 2 nose gimbal, 4 in a separate turret. Bunch of missiles.
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Nope!
Speed: Some
Reviewer's thoughts: This ship that irritates me. At some point CIG got tired of making shitloads of cash on the super hornet and went "What if Hornet, but 10 dollars more and BETTER" so they nerfed the SH and slapped a bunch of size 3 guns on a similar sized fighter. But obviously that would make it too good, so 4 of the guns are in a turret, which means you will never get to use them. So it's a fighter that does exactly the same thing as the Hornet, but worse if you're a single pilot, and costs even more money because gently caress you. Also it looks like an electric razor.
Anvil Terrapin
Cost 220 goddamn dollars
Guns: 2 nose gimbal, nothing else
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Yes
Speed: Sluggish
Reviewer's Thoughts: I thought this was the starting ship in the anvil lineup but then I went and looked up the price and it's over two hundred motherfucking dollars! This thing has 2 guns and a big radar and some cargo space. Radar's pointless because nothing in the game loads into your client past about 10km, 2 guns are pretty much a joke, and the cargo space does make this the first Anvil ship capable of actually playing Star Citizen in its current, actual state, but the ship costs two hundred loving dollars Jesus H Christ what is wrong with you CIG. It doesn't even come with the decorative but useless missiles that all the other ships get! 2 guns and a worthless radar, that's it! Give us 200 bucks! gently caress you!
Anvil Valkyrie
Cost 375 smackers
Guns 2 nose gimabl, 1 regular turret, 2 remote turrets, 2 helicopter door guns
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Yes
Speed: Glacial
Reviewer's Thoughts: This ship exists because of the landing scene in Aliens. That's it. You could load marines in here, if there were such a thing as marines. You can load vehicles in here, sometimes, if they don't jank the gently caress out. But there's no mission in the game requiring vehicles, and there is no ground combat, and there's definitely nothing that would require a combat dropship, so why does this exist? It exists because Aliens. Because stupid fat gently caress nerdlings will pay 375 ludicrous dollars to sit in a cockpit and go "In the pipe, five by five" and then grin to themselves because they just made the funniest movie reference holy poo poo. It has door guns, because space Vietnam, I guess, so you can clear your space LZ before you drop your space crew. Nobody will ever do any of those things. This thing costs more than your car payment. I despair for the future of gaming.
A discerning citizen prepares to enter the expo.
This gentleman was so excited, he got in line 4 times!
Day Two- Roberts Space Industries
Named for the breakout 2000's movie star Robert Pattinson, still beloved 1000 years later for his role as a creepy immortal pedophile, RSI's ships will carry you through the Twilight to the Breaking Dawn. RSI seems to be the manufacturer that just gets random poo poo with no particular aesthetic dropped into it- much like the CEO himself! Unlike the other manufacturers, RSI's lineup is still composed primarily of unimplemented jpegs, so I will actually be reviewing constellation variants today just to pad this out a bit. Once again, in price order:
RSI Aurora
Cost: $25
Guns: 2 and some missiles
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Surprisingly, yes
Speed: Moderate
Reviewer's thoughts: This is probably going to be my most positive review in the whole series. First up, the negative- this ship is ugly as sin. It looks like someone took a radioisotope thermoelectric generator and stuck a cockpit on it. It looks like an overpriced kitchen gadget. It looks like someone said "How many wings is too many? Let's find out." For all that, this is a very effective ship! It has great visibility, it is moderately fast, it can carry a small load of trade cargo, you can put a box inside the cockpit area for courier missions- it even has a bed, if they ever bother to fix the log-out functionality. It has a couple token size-1 guns on it, but this thing is essentially tissue paper so fighting with it will get you killed. And, as compared to every other ship in the game, it is cheap as poo poo. You could fly 10 of these for the price of one Constellation, if you found 10 people willing to put up with the game long enough to load them all. At one point this was the chariot of choice for ram-griefing, but that particular pastime has been nerfed to the point that it doesn't seem to work at all anymore. If you have to give money to Chris Roberts, and I really heartily recommend not doing so, this is probably the ship to get. There are like 5 variants of this thing but they are all exactly the same with slight loadout changes, and loadouts don't matter in Star Citizen, so gently caress you if you think I'm wasting half an hour taking pictures of all of them.
RSI Ursa
Cost: $50
Guns: 2 in a little auto turret
Can It Do Anything But Fight: It can't even fight
Speed: Ground based
Reviewer's thoughts: All of the vehicles in this game seem like art assets in search of a mechanic. Of the three I've tried- Tumbril, Dragonfly, and Ursa- the Ursa seems like the best. It can carry a bunch of people or a box, it has a little gun turret, it does not immediately explode on impact with rocks. But... there's nothing in the game that requires ground vehicles. There are no missions requiring ground combat. There are no deliveries where you'd need to get out of your ship in a rover and haul a box anywhere. There's nothing to discover while exploring. Even mining is done via a ship. So what use is it? I'll tell you- it's extremely good for cramming into your gaping, aching cargo hold. The ultimate measure of any ship in Star Citizen is how many Ursas and Merlins you can wedge in there. I mean it's still going to jitter around and clip through poo poo and probably explode, but... it's not like you have a choice, if you want to put stuff in your holes.
Picture not found
RSI Constellation Taurus
Cost: $150
Guns: No idea
Can It Do Anything But Fight: It doesn't exist
Speed: Sluggish
Reviewer's thoughts: This one is weird. It is the only variant I know of that costs less than the original ship. It is a stripped down Constellation for significantly cheaper, that I guess is supposed to be more trade oriented? It's so unpopular that I'm not even sure it exists in the game. It certainly didn't exist on the showroom floor, so I don't have a picture of it. Oh well. Buy this if you want a ship that does what the Constellation does, only worse in every single aspect, but I guess you can cram more trade goods into it, but trade doesn't work and bulk trading is completely broken. The frogurt is also cursed.
RSI Constellation Andromeda
Cost: $225
Guns: 4 gimbal, 2x2 manned turrets, 50+ missiles
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Yes
Speed: Sluggish
Reviewer's thoughts: This was my baby, when the game was first announced. It was billed as the Millenium Falcon of Star Citizen and was basically sold as the "top of the line" back when the "line" was like, 7 ships. It could carry a crew of 4 or 5, it could do cargo, it had a shitload of guns, it had lots of missiles, it had a little detachable fighter in the back. Of course, since then CIG has spent the last 6 years selling ship after ship, something like 100+ ships now, and obviously one of the earliest and cheapest of the big ships could not be allowed a dominant position in the pile. This ship has seen more nerfs and been outclassed by more ships that do exactly what it does, but better in every sense, than any other ship in the game. On top of that, the manned turrets turned out to be giant shitpiles that nobody wants to use, and they never even bothered to get the detachable fighter working. Today this ship is a two hundred dollar joke. It has four giant guns that can't hit anything because it turns like a shopping cart full of bricks. It has paper-thin shields and will die to any fighter in the game in a few shots. It still has 50 missiles, and you can fire all 50 and not do a single point of damage. There are ships that are literally just this ship but functional, and they all cost 300 or more dollars. This ship is the epitome of Star Citizen in my opinion- originally sold for a crazy amount, it was released as complete garbage, never updated or made effective, and has been completely overshadowed by stuff that costs twice as much in a game that just doesn't give a poo poo about your old money.
RSI Constellation Aquila
Cost: $310
Guns: 4 gimbal, 1x2 manned turrets, 50+ missiles
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Yes
Speed: Sluggish
Reviewer's thoughts: CIG was experimenting with variants when they made these, and didn't know what people would or wouldn't pay money for. They thought "Same ship with different loadouts" was a good model, so... it's the Constellation! Again! But for 100 dollars more, and they took one of the turrets out for a "Radar" that doesn't work, and also you get a rover I think if you buy this one, but the rover doesn't work in the cargo hold of the Constellation, and is only 50 bucks on its own, so why wouldn't you buy the regular ship and then the rover separately and save yourself 40 bucks? Because you're a loving idiot, that's why. This ship comes with a slightly different, rounded cockpit. Also it has a blue and orange paint job. It is effectively just the Constellation and it sucks just as bad, but for more money.
RSI Constellation Phoenix
Cost: $350
Guns: 4 gimbal, 1x2 manned turrets, missiles
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Yes
Speed: Sluggish
Reviewer's thoughts: The Phoenix was originally sold as an up-gunned Constellation for like, armored personnel transport and VIP limo duties, in a game where there aren't any VIP's or personnel to transport. But it was still an interesting concept, and the thought of "Constellation but more dakka" was appealing at the time because the Constellation hadn't been poo poo on from a great height at that point. Of course, years later the ship actually came out, and... well, look at the picture. It's a flying bar and lounge. None of the extra equipment ever materialized, and this thing is essentially worthless except as a way to flash your cash wad. You cannot transport VIP's, it fights as poorly as a regular Constellation, and costs 125 dollars more. Not because of any mechanics- because it is "Luxury." Chris literally prices poo poo in-game based on aesthetic priorities, regardless of mechanics, because he is completely detached from the concept of value. It is particularly galling how much time has clearly been put into poo poo like whiskey tumblers and the animated hot tub in this ship, when basic mechanics are completely broken and the game barely functions. It is extremely revealing of CIG's priorities- they are a used luxury car dealership first and foremost, and they have gradually self-selected an audience that thinks used luxury cars belong in spaceship game. Everyone who still owns one of these is an unbearable twat and I consider these and all other luxury vessels in the game kill-on-sight.
Day Three- Origin Jumpworks
WOULD go here, but yesterday I tried twice and the expo floor was empty both times. Then a loving midwestern blizzard hit, and we lost internet for the entire day. I had to read the thread by mobile phone hotspot like a god drat caveman! So, no origin ship reviews. Instead, we move on to
Day Four- Aegis Dynamics
Named for the legendary shield wielded by Greece's most intelligent goddess, Aegis specializes in legendary jpegs sold to Germany's most gullible auditors. As opposed to "Anvil," a combat ship company, and "Origin," the luxury ship company, "Aegis" seems to make... just... all sorts of random poo poo. Salvage ships and combat frigates and little police fighters or something who cares. There is probably some 20 page corporate lore backstory but if there's one thing I have less time for than Chris Roberts' towering self-regard, it is Chris Roberts' corporate fanfiction. I am not at home to rent these so I'm just going to steal pictures from the wiki. gently caress you, Derek doesn't pay me enough to care about this.
Aegis Avenger
Cost 50-85 dollars
Guns 1 big nose gimbal, 2 puny wing guns
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Yes
Speed: Modest
Reviewer's Thoughts: CIG had this weird period where they started selling the A-10 warthog over and over again. The Avenger was the start of that trend. Basically they introduced this ship that looked like the space shuttle had sex with a Salavador Dali painting, and it had a big gently caress-off nose gatling, and every Citizen in the universe simultaneously orgasmed at the sight of it. Then they did it again with the Gladius. Then they did it again with the Vanguard. Then they... you get the picture. Ironically none of these ships are actually ground attack craft, and the big nose gun tends to be kind of useless. The Avenger is not useless though- it is a decent little ship by Star Citizen standards. It can fight and carry cargo or a box, and it has a ramp, so you won't be instantly murdered by the ladder bug if you try to use it. It also got a "Redesign" which is goddamn hilarious since they were so thorough and fidelitous that they left a giant gently caress-off hole in the interior geometry. Seriously you can sleep in the bed of this thing and look out the hole into space. Naturally this will never be fixed. Also this thing has like 5 variants with no theme that I am aware of. They all suck.
Aegis Gladius
Cost 90 dollars
Guns 1 big nose gimbal, 2 puny wing guns
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Nope
Speed: Zippy
Reviewer's Thoughts: Hey look it's a space A-10 again. I actually really like this ship, it is my favorite fighter in the game. It's not nearly as effective as the Super Hornet but it is a) way cheaper, and b) way more fun to fly. This thing will cause your pilot to black out from acceleration at the slightest twitch of your mouse. Using it in combat is literally a point-and-click adventure because it can turn faster than you can scroll. It will also explode if anything looks at it funny. Once upon a time this was the ship they used to demo "Damage 3.0" or some version number, so it actually comes apart really beautifully. Shots leave big holes in the skin, the wings and components tear off in satisfying ways, and the flight model adjusts to match the damage. Of course they didn't bother to move "Damage 3.0" to any of the other fighters or ships in the game, so it's just the gladius that is now unbelievably fragile, years later. That's okay though, you can pay money for one of the other fighters!
Aegis Sabre
Cost 170 dollars
Guns 2 big nose guns, 2 puny wing guns
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Nope
Speed: Dunno
Reviewer's Thoughts: This is like, the fourth "Space Superiority" fighter in the 170-200 dollar price range. Sure is funny how they keep putting those out, and each new one is better than the old ones. This thing strictly outmatches the Super Hornet in firepower, but I think it's all fixed-forward or something. It is "Stealthy" which in game translates to "You can see it at the same range as every other ship but please imagine that some day you will be an F-22." It has no missiles, so that stealth better be real fuckin' good or it'll be visible at the only range it can fight, regardless. They sold a variant of this, the "Sabre Raven" as some kind of add-on if you bought an Optane hard drive, because Star Citizen has product tie ins just like actual games. I'm pretty sure the Raven variant sucks or maybe nobody bought those HDD's because I've never seen one.
Aegis Vanguard
Cost 225-250 dollars
Guns 1 big nose gun, 4 puny nose guns, a manned turret and a bunch of missiles.
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Maybe?
Speed: Sluggish
Reviewer's Thoughts: Hey look it's an A-10/Space Superiority fighter again! It costs more than any of the others, and it has a shitload more firepower! This one is at least slightly imaginative- it's supposed to be a "Long Range Patrol" ship, for like flying the space border to keep out the space migrant caravans I guess. The promotional marketing was heavily based on the F-14 Tomcat which is a carrier based fleet defense ship. Of course all of this is undermined by the fact that in Star Citizen, big capital ships travel ~4 to 5 times faster than fighters. Why you'd ever "Screen" yourself with a ship that goes slower than you, I don't know. gently caress you, buy the Tomcat spaceship. This thing has a small compartment where crewmen can actually stand, so it can probably carry a box but I did not test that. It has the usual superfluous and useless turret. It is very expensive and, based on reports from people who own one, kind of sucks- I think it's too big for its shield size or something? Whatever, who loving cares- it is another fighter in a game with like 40 goddamn fighters, and it costs as much money as the 5-man Constellation while not really making any sense for its intended role. It is peak Star Citizen circa 2017.
Aegis Retaliator
Cost 275 big ol fuckin' dollars
Guns 5 manned turrets and a big fuckin load of useless missiles
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Maybe?
Speed: Glacial
Reviewer's Thoughts: Hey look it's the B-1 bomber in space except it sucks rear end and there's nothing to bomb! This ship is such a tragedy. I think the styling is absolutely beautiful, the intended role (cap-ship killer with torpedos) is kind of neat, and there are enough turrets that it seems credibly threatening to fighters. It was the first big goon buy-in ship, as well, when the hive mind thought that if we had enough of these we would be smoking idiots in their giant Idris ships. Alas for we sweet summer children, it was us who were the idiots, all along. This was also one of the first big ships to be released into the game, amusingly, since I don't think I've actually seen one in-game since about 2015. That's for a very important reason: missiles don't work. They literally do not work- you can't fire them, if you do fire them they don't hit the target, if they do hit the target they don't do damage. This thing is less threatening than a NERF gun. It is a giant loving "Kick Me" sign slapped onto the backs of every person who tried to buy into the Rock-Paper-Scissors power-creep fest that is Star Citizen. It sucks so hard that they never even bothered to sell variants of this turd.
Aegis Eclipse
Cost 275 stealthy dollars
Guns Probably something unrealistically stupid
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Probably?
Speed: Glacial
Reviewer's Thoughts: Does this actually exist in game? Their website says it does. Anyway hey look it's another bomber, and it costs the same as the last one, but this time it's STEALTH. Buy this one instead! I mean it still probably doesn't loving work worth a drat because missiles are complete garbage, but it's a new thing to spend your money on SPEND SPEND SPEND
Aegis Reclaimer
Cost 400 salvaged dollars
Guns I'm sure it's just covered with turrets in retarded places
Can It Do Anything But Fight: It can't even fight
Speed: Glaciers race by this guy
Reviewer's Thoughts: Hey it's the big salvage ship in the game where ships despawn immediately after playing their death animation! Haha, we'd probably fix that, but uh... the servers couldn't loving handle it if wrecks stayed around for more than a minute or two at some locations. Whoops we already sold this to you! Oh well coming soon, keep on waiting for the next patch where we implement the gameplay for this giant ship! Assuming we ever get salvaging in, we'll probably have to think of something to do with that salvage- haha j/k we will turn it into "Scrap" in your cargo hold which can be sold at one of the broken trade consoles in the game for next to nothing! Don't worry it's Tier 0, next time we get around to it this will be the ship of your dreams! Keep on pledging!
This ship is a giant pig and doesn't do anything worth talking about in-game.
Aegis Hammerhead
Cost 725 of your literal, actual US Dollars
Guns All of them. All of the guns.
Can It Do Anything But Fight: Sure, gently caress it
Speed: Basically stationary
Reviewer's Thoughts: Uh oh, it's an AEGIS combat ship that doesn't come with a giant gently caress-off nose cannon or STEALTH. That means you probably shouldn't buy it, because a better version will be released the next time their sales dip. So this is the "Gunship corvette" which means it is just covered in manned turrets. It is the first "True" combat capital ship in the game, which I love because it costs as much as my loving month's rent and needs a crew of 3 or more to actually do anything. The pilot doesn't get any guns. So everyone who bought one of these hangar queens is constantly trying in chat to entice any other spacemen onto his giant monument to bad financial planning, and if you see one flying around they're basically guaranteed to have like 1 guy on a turret somewhere and be easily shootable anywhere else. Unfortunately for the eager goon troll, CIG didn't want their brand new combat centerpiece to be TOO easy to destroy- so they made it completely impossible to destroy. This thing has shields for days. You can shoot them until your ammo runs out and not make a dent. Also every turret has the firepower of an entire Constellation. No poo poo- 4xsize 4 guns. That'll basically instagib any smaller ship in the game. If you can get 3 or 4 people on one of these things and put it somewhere with lots of traffic teleporting in, baby you got a grief stew going. If you try to use it for anything else, including other types of combat than ambush camping, you're wasting your loving time. It has a top speed measured in inches per minute, can't turn worth a drat, has zero visibility, appears on people's radars at thirty kilometers out, and has a load of useless missiles that don't do anything slaved to the pilot seat for some reason. It also has all the amenities of a CIG spaceship- bunk beds and showers and locker rooms and engineering stations and cargo hatches and a mess hall, all that good poo poo. None of that does anything, don't bother. It's not even a STEALTH mess-hall. Don't worry, I'm sure when the next most biggest bestest ship comes out, this one will get an emergency upgrade package for only 250 loving dollars or whatever. Just set your money on fire, god drat.
Day Five- Drake Interplanetary
Named for Nathan Drake, discoverer of Cortez's last expedition, the legendary lost city of gold and also Shambala as well as a few other games I haven't played, Drake Interplanetary is also all about shooting native peoples and relieving them of their treasures. This is the pirate company, that makes illegal pirate ships, for pirating. It's like a company whose primary clientele was Somali pirates. Yeah I don't know how they make any sales either. Also, you cannot actually pirate in Star Citizen. On with the show!
Drake Dragonfly
Price: 40 loving actual dollars for a space bike
Guns: Surprisingly it has a shotgun mounted on it
Speed: Really slow actually
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: Can't even fight
Reviewer's Thoughts: I was all prepared to praise CIG for at least having a kind-of-fun hoverbike that works in zero g or on a planet. Then I looked at the price- forty loving dollars! What the hell? This thing isn't a ship, it is like an accessory at best, and it costs as much as existing AAA games! gently caress you Star Citizen. Ugh. Anyway, this bike kind of sucks. For some reason it has shotguns mounted on it but there's nothing to shoot on the ground ever. Its top speed is 50 m/s which, for reference, is half the speed of the glacially slow Hammerhead capital ship. It is actually slower than the two wheeled vehicles in the game. It does have the actually-kind-of-nice feature that, when you're hover-biking, it will raise and lower to keep you just above obstacles like trees and rocks. If it were faster, this would make it far and away the best way to get around on the ground without constantly hitting poo poo. Unfortunately it's slow as poo poo. Oh also if you hit anything, it likes to spazz the gently caress out and just kind of rocket off into space, up up and away like a piece of poo poo. One final note- you cannot set waypoints for yourself while in ground vehicles. This makes getting around extremely challenging at best.
Drake Herald
Price: 85 dollars for a space missile with a chair strapped to it
Guns: Of course it has guns, everything has guns
Speed: Probably pretty fast
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: No
Reviewer's Thoughts: Citizens hate on this ship a lot. Not because, as you might expect, it is a "Data Runner" in a game with no data and no running of same, but because it was originally sold with a big weird asymmetric doodad on it and on release it doesn't have that. Citizens are very, very concerned about the visuals of their ships- they don't really give a poo poo if they don't function. Anyway this is another ship that sucks, the whole premise is that it moves poo poo around fast but hey guess what Chris Roberts in another surprise decision made all the small, cheap ships way loving slower than the big ships. So, if you want to move data, hope you bought an Idris cause it'd be faster to stick your extremely fast courier inside your frigate than to fly anywhere in it yourself. Other than that, this thing is crap and it costs 85 dollars. I'd call it robbery but we're just getting started.
Drake Cutlass
Price: 100 dollars
Guns: 4 gimbals, 1 manned turret
Speed: It's alright
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: Sure
Reviewer's Thoughts: Ah, the Cutlass. Beer's favorite ship! This ship has a long and troubled history. When it was first launched it was kind of the poster child for what was wrong with Star Citizen. It was billed as a sleek dangerous pirate ship, and Citizens who were at the time terrified of being griefed demanded that it not be as good as their chariots. Ben Lesnick, master of ships, complied and the first version of the Cutlass was a fat tub that looked like crap and flew even worse. It was fragile and pointless and everyone who'd spent 100 bucks on one was incandescently furious. Then it became apparent that goons and pirates in general were not actually going to play Star Citizen, and the furor about being hunted like vermin by genetically superior space bullies died down. Eventually the Cutlass got like 8 reworks, and now in the year of our lord 2018 is actually one of the best ships in the game. It is extremely tough to the point of absurdity, it has good guns, it is fast, it has a nice sized cargo hold, it doesn't have all the frilly bullshit like sinks and espresso machines that clutter half the other ships in the game, and the overall look and feel is very sleek and cool. This'd probably be a 300 dollar ship these days, but it is grandfathered in at 100 dollars. Unfortunately it is still a ship in Star Citizen, which is like being one of the nicest turds in the 1000 foot tall mountain of horse manure.
Drake Buccaneer
Price: 110 dollars
Guns: 2 wings and a nose gun
Speed: Really fast
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: No
Reviewer's Thoughts: I don't get this ship. It is another small fighter, and sucks basically worse than any other fighter in the game. It is clearly the "NPC tie-fighter" ship that is designed to be destroyed in the dozens by the player. Yet here it is, for sale to you, at 110 actual dollars. That is right, this ship costs more than the tougher, more dangerous, more "Do-everything" Cutlass. It's... faster, I guess? I mean, only in regular space. The Cutlass is actually faster in QT. So yeah. Don't, uh, don't buy this. Or any other ship in the game.
Drake Caterpillar
Price: 295 dollars
Guns: Apparently this thing has some
Speed: Really slow
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: I guess
Reviewer's Thoughts: I love that CIG has set the real life prices and priorities for development based on the aesthetic value of the ships in game. See, luxury ships like the Constellation Phoenix cost 400 dollars and get multiple reworks because they are elite and only rich people get them. This, which is basically a capital ship sized transport? Ew, it's a pirate ship, cut 100 bucks off the price, kick it out the door, never touch it again. Chris reflecting on your stupidity has become like a daily meditation for me, and it hurts. It hurts me, Chris. Anyway the Caterpillar was sold as some kind of piratey pirate ship which never made a lick of goddamn sense because it is a huge unwieldy transport. I guess the idea was that your pirate fleet would disable the enemy and then ride off with the loot in this thing. Also a lot of fuss was made about this thing being able to transport smaller fighters in the cargo bays, which may actually have been the first recorded case of the "It's a POCKET CARRIER" sale. Naturally it can't actually do that- the only fighter that sort of fits is the Merlin and it jitters and explodes if you try it. Oh also this ship was sold with like bulkhead cutters and pirate docking collars for forced boarding actions and none of that ever materialized either because Chris has no idea what he's doing and just kind of makes poo poo up. Luckily, this is currently the best cargo ship in the game with almost double the capacity of the "Starfarer." Unluckily, trade in the game is completely hosed and you can't do bulk trades without running the risk of losing your entire credit balance in one shot. So it's a pirate ship that can't pirate, a trade ship that can't trade, and a pocket carrier that can't carry pockets. But it can sure reach into your pockets. Empty your wallets for Star Citizen and a one way ticket to second-class citizen status, you pirate scum.
Day Six- Some Random Company But Actually We're Just Selling You Alien Ships
In the year 3000 the Arkansas-Oklahoma Port Operators Association evolved from a mere non-profit educational organization to encourage cooperation between ports, and became a premier manufacturer of weird-rear end alien spaceships. We may never know why. Probably because "Aopoa" sounded kind of alien and nobody bothered to google it before they used it. I guess they sell the ships of the mysterious and noble bird-men who are definitely not going to be a cheap yellowface stereotype, right Chris?
Also in the year 3000, a commune in the province of Frosinone in the Italian region Lazio, became home to a manufacturer of fine customized weird-rear end spaceships. "Esperia" which is definitely a weird alien name and not a place Chris visited on his yacht trip to Monaco, sells the evil icky Vanduul ships which are definitely not just reskinned Kilrathi fighters despite bearing the same names, because that would be theft of EA's intellectual property, right Chris? WINK.
Also also in the year 3000, CIG sold the Banu Merchantman, but they got fuckin' lazy with it and didn't bother to make a corporation with lore or anything. Just loving buy it, we know you don't give a poo poo.
Aopoa Nox
Price: 45 USD
Guns: More and better than the Dragonfly because that poo poo's 5 dollars cheaper
Speed: Really slow actually
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: Can't even fight
Reviewer's Thoughts: So I haven't actually bothered to ride this thing around, but I'm told that the HUD obscures even more of the player's vision than the one on the Dragonfly. That doesn't surprise me- Chris comes from the era of Wing Commander HUDS, where it was really important to obscure as much of the screen as possible so you didn't actually have to animate a whole lot at once. He never really overcame that aesthetic and half the ships in the game have dashboards that are impossibly frustrating to see over. Anyway this thing is a racer but it's a bike and it's only 5 dollars more than the Dragonfly. In Star Citizen you can pretty much judge everything by price and aesthetic. So it is likely this thing is slightly faster than the Dragonfly, shoots slightly harder, and is still a useless piece of trash. Why do bird-men need a space bike anyway?
Cockpit:
Aopoa Khartu-Al
Price: 170 USD
Guns: Only 2, haha this loving thing costs as much as a super hornet
Speed: Completely uncontrollable
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: It can explode
Reviewer's Thoughts: So when CIG started selling alien ships, they introduced the concept of the "Alien Tax." You see, alien ships are more expensive for less performance. In actual dollar terms. Because... they are rare, and exotic. No, I'm not kidding, they actually said this and backers ate it up because they are loving stupid. So here's a ship for 170 dollars, the same price as a Super Hornet. It has two guns, flies so fast that you will black out if you try to maneuver, and explodes if it so much as glances against any surface. Somehow despite the cockpit being a giant glass ball, Chris managed to get some enormous vision-obscuring struts in there to really give it the full gently caress-you-this-is-Star-Citizen experience. Mysterious birdmen love struts. I've never seen anybody fly one of these.
Esperia Blade
Price: 275 dollars oh my loving lord
Guns: 4 nasty mongrel-race guns
Speed: Real fast
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: Nope
Reviewer's Thoughts: Another victim of the alien tax, this ship costs as much as a Constellation Phoenix but it is a loving light fighter. I'm pretty sure CIG introduced this ship because they decided, at some point, that the Scythe was not fragile and small enough to be the cannon-fodder alien ship, and they needed something even more worthless. Even the lore for this thing describes it as obsolete and virtually worthless. Please give us your healthcare payment for the month if you wish to fly one.
The front is on the right
Oops no, it is on the left
Banu Merchantman
Price: 350 dollars
Guns: Who cares it's a trade ship
Speed: Slow
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: It doesn't exist
Reviewer's Thoughts: So technically the Banu Merchantman doesn't exist in-game which would normally exclude it from my reviews, but the story here is so god drat hilarious that I had to bring it up. Alright first of all this ship was sold without a cut-out corporate entity for it, which amuses me- why drop the pretense, CIG? It was also sold without the "Alien Tax" because either they forgot or did not care at the time. But anyway it's a bulk trader, armed, crew of 3 or four- in CIG terms, 350 dollars was a steal. Also it looked kind of cool so people ate it right up. Then it became apparent that the concept artist, and the design team, did not actually know which end of the ship was the front. Sometimes it was depicted flying one way and sometimes the other. Oops! Eventually CIG settled on one way, the opposite way from the original concept and design, which pissed off half the purchasers who wanted it to be the other. I think CIG got frustrated and just shitcanned the whole design because nobody's heard a peep about it since the original sale in 2014. Four years on this thing and all people hear is once a year "Oh yeah still working on it." Suuuuuure you are. Meanwhile ships are being introduced and sold in-game today that clearly started dev less than a year ago. Obviously it's just a very complex design, lot of uh, ins and outs. Keep spending money on it. Godspeed, you backwards-flying Jew stereotype-race ship.
Esperia Scythe
Price: I'm actually not sure
Guns: Some red ones
Speed: Zippy
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: Nope
Reviewer's Thoughts: So this thing was sold once upon a time, I think possibly as a kickstarter reward for like the ludicrous tiers, or maybe as a concierge thing? I never even priced it because as I recall it was insanely overpriced (ALIEN TAX) and also just... just real bad. Like all the other alien ships it's designed to get blowed up real good by the human ships and nothing else. But don't worry, CIG spent months of their artist and modeler's time making fully realized cockpits and alien HUDs for this and every other fighter. Your pledge dollars at work.
Esperia Glaive
Price: 350 dollars
Guns: Some red ones
Speed: Modest
Can It Do Anything Other Than Fight: Nope
Reviewer's Thoughts: This ship is literally just the Scythe but with two wings and also it costs 350 loving dollars. Obviously this ship needed to be reserved for the elite of the elite. Somebody at CIG had the genius idea: "Hey what if we actually forced people to play the game in order to earn it." So they did! You had to win a match of Arena Commander in order to earn the right to purchase one of these. Note- not "Earn one of these." Earn the right... to pay money... for this. Anyway Arena Commander at the time was 18 or some-odd rounds of fairly tedious point and click combat and the main challenge was not crashing out of the game in the hour it took to finish. Citizens went apeshit. To think! A combat ship, locked away behind a game mode in the game they all loved but that none of them actually played! They were furious and the bitching and tears swiftly overflowed. Meanwhile, enterprising bastards such as myself went in, played an hour of Arena Commander, bought the ship and immediately turned around and sold it for a 50 buck markup. That's right- people would pay 50 extra bucks on the grey market, the day this thing was released, to not have to play the game it was made for. Explain that one to me. Anyway the ship itself kinda sucks, it's made to be a boss ship but that just means it's slightly harder to kill than the other Vanduul stuff. No missiles, couple of guns, generally pretty weak. If it were a human fighter it'd be like 100 bucks. Please pay me four times that much to not have to play your own game, Citizen.
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