After elevating the lowly ion blaster to one of the most loved and feared weapons in the universe, Ineubis Defense Research has introduced a powerful new ship based on the Behemoth transport platform. Cargo space has been filled with shield generators, bigger engines, thicker armor and weapon ports. The new ship remains in the sub-capital Corvette class, but brings formidable firepower to a battle.

Ineubis Jackal
Faction level: +800
Price: ~300,000
License: 9/-/9/-/-
Armor: 40,000
Shield strength: 20,000
Shield recharge: 5,000/s
Cargo: 30 CU
Weapons 4L, 3 Small-turret
Mass: 50,000 kg
Length: 34m
Thrust: 900 N
Spin torque: 30.0 Nm
Max speed: 60m/s
Turbo speed: 140m/s
Turbo energy: 45/s

Notes: Turrets on non-capital ships aren't all that useful in their current form. It's better to have another ship than a gunner. This is intended to be another stepping stone on the way to full player-controlled capships. As far as I know, it can be added without any major changes to the client or server, and will allow the player base to see how a more powerful multiplayer ship integrates in to the universe.

This should be slightly less nimble than a standard empty Behemoth. The shield is set up to be breakable using two megaposis and a heavy battery. It would easily fall to stacked missiles; effective defense will require gunners with turret weapons that can detonate incoming ordinance.

This ship would not be fair in a one-on-one duel against a light fighter. A single light fighter is unlikely to be able to break the shield on its own, but any light ship can easily outrun it.

A single light fighter is unlikely to be able to break the shield on its own

Which is why the shield recharge should be set at 3000/s, with the rest of it remaining as is. Gonna be swarm bait, though.

My intent is that a lone light fighter not be a threat to this ship. At a minimum, an attack ship or medium fighter should be required. This would be the first player-controlled ship that cannot be destroyed by every other armed player-controlled ship acting alone. It would also likely be invulnerable to any single hive bot (excluding Leviathans). This is by design; it's a step toward player capships.

I think three of any of the more efficient energy weapons would work, though I didn't check. Megaposi/N2 might also do the trick, but it's iffy. One tube of swarms or two tubes of Geminis would certainly do it.

I think it should be introduced with roughly these specs and then adjusted after a week of play.

My intent is that a lone light fighter not be a threat to this ship.

If it's safe, it should be due to the massive amount of PC-controlled firepower that it weilds. Not because it can sit there and take effectively zero damage.

This is ridiculous.
30 cu cargo moth with a sole purpose to keep some poor schmuck alive.
If you are so afraid of dying, get a fast infiniturbo ship and run.
But no, you want to fly in an armored truck and shoot swarms at everyone and still live after that.

Its purpose is to bring a new dynamic to group battles. This ship is not intended for sitting around in B8 dueling people. It's intended for soloing Tridents and bringing serious firepower to bear on even larger targets. To that end, I'm changing it to 4 L-ports.

It's also intended to see how the dynamics of the universe change when players get their hands on something like a capship. One of the things that makes capships different from ordinary ships is that not just anything can threaten one due to the shield.

Old capships without shields were more fun. But so were queens...
Imho shields just made things more boring.
Not so long time ago (2-3 years) we had NPC convoys with tridents and constelations. They were great fun. You could hitch a ride, you could shoot it down and pick vast amounts of cargo or you could sit on it and defend it from attackers.

At this stage VO is just not populated enough to handle capships or any other ships with shields that require a big group of players to coordinate attack to shoot it down.
BS and critical HS are mainly NPC battles where player interaction means very little. Maybe that is the real future of VO but I have the right to say: I don't like it.

Agreed that we're not quite ready for PC ships requiring group attacks. The Jackal does not; it simply requires more firepower than a lone Vulture can supply. Of the tools available to players, it takes 1S+1L, 3S, two turrets or two 1S ships to bring down the shield.

Selection of the Behemoth model is a bit unfortunate, that traditionally not being a combat ship. It's the best option for getting it in to the game fast though. Ideally, this would get a new model, being a new class of ship. I rather like the Zephyrus or the Sekhet, but adding new models is not on the table right now as far as I know.

I wonder if a scaled-down Trident model would be practical.

You do need to increase the cargo a bit... 80 would be better.

So it could be the ultimate levi-sector mining ship? So you can run cargo totally unmolested by pirates? I was actually thinking of making it 20 instead of 30. It may look like a Behemoth, but this is a light warship, not a cargo ship.

I'm all for this idea. Would be very interesting to make the turrets rails... something of a heavy-wep death platform.

Would make NW very, very interesting.

I like the idea. It's very different than anything we have currently, so it would probably be tweaked once we had a chance to test it out and see how it balances with everything.

I like it, too. As for swarms: Destructible ordinance.

Approved. It sounds like I could kill it with a megaposi of jachhammer warthog easily enough, so it's not too powerful.
Maybe make most of the turrets on, say, the left side of the ship. And make them railgun turrets. It could circle around a furball while raining death on stuff, but it would otherwise be dead meat.

I like it.

This sounds like a good start for player-controlled cap ships. We've got the turrets, just add shields and we're a step closer. I approve. After this all we need are docks!

I like this idea as well. VO would benefit from more group-oriented dogfights.

Make it expensive. Very expensive.

Eh, I'm not sold on this.

2-5 MCr price tab should do it.

2-5?
I'd suggest 1-2mil. Towards 1mil would be great. Possibly (though I'm against it) needing some crafting to build.

But let's get some heavy wep platforms into the field.

And I'm serious about the rail option. That would be insane.