Corvus Greyhound (Interceptor-class Warthog):

Armor: 8250 (almost 1000 points less than the weakest 'hog)
Cargo: 3 cu (5 cu less than normal 'hogs, 1 cu less than the TD)
Weapons: 1s, 1L (standard Warthog in-line configuration, suited for shooting at fleeing targets dead ahead)
Mass: 5000 kg (300 kg lighter than the TD)
Thrust: 250 N/ 350 N turbo (like the Tung Maud, two different Thrusts for standard and turbo flight)
Spin Torque: 5.5 Nm (comparable to an EC-98 bus)
Max Speed: 60 m/s
Turbo Speed: 225 m/s
Turbo Energy: 50 m/s

Description: The Greyhound is designed to do one thing: swiftly close with a fleeing target, and deliver maximum firepower without giving up the chase. To do so, Corvus shipwrights have sacrificed armor and cargo space, as well as permanently diverted power from Spin Torque to raw forward Thrust.

Fits its niche nicely, does not extend too much into pvp realm, and can chase.

Approved. Though I fear what would happen when marcuse gets his hands on this...

EDIT: worth noting this might wreak havoc on the VO races. Might make it worthy of a 51/s drain... though I think its still pretty balanced with 50/s drain.
Also, tri-hate or KOS could be the short-term for corvus aligned. Granted, there are ways of gaming the system short term, but there are always ways to game the system...

[stamp of approval]™

I don't think anything should have the combination of great turbo acceleration, 225m/s top speed and infiniboost. Set the drain at 55 and I like it.

I don't think anything should have the combination of great turbo acceleration, 225m/s top speed and infiniboost. Set the drain at 55 and I like it.

You have a good reason for that, or you just feel that way? This thing has to chase running mauds, moths, and taurs down and shoot them to death from behind while dodging mines with crappy Spin Torque. That takes juice. 50 drain for a reason.

Though I agree this shouldn't be just another arrow in every player's quiver.

The Greyhound should not be implemented (at least not anywhere but the test server) until there's a way to align oneself with Corvus--and by doing so, be all but banished from the other three major nations. This is a vicious pirate interceptor, and it should have a high price tag in terms of both credits (200,000 credits for the base hull) and sacrificing other piloting options (no valks, proms, or UIT ships, probably no nice TPG trade/mining ships either).

Further to the point: a pirate interceptor should be incredibly dangerous to trade ships, but should make a lousy head to head combat platform. Pirates (absent a multi-element team) should not be successfully engaging in battles with merchant craft; they chase down running traders and make it clear that there's little to no chance of escaping alive. The trader either pays/drops the cargo or dies and drops the cargo. The only combat between the pirate and the trader should be the trader dropping mines.

If the trader is running a more balanced craft, such as a maud or a taur, with a head to head combat loadout . . . the pirate's interceptor should be at a severe disadvantage. Unless flown by Niki or Shape, a Greyhound should not be winning against an EckaTaur that turns to fight, rather than trying to flee.

Not too shabby.

Ooo, Nice. I approve heavily, especially the corvus-aligned only bit.

DO WANT

Yes. Please, can we have this one? I especially like the crappyness of its PvP capabilities that ensures that pirates will start fleeing VPR, chase ANYTHING even Atlas X's and do what they are supposed to.

Next subject, get traders into grey.........

(Out of the other Thread - because you didnt read it)

There is no need for Large ports, Cargoslots or long distance travel.

4000m at 210 needs 19 seconds (fast trader)
4000m at 225 needs 17,7 seconds (valk)

There are usualy 1000m between a pirate and his target. Assuming someone jumps in and both start to accelerate.
The valk is 1,3 seconds faster. That means he can shorten the distance to 700m until the trader jumps. Reminder: you need at last 400m to place a good shot.

How fast must a intercepter be to catch this ship?

I am unsure 200,000c is a good price tag for it - it is hard enough to make money by pirating as it is, and such a high price will make it very expensive to repair.

A loaded out HogII costs around 20,000c, repair costs after a fleeing voy moth gets it down somewhat rarely exceeds 4,000c, and a typical cargo from it sells for 30,000c-60,000c.

Paying 150,000c+ to repair a pirate ship would make pirating very unprofitable.

Hence, the ship should cost 5,000c-35,000c.

This reminds me that the Raptor is similar in fashion to this ship with bad turning making it not the most favored for standard combat.

If making a pirate only interceptor comes to fruition then the opposing side could have their own but with different characteristics.

Just a thought, don't want to derail.

I dunno Surb I don't think everything needs to be perfectly balanced for all sides. Like Lecter says, someone shouldn't have access to everything... if someone is going to have a Greyhound they shouldn't be able to get a heavy duty awesome moth. You can pick trader or pirate, and get a ship for which you choose, but it really doesn't make sense to give both ships to both groups, so everyone can be Happy.

As for the idea in general... this looks good Lecter. Pirates have needed a ship that sacrifices turn speed for turbo speed badly for a long time.

Echoing what you said though, as awesome and balanced as these specs look, I really don't think it should be implemented just yet. In VO's current state, when a runner is so incredibly annoying (since PvP is the main feature), a ship like this would make running way too easy. Down the line, when making your opponent run is just as much a victory as a PK, a "runner ship" won't be as big a deal, and pirates will finally have the tool they need.

[edit]
Also I'm not really sure about the 200k price tag. Like I said, it should be the pirate ship, equivalent to a beastly moth that traders get. Likewise it shouldn't cost any more than the most expensive moth. And it should probably cost a good deal less, since the potential profit of piracy is much lower than that of trading (at least as things are now)

RE the 200k price tag. I'm not too opposed to an astronomical price tag (though it would be interesting to have unaligned get discounts on repairs if such were the case), since how often will this ship be caught and killed anyways? All it needs to do is turn (which takes a second or two), then RUN! It will be killed on occasion (though mostly when piloted by bad pirates), but for the most part it won't be killed. Maybe I'm overestimating its ability to do damage before a loaded taur throws something at it, but I don't believe so.

Pulled the credit figure out of my ass; I've always thought there should be some relation between the credits at risk in one's ship and the potential reward for flying it. With traders, the bulk of that balance is provided by costly cargo; for pirates, the cost is in the ship alone. That said, anywhere between 50k and 250k for the Greyhound would probably be balanced.

From other threads, but related to this ship:

I like Dr. Lecter's Hog suggestion, but it should still be possible for pirate hunters to hunt it down (or at least chase it away from protected traders). Perhaps reduce armour even further to make sure pirates *really* don't want to use it in a real fight?

Another issue with it would be dealing enough damage to take out a voy moth before it jumps. A second L port would not go amiss for that, but I am unsure that would keep the ship balanced, it may be more the case that voy moths just have too thick hulls.

(1) Once the Greyhound has caught up to a trader, it will actually have to reduce turbo speed to stay with it. It also can't be strafing around or changing course, because it lacks the capability to do either well. So, while you can't catch it if it wants to run, you can blow it away easily if you're escorting the Moth it runs up on.

(2) Ideally, the Grehound would have two megaposis permanently fixed in two in-line L ports, and nothing else. Lots of DPE pain for hunting, no real head to head combat utility. But I don't know if the Devs can make that happen, so I've stuck with the standard Hog port configuration.


The only problem from a rat-hunting side is that this thing is impossible to catch. If it sees me, it turns around (granted that could take a second or two), and then I have absolutely no shot in hell of catching it. It might be reasonable to give this a small additional handicap of needing 2/3rds battery full to jump (or something of that sort; and honestly, that isn't even a huge disadvantage since no one is going to use anything but a FC or UC on this guy anyways)

I disagree that it's important to be able to catch this ship; if you can chase it away from your traders, you've done your job already.

Lecter, I think I'm starting to see it your way. Granted, the scenario you just described is from a escort's point of view far more than a rat-hunter's...
It just feels like there is a slight (and I do mean slight) lack of balance in a ship that no one could catch (without a partner... and even then only if you're lucky) 99% of the time. I feel like the 2/3rds-battery-for-jump condition might just even the scales a bit; such a nerf doesn't even affect its ability to intercept since it has infini-boost anyways (I grant it affects to a small extent if the target jumps, but since you're using an FC or UC anyways...).

I really like Lecters idea on this one. The built in megaposis would be sweet, but if that can't be done thats fine.

Also, at least being dual KOS. As far as pricing, 200k is a tad excessive and I would think somewhere around 60000-80000c would be just fine. This cost would put it in the ballpark of a rev c or valk, corvult, etc. We can get into a pricing debate later.

What's a "Rat-Hunter"? It sounds like someone who tracks and tries to kill a specific player group--regardless of where they are or what they're doing--as their hobby? Why encourage that? It's sort of like saying "Serco can't catch Valks if the Valks want to run." True, but if the Serco roll into a sector with their Proms, the Valks need to come play or else give up the ground.

As long as escorts can defend a trade ship that's being intercepted, I think we've covered the important base. That said, I have little problem with imposing something like twice the normal battery requirement for a jump, though I don't know that will really help chasers. If a Greyhound decides to leave the area, it would leave even an energy valk so far behind that by the time it jumped, it could recharge the battery plenty of times over and still not have the valk in range.

I will admit I'm still stuck on the 'grey'hound double-entendre...

But, I want one. It has good balance, especially if the devs can 'fuse' 2 mega-posis to it. And yes, the requirement of 2/3s to full bat for jump could make sense if perhaps the armor got a little more love to take that couple of hits received while jumping.

/me submits a pre-order to Corvus for my own Greyhound (jet black please...)

2 L ports with megaposis would indeed be ideal.

Perhaps give 2L port variant to tri-KOS and 1L 1S variant to dual-KOS characters?

As for pricing, 60,000c-80,000c sounds doable for a new ship, but once again, repairing for such a low hp ship would be very expensive, almost 10c/hp. Compare that to 3c/hp for a Moth and 0.5c/hp for a HogII.

As Aticephyr noted, it will hardly ever get blown up (my pirate alt has not died in weeks until I decided to visit Dau), but it will need repairing very often.

If you want the best ship for a purpose, you should be prepared to fork over some credits.

I like the idea of the Greyhound, it has my full support.