Q&A: CRUSADER ARES
Following the concept release of the CRUSADER ARES Star Fighter, we took your community-voted questions to our designers to provide you with more information on the recently unveiled high-powered fighter.
How fast and nimble is the Ares compared to ships like the Sabre, Hornet, or Vanguard? Unlike other Crusader ships the Ares is not as nimble for its size due to the significant compensation required to carry the S7 weapon. As a result, the handling characteristics are closer to a Vanguard or Freelancer than Sabre or Hornet.
What benefits does a S7 cannon give you over multiple smaller weapons with the same DPS? Does the larger weapon have higher armor penetration, range, etc? Larger weapons do more than just higher damage or DPS, they also tend to have higher penetration rates (when physicalized damage comes in) and the weapons themselves are more durable, with enhanced resistance to distortion and damage. As a result, the DPS of a single S7 may on paper be equal to multiple smaller weapons, the increased range and penetration provide a significant benefit against certain targets.
How much ammo can the Inferno carry? The Inferno has dedicated ammo storage beyond the norm, allowing it to allocate addition ammo to the default ammo box. This works out to be 2-3 times the normal capacity of a ballistic weapon.
According to the brochure, the Ares will have long-range capabilities. Could you please clarify what you mean by that? Will it have a bed and bathroom? The ARES is a single-seat fighter with no interior. The stated long-range “capability” comes from the large size of the weapon with its inherent longer range of engagement, in addition to its complement of missiles.
What are the “Batteries” mentioned in the Ares brochure? Batteries are a component that most of our ships will feature. Specifically, these function like real world batteries and can be charged up and used whilst the power plant is offline for both redundancy and lower signature performance.
Can the S7 weapons be swapped? The S7 weapons for the Ares are bespoke to the ship. They cannot be swapped between the variants or with other S7 weapons.
Where is the Ares in the ship pipeline? The Ares is currently Concept Complete and not in active development, it will be shown on the RSI Roadmap when the quarter it is scheduled for release is present.
How different is the Inferno’s armor variant compared to the Ion variant? The Inferno’s armor will be significantly more effective and thicker. In the short term, before physicalized damage is introduced, this will come in the form of extra health, but once physicalized damage comes in the armor will be thicker and tougher to get through. The Ion has relatively thin armor due to other components taking up a roughly equal amount of mass, equalizing the flight performance of the two variants.
What is the range and damage of each gun on the Ares? Exact numbers are subject to change due to balance and the introduction of larger ships and weapons, but if the ship was to be released tomorrow the damage would be over 2400 per second with a range of over 8 km.
The DPS of a single S7 is not expected to be much greater than the combined DPS of many smaller weapons on other, smaller ships. What makes the Ares better against larger ships than, say, the Vanguard? As mentioned above, the current damage system is based purely on numerical hit points, but with the introduction of physicalized damage, larger weapons will have increased penetration. With this future addition, ship armor will essentially “shrug off” smaller rounds as they won’t have enough kinetic energy to penetrate the armor. Whilst the Vanguard may have equal DPS on paper, the S2 nose guns may not be able to penetrate larger/capital ship hulls.
How many Ares would be needed to disable a capital shield, can a single S7 do the job? Capital ships and their shields come in many shapes, sizes and types. Capital items are tailored to their ship due to lack of modularity, so there is no “standard” capital shield to measure against. Both the 890 and the Javelin are considered capital ships, but as you can imagine, they demand very different numbers to kill their shield emitters.
Speaking in more general terms, the Ares will not be able to kill a capital ship alone, but would be a good choice to bring in your fleet when trying.
In the preview video you showed an Ares with two smaller cannons. Will there be weapon variants? The preview video showed a placeholder weapon scaled up to size 7 as a reference when the ship was being designed.
Can you make the Inferno go “BRRRRRRRRRRRRT!” please? We’ll do our best, however, the RPM of the Inferno is less than an A10’s main gun, so it will feature a unique sound to Star Citizen.
The brochure says the Ares is being “designed to be scrambled from an orbiting carrier or ground base.” Does this mean that the Ares can be launched from a Polaris, 890 Jump, Idris, Javelin, or Kraken? The Javelin is currently the only Capital ship that could accommodate the Ares based on its current dimensions. The Ares is too wide to fit in the Idris, Polaris and 890 but would be able to land on the larger Kraken pads.