New *Testbed* Ship in 1.6: 'Cyclone' Corvette

[AStrangeMonkey]

The “Cyclone” Corvette

Bigger is not necessarily always better, at least not when it comes to ships. Though it can be argued that the seas will always belong to leviathans, there will always be room for the smaller predators to feed.

Enter in the “Cyclone” a refitted Mastercrafted Locust; carrying four more cannons heavier cannon, sturdier broadsides and thicker sails than her predecessor. Being capable of carrying 160 men at arms within her holds, she will also prove quite deadly in the hands of captains’ renown for their boarding actions. She even has the capacity to hold 175 tons of cargo, making long expeditions viable for the captain longing to roam the seas.

As with all ships to be presented in patch 1.6, the “Cyclone” corvette holds great promise for any captain worth their salt. Because why use a cutlass to do the job when a dagger will do just as well?

[lincolnc]

The Cyclone

This is one fierce boat. As a refit of the Locust Corvette, it handles nicely. It's been upgunned (24x9lb instead of the old 16x7lbs). A whopping boost of 50%+ to armor and structure. 48 Def. This is a small boat designed to kill ships. 15.5 kts with a 12.15 turn rate makes this an excellent choice for those small boat squadrons out there. Want to take out a 'Hercules' Heavy with a small boat group? The 'Cyclone' is your boat.

I would definitely include it in a group of cutters or sloops as possibly the bruiser. It's not designed to be a tackler, and likely wouldn't make a good bait ship. But, as for hulling the enemy and such, this ship would be a valuable asset, especially coupled with the Van Hoorn MC.

Bring on the wolfpacks!

[Sir Trafalgar]

I hear a storm brewing on the horizion! It is not a Hurricane but a ship that moves in the oppisite way of a Hurricane. It is a Cyclone, this level 50 ship is based on the Locust. Yes you heard right a Level 50 refit of a Level 17 ship, its oppisite of logic! There is more though she has heavier guns,more of them and, she has more armor than god in a standard Locust! What isn't there to love about this ship? A Corvette that can go toe to toe with Frigates, well I suppose if your the captian of that Frigate you may not love this ship so much!

I can see this ship being the first wave of a storm of ships landing in the Burning Sea, ships that defy reason, logic and ships that can take down beast many times their size!

None should laugh at the size of this ship if they make that mistake they will find themselvs swept away and stranded on a far away shore.

[Taelorn]

Now that the Boarding Party has introduced the ship, I'm going to add some additional information.

This is an experiment we're trying on testbed in 1.6. This ship will be hitting testbed in 1.6, but it will not be accessible on the live servers. So, the first level 50 medium ship will be serving an extended sentence on testbed.

We're going to use player feedback to determine the fate of the ship. Give it a whirl on testbed and let us know what you think. We'll be monitoring the ships performance and evaluating the feedback to decide whether this should become accessible in build 1.7.

[Leprekan]

Starting defense of 48? YAY! A new ship to be abused by level 50s pushing it to around 100 defense. Seriously, are you people trying to promote time griefing?

[Wintersdark]

Oh, damn you. *shakes fist* I've been contemplating resubbing for a while now, and I'll just have to do it now. Damn rights I'm gonna check out a level 50 medium ship!


I <3 small ships.

[Adythiel]

Originally Posted by Leprekan Starting defense of 48? YAY! A new ship to be abused by level 50s pushing it to around 100 defense. Seriously, are you people trying to promote time griefing?

That is specifically why this one is only on Testbed and won't go live with 1.6. It is experimental and most likely will see some pretty significant stat changes.

[Wintersdark]

So long as they don't make really fast ships as smaller 50 ships, all should be good. I'd be really, REALLY concerned if there were very fast small and medium level 50 ships, though.

I'm not seeing how more potent versions of things like Locusts really will work towards griefing, though. After all, it's a level 50 ship and thus worth full MoV's to kill, and Locusts - while not slow - are not nearly as adept at that sort of thing as the existing, lower level speedboats are.


That said, I do have a twinge of fear that high level small/medium boats will break what could otherwise be really awesome small-boat PvP (assuming some form of shallows system is ever implemented) by turning it - like OS PvP - into a be level 50 or go home thing. A big part of the magic of small boat PvP is that level is much less important.

[kungtotte]

The defense needs to go down, but outside of that it needs to be tested to make any kind of judgment.

As a frame of reference, a cutthroat would hit 66 defense in this thing. A freetrader would hit 75.

And this is before any motion penalties are factored in.

[Adythiel]

Yeah, this one was specifically classified as experimental during the preview and why it won't be going live with 1.6. I think FLS is trying to add in some viable smaller ships that can compete with the larger ships without being too overpowered. I fully expect this ship to go through multiple iterations. I plan to scrap a couple of ships when 1.6 goes live on TB so I can load one up and see how it performs. Doing just this is going to be the best thing we can do to help make sure it is a great, but not overpowered, ship.