Cult Citizen

[icycalm]

I've skirted this subject up till now, giving only vague instructions as to the vehicles and types of vehicles each rank should buy and use. It's time now to make things systematic and concrete.

But first, take a look at our current memberlist and rank distribution: https://robertsspaceindustries.com/orgs ... LT/members



As you can see, I figured out how to edit the rank names, so now we have on our official RSI page exactly the rank names we use: Master Chief, Commander, and Inquisitor. In addition, you can see the new Clone rank, which will act as a type of Joker, since it can be used by anyone of any rank. This of course means that it must have gear of all ranks stored in its inventories. As for vehicles, the clones will mainly focus on industrial vehicles which the other ranks won't generally be buying because it's a waste of money for them when they can just hop on a clone at any time they feel like doing some work. Occasionally though, we might buy some military vehicles for the clones too, but only out of necessity, as we recently did with an A2 we bought for CULTCLONE-1. Ideally, all the Commanders would have A2s, but since during the earlygame that's tough because it's very expensive, we made an exception, and there will doubtless be more such exceptions down the line.

Also note that there is space in the ranking for two more ranks: 1-star and 4-star. I plan to eventually use the 1-star/Soldier rank for people we pick up from inside the game or places such as Reddit and Spectrum, and the 4-star for an Ubercommander/Overlord rank that will be able to operate more independently than Commanders, and take out capital ships and launch operations without my direct involvement. Also, in the future I will introduce clear guidelines and requirements on how to rank up, so that anyone can pursue that path at any time without me having to do anything or encourage anyone etc. It will almost be as if there are exams, and when you think you're ready, you'll be able to apply. In essence, ranking up in The Cult org will be yet another play loop you can pursue in Star Citizen, if you choose, exactly as with all the other loops the game features, and all the new ones that are coming in. My org's loop will be here to make your experience richer and more complex (more strategic, more tactical, more logistical, et al.) no matter your rank, because even as the lowest-ranked member, you're still benefiting from being part of a structured org instead of playing alone or with one or two casual friends. But much of this is down the future, when the game has been further developed to be more complex, and we have more players and more experience with the game (and even more resources, because those capital ships won't be buying themselves, and someone will have to pay thousands of dollars for us to get them). So for the time being, we only have the 4 ranks (including the Clones rank), and in this guide I will elaborate on how they compare in terms of the vehicles I want them to have.

Note that you don't have to buy any vehicles in order to play with us, either with cash or even with in-game credits. As long as you have your rank's Cult Gear Spec, meaning armor, weapons and so on, you can jump into any official CULT mission. You'll just have to ride along with one of us who do have vehicles. E.g. the officers' fighters tend to be two-seaters, so you can be a gunner. Or the ground vehicles usually accommodate a couple of passengers. It's just that if you have your own vehicles, your experience can be richer and more interesting; and the more of these vehicles you have—and the more expensive they are—the richer your experience can generally be. But if you haven't had time to play and earn anything on any given wipe, you are still perfectly welcome to jump in any official CULT mission, and we'll be happy to find a place for you. We can always use more warriors running around our vast fleet, and indeed we need them to operate everything to its full potential.

Finally, a word about cash purchases. The more I play the game, the better I understand what they bring to the development of the project, and to our clan, and the more I appreciate them. I now understand them to be a vital component in the development of what I call "metaverse"-type games, of which my Battlegrounds is also one, and which is the best art genre and artform. Cash "micro"-transactions are the only way such complex games with such small, niche audiences can be built and grown and maintained, since midwits which form the bulk of the population aren't interested in them. So if, like me, you plan to play Star Citizen for thousands of hours, you certainly can do that for 45 dollars, and no one will think any less of you, but realize that the value you'll be getting out of the game is more than enough to justify dropping $50 or even $100 every wipe or every other wipe. And since the vehicles listed below for every rank are way too many and too expensive to be earnable in-game per wipe, it'd be a great strategy both for you and our clan, and for the health of the game, if you bought one of them with cash per wipe or every other wipe, which would mean that in successive wipes you'd be able to acquire more and more of your spec's vehicles, and have a richer and richer experience as a result. Keep also in mind that these specs will only INCREASE in cost in the future, as more gear, vehicles, and even apartments and base components are added. You'll always be welcome in my org to run around our fleet and properties with just your Nightstalker rifle and Morningstar helmet, but if instead you saved some money by ceasing to buy midwit games on Steam that you'll never play anyway, and put that money into the greatest real-time metaverse artwork of all time, you'd have a much richer and more complex experience, and the game itself would become richer and more complex due to your additional funding contribution.





Note this is by no means all the vehicles in the game. They release about a dozen a year, and the above images are already a year or more out of date. Moreover, there are vehicles in the game that you can't buy, and they're precisely the coolest ones. The Cult Master Chief's Javelin destroyer is 470m long, but compared to the 990m Bengal carrier or 2789m Retribution which are exclusive to the UEE Navy and can't be purchased by players (and there are alien equivalents, per alien race even...), it's considered on the small side. These ships are so big that CIG needs to invent dynamic server meshing so that entire servers can be dedicated to serving a single ship, since they contain entire open-world videogame levels inside them.



And that's just the human vehicles. Check out those of one of the alien races:



Star Citizen: Vanduul "Driller" Capital Ship Reveal 4K
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X0T3KLnL9uY

This is one of the most badass ships I've seen in gaming.

if you keep making the vanduul cooler than the uee im going to start rooting for them

These Vanduul ships are looking so awesome that I am half considering defecting to their side...

This should be a GPU benchmark

The entire game is a GPU benchmarks we'll never satisfy. Id better get me an epic job ASAP because the pursuit of perfect visuals is about to go places Crysis can only dream of.

The atmosphere of this trailer is peerless!

As for when the alien ships will come into the game, first of all about half a dozen of them are already in. The rest are being currently worked on, and kept under wraps, for Squadron 42. They'll all come into the game at the same time, when SQ42 drops... in a couple of yearsTM.

So with this extensive preamble (finally) out of the way, here's what the Cult Spec Vehicle guide looks like as of this writing, on Tuesday May 9, 2023. Read it carefully, and feel free to post your comments, objections and suggestions below, and I'll be sure to take them into account when amending the specs, as I'll be doing regularly from now on.

[icycalm]

CULT MASTER CHIEF REQUIREMENTS
There are only two requirements for someone to be The Cult's Master Chief. It's pretty simple: he must be icy, and calm. That's it.

With that out of the way, let's examine what kind of hardware the Master Chief must bring to bear on the battlefield in order to uphold the valor of CULT arms, and continue its long and distinguished martial tradition.


TOTAL COST: aUEC: 48,090,327 + JAVELIN + C8R PISCES + SCORPIUS ANTARES + PAINTS / CASH: $5,703.6

Note: Everything in this spec can be purchased right now with cash, even the Javelin, which isn't implemented in the game yet. However, the named ships (plus most paints) in the equation above cannot be purchased in the in-game dealerships yet, they can only be purchased with cash, ergo the aUEC equation isn't complete. Most likely the unknown prices utterly dwarf the known balance, due to the Javelin. I am not even sure if you'll ever be able to buy the Javelin in-game. I think your reputation with the Navy has to be sky-high or something for them to sell it to you.


DESTROYER: JAVELIN aUEC: TBA / Cash: $3,000


Not in the game yet. I'll get it with cash as soon as its release date is announced. I am not holding my breath, which is why I am not scared by the cost. By the time it's out, BTC will be at 1M and I'll buy a bunch of them so we won't have to wait for days for its massive respawn time.


HEAVY EXPEDITION: CARRACK + C8R PISCES (Nightbreak) + ARROW (Light Green and Grey) + 2x ARROW (Metallic Grey) aUEC: 26,657,500 + TBA (+ N/A) + 972,300 (+ 48,000) + 2x 972,300 (+ 2x 49,500) = 26,804,500 + TBA + PAINT / Cash: $600 + $65 (+ $3.63) + $75 (+ $3.63) + 2x $75 (+ 2x $3.63) = $904.52

The Carrack is blazing fast, maneuverable, has incredible range, drones, med bay, crypto-lab with holo-display, engineering repair shop, double bridge decks, and sensors galore.

All it really lacks are missiles, but that's because it's an exploration ship, not a warship. However, so far it's the best mobile operation ship in the game, so that's how we'll use it for the time being. It's worth noting that people have done crazy stunts like put two Ballistas on it and in it (in the hangars), giving it 4x S7 + 16x S5 torpedoes, which according to experts is "shocking firepower". But we won't be pulling such ugly and gamey stunts here. We will however be pulling an elegant and natural stunt, more on which below.

All the Carrack paints sold so far are gaudy garbage. The best paint is the default one, by far. Then there is also the Expedition variant, which is a cool white with red accents that works well for the ship's intended exploration role, but for military operations, the original Carrack's paint can't be beat. So that's what CULT will use. I will be buying my Carrack with cash soonish (I've been stacking CCUs and waiting for a good opportunity for months), but until then, Adjudicator has 2 to give us. He also has an Expedition, so 3 in total. We definitely won't be running out of Carracks any time soon. Regular and Expedition Carracks are identical beyond the color by the way. Their difference lies in the snub they come with, more on which below.



The regular C8R's red paint is gorgeous, google it if you haven't seen it. But we can't be flying around a battlefield in bright red paint. If you're running medic missions on your own or with friends, go with the red, and there's also a hella cool limited edition Code Blue metallic paint which would be way less conspicuous, but we're going to war, not to rescue civilians, so we'll go with the camo-like Nightbreak that matches the default Carrack perfectly.

Why a C8R instead of a C8X? It's true that the C8X has 3 seats instead of 1 and 2 more guns, but as you'll find out below, my Carrack will be carrying 3 full-fledged light fighters, so the C8 isn't meant to be used for combat. I'd rather it be the best at its main rescue role with the medbed than use it as just another fighter, but far inferior at fighting to the rest.





Now we come to the good stuff. The Arrow used to be our light fighter of choice for the Inquisitor spec, but shubn explained to me that the Gladius is a better choice [ > ], so we went with that. But the Arrow remains both the most maneuverable fighter in the game, and the smallest light fighter. And, as it turns out, the Carrack can easily carry 3 of them! http://testsquadron.com/threads/most-wa ... ost-375091

The remarkable thing about the Carrack that is not obvious at first glance is that several ships can be perched atop the closed hangar bay and will stay put during flight. For instance, 3 Arrows can be placed up there, turning the Carrack into a small carrier. There are lots of great vids online of Carrack crew exploits, Skunk Works, the Raccoon, even a vid of a Carrack crew fending off a team of boarders and discovering how the med bay became the central target of the ship because that's where crew respawn.

If you want to see how it looks with the Arrows, we need to take a proper picture with everything in our official paints and post it here, but until then, check out this sick pic showing 2 Arrows and 1 C8 (if he folded the second Arrow's wings too, he should be able to fit a 3rd Arrow in place of the C8):



Apparently it will quantum jump fine like that, and I've even heard that ship storage and retrieval and even bed logging work fine, with the Arrows persisting, though I'll believe that when I see it. On the other hand, nothing on top of the Carrack hangar is covered by the Carrack shield. Same for the 890.

The parking on top is intended and is why the airlock is there. Just don't forget and open the hangar with anything on top or you'll end up with a lot of booms after ships dance around for a while.

The paint of the first Arrow is the Light Green and Grey to match my armor (same with the Commanders; see below), while the other two Arrows will generally be Metallic Grey to match the Inquisitor spec, unless I have two or more Commanders onboard, in which case they'll all be the officer color. The most general case though will be 1 Light Green and Grey and 2 Metallic Greys, and moreover I will make sure to personally own 3 Arrows so I can give the extra ones out to players who might not have them. Of course if you have one, and there's space for it, you'll land your own up there, and make sure to memorize which one it is, or even better take a pic, so you can fly your own when needed. Of course, there'll also be emergencies in which someone else might have to fly your Arrow, or vice versa.

With the airlock right there, you can keep your snub pilots ready in the airlock watching out the window and ready to deploy the moment they're needed, and using the exterior of the hangar vs. the interior means it's more secure for solo players, as they don't need to leave the hangar open for curious players who find the Carrack to drop in from.

You can throw a TS-2 drive on the Carrack for 90k from Cousin Crow's and have an incredibly fast response to any place in the system, I could imagine an org using this to bounty hunt players even.

So what all the above does is turn the Arrows into snubs, which is incredible especially if you consider Star Citizen snubs aren't great lookers (google "Star Citizen Merlin" to see what I mean) and even a smaller dedicated carrier like the Polaris can only carry 1 fighter. Sure, that fighter can be bigger, but 3 Arrows beat 1 Gladius any day of the week. Hell even 1 can beat it in an ace's hands. And we all know how many aces we have in CULT.

Finally, realize that we have no fewer than THREE Carracks currently, thanks to the incredible Adjudicator, and I am buying a FOURTH in the very near future. That's TWELVE Arrows we can carry around the galaxy with us (AND 4 C8Rs) on its massive quantum and hydrogen tanks. A real (makeshift) fleet. That's how we'll run raids on Pyro next year. (And keep in mind that the pilots will be flying their main fighters ALONGSIDE the Carracks; the Arrows parked on top of them will be mere backups.)


HEAVY GUNSHIP: HAMMERHEAD aUEC: 12,459,900 / Cash: $725




The biggest gunship in the game currently, so of course the Master Chief has gots to have it. None of the extra paints available for it look particularly good, but the default is kickass so I am sticking with it.


STEALTH DROPSHIP: PROWLER aUEC: 4,248,200 / Cash: $440






Alien-tech derived ship that's without a doubt the coolest ship in the game. The wings rotate down when it lands, like a bird. You should look up its trailers (both cinematic and commercial) and the dev video they released, it's the coolest vehicle in a game ever. Hell it's the coolest vehicle in reality too, the coolest ever conceptualized. Six concept artists worked on it, an artistic marvel. So of course I can't not have it. At some point our entire org will pile into it while wearing its matching custom armor (available in three colors, so we can distinguish our ranks), and we'll drop on Jumptown and scare the crap out of randoms.

There are a couple of crazy limited edition paints for this, but they are too weird for me to decide on them right now, so I'll start out with the default, and we'll try it out, and then slap on the paints over time and decide. The ones I have my mind on have also matching alien fighters, but I am not sure what we can do with those and how we could integrate them into the spec, since we're already set on all our fighters. Alien or alien-derived ships in general are something none of us has looked into yet, and I have no doubt we'll spend years getting to know them and weighing their pros and cons compared to the human ships. For now, this will be the only alien or alien-derived ship in our entire fleet.

The Tevarin stuff looks great, but it does fall into the trope of alien technology looking a lot like the aliens themselves despite that generally not being the case for human technology. I mean we generally wouldn't make a giant ape as a spaceship, and while ape masks might be a thing they certainly aren't the norm for headgear. Idk, just seems weird—like if we decided that German-manufactured armor would have a lederhosen aesthetic and the ship's thrusters beer-stein shape. Less believable and more of a caricature I guess. Thankfully the technical skills are there to pull it off though.

If species aren't obsessed with building things that look like them, then why do we want giant humanoid robots so badly? And also, all auto designers know that car grills and headlights need to look like specific human facial expressions. Actually a lot of our technology has subtle faces on it. Made-up alien species might take it to extremes but from an outside perspective our stuff would probably seem weird too.

HEAVY BOMBER: RETALIATOR BOMBER aUEC: 4,031,700 / Cash: $275



The images above are of the base Retaliator, not the bomber, but they don't differ much and these are way cooler than all the bomber ones I could find, so until I find better, I'll use the base ones. This must be of the bomber though:



Not much to say here, this is the ultimate bomber in the game currently, with no fewer than 6x S9 torpedoes, each of which can one-shot almost everything currently in the game. The larger ships to come will give it trouble, but for now the only thing that can stop this is fighters. So whenever I use it, I'll expect solid fighter escort from the rest of the org.


HEAVY FIGHTER: SCORPIUS ANTARES (Blight) aUEC: TBA (+ N/A) / Cash: $230 (+ $9.08) = $239.08


The pictured ship is the regular Scorpius, but it's the only pic I could find with the Blight paint. Why did I switch from the expensive limited edition Stinger paint to the Blight? Because this one is a similar military green to my armor. I'll keep the Stinger for solo unofficial outings, but for official missions I'll use the Blight because it just matches everything else in my spec, and ultimately all the other specs (the Commanders have military green armor too, for example).

I chose the Antares version because of its EMP device and quantum jammer that will give me some more options on the battlefield even when we aren't bringing a dedicated interdiction ship along. It's true that you need a copilot to use these functions, but since they only use a couple of keys it's easy enough to drop a clone on a laptop in the copilot's seat and take care of it myself without tying down an extra precious player, something I can't do in the regular Scorpius with its complex turret, which is entirely wasted when I lack a copilot.


HEAVY TANK: NOVA aUEC: 546,027 / Cash: $120



The enormous Nova tank is just what the doctor ordered for the Master Chief. It can one-shot many ships parked on the ground, as we found out at Jumptown, and can basically one-shot every ground vehicle in the game so far. If CIG somehow puts in a bigger, badder ground vehicle than this, I'll grab it and hand this down to the next rank after me, but for now it stays with me, though I will be giving it out to Commanders when I am occupied elsewhere and we just need to have one or more tanks on the ground.

Note how well its default paint goes with my choice of fighter paints, both for the Scorpius Antares and the Arrow, and of course with my armor. The optional paints are good, but the default is the best.

[icycalm]

I am locking this thread until I have posted all the ranks, which will take me a few weeks. I plan to post roughly one a week for the next month or so. If you think of comments to make during this time, note them down and save them for when I am finished, and I unlock the thread.

If you have something urgent to note in the meantime, some howler I might have committed, post it in the #general-chat channel of the Cult Citizen section of our Discord.