Aurora Rain - Ship Talk #2

"Aurora. Its very name signifies the power of an entire Squadron united in common fun. Alone they are weak, scattered, and insignificant, but together form a mighty torrent of firepower unmatched." - Accurate TEST Recruitment Information

Our Flagship in all its beauty

My Thoughts on the ships(Aurora ES, LX, MR, CL, and LN)

Full Stats Picture



Descriptions and Roles(NEW!)

ps I know the pic says Focus instead of Role but the plural of Focus(Foci) just sounds awful when read over and over.

Structural and Propulsion

Weapons

Equipment

The Long and Short

Continued below....

First things first. Welcome to another edition of Ship Talk. For those new to this, don't worry, this is only the 2nd one I've done. Ship Talk is me taking the current on paper stats for a group of similar ships either by hull or role, analyzing them, and giving my own thoughts on how they compare to each other. The first Ship Talk dealt with Exploration Ships which you can find here. The 3rd edition will be 'Fighters'. More information on that can be found at the end of this Talk. To be clear the following is just my thoughts and how I see these ships as they currently are and and drawing logical conclusions based on those listed attributes.Right now we have a good set of ships that are flyable. We have others that are in the Hangar and/or almost ready to go while we have even more in concept and design. All of these ships have vital roles in our org's rise to the top but today we will talk about a ship that has been essential to TEST Squadron from the very beginning: The Aurora.Currently there are 5 versions of the Aurora, each with slightly different roles but they all share several common attributes being based on the same hull which you'll see in the pictures below. Roles range from the simple starter to exploration, interdiction, mercantile and militia/patrol. The RSI Aurora is one of 3 'starter' ships alongside the Consolidated Outland Mustang and MISC Reliant and is meant for new players to start making their way in the 'verse. Let's get started shall we?First let me acknowledge again that these stats and listed equipment are all subject to change. However, unless something drastic occurs in testing I would expect these stats to still give a good general direction and capability for each ship. Below is a link to a composite picture I made with all the stats listed from the RSI site:First topic to talk about will be looking at the descriptions and roles of the Auroras with the ES(Essential) being the basic model. The ES or Essential Aurora bills itself as a starter utilitarian spacecraft with room to upgrade. This goes hand in hand with its role as a starter ship that can also do some light exploring if you were to upgrade it. The next one in line is the Aurora LX or Deluxe. The LX also bills itself as an explorer but also includes light mercantile. Though surely a bit more expensive the LX can take care of itself and could function as a good shuttle, able to get you from Point to point provided you refuel often. The 3rd Aurora is the Aurora MR or Marque. I'll admit the role being listed as interdiction confused me at first having played Eve Online where interdiction was stopping people from going to warp. Having time to think.....it still confuses me.The 4th Variant is the CL or clipper and is a dedicated mercantile vessel. Aptly named the CL has a much larger cargo hold that a person can use to haul essential items to waiting buyers while saving up for a bigger and better ship. "Tough little ship" may describe the LN or Legionnaire the best. Equipped with a larger shield and an additional pair of weapons over the other variants the LN is built for Militia and Patrol duties and it fits this to a T. If you want to fight in a relatively cheap ship the LN may be for you.Because these ships are all in the Aurora series, many attributes will be the same with minor variations so there won't be as much to talk about here as there was on the Explorer ships which were all radically different from one another. Still I will highlight differences and provide some comments on noteworthy attributes. Starting at the top in Measurements we see.....the same thing all the way across....until we get to the Aurora LN which has more mass than the other variants. This may be due to the more advanced shield along with 8 thrusters instead of 6 being present.Moving down the list to Structural we get to cargo space. All variants have 16 freight units of cargo space except the Clipper which has 36. This makes sense due to the Clipper being described as a dedicated mercantile vessel. It sacrifices in other areas for this but makes up for it in having more than 2x the cargo of the others. From here several attributes are the same even though different named equipment is used. The ship is a single seater, max power plant of 2, and has a single engine that is rated as a TR3. This is not surprising as they are all Auroras.Thrusters offer some more differences and we start to see why some variants are named what they are aside from the Clipper above. From left to right we see that the LX and LN have 8 TR1 thrusters while the others have 6. The LX is understandable because it is supposed to be a deluxe variation of the basic Essential Model. The Legionnaire being a Militia/Patrol ship would need additional maneuverability to survive fights against pirates or aliens while making its rounds.Finally we come to shields. Aside from the ES and LN all the Auroras have only a class 2 shield while the ES and LN have a class 3. This makes sense. The ES is the most basic starter ship and to help new people they gave it a slightly stronger shield so they would last longer in a fight and be more forgiving of pilot error. The LN is more of a fighting ship meant for direct engagements and needs a stronger shield to compete against the greater firepower of larger ships.Moving down are the weapons. This is a bit more disappointing because only the LN offers any significant change to the weaponry presented. The Clipper despite saying it gives up some capability can still mount the same weapons as the others with the exception of the aforementioned LN. The only change here may be their cooling systems(not listen in specs of course). The MR or Marque mentions a more advanced cooling system than the others which may let it fire more often. Adding to my earlier confusion about the MR and its supposed role of Interdiction is it doesn't seem to offer anything over the others in terms of weaponry or maneuverability that would make it stand out on its own.Coming to the end of the line we have the Legionnaire which has the most firepower given its role and status. It is also painted Yellow which in itself is the most powerful weapon it or any other ship can wield. The LN of course gets an additional pair of guns of Size 3. This can be difficult to balance because the guns undoubtedly draw power, cooling, and CPU cycles away from other systems so putting the biggest weapons all hard points may come with other drawbacks and lead to overheating.Rounding out the end of the stats is the special equipment each ship comes standard with. It isn't much. Each Aurora can be equipped with an underside Mini container while the CL gets what is called the Big Box(model a) that has increased storage capability. The LX come stock with its own dedicated jump engine making it a promising choice for a personal shuttlecraft. The CL on the other hand throws a curve ball in that it is equipped with a jump scanner in addition to its Big Box. This is an interesting choice for sure that I will get into further down.I should note that this is only the stock equipment that you get when you first buy it. Upgrade opportunities such as jump engines will be present for most if not all ships that lack one at the beginning if you desire that kind of mobility.I apologize but these won't be as long for each ship as the Exploration ships were due to them sharing a hull and being so similar whereas the Exploration Ships were all radically different in size and capability.The first of the listed Auroras and is also what I would consider the 'base' model. True to its description it is a utilitarian ship with room for upgrades. 'Cheap' would be a good descriptor until we get to the Mustang which is supposed to be even less expensive. If you're looking for a small ship that can take a beating you can't go wrong with the Aurora Essential. Together a couple dozen of these will be able to gang up on a smaller group of larger ships and make them think twice before blasting them into scrap.