The MISC Reliant - Ship Talk Commentary #3

Ship Background and Other Info

"New for model year 2946, it’s the MISC Reliant! Following on the success of the Freelancer “Built for Life” campaign, MISC has begun development of a smaller, introductory-class spacecraft that can be operated by a single pilot. Although roughly designed to compete with the RSI Aurora and the Consolidated Outland Mustang, the Reliant is a very different animal. From the broad, sleek wings to the multiple flight modes and the second, fully-articulated crew seat, the Reliant is a small ship with a great deal of potential!



The MISC Reliant makes copious use of Xi’An technology, the most ever applied to a human ship design. From a moving cockpit that slots into place depending on the flight mode to omni-directional thrusters licensed under trade agreement with Aopoa, the Reliant is one of the most ‘high tech’ ships on the market today! Advanced Xi’An metal composites make up the armored wingspan, and every control surface has been meticulously updated from those developed for the Freelancer by MISC’s internal xenotech team.



A flying wing… or is it? The Reliant changes from horizontal to vertical flight modes at the touch of a button! With a larger cargo hold than the Aurora ES or the Mustang Alpha, the Reliant is a natural choice for anyone engaging in short-haul shipping. And that cargo space also means there’s plenty of internal room to expand, allowing the placement of medical systems, weapons racks and more. Ultimately, though, the Reliant is no transport: it’s a sleek and maneuverable utility ship more than capable of holding its own during combat!"

The Look

Description and Role

Structural, Propulsion, Weapons and Equipment

Welcome back to Ship Talk Commentary. This is where I take a newly released concept ship and focus on it. There will not be any direct stat for stat comparisons to other ships in these STCs. They need to fly or crash on their own with what they are given. Now I was asked to do a Ship Talk on the Starter Ships themselves and that is coming in the days after this is posted and before the sale ends.Even from the preview on Around the Verse I didn't know what to expect for the Reliant but I like this ship.....a lot. I mean I REALLY like it. The main page for the Reliant can be found here and I suggest you read it if you have not because it contains some good background information on the ship's design and some cool bits at the bottom which I'll get to that I'm even MORE excited about.From the Reliant Page:Let us start with this. First of all when we are voting for the 3rd starter ship there wasn't a role assigned to it. The others clearly spelled out what they could do but not the Reliant so it was a chance vote. However the promise of a 2nd seat + Xi'an tech was enough to win and we got the Reliant. So the Reliant was in limbo for a while until someone was hired to do the concept for it. The only hint we had had was that it was someone who had done previous concepts for CIG. Turns out that David Hobbins is now doing contract work again for CIG in his spare time and he was handed the Reliant.Now from the background information above you will see that while the Reliant is made to compete with the Aurora and Mustang it is very different and a step above them in many ways which we'll get to. The Xi'an technology used is mostly under-the-hood but it comes through in some ways. The vertical flight mode, the thrusters, and the general look of the ship etc. You see the technology if you look hard enough. The flight modes(horizontal and vertical) each have different pros and cons but one thing you can't do is access the cargo hold while flying vertical. You also need to be Horizontal in order to land and fold the wings up for hangar storage.The Reliant is being referred to as a 'Tier 2' starter ship. What does this mean? We don't know. Maybe the 300i is a Tier 2 starter or maybe this is a completely new start for CIG when it comes to ship classification and we may see others included in the 'Tier 2' area such as the Dragonfly or Terrapin. It's role is that of a transport but there is copious room for upgrades if you take the cargo out. It mentions medical and combat systems for possible upgrades. This paints a good picture and I think it is why a lot of people jumped on to get this ship......in addition to the LTI.Like I said before I didn't know what to expect even with the early concepts they threw out on AtV or the sneak peek at the end which has the silhouette from a top down view with a manta ray next to it(I think that's what it is). But then the sale went up(and it went up EARLY which is very unusual). I think the ship looks beautiful and even before reading about it I knew I was going to get one. The transformation from Horizontal to Vertical was done well. The cockpit looks beautiful, lots of room to look around up and down and side to side. I like the antenna sticking out from above the cockpit in vertical mode.Now I know what you're thinking those of you who have seen and follow Star Wars it looks like cross between a B-Wing and a T-6 shuttle but more angled. That's fine and I've seen those comparisons a lot on the RSI forum and it doesn't bother me. It looks fairly unique in its own way even if David has been chest deep in Star Wars these past few months working on Ep 7. The B-Wing is the first thing that came to my mind with the bottom gimbal as it is. As soon as I saw the design though I knew I was getting at least one, maybe 2 but I ended up with 3 :).It is noteworthy that the ship is a good bit wider(longer depending on mode) than any other starter ship. It is roughly 2 landed Mustangs wide when landed and the wings out. Folded up, I'm not sure how wide it is but in one of the pics you'll see the wings folded up for hangar storage. I even like the color because you just don't see blue too often even if white(gray?) is the primary color on this. The blue still takes up a lot of surface area.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 overall 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:So without realizing it I pretty much did the description already above. Not my fault, they usually put a different description on the spec page for these. Let's talk about the Role of this ship. It is classified as a 'Mini-Hauler'. While I don't dislike this, and indeed I think there needs to be a low end hauler of some kind so people can get into that profession.......there was the Aurora CL already that did that just fine so this irks me a bit. You could say that the CL is a 'Tier 1' hauler while the 'Tier 2' would be the Reliant and this makes some sense but the fact remains.So back to comparing the Reliant and the Aurora CL on cargo capacity. the CL has 23 and the Reliant at this time has 30 which is a clear difference. Maybe the Reliant is 2x as expensive as the CL in the universe, who knows. You gain about 30% more capacity with the Reliant among other things. The Reliant crew is made up of 2 people. I think this is one of the best parts of the ship because it allows for the learning of multi-crew on a relatively cheap platform as opposed to a Super Hornet or Gladiator.A max power plant size is not listed however the Reliant concept page lists a size 2 with the max to be determined. Take this one with even more a grain of salt than the other stats. I hope the max will be a Size 3. For the engines we have 2 TR1 engines. This seems slow but the speed they are shooting for is between an Aurora and a Mustang so make of that what you will. Engines made by aliens may be much better than human engines so we shouldn't judge this one too early because the current null mass above this is huge. I am personally hoping for a fairly speedy ship.For thrusters you get 12 TR1s which should allow for some very crazy maneuvers. The maximum shield is also not listed but on the concept page it lists a Size 3 shield which would give it a great deal of staying power compared to other similar ships.