It’s an intelligence ship its best defense is, in fact, intelligence. The Terrapin is designed for military long-endurance recon. Can you explain in more detail what this means? In part 1 it mentioned that the Terrapin was better off running from a battle than it is standing its ground in a dogfight. They’ll help you realize the Terrapin’s full potential. The Terrapin may not have been “designed” as a stealth ship, but these principles really apply to this ship. And while the Terrapin’s shields might be down, its heavy armor makes it much more resilient to harm if surprised than a lighter ship would be in the same situation. ![]() In short, when a Terrapin crew is “stalking” or “shadowing” enemy movement, not only would a good crew attenuate the ship’s energy signature, the Terrapin’s sensors have a pretty good shot at picking up a small signature farther away than an actively hunting fighter would be able to detect a savvy Terrapin. It’s easy to forget when you’re playing Arena Commander, where combat is direct and you have all of your systems pouring energy into weapons and shields and building up active heat all of the time. This is an aspect of our intended stealth and signature gameplay in general, but the Terrapin’s capabilities bring this into very sharp relief. Almost every ship will have a larger signature when its power plant and shield generator are running hot the Terrapin may have the signature of a larger ship when its shields are up, but not so much when the shields are down and the power plant dialed back – a common occurrence when the Terrapin and its crew are “listening” as opposed to fighting. It’s worth noting that you can affect your craft’s signature by choosing which systems to power up or down. In terms of detection, we’ve noted some backers asking whether the Terrapin can do its job and keep tabs on enemies from a distance, even though in operation it might have a large signature. A present day analog might be support or scout helicopters that some armies use in conjunction with helo gunships. Current ideas include some command, control, and communications equipment that would allow the Terrapin to take particular advantage of its optional two-man crew to help oversee and direct group fighter combat without being as vulnerable as a traditional AWACS. While the utility mounts are specced and rated primarily for sensors and scanners, we’re exploring the possibility of other options for those mounts. While purpose built for recon, overwatch, and picket duty, the military makes good use of whatever is available, so the Terrapin’s supplemental military roles as an S&R ship or makeshift troop transport arose as a matter of need, in situations where the tried-and-true Argo wasn’t sufficiently robust for service under fire. The Terrapin’s long endurance, advanced sensor suite, and range play to this aspect of exploration, whereas other explorers like the Freelancer DUR sometimes focus more on collecting trinkets, incidental salvage, and other physical items to supplement their exploration runs. These capabilities lend themselves to civilian use as an explorer, particularly where a private operator principally gathers and sells information, point of interest data, risky deep scans of hostile environments, and survey data for a living, as opposed to collecting tangibles for sale. ![]() The Terrapin was designed first and foremost for the UEE Military to provide overwatch, long-endurance picket, and reconnaissance capabilities to the fleet, as well as extend the Navy’s ability to provide a patrol presence to border systems that couldn’t be allocated capital ships or large fighter garrisons for defense. Question & Answer What do you envision Anvil Terrapin gameplay to be like? Special thanks to Will Maiden, John Crewe, Steven Kam, and Todd Papy for taking the time to answer these questions for us. Since last Friday, we’ve been collecting questions from the dedicated Q&A post here and today our designers working on the ship will answer 12 more questions! We are very excited to discuss this ship in more detail, so let’s jump right into part 2! Anvil Terrapin - Concept Art Greetings Citizens,Īnother Concept Sale, another Question & Answer session.
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