Star Citizen | Behind the Ships: RSI Perseus

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   RSI Perseus is a big ship for big fights, but you're not quite ready for capitals yet. >> It's a heavy gunship that focuses on heavy turret firepower. A gunship is a ship that's capable of engaging and targeting other ships at the same time, which provides a way for players to take control of an area and engage multiple threats simultaneously rather than having to dog fight and focus on one at a time. >> So, a heavy gunship is when the ship gets a little bit more bulky, gets a lot more defensive, and is designed to tackle a bit bigger force. >> Some of the larger threats it's ideal for targeting would be things like constellations and that sort of size ships. The RSI Perseus is like a classic RSI design. It's a really large, long, very menacing

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   looking ship. We've got this pointy nose. You've got the bridge just behind the center line, so it echoes that classic warship aesthetic entirely. It really feels like a a solid ship able to go into battle and well protected. It's heavy duty and it looks badass. the thrusters on the rear. Again, we've built on what RSI is known for with these kind of large thrusters that are out on the cells at either side. Back when we introduced the Perseus as a concept, its role in the game was to be a sort of mirror of the Aegis Hammerhead where the Hammerhead was designed as a heavy gunship for screening smaller fightercraft whereas the Perseus was for engaging larger threats. So, when the

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   Perseus was originally announced, it had size seven weapons. As times went on and other larger ships have entered the game, we felt it didn't fit the rule well enough anymore to be size sevens. That's why it's been upgraded to size A weapons. These are manned and capable of full 360 traversal. And then there's a slew of point defense turrets throughout the ship as well to provide protection against incoming missiles and torpedoes. and they're fully interchangeable like all the other PDTs in game such as the missile one that came out with the address K along with the ballistic gatling variant that's come with the MDC in a few days were also smaller size three remote turrets that can be controlled from the bridge >> that was a juggling act because that was not in the concept so we had to incorporate all of those weapons together but not break the silhouette of

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   the concept in a in a destructive way so I think we maintained the silhouette generally, but also added the necessary functionality to match the expected turret experience that came from Squadron. There was a lot of moving parts, pun intended, with that where the whole turret had to literally extend when you sit in it for the fact that the seat and the turret pivots needed to be lined up on the Yaxis. So that's why they transform once you sit in them. The player won't notice, but that was to actually make it so the pivots line up. So when you tilt your seat, your seat is tilting at the same angle as the turret that's next to you. >> We tried three Perseus against the Polaris and they did extremely well because the Polaris's major punch is the torpedo whereas the Perseus's major

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   punch is are the guns and the guns have no range limit. So you just go right down the throat of the Polaris and you're pummeling it and we destroyed it quite quickly. You can't really be stopped. But the person who does that, >> don't say it. Don't say you can't really be stopped because you say that and then they're going to nerf it 5 days later. >> Okay. You can be stopped by good tactics and smart attitude. >> This is what I have to work with people. >> So there are multiple different ways to end to the Perseus. All of them will connect you into the hole, but all come with different pros and cons. So you have the docking collar which allows you to connect to stations. You have the personnel lift which allows you to enter the ship without depressurizing the

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   cargo hold. And then you have the main lift that you can put people or vehicles on to get up to the actual ship. All of them bring you into the large cargo hold area that let you quickly navigate to the other parts of the ship. Compared to the original concept, we've made some minor interior changes just to improve the flow throughout the ship. Sometimes what we find is when we're tackling the ships with a large interior space, we want to make sure that the interior has all the functionality that we want and sometimes that does have some layout changes. The cargo bay since the concept has been increased to 96 SCU and the layout of it is pretty favorable in terms of putting vehicles in. You can put things up to say roversiz vehicles in there and this does allow you to run cargo missions although that is not the ideal role of this ship

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   >> in this space. We really tried to convey the strength of the ship. So, one of the things that we evolved slightly from the original concept was these large structural beams. They tie the walls, the floors, the ceilings all together, and they give a little bit of a skeleton to the ship. It really conveys that no matter where it takes a hit, it's it's going to survive. >> I love the nautical theme to it. And we tried to create that aesthetic inside the ship where we labeled everything similar to an actual military ship. When I toured the Midway down in San Diego and when I was visiting the Bar Citizen, I met a lot of former Navy guys and they said, "Yeah, we have, you know, labels and arrows pointing every which way. So when you're in a big ship, you never get lost. I'm the one who put in the basketball hoop."

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   >> Why? >> Yeah, cuz the concept artist had this, you know, this hairbrain scheme and hopefully the fans will will make use of it. I mean, I was able to shoot hoops successfully in there. If you turn left in the cargo area, right in front of you, you've got the torpedo loading areas. So on the lower deck, that is where you access actually loading the torpedoes in. We changed the concept entirely. Instead of an enclosed device, it's an open bay where it's this Vshape and you can load all 20 and visibly see every single torpedo. The reasoning is is versus the Polaris where that system you sort of load the torpedoes but then it goes it tucks under and then you can't see them anymore that interfered with the ability to unload and reload them. So that was the critical um change versus the the

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   Polaris >> and then on the upper deck that's where you have the fire control. That full section there is really kind of dedicated to just blowing things up. I think it's very atmospheric in there. It feels like you're really in the heart of this big machine. Slightly further ahead of that, you've then got the turret access and that gives you access to one of the man turrets. If you're in the cargo area, you turn towards the rear of the ship. On the lower deck, we've got the engineering area. That's where you've got all your core important ship items that allow the ship to function. On the middle floor of the rear of the ship is where our habitation area is. It's got a shared bunk area, typical of what you would expect on a military ship. And then off of this area, we've got a small bathroom. And then we've

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    also got some storage for your weapons and also your armors. So at the top of the ship, we've got the captain's quarters. Right in the heart of operations, so they can go straight out of the the captain's quarters and straight into the bridge. and a new entrance exit air lock behind the bridge protected by three doors for security for quicker EVA access. >> What do you expect to happen on this thing? >> What do I expect to happen on this >> That you have increased security on the bridge. >> They added a door behind the bridge cuz I got bored of getting out of the ship and taking forever. But then I pointed out you just put a weak spot right behind the bridge. So they put three doors. You have to breach three doors to get through. So, it's not easy to get in, but easy to get out. >> And then at the front, obviously, we've

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    got the main flight deck. >> The bridge has three seats, one gunner, one co-pilot, and the pilot one. It has a really nice view when you get on the pilot seat, and it slides up and forward. And you can see this giant turret in front of the ship. That's really cool. >> It's very reminiscent to old battleships. You've got views all around the front half of the ship. So, it's a really nice place to be. I think the ship's great. I think the North American team did a fantastic job of looking at what we delivered with the Polaris and taking on board some of the feedback. I know there was a lot of feedback around navigation and signage and, you know, set a really nice standard of we've listened and this is kind of, you know, the new and improved. I think it's going to be a combat defining ship.

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    We're going to see a big change in the way that people fight each other. It's a ship designed to actually put pressure on some of the larger ships if you crew them. I'm super excited to see how the Perseus and Namad work together next year in the upcoming tactical strike groups. The ship's almost designed to work in tandem with each other. >> Across the board, very happy with it. >> It's been quite a long- aaited concept to in-game and I think we've massively improved upon what was originally promised and just the styling of it is just cool.