I spent some time today browsing the Static Data Dump (aka Crystal Ball). I was looking for clues about Nestor, the Sisters of EVE unique battleship (CCP has shown two images of it on their Facebook profile).
I found something else entirely:
Looks like a Minmatar Shuttle, right? Well, yeah, almost. It’s slightly darker, but apart from that, it looks just like a regular shuttle.
Description does not shed much light either:
Rumor has it the Leopard originated as a secret project in the Minmatar Republic. In their endless battle against enslavement by the Amarr Empire, the Minmatar have had to develop ways not only to liberate large masses of their people, but also to sneak in and capture individuals of high strategic importance.
These kinds of black ops search-and-rescue missions might be executed for key people who were held by the enemy and possessed either special qualities the resistance needed, or information the Republic couldn’t afford having tortured out of them. It’s notable that these individuals might not all have been Minmatar, and that the resistance movement is unlikely to have restrained itself from using the same methods on key Amarr people they’d captured with the help of the Leopard.
It is an extremely fast ship, meant for quick and stealthy getaways, and while its origins are covered in rumors, chances are the Minmatar leaked it to the capsuleers in order to curry favor with them.
Still following me? At this point I thought there is nothing special about this ship, besides it’s darker skin. And then I looked at the statistics, and I was literally blown away:
Ship warp speed: 20.00 AU/s
Damn, that thing is lightning fast! Tech II rigged interceptors (w/o implants) can reach 12,5 AU/s top speed, and this incredibly fast already. This shuttle is still another 50% faster!
I don’t know about you guys, but I definitely want one!
More reading:
- Leopard in LMeve Item Database (includes stats and 3D preview)
Engineers at Project Crielere have proven, that this warp drive design creates too much interference for cloaking devices to operate properly at FTL speeds. First stealth generators used meta-materials to make the ship invisible in a specific band of electromagnetic spectrum (usually infrared or visible light). The ship was however still visible in other EM bands, for example microwave or gamma. Historically the second and currently used approach relies on a series of graviton pulse generators in order to create a gravity lens around the ship. This causes all electromagnetic radiation to be bent around the vessel, making it undetectable in any and all EM bands. The effect of the lens also shields the ship emissions by containing them inside the graviton bubble (using complete internal reflection). In order to keep the graviton generators synchronised and create a stable lens around the ship, ship’s computer must calculate the model of the gravity lens in real time. While the model is rather simple when the ship is stationary, it becomes increasingly difficult when the vessel begins to move. All matter that comes through the graviton bubble, including space dust and the ship thruster emissions causes unwanted interference, which ship’s computer needs to take into account when calculating the bubble model. However, when the ship enters the depleted vacuum bubble, the equations in the model change in an non-linear way, making it impossible for classic and photonic electronics to provide a solution.
Engineers at Project Crielere eventually came up with an elegant quantum algorithm that can still provide a solution at FTL speeds, but it means a quantum computer hardware is required to solve the equations. This specialized hardware has been successfully installed into several classes of ships, including Recon cruisers and Blockade Runner industrials, but is generally unsuitable for most vessels, because it requires substantial customization. It also makes it nearly impossible to use on bigger ships, such as Black Ops battleships.
By moving the warp drive polar dishes outside of the hull into a circular ring-like structure, Sanctuary engineers have removed the effect of depleted vacuum from the graviton bubble equations, making it possible to be calculated without specialized hardware. It is still unknown how exactly this circular structure actually creates depleted vacuum, because the electronics which does all the calculations is protected by advanced tamper-proof chips. Sisters of EVE also forbid the owners from tampering with the technology, voiding the warranty if external tampering is detected, and stating it that using the drive after it was modified will cause fatal injuries to those on board. I however believe it is only a matter of time until some intrepid hacker jailbreaks the electronic systems in the ring polar dishes, and reverse engineers the mathematics that make it work. This lets me believe that by applying this technology to a battleship-class hull could allow even the biggest of vessels to use cloaking technology at FTL speeds. It opens the possibility for The Sanctuary to develop a covert battleship vessel as well, which is currently unconfirmed, but theoretically possible.
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