Been meaning to go through this thread for a while now, and I have to say that this is absolutely amazing to read. Well done, Uriel!
Though I do question why the Drifters would use T1+2 when they’re so much more advanced than the rest of New Eden. IMHO the Triglavians shouldn’t be used as a basis for what these ships would be like since they put in the time and effort to create blueprints and skillbooks that are compatible with New Eden’s fabricators and training hardware.
I mean, think about it: ships with literal black holes as their reactors shouldn’t be something New Eden can build without significantly gimping their capabilities, and that when the Triglavians aren’t doing a “cladistic proving” their ships would be just as nasty to fight as the old Jove vessels were back when the devs still flew them around. I hear that whenever their ships showed up in-game they’d only be fit with T2 modules at best, and even the frigates could beat the piss out of entire capsuleer fleets!
Takmahl aside, Precursor ships ought to be Tech 4-5 at minimum and require multiple cannibalized and reverse-engineered parts to create, both to make sure they’re rare as hell (at first) and reflect just how damn advanced these people were. IIRC a player managed to get their hands on a Visitant BP which showed the ship as Tech 5 (which required just tritanium to build, strangely enough), and then there was the Nibelung miner incident.
It’s a pity that Eve Online Ships doesn’t have the old Directorate vessels listed on the Jove Empire’s page. They’ve got a bunch of other stuff that was removed from the game, like the two frigates that the Apotheosis and Sunesis were made from. The Wikia also has them listed but I don’t know how accurate their info is.
Oh, I like this, I like it a lot! What made you pick those names for the Talocan and Takmahl ships? I recognize the former as Mesoamerican in origin but am drawing a blank on the latter.
I’m also wondering how they would be introduced to the game? A single “Precursor” skillbook that lets you pilot ships from no less than five different races seems pretty farfetched and lore-breaking to me, so I think it would be better if the Precursor ship skillbooks were a prerequisite for the skills needed to pilot Jove, Drifter/Sleeper, Yan Jung, Talocan, and standard Triglavian ships.
It would also be necessary to explain how New Eden is suddenly making leaps and bounds in reverse-engineering ancient technology that the empires have had access to for a while, but I think that will be relatively easy.
The Triglavian ships New Eden has been building coupled with the skillbooks the Triglavians have so helpfully provided will have served as stepping stones into furthering the empires’ understanding of technologies they have multiple examples of in varying levels of repair and functionality.
Until now they could barely make headway in understanding it beyond creating blueprints for modules kludged together using ancient artifacts but with the Triglavian technology now entering New Eden serving as an intermediate step, the Empires’ research efforts into ancient technologies are finally beginning to make headway.
They’re not the only ones who have benefitted from this. On the other side of the law, there have been reports of Serpentis researchers being funneled to some obscure location in the Curse region, and investigations finally unveil what that place is, simultaneously answering many questions about the Angel Cartel’s suspiciously advanced ships and how the Serpentis Corporation was able to create the Asklepian implants using what was recently revealed to be Drifter technology, as well as giving every government across the face of New Eden something they thought restricted to their nightmares.
After all, what better people to ask for reverse-engineering precursor technology than the ones who have been doing it for decades in the old Jove station they found?
Naturally, this lights a fire under all the other factions in New Eden, and they waste no time in putting a bounty on any information that can be gained from the Angels and Serpentis regarding Jove and Drifter technology. Unfortunately for the capsuleers looking to plunder what they think will be relatively easy pickings, the Angels have just rolled out some new ships to contest their attacks, along with three very powerful older models that haven’t been seen in a decade.
You see, back in the day Angel Cartel ships were intended to be partially Jove tech, which you can see by looking at the skill requirements of the Devourer, Fury, Lynx, Medusa, and Swordspine. I would also bet that back when the Dramiel, Cynabal, and Machariel were known as the Chaos, Ghoul, and Tyrant, and the Ixion was still in the database, they all required Jove ship skills in order to fly. You can find all four listed here, though the Tyrant uses a Nightmare model for some reason. (Also, the Immolator used to be an Angel ship called the Styx, which you can see here next to the Spectre. No image, but the TypeID is the same)
The discovery of the Jove station in Curse would coincide with the Angels sending their Chaos, Ghoul, and Tyrant-class ships out to fight again, now that the Cartel is able to properly maintain and operate them with the influx of components advanced enough to do so.
And…I think I let my train of thought get away from myself here.
Not really, no. The Jove only occupied the regions of A821-A and J7HZ-F. UUA-F4 is old Talocan space if I remember correctly, and the devs could leave it inaccessible to players unless and until they see fit to open it up to us and move their operations to another testing region or just stick to Polaris.
Lore-wise I think the T2 Triglavian ships should require ship skills from the empire that developed them; Gallente Frigate for the Nergal, Minmatar Destroyer for the Draugur, Caldari Cruiser for the Ikitursa, and Amarr Cruiser for the Zarmazd.