| Author |
The EAD – A journey into the past. |
BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
|  Posted: 2006-02-22 20:27
In this post I'll be talking about the EAD and it's history, and how it's evolved from DarkSpace 1.480 and onwards.
1.480. The height of DarkSpace. The EAD was in it's prime, the driving point of any UGTO fleet, the first ship to enter battle, and the first one to kill. It was something to be feared back then. You entered a system, and enemies would shout “EAD!” to warn you. It was a king among dreadnoughts, it's weapons systems so simple, yet devastating. Fully modified the beast could fit a worrying 4 CL2K's, 4 Flux Beams, 1 Flux Wave, and 6 Torpedos. The CL2K's would slice through armour and shields like a hot knife through butter alone, coupled with the nasty torpedo configuration (4 FULL, 2 FORE) it could take down any ship quicker than anything else on the battlefield. It's armour also complimented its weapon systems to the fullest. One plate of Heavy Armour on each side and a full one just to cover those initial driving strikes. If flown correctly, the armour could last you an entire battle with minimum repairs by taking the armour down to as low as it could and then manipulating your ship and enemy so they had to fire on another plate. It was the most offensive ship of the UGTO armada, and also had the most defence of any UGTO ship.
You'd think a ship that boasted that much weaponry would have some serious energy issues. Another aspect of the EAD that made it perfect. It's 4 IE drives and 2 Fusion Reactor 1500's would pump out enough energy to allow you to fly at full speed and fire 4 torpedos only taking minimal energy drain. There was one drawback with the EAD, being that mainly, it was a beam ship. It had the most power hungry configuration of any human ship. The CL2K's would suck your energy dry in under 3 alpha's if not used properly, and the Flux Beams had to be used at the very last minute to have an effect on the enemies systems. The Flux Wave was another drawback, serious power drain from that weapon alone meant you had to use it during the last few seconds of destroying a ship. Having explained all of this, you'd think that the EAD would have serious power issues now... Still not so, somehow, the way the EAD has to be flown, compliments everything it's been designed to do. It can fly at speeds and keep pounding on an enemy ship, but not with all it's force. But it can also cause outstanding damage in an alpha attack due to it's beam configuration. Not a ship to be toyed with. Not at all. A skilled EAD pilot in 1.480 could cause devastating effects on the battlefield, which is why they where often the first targets to take down.
Things change though, as we all know. 1.481 came out, and due to some changes, the EAD was taken down a notch. It had lost not only its Flux Wave capability, but its Flux Beam capability too. A crippling oversight in the UGTO beam system meant that no UGTO ship could equip Flux Beams, bar the Heavy Supply. Although this might not seem a big threat to the EAD, the Flux Beams where a critical part of taking down an enemy ship in 1.480. Once armour had been depleted on an enemy ship, the Flux Beams could successfully cause system damage galore when coupled with the Flux Wave, disabling the enemy ship whilst your friends and you finish off the job. Something which the EAD could no longer do. This meant the EAD had to evolve. There where two configurations at first. The main problem was that the EAD could no longer disable enemy ships when taking it down towards the end of a battle. So the EAD had to do more damage. At first people kept the default configuration of 4 CL550's. The problem with this was that they had a higher recharge time than the Flux Beams, causing problems when trying to use them as point defence. Flux Beams also had no fall off, which CL's do, this meant that the EAD had to get even closer to do damage and use those CL550's.
So another configuration was designed. One that used the two full light beam slots to the maximum. This configuration had already been invented, but was rarely used in 1.480 due to its low damage output, but due to the Flux Beam removal, it was deemed a worth replacement. Two Pulse Lasers where drafted into the full arc slots on the EAD to allow it to effectivly destroy incoming enemy projectiles and fighters. This was a great help for the EAD, since now it was doing only half the damage as before with the 4 CL550's. The Pulse Beams allowed the EAD to stop it being damaged at long range as much as it did before, without losing as much power. Which meant that the EAD could now go even faster towards the enemy due to the low power usage of the Pulse Beams compared to the CL550's and Flux Beams. Unfortunately, the Flux Wave never did really find an effective replacement. The EMP cannon was drafted in it's slot, but this would do an insignificant amount of systems damaged compared to the Flux Wave or Flux Beams.
Little changed when 1.482 rolled out, there where still the same beam configuration bugs as before and the EAD still didn't have a Flux Wave. So I'll skip onto 1.483. 1.483 saw the demise of the EAD. A sever overhaul of the game meant that a lot was changed, including the way the EAD worked. It was now deemed an 'Assault Dread', as opposed to its “Ship of the line” status before. The CL2K's where out, Heavy CL's where in, with significantly less damage, and more energy usage. This provided a problem for the EAD, since it's main damage was focused on it's CL2K's. This was only the first problem to happen to the EAD though. Normal CL's where also effected much the same as HCL's, and so even more damage was lost there. The torpedo configuration meant that two launchers where lost to cover the rear of the ship. It was deemed that this change was reasonable when you took into account the amazing Quantum Singularity Torpedo. A weapons system that UGTO had not used since the early versions of DarkSpace, now stuck into a torpedo. You'd start thinking that this was ok, with this amazing super weapon on-board. Not so. The weapon drained absurd levels of energy, which was not good considering the amazing energy system from the old EAD was no more. The EAD had an amazingly hard time trying to keep up it's energy levels when firing just a small amount of its weapons. The only good thing with the 1.483 EAD was that it was given a significant armour upgrade. Three front armour plates, two on each side, and one on the rear. Unfortunately, no matter how skilled the pilot, the EAD can no longer be used to execute the pilots skill effectively.
There is little known about the 1.484 at time of writing, other than the beam based weapon systems are to undergo a overhaul, as well as the energy systems.
Hope you enjoyed my little essay on the history of the EAD from 1.480 onwards (since most of you will not remember before that, and those that do, are mostly people on my friends list).
- Jack
[ This Message was edited by: BackSlash *Jack* on 2006-02-22 20:29 ]
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Doran
Chief Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 29, 2003
Posts: 4032
From: The Gideon Unit
| Posted: 2006-02-22 20:45
one tends to forget just how much .483 has changed things. good to be reminded every so often
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GothThug {C?}
Fleet Admiral
Joined: June 29, 2005
Posts: 2932
| Posted: 2006-02-22 20:54
heh, i remember the EAD from 1.480  gawd i had fun
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Tbone
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 21, 2001
Posts: 1756
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2006-02-22 21:23
You forgot when it could mount ELF Beams and Flux Cannons ^^
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Depthcharge
Fleet Admiral
Galactic Navy
Joined: December 08, 2002
Posts: 1549
From: DFW, Tx
| Posted: 2006-02-22 21:41
Good Times. It and the Carrier Dread with 10 fighters each were my Flag ships.
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Borgie
Chief Marshal
Pitch Black
Joined: August 15, 2005
Posts: 2256
From: close by
| Posted: 2006-02-23 13:45
wow.. todays ead sucks compaired to what it was back in the day
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Ramius
Fleet Admiral
Agents
Joined: January 12, 2002
Posts: 894
From: Ramius
| Posted: 2006-02-23 14:38
Remember before slots? KC used an EAD with 20 cl2ks and cloaking devices.
Now that was an EAD to be scared of.
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Sixkiller
Marshal
Courageous Elite Commandos
Joined: May 11, 2005
Posts: 1786
From: Netherlands
| Posted: 2006-02-23 14:38
I still associate Darkspace to oooooh some day, i will fly an Elite Assault Dreadnought!
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Tbone
Grand Admiral
Joined: July 21, 2001
Posts: 1756
From: Vancouver
| Posted: 2006-02-23 14:41
Quote:
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On 2006-02-23 14:38, Ramius wrote:
Remember before slots? KC used an EAD with 20 cl2ks and cloaking devices.
Now that was an EAD to be scared of.
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EAD's with all CL2k's, cloaking, AHR, 2 jump drives, and more than 4 engines.
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Banshee
Grand Admiral
Raven Warriors
Joined: August 28, 2001
Posts: 2181
From: Philadelphia, PA
| Posted: 2006-02-23 14:50
What Tbone said!
/me still remembers PizzaTheHut bringing out the first Modded Siphon
Almost tore apart a whole ICC fleet single handed..
*Dreams*
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Ramius
Fleet Admiral
Agents
Joined: January 12, 2002
Posts: 894
From: Ramius
| Posted: 2006-02-23 14:52
Scouts with the amount of armor as a dread!
Fear it!
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BackSlash
Marshal
Galactic Navy
Joined: March 23, 2003
Posts: 11183
From: Bristol, England
| Posted: 2006-02-23 14:52
Quote:
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On 2006-02-23 14:41, Tbone wrote:
Quote:
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On 2006-02-23 14:38, Ramius wrote:
Remember before slots? KC used an EAD with 20 cl2ks and cloaking devices.
Now that was an EAD to be scared of.
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EAD's with all CL2k's, cloaking, AHR, 2 jump drives, and more than 4 engines.
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Haha, that rocked.
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jedi42
Grand Admiral
Evil Empires Inc.
Joined: February 25, 2002
Posts: 478
From: jedi42
| Posted: 2006-03-04 08:25
Quote:
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On 2006-02-23 14:38, Sixkiller *S2* wrote:
I still associate Darkspace to oooooh some day, i will fly an Elite Assault Dreadnought!
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That's funny. I remember thinking the same thing a long time ago. I remember someone getting a Torp cruiser in the FA server, and whoever it was (can't remember their name) was the only one with enough rank to get it of all the people logged on at the time. Everyone ran away from it in terror and were talking about it like, "Have you seen his torp cruiser?? He jumped in over there and destroyed [insert name]! .. how many torps does it fire???"
It was fun taking my first EAD out. I think I died in it from ... well, thinking I really was Elite Assault.. and got myself demoted for a bit.
[ This Message was edited by: dj42 {C?} on 2006-03-04 08:26 ]
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jedi42, darkjedi42, [drunk], hoid o' toitles, evil, rum, cl2k drainer, gdi, {C?}, hive teets, fusion mating, perfect cloud formation, death star, point jump, tractor scout, torp det, def cluster, cloaked elf
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Blackpanzer
Fleet Admiral
Joined: November 18, 2004
Posts: 7
| Posted: 2006-03-04 08:51
thanks jack for telling me my EAD is in ruins now. Why is it when im deployed i always get bad news. O well i'll just deal with it. I still remember my first EAD when i was soo happy to get it then i mv lagged and into a planet it went. a good 1 minute life of my EAD
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Coeus {NCX-Charger}
Admiral, I can't read,
Sundered Weimeriners
Joined: February 16, 2004
Posts: 3635
From: South Philly
| Posted: 2006-03-04 11:21
*dreams flitter back to the Assault Cruiser of old...*
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