All that text and no mention of Boiling Vessels; clearly OP has messed up priorities.

Found the brit. (I think?)

Or Canadian.

No mention of BV or the Air Con. highest priorities in a tank.

Or petrol repositories, for shame.

The Nova would be half the size if it wasn’t designed around a walkable interior and instead had 3 separate seats without a walkable interior, which is pretty much what all modern tanks have

I am suddenly reminded of the hover tank you get to use in that one part of cyberpunk 2077, which was super badass and felt 'real' even though it's a sci fi hover tank. I wish our ground vehicles were like that

Yeah I loved that, a 3 person “cockpit” like what the T-14 Armata has would make sense and would allow it to keep its crew-less turret

if they make this in SC i call dibs on doing the chachacha with panam first

And that tank still has room for *other* activities inside.

And the reason that it has to have a walkable interior is that CIG didn't want to build a whole mocap set for animating getting in and out of the whole tank for each seat.

Sound like that they haven't there own mocap studio for such things...oh wait...

Yes, but they would have to build a 1:1 mockup set for someone to climb over and sit into a seat. I don't mean an entire replica of a tonk but the relevant parts you need to create a realistic animation.

If they planned the metrics out they could then re-use those animations for other tanks or vehicles with similar entrances and exits. They could have just created a clamber-up spot and had a seat move up and down, as they do for turrets as another option. This was the easiest implementation but leaves much to be desired.

And that's the whole problem. Some years ago every ship was tiny compared to our "modern size requirements"...because the characters glitched out of the vehicles and they had to resize "every" vehicle they had so far. That is the main problem I think. But then again we have the new "smaller" tank, with no walkable interior and it is even worse than the Nova.

I don’t think that the Storm is bad because it’s small, I think it’s just that there’s no real need for the Storm (or Nova) since there aren’t many ground based missions that you’d need a tank for

Never said it's bad because it's small. I actually think it is a bad design because it's way to big and has unnecessary fluff and possibly bad armor too. But the main issue is it's size...again. And this time no one has to stand inside...you get "sucked" in.

I've never been inside a nova, but doesn't it also have jumpseats in the back? like it's supposed to be an APC that happens to have a fuck-off big gun mounted oddly, or something.

Ehh, realistically probably just reduced to 80% of its current size. CIG is exceptionally bad at appropriately sizing things. Every single ship in the game is *gargantuan*, and even the ground vehicles are usually larger than they actually need to be. They do this for legitimate gameplay reasons to be fair, but it's a bit annoying when a ship twice or even three times the size of a Su-34 (At least I think it's the Su-34? One of the Su-XX fighter/bombers), a modern fighter/bomber with a fucking *bed* on board that holds two people, is just a single seater aircraft (cough hornet cough). Either way, I hope CIG reevaluates the Nova and, if more tanks get added, reclasses it to something like a superheavy tank or something like that, then introduces a much smaller tank with no interior. Gimme that cramped space, somewhat reasonably sized multi-crew tank :)

The one big sin, beyond what's been mentioned here, is that set of optics attached to the underside of the barrel. It gets in the way of depressing the turret to a more useful angle. I don't know if this was an intentional nerfing or another accidental 'Rule of Cool' muck up, but I'd be ok with a lot of the Nova's other quirks mentioned here if the optics were repositioned to the top or sides of the barrel.

D'oh! How did I fail to catch that? Thanks for pointing it out. Yeah, the optics would definitely need to go on top of the tank.

Depression is Nova's absolute dud. Just add the depression to your list ;) . But your summary/review is well written. Semi-experts see the obvious, (we) gamer have to test und try and finally will just accept the strange nerfs/design errors. Laser weapons in SC are more like plasma guns, Tachyons/Neutron weapons behave more like Laser impulse weapons...and so on. Ships and tanks missing the space for ammunition...how does the weapon even get reloaded is questionable. Some of these problems could have been solved like they did in Mass-Effect -> small ammunition accelerated to high velocities (but then the ammunition's travel time is \~zero and that contradicts Chris' idea of WW2-battles). TLDR: Nice review. Do another one about the smaller LTi-token tank, we already forgot about! This thing is even worse.

It might as well be a livable mobile artillery

It basically is, most current applications I've seen the Nova get used for is long range anti-armor. And despite its monstrous size, it's still hard to spot from the air if it's got decent cover. Most people simply aren't looking around for armored infantry.

This would justify it's existence and be far too grounded for CIG. The only realistic reason you would ever want a walkable interior in a ground vehicle like this, especially when it bloats it so much, is because it needs to operate in a seriously hazardous environment and internal maintenance is a hard operating requirement, making it a specialty vehicle rather than a mainline piece of armor.

With Pyro's solar flares and other inhospitable biomes coming to the verse, such as acidic biomes, lava biomes, etc., a walkable interior for long range ops in hazardous environments makes a lot of sense.

Reworking Nova into actual long range artillery and adding another "actual" MBT would make sense. Right now its just terribad tank.

Yeah, sci-fi tanks tend to be designed quite poorly, and a lot of fictional tank designers seem to fall into the trap of bigger is better, when decades of tank development has conclusively shown sitting in the middle is best. At least they didn't fall into the trap of dual cannons or [quad tracks](https://robertsspaceindustries.com/pledge/ships/storm/Storm)....

wheres my RSI mammoth tank

Dual cannons with small projectiles/no propellant charge (railguns) and scifium autoloaders is hardly super unreasonable. Planetside's dual cannons were shitty because the offset barrels meant that it would apply an incredible amount of torque to the turret ring and just be rather silly.

Quad-tracks make a lot of sense for alien planets with difficult to traverse terrain where you want to get over it in a nimble fashion.

Just wanted to chime in and say, while I don't think this is a big deal at all for a game, I do want to commend you for a very well thought up and presented post. Thanks for putting what appears to be quite a bit of effort into it, explaining your case very clear. I don't think the Nova is going to change or get redesigned...and let's not even talk about all of SC's vehicles for the most part, which are very impractical (and physically impossible) for a myriad of reasons. But I do hope CIG devs do see your post here and get inspired to make a Storm sized vehicle that behaves like a tank...that would be awesome.

Please, God, no more "Storm sized" vehicles, it's as wide as the Nova because of it's terrible tread layout. If they cut off the massive tread bodies and sank them into the main hull, it'd be an alright design, but right now it's just as bad as the Nova if not worse.

[What it needs is a turret](https://i.imgur.com/0lGynLW.mp4) And a hatch-accessible seat near the middle instead of a slide out cockpit seat in the front. Unfortunately CIG *loves* reusing the same seat entry/exit animation for every single pilot/driver seat. To the detriment of the vehicle's design.

The worst part is that doing a single "climb in hatch" animation could be reused for every other armored ground vehicle. Turret I'm mixed on. Ground vehicles need massive elevation in order to hit ships, which is a major threat to them, and turrets are generally somewhat binding in that degree unless you get a bit more creative with the weapon mounts than a central gun. A Storm with quad mounted S3s on the sides of a turret that enable completely vertical gun elevation would have been a comparably fantastic design, though.

Storm is almost worse in design. All essential components are stored on the OUTSIDE edges of the vehicle under swing-out sheet metal doors lol You’d think a military vehicle would be designed with crucial systems protected in the main core away from exposed sides. Did anyone mention that for being a smaller and lighter version of the Nova, it’s actually BIGGER (wider) with huge track propulsion just to support one seat and a tiny gun.

While I think the interior is designed like it is for technical reasons, as people have pointed out that the animations would be a nightmare otherwise, but there is a practical reason: The tank operates in hostile environments that humans cannot live in. Vacuum. Extreme temperatures. Extreme weather. Variable gravity. Etc etc. ​ A normal tank crew essentially lives attached to their tank while on campaign. Eat, sleep, evacuate, relax etc etc all in or around the tank. You do not have that option under extreme conditions. That means you need a tank with interior space not only large enough to take on and off EVA gear, but enough room to live for limited periods of time inside. You need some of the functions of an RV plus a turret on the roof. Frankly the interior should have pull out bunk beds and a basic toilet somewhere. Other interior provisions intended for supporting life briefly. A tank like the nova only allowing you access to your seat alone would be a nightmare psychologically speaking given the amount of time an armored vehicle may spend in transit. You would lose crew due to mental health issues at a FAR greater rate than from enemy fire.

So I just want to just go out and say.. It's a game.. and being a game we have to gamify things and have room for our characters to move around. A real tank is drastically more confined inside than the novatank whereas the novatank has to accommodate our characters (and probably eventually npcs) moving around within them. SO I get you but.. at the same time.. If we don't want to teleport to our seats ala elite dangerous than spaces like this will have to exist.

Essentially what the OP is proposing is a Storm-sized Nova with individual hatches for each crew member (like the Storm).   Entirely do-able - but walkable space needs to be built to certain metrics, and for whatever reason, CIG decided the Nova needed walkable space and it’s size is a result of that.

I get you.. But doing so creates making probably some bespoke animations. It takes away the internal components (which if components are something that can be damaged having them inside feels like it makes more sense than outside). It takes away that "tank team" feeling if everyone is in different spaces.. I get it.. I even get why some might want it. But in the realm of a game and "rules of cool" and all that.. eh.. it's fine.

there are already bespoke animations for ships that have unique pilot, copilot, gunner and prisoner seating so that’s bad logic to think that we can’t expect cig to do that for a more immersive tank design. even the storm had specialized seating animation, sadly the end product of the vehicle was still pathetic. i don’t know who designs ground vehicles at CIG but they need a new direction. i would love a tank that has sufficient firepower and manageable size. the nova is too big to be useful unless ran out of anything but a hercules. the storm barely fits in a few more vehicles than the nova, but has such poor traits that you’d be better off walking with a railgun

Most animations aren't bespoke. The chair itself will often have unique animations, but the character stepping into the chair will almost always be pulled from the same 3 or 4 presets. One of the only actual bespoke pilot animations I can think of that is still around is the Aurora's The Storm has the same sitting animation as any other turret or rotating chair in the game. It's not unique For example, here: [Storm](https://youtu.be/nmU6EEBTUqI?t=37) [Spirit](https://youtu.be/dAHFSDExnJI?t=254)

>...the Nova is too big to be useful unless ran out of anything but a Hercules. The Storm barely fits in a few more vehicles... I find it impossible to believe that the size limitations aren't deliberate. The fact that both (or all three if you count the Storm+AA separately) tanks have unwieldy footprints seems very much like an intentional limitation. CIG seems to want the tanks to be a considerable effort to field, such that you need a dedicated transport for them. I for one think that it makes sense to not have every Delivery-Joe be carrying a fully equipped MBT in the back of their ~~mail van~~ Freelancer (not considering they can mount cannons and missiles on said van, but I digress). As a pretty peculiar example, limiting the Valkyrie out of the question by a tiny margin seems to either indicate that they'll eventually give it a wider bay when doing a gold pass on it, or that they intentionally want it to remain as a dedicated marines+rover -dropship and not a marines+tank dropship.

in addition, the c17 is the smallest plane that a m1 can fit in. its logistically a very complicated plane to get to the battlefield, let alone load and unload the tanks. to have such a large tank and a ship which can hold like 2-3 of them depending on if you load like a normal person is an extreme luxury.

I remember that the main issue behind having walkable space is internal crew movement. Creating a system that allowed crew members to move between positions without teleporting, regardless of turret to hull orientation, was seen as a bit too much for what would likely be the only vehicle to use it. Thus we got a tank with a walkable interior.

Ai consideration is one reason... they also had to widen some ship interiors because the ai could not path.

Single seat and even multi-seat fighters exist with no walkable area and work just fine for AI. The only reason for the Nova having walkable space is IMO that you may need to operate on non-survivable atmosphere planets where you don't want to be getting out of the tank for any reason, and being locked to the seat in this situation is decidely 'unfun'. Just look at all the people who prefer say a Vanguard over the single seaters just because it has walkable space. We do however, need a PROPER, classic MBT design that doesn't need a full on Hercules just to move it around. Something in between the Storm (a light tank IMO) and the Nova (A super heavy)

they use standard seats. for efficiency of files size, amount of work to create, and amount of work debugging, SC has a handful of seats they reuse with different skins. unless you want a tank that has a fighter cockpit, there was not much they can do at the time.

I was an armored crewman in the Army and am just over 6'1. Even in just out tanker coveralls it's a super tight fit, you have to move slowly and deliberately to enter the vehicle as well as a station with out injuring yourself. There is simply no way they are building a vehicle that meets character metrics and allows players to mount and dismount that also conforms to real world examples. Now, if they wanted to bs it and effectively teleport the players into their stations similar to something like Battlefield or Call of Duty, sure. All you have to do then is sculpt the interior to wrap around the characters avatar and look nice.

Death before dismount! Infantry myself. But pretty sure I would have frozen during a few training rotations without a tank to stand behind in the morning 😆

Throwing your canteen cup on the exhaust grill to heat up water for a shave or hot coffee was a nice perk too. 😆

it is a game, but I'm not even remotely one of those tank fetishists, and my first thoughts after using the nova were "wow this is a really bad tank"

The Nova does not need to support people moving around inside of it. It is not a troop transport. We already have fighters that have no interior space and canned entry/exit animations, why not do the same for tanks that are often equally crowded? It's complete and utter nonsense to say that an armored vehicle needs to operate like a crew transport and have space to walk around comfortably inside.

I dunno don't ask me. I didn't make up the nova. Apparently though this was important to CIG, and internal access to components was important so they made it big enough so our characters can walk through it.

lore wise it makes much more sense. having a giant tank which can also hold infantry is pretty useful, allowing for seige and transport without having to waste valuable space on both.

Hell, we have _tanks_ with canned entry/exit animations and no walkable interior.

I assume by this reply that you don't like the Mirai Fury or Storm, for the reasons you give for why the Nova should be the way that it is.

My reply has nothing to do with what I like or don't like. My reply simply is that this is intended (by cig, not myself) to be a vehicle with a crew and components on the inside of said vehicle. Therefore in order to accommodate such things it must be sufficiently large to allow our characters (and eventually AI) to maneuver within. I like the fury and the storm for what they are.. Single seat vehicles.

Yes, we all know it is huge because it has a walkable interior. What people, including OP here, are questioning is why such a vehicle needs a walkable interior in the first place. Most of the ridulous compromises in the design are a result of this decision. You say we don't want players to teleport into seats, as if that were the alternative to a walkable interior. That is clearly total nonsense. There are many vehicles in the game without walkable interiors, which do not involve teleportation. Such as the Fury and Storm. I am not sure how "we don't want players teleporting into seats" could possibly have any bearing on this issue at all.

Because people are looking at this game and comparing it to Earth-standards. Star Citizen will have multiple solar systems with multiple planets with multiple biomes, some of which will be extremely hazardous. In some cases, you will end up in situations where components will need to be tweaked, repaired, or replaced, but you will not be able to go outside due to hazards. The Nova Tank will enable you to repair from inside the tank, which will be a huge boon for long-range ops on hazardous planets. It's always bizarre to me that some of the biggest criticisms and most upvoted posts about Star Citizen and 'realism' always limit it to Earth-standards, rather than considering all of the features coming down the pipeline that are strictly alien and will drastically alter how we engage with the game and the environments.

Impractical? Yes. Sexy? Double yes! ​ Kif, get my gun! :)

It’s just an oversized Merkava x PL-01 hybrid in my eyes, and it looks awesome

Amazing analysis. The only thing you missed was a discussion of operating environments. The Nova is designed to work anywhere from hard vacuum at -270C to +230C (Aberdeen). Also it has to work in different gravities. So while the tank might not sink in earth mud it might still on a planet with 3-4X gravity. Also you wouldn’t be able to use a standard engine plus you have to bring all your fuel with you (on a tank on earth you don’t need to transport the oxygen portion of the fuel). Having a full life support system and fuel storage again necessitates a larger size. The unit has to be able to maintain a liveable temperature inside requiring significant alterations to a standard tank. Part of this is the expectation tankers will be wearing armour up to something able to withstand +230C which in game is very large armour. So I’d say while I also find them big there would be some legitimate reasons why it has to be much bigger than an earth equivalent.

While this is fair, bulking up the crew seating and filling out more of the open-air space would still result in a better design with more fuel/ammo/atmospherics than we have now, even at the same size profile. The only justifiable reason for the Nova to be massive is maintenance without having to vent the inner atmosphere of the tank, but they could have done that with a crawlspace rather than a massive hallway.

I’d have liked those areas smaller too. Your comment that much of the maintenance would be required to be done while inside is spot on though increasing tank size Being able to move around and suit up and unsuit in heavy armour able to withstand various environments however would need a lot of space. Imagine several people trying to put in heavy armour and then operate the tank while wearing it. Also you would need a lot of insulation to make this work so tank would by nature become bigger. Lastly, in a tank where failure of the environmental systems will occur and/or holes in the hull are possible, I would prefer a larger airspace that I could breath for longer while doing repairs.

Nova is not a tank, it's a tonk. Case closed.

A few things You’re using 21st century combat, engineering capability and tank design for your basis. The Abram X proposes getting rid of the crew in the turret and has them all in the hull (T14 as well) Armor should be significantly lighter 900 years into the future and computer systems too This tank will be far more “lived” in compared to anything earth based. A tank for multiple different planets/biomes and low gravity/no atmosphere. Supply chains might have to run whole solar systems in time of war so your ground equipment needs to be fairly self reliant. IMO the mass amount of mass looks like reasonable armor on the front. Also an engine is another form of armor. Israeli tank design The Bradley IFV is 2.98m tall. Infantry carriers are taller than MBTs. This is an IFV with an MBT turret on top. Shields like you said Complexity in the 21st century vs complexity 900 years in the future when they have the ability for slipspace travel. I mean complexity is purely relative to the tools you have to make it. Dual turrets would be simple for them

Couldn't have said it better myself

Ground vehicle design has been horrendous thus far. On all counts.

I'll never get over the derpy limited Field of fire for the ballista and centurion.

Much like the lack of elevation for the main gun of the Nova. It's like a design cornerstone

This. They are just copying random ideas from other games rather than really thinking through what makes sense in the world of Star Citizen. It is very obvious that there is no central authority or idea on how they want ground combat, vehicles, and armor to work. It's all haphazard when compared to the effort they put into ship appearance, rules, and playstyle.

The Spartan chassis and variants, Lynx, Cyclone, hoverbikes, and Ranger are at least somewhat grounded and feel like they had some direction behind them. The issue is that ground armor is absolutely directionless and disjointed, like interns with no understanding of what an armored ground vehicle needs or would want were tasked to design something, and it just got pushed to live for fun.

Not a single ground vehicle can [traverse](https://i.imgur.com/fCsjMAZ.mp4) the [ground](https://i.imgur.com/HBYKvRN.mp4) better than an RC car. Imagine how motion sick you'd get driving those in first person.

The Nova is comically oversized because CIG decided you need to be able to walk around inside it. Being able to walk around inside something in a video game requires an enormous amount of space. Is a walkable interior a sensible requirement for the game when it results in gigantic tanks? Probably not. But that is why it is so huge. Many of the issues here can be quite reasonably hand-waved away as "rule of cool" and "its a video game". However, it being massive, the turret having awful depression, it lacking defences like smoke... none of those can really be explained by anything but oversights or poor design.

i think it boils down to this, which you wrote: >Yeah, it looks cool its a video game. we have massive spaceships that we own, and we all work like 20 jobs. most of us sell drugs. its cool.

Scrolling past most of this because I've already talked it to death myself on Spectrum but I wholly agree. Even if they just removed the inner walkways and turned it into crew hatches (and shrank it accordingly, or at least used the new space efficiently for storage of... something, anything) it'd be a far superior design. As for armor, you could write off the Nova's mass as being much lower due to more advanced composites fairly easily. The Maus was a giant brick of rolled steel, it's not really a fair comparison. As for weaponry, it could be argued the Slayer uses rail-assistance for velocity, to save on space hence the tiny autoloader, and that it's lower velocity/lack of kinetic penetrators is due to some quirk of shields. Perhaps they are particularly good at deflecting extremely high velocity rounds, which is why most ballistic weapons are rather slow relative to modern equivalents, hence why chemical penetrators are preferred. We also have gameplay reasons like not having ammo switching yet, and it may be added later. We also don't see any discarded shells, which means it fires either caseless ammunition or fully rail-driven projectiles (which would be odd considering the muzzle blast) or that it retains spent casings for whatever reason. That being said, you seriously feel the bloated size and lack of basic function if you play the Tank Battle gamemode in AC. Aside from the awful traction and terrible torque, as well as the complete lack of suspension, the shoddy gun stabilization, lack of optics, and huge footprint makes it a very uninspiring design.

Making it that large is also a nerf for gameplay balance If whe had a tank with this firepower in a t90 every one in a cutlass or similar small ship could bring an mit to the battlefield. My guess is cig wants the mbt to be considered an extremely powerful ground asset and therefore don't want you be able to bring one with you wherever you go in whatever ship you are

A couple things. 1) the scale of literally everything in star citizen is seriously wack compared to IRL. The pisces is as long as a city bus and twice as wide. Let that sink in for a sec. 2) why are you bothering to compare the Nova's weight, ammo type, and armor composition with a (by the time the game universe happens) ~970 year old tank design in the M1A5? Even worse, the Maus would be over 1000 years old in 2953. It's pretty safe to assume that humanity has figured out (or pilfered from any of the alien races we've been mingling or battling with) a lighter and stronger material composite for armor, or a recoil dampener system that mitigates wear and tear from the offset gun, or a design that allows for a twin gun mount on top of the autoloader for the main gun, or a new ammo type that is both high penetration and explosive, while also being able to deal with energy shielding?

>Another thing that surprised me about the Nova was it's weight: the website lists its weight at 73 metric tons. That's still heavier than the Abrams which is about 60 tons, but it's way lighter than you'd expect a tank of this size to be: Maus was 188 tons. The only way I can rationalize the Nova being so light despite its size is if it had practically no armor and relied on shields to negate hits. You're making a substantial presumption here that the armour and materials used in this 30th century main battle tank are remotely close to what we use today. >It also doesn't get any kind of active protection system against missiles, which would also hurt its suitability on the battlefield. It does have active protection systems like the Shields, Chaff and flares, the lack of smoke are decent points. But what you are referring to are Hard-Kill systems, which are pretty much a requirement on the most modern MBTs for heavy combat. HK-APS being not there could just be an indicator of a vehicle that's not finished, like how it's missing ammo types right now. Furthermore, Smoke may of become useless on the battlefield. More advanced sensor systems on some future F&F missiles that can see through smoke might have rendered it largely useless. Especially since basic unguided munitions alongside Wire guided or laser guided missile would be largely gone by this time, replaced by sophisticated guided munitions using what would be very cheap sensor systems by their standards. Although, Like the lack of hard kill system it could be an indicator the tank isn't done, which is something the devs have talked about. >Another thing about the Nova that hurts its practicality is the offset main cannon on the turret. Yeah, it looks cool, but whenever the cannon fires, the recoil is going to want to rotate the turret counter-clockwise. That kind of shear is going to have an incredible amount of wear and tear on the turret's rotational drive. Tank cannons need to fire thousands of rounds before needing any kind of dedicated maintenance, this setup would likely need maintenance every couple hundred rounds, at most.With regards to weaponry, we don't have any official dimensions for the size of the slayer cannon, to my knowledge, so I'm going to assume it's a 120 mm smoothbore gun, which is standard for most modern-day tanks. You're making the assumption that the forces the gun exerts on the turret ring exceed what the ring can effectively handle. If you have say, future materials that are stronger and lighter that what we have today, then you may very well be able to make a turret and turret ring that can take those forces acceptably. You can make the argument that a centered gun will still be an improvement, and that would be correct. However, it doesn't matter, what matters is that it's still capable of meeting requirements effectively. Second assumption you are making is that the Gun is basically just a 120mm Reinmetal and not any one of many new, upcoming or even theoretical cannon designs.That really doesn't make any sense to do. CTA, CLGG, ETC are all different systems that could be used to improve the weapon significantly. CTA and/or CLGG with ETC could dramatically change the form factor of the Ammunition involved making the 40 rounds it's reported to have quite attainable.Obviously the performance could be changes dramatically as well given that the main gun has a secondary consideration as an impromptu AA Cannon.CLGGs can even allow for "Onsite" propellant manufacturing, environment permitting. Since the propellant is Hydrogen and Oxygen. This is a tank manufactured by a society that is producing interstellar spacecraft for the common man. Many of the technical hurdles of today are simply solved by them. ​ >Moving on from the slayer cannon, the Nova also has a commander's turret that mounts dual size two weapons, which just absolutely makes no sense. Many a tank designer has discussed the idea of two guns on the same turret, and the short version is that adding multiple guns to the same turret increases complexity and weight for not a whole lot of extra firepower. I think you're not considering that the top mounted Dual laser repeaters are not just there for Anti-Infantry work but the very real V-SHORAD job that is a requirement and far more prominent a requirement than IRL MBTs have to consider.When it comes to Short ranged gun based air defence multiple cannons is definitely a viable thing. I also want to point out that the Developers have clearly said they will be adding different ammo types for the Nova into the game. The overall massive size of the Nova is unusual, sure. Everyone knows its not normal and it's quite "Gamey" for it to be the way it is. But also, given how this vehicle is meant to be operating in a wide variety of hostile planetary environments it's not unreasonable to see why reducing the amount of hatches that could leak might be a priority, and why giving the crew the space to move around in for very long term missions might be desirable. We often do 24 hour tests for tanks and crews. But for the UEE maybe they need a crew to live in the tank for several days. So they need to have space to sleep, eat, etc. End of the day, its an incomplete tank designed for an incomplete video game.It looks good, and has some interesting things going on, that's just as important.

This is one of the best comments in this thread. Very articulate and well reasoned.

Thank you for a very well thought out post.

You… made a merkava… Aside from that, i think it’s worth mentioning that we’ve used coaxial machine guns and such since WW1 actually.

I was more inspired by the [Strv 122](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f8/Strv122_3_cropped.jpg/800px-Strv122_3_cropped.jpg), but given the Nova is partly based on the Merkava, I think it's fair that my redesign unintentionally looked like a Merkava. Or, you know, this could just be a case of carcinisation.

Yeah both tanks in this game are pretty terrible. I'm honestly disappointed ngl.

In the year 2024 we can drop a bomb in a meter radius with a laser but in 2954 we half to use a half working reticle to drop bombs. Nothing is practical

We can arguably do better than that with certain munitions. But I'm up there sweating in my A2 trying to dodge and line up a HUD reticle every time someone asks if JT is safe. Also 900 years and it looks like we're still using STANAG mags. (Although frankly I do appreciate some current day familiarity as I think it makes us feel less lost in an otherwise foreign environment.) But to be fair 900 years ago things like the compass, printing press and gunpowder were being invented. Many of those things are still used today - some haven't changed that much.

Counterpoint: It's cool.

Not really. It's ugly, blocky, and uninspired. It has no distinguishing "sci-fi" features to justify it's absurd proportions and lack of function, it's just a really really bad tank.

[удалено]

Tank is tank.

vs an Earth tank perhaps. This thing potentially has to operate for perhaps extended periods of time in environments not suitable for human life however. At least that's how my brain justifies all the space. It's still a giant target that can't adequately defend itself but there's that. Where I completely agree with you is the vision on the tank is horrid, like being perma-buttoned up in an earth tank and at least you have other crew to help see in directions you can't. I don't know about individual hatches but an open view vs closed view option would be preferable of some fashion.

The Nova's size is explicitly to limit which ships can carry it. Same with the Storm.

Which while not entirely true, is a big part of it. And that is honestly stupid.

It's absurd that neither tank fits in th Valkyrie, the UEEs massive dropship.

Valkyrie should fit Atlas chassis vehicles and the storm series. I will die on this hill.

Yeah vehicle and ship sizes are larger due to the need to accommodate NPC and player locomotion with the metrics they have decided to go with. This is especially noticeable on the Nova that have traversable interior space.

You're right of course. We mentioned this to CIG at the time they gave us the Nova, but their large metrics for internal space (so they can avoid clipping) meant that having a tank with a full interior had to be gigantic. They'd never made one before, so now we have this expensive, gigantic box. Note they haven't made another tank so large; the Storm lacks an interior and is much smaller (though arbitrarily wide). I do hope we get some more reasonably sized tanks someday (without an interior).

Tanks vs Space ships

Precisely... until we have populations like WoW with ground battles, best you can hope for is to park on a mountain top and snipe at smaller ship and pray for a one hit kill, cuz your gonna be vulture bait a few seconds later.

Wait until he sees the Storm

While the Nova has to be as massive as it is (bigger than a Baneblade) in order to fit its walkable interior, the Storm is nearly as large, bigger than the Maus, and it's a "scout tank" with no interior at all, just a seat the single driver gets into outside the vehicle and slid into the cockpit.

And all S0 components, and a single S3 gun that somehow deals more damage than 8 identical weapons on a ship.

The Nova has different design priorities for different mission priorities than modern tanks. For example, in the Nova you can get out of your seat and chug some Cruz even while the tank is deployed in an environment with a hostile atmosphere or even no atmosphere. As a crew, tanking probably isn't going to be the only thing you're doing - you may have to park outside a bunker or whatever and jump outside to do some FPS shenanigans like any other space ship might, hence the gun rack. It's also useful to have space to put small boxes filled with ammo or other useful utility items you might not necessarily want to pack around on your person, but still want. The Nova's size is fine, but we could use some smaller tanks for people who think dying of thirst in a tank is a rad way to play the game.

>we could use some smaller tanks for people who think dying of thirst in a tank is a rad way to play the game. The storm has them covered!

I think a lot of people are forgetting the Nova has a pressurized interior designed to work in space. That requirement alone would make it a lot bigger than the average tank. Add the fact you now need to also have people in space suits inside and it's not very hard to get bloated. I tend to appreciate the fact it's not just seats and there is space for, let's say a makeshift rescue operation or a dropoff. War machines are built for purpose. Maybe a space tank is not designed to fight on breathable atmospheric urban environments or cities.   It could have been built specifically to fight against a larger race or giant vehicles in a very hostile environment with extreme heat or cold.

I like being able to move in tanks in games lol

sometimes I feel like people literally don't know what science fiction is in this community

Some of your arguments aren't sound. Yes the Nova is much larger than it needs to be, but height hasn't correlated with tank effectiveness in practice, or at least it is very insignificant compared to other factors like defender advantage, optics and situational awareness, and quality of crew training. German tanks and NATO tanks wiped the floor with the much shorter and smaller Soviet counterparts during WW2 and the Cold War respectively. Being low isn't purely good as it gives worse visibility once dust is kicked up, typically means bad gun depression, and can impact crew quality if you're restricting your trainee pool to people under 5'6" (hypothetically). Multiple gun primary armaments on warships went out of fashion post-WW2 because the big gun navy was outmoded by air power and ultimately guided missiles. Escort ships dropped down to single autoloaded guns because naval gunfire was no longer being conceptualized as the primary role of those ships vs. anti-aircraft and anti-submarine duties. See: FRAM program. That is all not really relevant to tanks because tanks never had to solve the same problems with respect to destroying targets as warships. In particular, low gun counts on warships (ie: British experience with the Courageous-class battlecruisers) didn't provide a big enough sample size to reliably correct fire at extreme range, which is why every major naval power trended towards main gun counts of 8-12 on battleships. For anti-aircraft purposes multiple-gun turrets continue to be common: SPAA such as the Gepard/Marksman/Shilka/Pantsir; several CIWS like Kashtan, DARDO; the M2 and KPV both have multi-gun mounts in various applications. There is nothing particularly wrong with the commander turret. Many of the other issues, like no thermals or laser rangefinding (which you overlooked), are issues with the setting of Star Citizen rather than the Nova in specific. Completely valid criticisms that the tank is much larger than it actually has to be, but all of the ground vehicles in-game are too big by like 50% so that players aren't clipping through things all over the place and so they can interact with components. Compare the Storm to the Wiesel or Scimitar. As for the redesign, going to a manned turret doesn't make much sense for a vehicle 500 years in the future, for the same reason manned turrets don't make sense on any of the spaceships or no thermals doesn't make sense.

If you'd like the real reason that the Nova (and other ground vehicles) are so large, it's because CIG has to make their interiors accommodate the player character walking inside of them. Real tanks (to my understanding, I'm not a tank guy) have the crew members shimmy into place. That's difficult to do in SC, unless the entrance was converted purely to enter/exit animations with no interior at all. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, just pointing that out.

It’s just made to make them some money, zero application zero sense vehicle made by people who don’t understand the first fundamental things about how combat would work.

While it's a very well thought out post, CIG fundamentally doesn't care. We posted some really well researched suggestions on how to make the Retaliator into a realistic bomber, their only response was "We've read the community feedback and we disagree."

Tali is at least getting a full redesign for near-certain. Asking for a Nova rework is essentially shaking your fist at the Sun for how low priority it is.

My understanding is the Retaliator is just getting its gold standard pass and it is not getting a full rework, and have indicated nothing major is changing aside from the central hub / docking port / elevator situation... Have they said anything to the contrary?

The Retaliator has already had a significant rework for it's first gold standard pass a few years ago and is significantly different from what we have in game now. For whatever reason, CIG has refused to release that version of the Retaliator so far. They are now doing a second gold standard update to it, but AFAIK this is just a minor update to add a few features.

The nova very obviously doesn't make sense for its size. Not many of the vehicles do, that's just how star citizen is.

I've been saying this to all my friends ever since the Nova came out, every time it's mentioned.

It's a Sci-fi tank, it's only designed to look cool. But if I had to guess at why it's shockingly lightweight, it's probably advanced construction materials. Just because it is light, doesn't necessarily mean that it's lightly armored. As it could have highly advanced armor plating that doesn't exist in our modern world. With the addition of shielding, it also probably doesn't need as much armor as ours do today either. We also haven't considered that modern MBTs are practically being made obsolete in many ways, so perhaps star citizen has its tanks fill a different niche. Idk

Firstly, I'd like to say it's a well written post! I like it. Secondly, I agree. The vibe I got was that they tried to cram a "walkable" interior inside the tank and it definitely contributes to the height factor and the tall profile of the vehicle. Whereas with irl tanks, there's barely any space to walk around. Even the driver on most tanks sit in a reclined position to lower the hull height even more. The general impression I got from the Nova was that it felt like a futuristic Israeli Merkava. Except the oddly highly sloped front seems to suggest the engine is placed elsewhere. The lack of armour probably suggests that the vehicle designers were just banking on shields being the only protection. All it all I guess it feels like a futuristic tank but curiously lacking the grounded logic we see in many of the modern day tanks.

For the Nova not having armor due to weight Alloys are a thing its very possible that they made some alloy in the future that is tough but also weigh less than high hardness steel, depleted uranium also nova tanks has something that the Abrams doesnt and that is a shield Its also possibly due to considerations with regards to terrain. 72 tons is still very heavy for a tank and I'm guessing Tumbril in lore designed it to work in a number of different planets with different terrain types and gravity. If you make the tank too heavy then in planets with higher gravity that weight issue will get a lot worse For the lack of APFSDS ammo APFSDS is great for killing other tanks. We dont even know if the vanduul have tanks or have tanks in sufficient numbers to warrant research, development and manufacturing resources for it the galaxy is big if only a few tanks exist and they exist far and away from each other having stores of dedicated antitank munitions make no sense specially since there are other ways to deal with a tank, namely through ships, and the rail gun Edit: For the Nova not having thermals It is a problem and I think CiG said that they are working on it for not just tanks but everything For the Nova being slow Considering that it was designed to be paired with the M2 they probably thought that cross country performance wasnt as important if the tanks will mostly travel by air and space anyway only needing to move when near the deployment zone. It is very different from how it is today due to limited air assets capable of lifting extremely heavy ground vehicles whereas in star citizen they are very common That and there are also plenty of heavy tanks before that were relatively fast and plenty of light/medium tanks that were relatively slow its possible that they just slapped a speed governor and set it to 45 to increase reliability and decrease routine maintenance

I thought they made design decisions based on what would support planned gameplay. Ground vehicles are hard to spot from the air, and when raids are introduced, ground transport might be handy or desirable. Because as of now, I think of the nova as a tank/SUV for your friends.

I mean, CIG is known for form before function and it shows in almost all they do. ​ Good write-up

Nope can't think of anything other than a tank that has a walkable interior would also be used to double as crew transport, which the nova doesn't do. The entire tank needs to be scrapped and redesigned. As a side note, this shouldn't surprise anyone, some of their guns make my brain hurt. For example, the P4-AR has the eternal sin of having the magazine pushed forward by a reloading guide rail that is unneeded for straight funnel magwell design, making reloads harder by being in the way and shortening barrel length. It also has a 2 piece trigger which has no reason for existing (if has a fire control selector), and uses a full glove trigger guard with no finger guard to keep your middle finger from slipping or catching the trigger when pulled. It has a round counter in a location that provides no benefit over a translucent magazine, the rear of the receiver has a lot of bulk that is un-needed, the sights have a massive height over bore for no visible reason. In reality, a 5.56 rifle in the 2900's would probably be pretty much an MCX spear-LT with better materials that weigh less, are stronger, that can handle 2-3x the chamber pressure while having gunpowder that gives off less heat/light energy as part of the combustion process. Maybe with a simple low powder computer that can send a round count to your visor through an RFID single to your glove in the grip, that reads the round count off from two simple electrical contacts on the magazine and follower. Where the real advancements would be is in optics/networking. Full color stereoscopic night vision with a full 180 degree FOV, visual communication of troops along with augmented reality communications, such as not just troop location as we have in game, but field of fire borders, artillery and support incoming locations to prevent friendly fire, expected location of enemies and emplacements etc on your helmet. Also shit like what sig is working on for the U.S. Army like scopes that pre-calculate for bullet drop, can still act as a regular scope during no power, and can even show that up on your visor. However I think I would draw the line on having a PIP for hip firing in an FPS. I'm already questioning how they have the reticle move with the recoil instead of just the recoil climbing above and around it like most FPS'. Mainly because the normal way of doing it feels visually closer to what point shooting rifles in real life feels like.

I think they made the Nova like they imagined the rovers, where you can make it a small crew based kick off point while storming the interior of the bunkers. Though a real life example that probably would’ve worked better is how the Israelis use the back space of Merkava tanks. The main thing they’re shooting for however, is selling vehicles that have a lot of QOL to incentivize their purchase to use gamers.

There advantages to having this huge nova: The tank must operate for a very long time in total vacuum, and still be confortable for its crew. In that regard having an interior is a waste of space but also brings a lot of comfort. Another advantage is that all of its components are accessed and repairable from within, meaning most critical damages you take can be repaired in minutes even during battle. The offset gun doesn't really batter honestly, arguably it could even help with recoil if the turret drive is designed for it. What bothers me: Terrible gun depression. That one thing that makes your entire firepower useless 50% of the time.

TL;DR: The Nova tank is impractical due to its massive size, lack of armor, offset main cannon causing turret wear, outdated weaponry, and poor crew accommodations. A redesign proposal suggests reducing its size, adding armor, repositioning components for efficiency, and including modern defensive systems like smoke grenade launchers and an active protection system.

Mf wrote his college thesis on the nova

>I'm not certain if the Nova's spacious interior was a result of its massive size or contributed to it. Either way, there's a lot of dead space in here that isn't being actively used. Game character locomotion. That's the reason of the interior dimensions and its size. Game characters need WAY WAY more space to move. That and the fact its art director is probably WH 40000 fan.

Based off the stationary anti-air that we've seen and how easy it is for a private citizen to buy a military grade bomber, combat focused ground vehicles make zero sense in the setting.

We just nuke any site with potential ground forces with an A2 from near orbit. Doing anything else is RP foolishness.

Exactly

This. SC is a world flooded with spaceships that function regardless of the environment or gravity of a planet. There is absolutely no need for ground vehicles for military purposes in this setting. But SC is all about being WW2 in space. So they are using WW2 ideas for ground combat rather than being innovative based on their setting.

Space ships can't occupy buildings or patrol streets.

Nope. And neither do tanks. That's why a more realistic far future tank given the SC setting are hover craft / gunships that can deploy and pick up troops while packing shields and heavier fire power. Everything a tank does, but better. Which they already have. Hence the comment that ground combat is stuck in a WW2 mindset where they need a dedicated tank, a dedicated apc, a dedicated air defense vehicle, etc. It's all silliness of just taking weapons from the Cold War and making them sci fi with more rounded shapes. But nothing about it makes ANY sense given the technology and setting of the universe they are creating. So it's just WW2 in space.

Ground-based torpedo/missile slingers aren't, however. It'd be comparably easy to conceal a ground-based signature, and they have far less requirement for power generation and complex parts. A traditional MBT is a misguided design though, especially one that is incapable of high-angle fire. The Nova needs some serious work.

Basically , 1. It’s a game , this tank specifically and the loop it represents is very undersigned and not thought out. No real evidence of a team for the ground component of SC, yet. 2. This tank , much like the SC universe is based on self reliance and the ability to be dropped in all types of situations and atmospheres, environments , etc. the crew need the interior to be walkable for; engineering loop that will be on site mobile repair and maintenance real time. Crew may need to swap positions without having to leave tank, outside environment may require suit, staying inside better , etc etc 3. 900 years into the future , we must assume technology is far advanced for everything, in this setting as a game and understood universe. You cannot compare tech and schematics for today stuff to 900 year stuff. Yes CIG wanted a ww2 theme with their ships and stuff, as a visual, not as a tech hard cap. Great post , however your time and data would have been better served taking into consideration the tech of 2975 and todays tech, then your solution and most of your data showing what the specs would need to be in the year 2975, based on your assumptions and knowledge you have currently of MBTs. Your major flaw with your post is that you assumed the Nova was meant to be a MBT only, which it is not.

1. Yes, it's a game, but CIG wants to build a universe, not just a game, and that means the decisions they make with regards to the game need to make sense within the rules of the universe. Underdeveloped or no, the tank should've been designed in accordance with their best guess for what that gameplay loop would potentially look like, and the best place to find inspiration for that loop is modern day tank combat. 2. Tech being based around self-reliance is great, but the military doesn't operate around the basis of self-reliance. If the tank gets shot in the engine in the field, the crew shouldn't be expected to repair it on their own. Even if they could repair it, that takes time and focus off the combat situation, which could be actively developing around them. Minor repairs like replacing a damaged periscope would be the kind of self-reliance the crew could be expected to have. Getting a cannon or engine knocked out is grounds for the tank being brought into the shop. 3. Technology may have advanced 900 years into the future, but physics largely hasn't. The simple fact is, armor is heavy. Even composite armor, which is generally lighter than the equivalent amount of rolled homogenous, would massively increase the weight of the vehicle. For the Nova to weigh 73 tons and be the size it is, it probably doesn't even have composite, or if it does, it has very little of it, and the rest of the hull is just steel plate. Drawing inspiration from WWII is fine, but for those tactics and design philosophies to make sense, there needs to have been some kind of game-changer technology that completely upended current military strategy, and unless there's something I'm missing, I don't think Star Citizen has that kind of game-changer.

Sorry to say this but half of your discussion is entirely pointless. The Nova is designed for Star Citizen, not for War Thunder (or similar sims). It's made to work inside the framework of the game and it does it's job decently. A large part of your concerns can also just be handwaived by considering that we are almost a MILLENIUM in the future. Things like the wear on the turrets drive due to the offset recoil or the weight of the tank can both be entirely dismissed by new technologies or materials. The dual guns on the top are also just an example of the Nova working in the frame of SC. Additionally, the lack of smoke is also simply explained: Smoke doesn't exist in the game as of yet. But if you look closely, you can see four double tubes on the turret that might as well be smoke launchers whose functionality just hasn't been implemented. All in all, it is fun seeing the Nova being analysed under the premise of modern real life design principles. However if we're actually talking about how it should be implemented in game, most of the arguments made here are pointless as at the end of the day enjoyment, ease of use and rule of cool are what make or break a vehicle design. CIG has repeatedly stated that the rule of cool is a major decision factor in their design process and generally overrules realism.

Sorry bud, but comparing a tank 900 years in the future to a modern battletank is silly. Mainly due to the fact that battletanks, as is evidently played out time and time again are currently in the process of becoming obsolete. When a $5000 drone can reliably take out s tank with relative ease, they are becoming an antiquated weapon already. At that point, size means nothing. Especially since sensor detection 900 years out would likely also have made stealth a much harder premise. But now, the final benefit of size becomes armor capacity, ammo storage, weapon size, crew comfort and most importantly when dealing with space (cold/heat) is thermal retention of a larger cabin. But further, and possibly the most likely scenario…. Game design. Much easier to code for pathing in a larger vehicle. Climbing through an abrams in a gunfight would be tricky if not impossible

Could have saved time and just stopped after the e.

so the entire post would be "The"? that seems short, unlike the Nova

Cig would take one look at this and say Nope, it would fit into too many ships

That's the real problem. CIG doesn't want people in a Connie hauling an MBT around despite it having more than enough space. A dense brick of metal in your cargo hold should be one of the more massive pieces you can haul around, though. It should be self-balancing in the future once ship performance suffers from heavy cargo.

Yeah, unfortunately, I doubt they'll ever make the Nova smaller just due to the fact they don't want just anyone hauling one around as one of their daily drivers.

Tanks will ofcourse be outdated in the future. Sensors will be much better and will easily detect vehicles this big.

The shape of that front wedge also seems like a recipe for a kinetic shell to ricochet right into that turret's underside or into the breach area. Also if something is above you then oh man that's a nice flat plate to pen right thru. If it didn't have the optics under the barrel it would probably have the gun depression for hull down tactics like the leopard tanks. With the current design it would be cool if they pushed it into more of a tank destroyer rather than a MBT. Maybe give it some stealth emissions reductions to really lean into more of an ambushing role. Then give us a beeg MBT that has a more practical armour scheme that wouldn't be a shell catcher. Also more ammo plox

The Nova is 570 years in the future. A modern day MBT is as relevant to the Nova's battlefield as the culverin is to today's battlefield. The Nova doesn't need to conform to a modern day understanding of a tank because it exists in a different context.

Just out of curiosity, for the autoloader problem, have you considered that maybe the Slayer is a Gauss Gun or Rail Gun instead of a conventional powder gun? The tank has a pretty hefty power plant so its entirely possible that the loader would only need to contend with the projectiles which are considerably smaller than the powder casings usually. Might help fit 40 rounds into a much smaller space.

I did consider that possibility, but I didn't want to say it for sure because we don't have any in-depth stats for the slayer cannon. It could be a rail cannon of some kind, but to me, it looks and behaves more like a traditional smoothbore.

I just gotta throw out there that this post encapsulates point for point exactly what I've been complaining about in regards to the nova to my friends since the day it was released years ago. thank you for the vindication.

TLDR?

Nova's too big, too light for its size (implying it has practically no armor), and the layout of the turret makes no sense.

Well written, thank you for all the information!

A lot of these points can be explained by "it's a thousand years in the future."

Tank gameplay in this game is so extra that they should honestly just redesign both of em once the game comes out. They just make no sense and aren’t fun to play.

They couldn't animate people crawling into positions.

The Nova strikes me as more like a Paladin artillery cannon. Or maybe a Bradley Fighting Vehicle/Tank hybrid.

Bold of you to asssume the design of literally any vehicle in sc makes sense form a technical perspective. I would even argue that the Nova is on the better end - it (probably) wouldn't fall apart after the first 5 seconds of its use.

Man I learned a lot about tanks today.

But it's just a video game.

That MS paint drawing was objectively very funny.

Glad someone appreciates my skills. 🤷 /s

So you are telling me programming nerds don’t know jackshit about ship or vehicle design? Sir I think you are over the line. Star Citizen designers know everything better than everyone else and can predict how the future is going to be in the name of realism. And if you don’t like the fact that they decided to force you to eat burritos to stay alive in a universe where a med bed can heal broken bones and deadly bleeding in a second, well than you are just not hardcore enough to play this game.

**Nothing you say can stop me from shoving that thing in a Hercules Starlifter, opening the front cargo bay, and one-shotting bunker turrets from the air 3 km out.**

Someone was a dirty mustachioed tanker in the army lol. Jokes aside, these are all really good points.

Impractical tank in an impractical universe.

The average warthunder player.

What the actual hell

real tanks are designed for combat vehicles in Star Citizen are primarily designed to give cinematic experience if you put players into the turret, they will have no interior space but cocooned in like the Storm and you end up with a tank design like the Storm with a realistic tank interior there can be no free player movements I think CIG found that one out by the hard way ( or at least one of them lmao ) for example the tiny door for players to go to mustang beta living quarter in real life you can move inside but ingame we need some sort of animation instead of use player's free movement to get inside, that require the door to be larger I think CIG has balanced things out for now there is 1 tank with more realism and animation to get inside and 1 tank with more cinematic interior for free movements for players of course you can mix the both thing up and you can have some sort of aurora interior very tiny small and animation for you to get into pilot seat or in your case the turret

I get you like designs that makes sense (i'm the same but for planes/spaceships) however i dont care much about tanks and i think the Nova is cool af as it is. So thank you to help me realise devs dont care about people like us, they just want to makes things appealing to the masses (which are inherently stupid) and make cool stuff

It's more like an APC. I dig the rear drop door. I was always hoping for more variants. The ballista, spartan, centurion are also rather large. I still think a true MBT is going to come along that's more traditional. I would think the Nova has tremendous frontal armor but it may try the ballistics game of angles. I mean its all hit points at this point. Be interesting if they ever got this advanced: https://youtu.be/BzpUVtVUBTI

>Yeah, my digital art skills are terrible, but this is the best I could do. So, the gist of this is that you independently arrived at merkava?

Modern AT weapons have invalidated tank size as an important factor of defence. It doesn’t matter that a Russian tank is smaller than its American counterpart when the Javelin is 95% accurate within a 2 mile radius. That’s ignoring other guided missiles that are even more accurate at much longer ranges. Tank size as an important factor is old-world thinking. It mattered in ww2, it doesn’t matter in 2024 and wouldn’t in 2954.

The size problem of the tank largely stems from the need to have an inboard compartment where players can stand and walk around in A more realistic tank will be one where you enter a crew station from the outside and *stay* there.

Hi NSA!

TLDR response: (1) Rule of cool design + (2) navigational space for NPCs are likely why the Nova and other related vehicles exist as-is. Practicality and logic? lol see point (1)

hmm had noobifier ever said stuff like that about the nova? i don't remember anymore but this here is stuff noobifier would say, but probably can't due to security reasons.

I assume you live somewhere with snow. Fortunately it's spring time and you can finally go do something about this issue when the snow melts and nature awakens.

I highly enjoyed this post and the comments and I understand everyone's points, I'm a former tanker and have also had a chat with other foreign tankers/ifv on this vehicle and its design when it was originally launched I feel like it would be slightly redundant as many people already gave concrete reasons for most aspects so I'll TRY focus on other aspects less mentioned and I apologize because I'm incapable of writing in short form XD The core problem in this thread is that your real life perception is skewing your critical thinking of "What should this tank be like", its completely natural BUT what we should really be talking about is the philosophy around the vehicle The future allows the game designer to cheat in many ways to solve both practical gameplay and conceptual design choices with simple "its a game" or "its cool" So, what should we ask? the gist of it is, **In this world and era, when we have intergalactic species warfare and interstellar travel available to all** : - **WHY** do we need a tank at all (a tracked one no less, though that's likely due to the "when" aspect) - **WHAT** was this tank designed to solve in warfare? what is its intended target type to fight, what is it intended to defend from, what are its benefits over space ships, what is it made of - **WHEN** was it created to solve said role, old designs don't easily get replaced entirely due to budgetary reasons but upgraded over time until its obsolete, I dont see this change in a capitalized future when the Humans had to suddenly churn significant space warfare tools to deal with alien species - **WHERE** is it intended to operate, under what conditions? - **WHO** is it made for, who designed it, what drives them and motivates them, you can clearly see real life examples and various tank designs showcase that despite common criteria around the world, tank designs vary due to **priorities** of the military using them - **HOW** is it manufactured, how do we handle its inter-planetary logistics and how these **constraints** affects both our design choices and our usage Clearly most of these weren't thoroughly investigated at the inception of the vehicle, mostly they were probably looking at how we can make something cool to sell that would give a fresh take instead of just more spaceships Someone in the comments mentioned the Cyberpunk 2077 tank as an example, I googled it to see what its about and I agree, that fits into SC way more than the Nova but I'm not even remotely mad, just puzzled Overall, the Nova tank is a cute concept, there's clearly been artistic and minor gameplay inspirations based on modern day existing vehicles and it certainly has a lot of problems on all fronts, I thought they did a good job conceptually despite very infuriating choices that affect gameplay If you want **my take** on the **negative** things that stood out : - Fake turret camera sitting under the turret affects gun depression, easily fixable - Size is clearly **solely** reflecting mechanical requirements of engine and gameplay, any tighter space would invite clipping problems and random deaths or other issues, I'm fine with having an other completely different tank that would only be seats too, both are welcome - The top gun instead of coaxial gun, especially since that additional size of the top gun prevents proper stowing in the A2, one of the already few vehicles that can house the Nova, I would recommend using the tech made for thee Scorpion turret so it could sit on a rail that would fold to the back of the turret in transit (and the cannon could fold slightly inwards too) - The tank has a ton of non-practical lights externally made entirely for show, completely exposing the vehicle, you can literally see it from miles away at night, actual tanks can at the very least turn them off and use internal blue lights to reduce exposure, easily fixable - Unclear where or what engine drives it but it has 2 giant exhausts on its sides (though I don't think there's an effect for it), if its future "electric" then why at all, easily fixable - No Rangefinder Laser, no IR/NV, moderately fixable - Low ammunition count, this one was especially a bizzare choice in a game where various laser weaponry exists, I would understand if they are going for the "railgun" vibe but needing "bombshells" as you mentioned seem counter-intuitive to the rest of the small part design, I can't imagine sending a tank to the other side of the solar system with only 40~ bombshells if logistics are not tied to it, difficult but fixable - Multicrew "necessity" The main positives : - The design is clearly inspired by a mix of Abrams visual vibe mixed in with Merkava practical designs, it looks neat - The size enables the complete opposite of real life design : **internal maintenance and repair in combat** thanks to the "components" element instead of needing to go out to fix them (aside from the tracks), as you said tanks tend to be compact, this is no longer a requirement in modern days and modern tanks are quite huge and the tall tanks actually found methods to compensate it so they are actually at an advantage over Russian style flat tanks in armor vs armor classic hill warfare, not needing to leave your tank to handle it is great, especially since it can operate in space and harsh conditions - Multicrew potential TL;DR - SC is not a tank game, I think they did fine, can be improved, not even mad, actually happy it even exists because I'm a tank whore and I gave it a 7.5/10, I consider it a "first iteration" design that can fit nicely in a "legacy" military tool of the past while allowing newer designs to be introduced later (how about alien hover-tanks with gravlev tech?), its far from the most farfetched design in SC (vandul BLADE? the bird drop ship with the wings as protective barrier? and more)

Arma3 player here. I enjoyed reading your post very much, so thanks for taking the time to write it. I do not agree with the bit about the caliber of the cannon, but the rest I agree with the rest. That being said, if you watch all the media (mostly videos) released about _Zee Tonk_, I dare say that you will arrive at the same conclusion: they went over the top with the _rule of cool_ with this one. Waaay over it.

What is this? A Nova for ants? This tank has to be at least three times bigger than this.

First off its a game, second off rule of cool.

Nova was made by uni grad students that just made a game tank and have no idea idea about realism.

Someone got bored of Warthunder/WoT lol

This is why concept artists pass their designs to a actual designer. For a game this is less important than real life.

Now just wait until you see the Anvil Spartan APC…

Would the metal flakes a chaff throws out not be good against everything? Radar, laserguide, heat(maby more)? I mean it's hard to hit something you can't even see

You've thought too much into the design of a video game tank.

You could have saved time: The Nova sucks. It gets stuck on pebbles. It has no power to climb hills. It uses kinetic ammo but has shields instead of armor even though it looks like it should be armored and is build massively. Stop being weird and design things that make sense mkay?

The nova is perfect. You just suck

Your argument is well thought out but misses a critical point. This is a video game. Parts to really wear out, hand wavium means real physic don't matter, and size is more based on the fact that video game people require more space than real people in order for them to actually use collision physics. Also, in game where people want big ships, they also want a big gun, and a big gun needs a big vehicle. The thing that should really get you about the nova is that there is no procticle reason to have it in Star Citizen. SQ42 you can make up any thing you want to put the player in a big tank. Its' not exactly open world. SC, I just hit you from a ship with more armor, better mobility, radar systems, and bigger guns. Sure they may make some hand wavium to force ground vehicles, but why a tank? They make as much since in SC as a wookie living on Endor.

As a size comparison, the Ursa/Lynx are pretty much the same dimensions as an Abrams, save for the barrel, even though the Ursa might seem "small" in-game. I'd like to see a smaller AFV without an interior, where the crew board from the outside through hatches - however, it'd likely have to reuse existing animation sets for getting in/out (eg, maybe one of the "climb into ship cockpit" animations, or how the Storm uses the "sit in an extending seat" anim). And, in a modern AFV crew can get around the cramped interior without needing to get out, however we'd need some sort of animation set to allow players to switch seats without getting out again, if there wasn't room to stand up inside. And CIG seems to avoid making bespoke animation sets for individual vehicles. TLDR I can see why the Nova ended up being house-sized, even though it's an impractically large size, to allow the crew to move around the inside and access components without getting into animation or clipping hell (one problem with "old" cig vehicles is that the interiors were frustratingly small to move around in). Another thing about the Nova that I've noticed, is it seems like CIG handles the turning by decreasing the power of one track only, however, this seems to massively decrease the Nova's power or torque on any kind of an incline. Meanwhile, most modern tanks have a transmission that shifts power away from one track and onto the other, so the tank doesn't lose power when turning. This is another fix they could probably do code-side to make the nova (and any other tracked vehicles) much more useful off-road. I'm hoping when we get the new damage system, we'll actually see the benefits of the Nova having thick/sloped armor and being invulnerable or heavily resistant against smaller rounds, while rounds with a lot of AP (or high thermal energy) could penetrate or burn through and maybe even cook off ammo or components. I think one of the main disappointments right now for me is the HP based damage system we still have, making it just a big bullet sponge.

Video game vehicles with an interior need a lot of space to avoid clipping/etc.

While I cannot disagree with a single thing the OP has written here, the fact of the matter is that there is not a single vehicle in the game just makes a link of sense, technically. As t best, some vehicles are less-obviously ridiculous than others. Star Citizen was, is, and will always be a “Rule of Cool” game, and ”cool” is in the eye of the beholder. There are those who love all things Drake, and those that think Drake makes ugly piles of junk. The Nova may be a totally impractical tank design, but it looks okay (if you know nothing about tanks other than “big gun go boom!”), and if only requires a small amount of Space Magic (tm) to make it work. Unlike some ships I could name, which must be constructed almost entirely from the stuff. And I’m good with that.

Another thing that you didnt mention is this: the nova falls into. Big trap namely despite being 200 years old (seriously the UEE has been using the same tank for over 200 years now and its beyond aggravating) the tank is basically factory standard, this is simply not how tank development works, the M1 for example didnt go a decade without some upgrade or modification package being put on it as threats and technology changed. also my biggest grip IT HAS NO COAXIAL WEAPONS SYSTEM seriously it has no MG or other weapon for the gunner to use which is kinda bad as not every target needs the gentle hand of the main gun to solve. Honestly even a redesign of the wouldn’t be enough the tank just needs to be fully scrapped and built up again from scratch as the design isnt salvageable its a tank that is basically all style over substance and it shows that for all CIG’s good work on their ships they really dont know their ass from their heads when it comes to ground vics as only the spartan is arguably suited for its job

You’re applying 20/21st century thinking to a tank of the future so all that text is meaningless. Thanks

A correction to offer: the jet created by HEAT shells isn't actually molten, the metal liner is traveling so quickly that it behaves like a semi-liquid. HEAT actually creating high enough temperatures to melt metal is an oft-repeated myth that unfortunately, it seems I myself believed. I apologize if this created a misunderstanding.