No, the current Atlas gets moved to CR, as a result of the split between us and IMG. All Atlases turn into the IMG Transport, and from then on, Atlases can only be bought with CR permission.
' Wrote:The new IMG shipline doesn't look very appealing to me, to be honest.
I think that was the point. Everyone uses IMG ID for mining. As far as I've been told, the IMG transport has even less cargo-space now too. I understand the motives behind making the IMG shipline unappealing (similar to the motives behind what happened to the zoner whale), although I can't say I agree with it. It makes more sense to me to make the mining system more diverse, and make other mining factions more interesting from a relations standpoint, than coerce the playerbase by making certain shiplines horrible. Considering everything I've heard from the devs regarding the changes has been "we want players to choose who they want to RP, not which faction offers the best perks", the approach of making the perks more imbalanced strikes me as odd and contradictory.
Although, I might be misinformed about the cargo-space changes.
' Wrote:The new IMG shipline doesn't look very appealing to me, to be honest.
I think it's more likely that since the CR get the Nyx/Pytho stuff, a new IMG line had to be made, so the ships we see here were made, and there were simply no better offers, or no other suggestions at all.
The horrible looking transport-miner the IMG gets (and I thought people learned that a goose-style ship like the Firefly is not really what players want...) is a new addition. Therefore it's nice to have it, no matter if it looks very much like a goose with a weird egg thingy as its belly.
Losing the Atlas is sad though. It was one of the most horribly unagile transports of its size, but it had a CM and ok'ish defenses while still having a good cargohold (>4k is always good). The new ship also looks like a goose and loses the big cargohold. It isn't the worst ships I saw, but it still makes me sad that the IMG doesn't get anything more like the Atlas and looking a bit better.
The fighters on the other hand I like. They look like they should look. The previous CR-line (Nyx) might be good-looking, but imo they don't fit for IMG. Neither does the current Vampire-shot-style fit, but I heard that's going to be changed back to something closer to the vanilla look as well, which makes me very happy. The new fighter line looks more civilian again. And that's good. It looks like something a miner would build. I'm pretty sure they look alright ingame as well. Also, the IMG gets a Loki-like LF, capable of mounting and firing a mini razor. That's just awesome! I hope it won't be too big though...and not too slow. Well, I hope it will be overall well balanced. Same goes for the new VHF, it looks ok and I really hope it keeps with the previous style of (real) IMG fighters - the civilian Sirius line - and be agile like the eagle while sporting a similar core but maybe being a bit smaller. The bomber we get is a monster though, I guess. I heard it's going to be a very heavy one, like the Challenger or the Barghest. That will be interesting.
I can't say I dislike the CR-line, but I say they don't fit the vanilla IMG style which I loved so much - even though it was only given via their weapons (!). The biggest loss I must say which comes with .86 regarding IMG and CR is the Zephyr being scrapped as a flyable ship. It might not be a good ship in regards to combating other ships of the BS-size, but it still was one of the better looking ones out there.
Oh, and not to forget, I like how the new IMG BC looks. It's a bit weird, maybe, but still, not a bad looking ship. The cap turrets shot style (BS) I saw looked very good as well. Maybe a bit too red'ish though.
Overall I'm okay with the new shipline, except for the transports, those make me quite sad and I had hoped for something a bit more appealing to the eye and more usefull, as in having a bigger cargohold...
EDIT:
Forgot about the GB... really have to see that one ingame first before I judge it. It doesn't look good imo, at least from what I've seen. But heh, the CR GB also reminded me of a flip-flop all the time...