Phantasm
Type | Cloaked Aircraft |
Role | Stealth |
Certification Required | Phantasm |
Empire | Common Pool |
Primary Weapon | - |
Secondary Weapon | - |
Occupants | 5 (1 Pilot, 4 Passengers) |
Handling | Poor |
Top speed | 140 (249 with Afterburner) |
Phantasm
The Phantasm is cloaked troop transport that requires a Technology Plant link or Sanctuary Air Terminal to be purchasable. It can carry 4 passengers and can be cloaked by the pilot by pressing the "B" key by default.
Traveling at speeds greater than 40 km/h (between 20% and 30% throttle) will make the vehicle slightly visible (note that at 30% throttle (42 km/h) you will appear cloaked on your screen but others will see a slight outline). Strafing, rising, or descending while traveling over 14 km/h will also expose the aircraft. Traveling at speeds above 50% throttle will create visible contrails on the wings of aircraft and enemies can easily see it at great distances.
Note that there is a bug where sometimes enemies can see the phantasm's opacity as if it were traveling at 100% throttle even if it is nearly stationary. This is annoying as not all enemies are affected, but if one sees you and starts shooting, many others follow. One tactic to combat this bug, if you notice enemies at great distance shooting your stationary phantasm, is to descend so that your landing struts extend. This sometimes fixes the bug. If that doesn't work, you need to fly past the drawing distance of the enemies, get out of the vehicle, then get in again.
The Phantasm has the greatest sustainable speed of any aircraft in the game. Over reasonable distances, it is the only aircraft other than the Wasp that can outrun a Mosquito if the afterburner is applied optimally. The trade-off is that the Phantasm has very poor acceleration and deceleration, thus changes in speed must be planned well in advance (especially when preparing to land).
Lock-on weapons are ineffective against the Phantasm while cloaked, though Flak will still explode in proximity to it. Automated defense systems will not fire on a cloaked phantasm. An enemy cloaked phantasm inside the SOI of a base with interlink benefits will show up on the proximity map of friendly players.
The pilot can wear up to Agile Exo-Suit armor, and can earn the Galaxy Support Pilot merit for kills made by players after they bail from the aircraft.