Starship designs...

[taalismn]

Oh...very nice!
If I were a small galactic government or a well-to-do merc group, my hand/tentacle/appendage of manipulation would be already going for the checkbook....

[Carl Gleba]

Looks like the talent on this board is expanding. Nice job DM

Carl

[Aramanthus]

Those are very sweet designs! I think you should stat them out. The gunship could probably be listed as a monitor. Since it has big guns for sucha small ship. Look up monitors on google. The British used them as late as WW2. They had something called a coastal monitor. Basically give it some heavy firepower, but no FTL or else a really slow one. I mean way below galactic standard.

[Kryzbyn]

Very good Darkmax!

[taalismn]

How soon can we expect performance stats?

[Aramanthus]

If anyone wants I could do the gunship. I'd make it a monitor as explained before. But for which nation of the 3Gs. And suggestions? I'd like to make it someones stuff who doesn't have anything official yet.

[Aramanthus]

That makes a lot sense. I'd keep the anti-missile and anti fighter weapons under wraps to surprise them!

[Aramanthus]

That is what I was saying. Maybe the Central Alliance? What do you think of that Darkmax?

[Aramanthus]

I think the Mogami cruiser is too small. It's smaller than the WW@ ship of the same name. It should be long than what you have listed. I'd say at least 3 times the lenght. Is it a Heavy Cruiser, a Light Cruiser or a Battle Cruiser. Because my suggestion is for the Heavy Cruiser.
Make the destroyer smaller than the cruiser.

Other than those little things I like your designs a lot!

[Aramanthus]

Hey Darkmax the Vapor trail looks pretty neat. Just one thing.....That giant turret on the dorsal stren end of the ship shouldn't be there. Those 15cm lasers are individual weapons spread out on the sides of the ship to give it a good all around fire.

[Aramanthus]

That looks very cool Darkmax! Great job!

[Aramanthus]

I just checked on Vapor Trail it seems to be missing.

[Carl Gleba]

Weird, whats with the "www1" in the URL? You can't even get the BBCode to display it?

Carl

[Carl Gleba]

The switchblade is kind of how I pictured my Dragon Fang from Three Galaxies.

Nice gallery

Carl

[Aramanthus]

That is a cool design! I totally agree! And you say it looks like you pictured your "Dragonfang! Cool!

[Carl Gleba]

That is a cool design! I totally agree! And you say it looks like you pictured your "Dragonfang! Cool!

Well you know what they say about great minds...

[Aramanthus]

That is true!~

[Aramanthus]

Thanks for creating the image and fixing the link!

[Carl Gleba]

You're welcome. I just hope it is close to your original design.

Carl, I just went through the Dragon Fang..... er.... there seems to be considerable differences....

Well don't go by the art. But back then my writing needed more refinement. Basically it has vibro-blade on the wings. Sounds like a bad idea to me now. Maybe I need to do a Dragon Fang MK II based off of your pic

Carl

[Carl Gleba]

I really like the Dampier Class Outrigger. It reminds me of a mega-carrier I statted out and is waiting to go in a book.

Also great team work on the Vapor Trail Class SWDD-3. Some of the stats seem a wee bit on the high side, but I just skimmed it for now.

Carl

[Aramanthus]

The Vapor Trail is basically a Destroyer Leader. It's bigger and tougher than the Hunter. It is being produced by the "Spectral Winds" a Mercenary group which specializes in warships. The Vapor Trail is their first destroyer. They also produce a Light Cruiser and a Heavy Cruiser. They are on the verge of producing their own Battlecruiser. This ship will kick serioius butt. I know I've been testing it against other canidates from Phase World.

[Aramanthus]

Oh yeah the designs Main body MDC is based on my own study of all of the warships both the official PB ones and pretty much everything else out there. I have a chart for determining the minimum and maximum MDC for each class.

[Aramanthus]

Hi Darkmax, there must have been something wrong. None of the pics loaded for the Vapor Trail. I like the Firefox! Cool design!

[Carl Gleba]

Hi Darkmax, there must have been something wrong. None of the pics loaded for the Vapor Trail. I like the Firefox! Cool design!

The Firefox rocks big time!

Carl

[Aramanthus]

Thanks for fixing the links. The pic of it leaving the station is very cool!

[Aramanthus]

What can I say. real life sometimes get very busy for people. I'll get on the Mogami shortly!

[taalismn]

I'm presuming that since most of these ship designs carry a 'WZ' model number that they're produced by the same company...and as some of the designs have what I'd only describe as a 'TechWizard' look, and they're so honkin' big in many cases, that this is one advanced firm!
Possibly a newcomer looking to break into the UWW marketplace? Or part of an effort to put the UWW's 'police fleet' on a parity with its larger neighbors(who'd be sure to see the expansion of the defensive UWW forces as provocative)...or are UWW warhounds trying to send a message to their colleagues in the Council?
Another possibility might be that these designs are being created to meet a threat that only the UWW knows about....The company behind this slew of new designs is supposedly churning out this incredible number of new designs for a few exclusive buyers or mercs with way too much money to spend, when the reality is they're secretly meant for the UWW's Navy when the real threat comes into view...


I'm rather mulling over the idea of energized wings and other surfaces...the stat-monger in me is screaming 'Magical DEfenses', but a possible spacial distortion mechanism for making the ships more maneuverable or even micro-teleporting the ships around the battlefield suggests itself....

But TW mechanisms of that caliber and size eat up lots of crystalline elements, and synthetics are suspect for the purpose...

Hmmm...maybe the TWizards have mastered a process of using Earth and Fire Elementals in concert to produce giant sheets and shapes of crystal from superheated asteroids or magma-planets?


Those levitating spacestations would be very useful for overseeing operations on a primordial (leyine-wracked?) planet with a still highly active geology....And those modular freighters would allow for quick mission adaptability to carry the necessary equipment for exploiting such a resource world...

I can see something akin to Tolkeen's 'Iron Juggernauts' working as labor units in such an enterprise...

[Aramanthus]

Darkmax....... I have a question about the gunship? Those two square projections under it. Are they weapons? Are they launch tubes for fighters? Are they mass drivers? They are quite big! It looks very AWESOME!

[taalismn]

Actually.... it my chinese initial..... I thought it would look better than WTO...

You see my Chinese name is Wang Wei Zhong, Wang being my family name. (And yes, Vera Wang has the same surname)

But I've thought it might just be WhiZ.

Well, there goes THAT line of thought....

Ah, nice name!

But seriously...after hardprinting your designs do I can mull over them off-line, I'm jotting down design thoughts and observations with teh eventual aim of sharing my observations/fluff and see how they compare to yours/other folks' ideas on stats and hardware design....


For instance, if I was writing fluff...I'd say the Chimaera is an antispacecraft design, carrying only two major weapons systems....a massive long range energy weapon, and a powerful suite of close-in point defense against fighters and missiles...The batwings are either heat radiators or targetting arrays...this ship's main purpose and modus operandi is as as an anti-capital ship sniper....holding off at long range and blasting the enemy heavies from long range(like Earth to past lunar orbit)...Using one of two modes...a straight, concentrated "What happened to the Death Star?!" blast, to an area of effect anti-fleet blast.

The DRaco, I'd say, was designed with the assistance of Kittani renegades for a major Bushi Federation zaibatsu-corp or Jade Court-affilated Middle Star KIngdom...the Dragom-mech is based along the lines of the Dragon DReadnought, but doesn't have as many weapons, and greater speed, while its companion unit is a slow-moving anti-fleet/planetary assualt cannon with immense firepower and power generation capability, as well as one powerful forcefield generation system, but minimal crew and anti-(small)spacecraft capability.

[Aramanthus]

Those interpetations sound pretty good.

[taalismn]

More THoughts/Initial IMpressions:

*Baskin Extendable Freighter...
This thing reminds me of a Space 1999 Eagle....I'd say it's a telecoping framework that can hold standardized cargo modules...from two to the current four standardized 'Large' (60 ft size, from Rifts Three Galaxies book) cargo cans and still perform in atmosphere, or even larger 130 ft cans ('Super Cans') or up to 8 Large cans in space-only mode(CANNOT safely maneuver in atmosphere)...Low cost periphery-space design, hence both the twin gun turrets and the ability to jettison the cargo if the bad guys are too big and gaining...forward module is a jettsionable lifeboat capable of atmospheric re-entry.

*Cachalot Landing Ship---Rival to Packmaster...It looks like a pure-tech design. THose side blisters look like they can accommodate large landing craft or maybe BattleRam robots(or similar machines that could give a Neon Genesis Evangelion EVA unit a fight)...Bottom level is a vehicle bay. but with its own drive units at the rear, it could be detachable, to become a massive landing barge or instant surface base...

*Dampier Runner Ship & Prometheus Command Carrier
I wanna say there's a design relationship here---maybe the company that built both designed and built a smaller scale test article of the Prometheus' 'big siderigger, minimal centerbody' design, found it worked well(though darned if I know what the design advantage is), but seeing some looming financial problems with the upcoming Prometheus contract, decided they needed to make some money, and did so by formalizing the test-article scale model into a commercially-viable ship...

*Solace LIght Escort Fighter
This little bugger reminds me of the Macross 2 Zentran Battlepods...my performance assessment? It's small, compact, not terrible fast, but very agile, short-range, betetr-than-average armor cladding for its weight class, and designed to do as much damage to larger opponents as possible in as short a time as possible. so they quickly realize that the cost of attacking the convoy or asset the Solace id defending isn't worth the beating they'll take in neutralizing the defenses. The bugger is dripping with weaponry---top-mounted particle beam cannon, four banks of triple-barreled short-range pulse lasers, and four massive projectile launchers(either high-powered rail guns or tube-magazine missile launchers)

*Phoenix Command Carrier
THis thing has me shaking my head---We gotta develop whole new technologies for this ship...it just screams 'exotic tech' or 'technowizardry' to me....You CAN'T be as bright and shiny as this thing is without hiding some sort of nastiness...like a lionfish with its poisonous spines...Some sort of omni-directional shockwaev launcher(bad news if you're part opf the flag flotilla escort force when that goes off)...or maybe it generates some sort of magical plasma field around itself and then blows up plasma 'smokering' copies of itself that both act as decoys and as weapons...missiles and fighters flying into the multiple plasma 'flock cloud' get vaporized, and ships that the 'plasma pigeons' are launched at take damage as if they ran into a plasma(or leyline) storm...

[Aramanthus]

Those are some interesting thoughts! I like them. I wonder what Darkmax will think?

[taalismn]

Sorry, Darkmax...I'm NOT going to change the designations...but would rather work with what I've got...and BOTH your ethnic Chinese name AND your e-name give me ideas...

So, a new company...here's just a general idea....

WZ TechYards
WZ TechYards, also known as ‘WhizTech’ is less a single monolithic aerospace firm and more a spwrawling consortium of smaller aerospace firms from all corners of the Three Galaxies, who have banded together in order to share resources and technologies, and cooperate to retain market-share against such major government-backed and subsidized giants as General Galaxy, Wolfpack Industries, Naruni Enterprises, the Bushi Federation zaibatsus, and others. WZTechYards is said to have been pulled together of the dregs and rejects of other companies; renegade and disgruntled engineering talent, eccentrics, and the arrogant-but-not-proud talents of the Three Galaxies. Their production facilities are said to be equally varied; shipyards of small perioheral companies looking to break into the general markets, or the remanents of start-ups or older firms that went belly-up, and whose plant was bought cheap by WZ before the breakers could move in. WZTechYards has been variously described as being everything from the galactic Black Market’s garage-detail to an unofficial safety-net for spacecraft producers in the Three Galaxies.
WZTechYards, for all it’s being a loose consortium of companies drawn together for survival, has a surprisingly effective organization. It is divided into three major sectors, each based in and serving one of the Three Galaxies; WZTechYard-Spiral, WZTechYard-Thundercloud, and WZTechYard-Anvil, with each section handling the business opportunities and merger possibilities in each Galaxy. However, the sections maintain strong ties with each other, sharing technology-transfers, moving designs from one section to another as market demand allows, and even relocating entire member companies fom one Galaxy to another, if it is deemed that the small firm might find better opportunies elsewhere.
Overseeing this network is the WZ Network SysAdmins....a group whose composition is as mysterious as the network’s surprising effectiveness. It is said that WZTechYards was founded and is administered by members of an alien pantheon of Gods of Darkness.....but a BENIGN Pantheon of Darkness. Some sources have claimed that the consortium is thus associated with the Hindu goddess Ratri, but other sources have WZ associated with the Han Celestrial Courts and their elite administration. The Pantheon of Darkness theory carries the most detail, however, in that members of the pantheon decided that constructing spacecraft and insuring travel in the Darkness Between Worlds should only be natural for them.
Of course, most skeptics deride the whole ‘divine leadership’ idea, and say that the secretive nature of WZTechYards’ administration only proves that the consortium is a Black Market organized crime money-laundering scheme or a protection racket meant to unionize and defraud smaller aerospace companies after scaring them with the ‘boggieman’ of the ‘monopolistic’ established aerospace corporations.
Whatever its origins and organization, WZTechYards isn’t yet making a major dent in the marketplace, but as more firms are organized under its banner, and its rather eclectic range of products and designs, from ultra-light aerospace fighters to massive mile-long mobile weapons platforms, becomes common knowledge and more available to potential buyers, market analysts are watching WZ carefully for a breakthrough into the big leagues.

[taalismn]

here's my (unpolished) take on the Pteropus...


WZ-CGS-0161 Pteropus Compact Gunship
The Pteropus was developed by WZTechYards Anvil to meet an openning market in the secessionist states of the Golgan Republik. As more planets split from their former Golgan overlords, many saw either logistical support for their militaries or the very ships and equipment themselves withdrawn with the departing Golgan military. Or else, the secessionists were left with aging, older-generation equipment that the Golgans no longer had any use for. As the Golgans had bought heavily from Naruni Enterprises, it should come as no great surprise that the bulk of the equipment they deployed in their galactic ‘buffer zone’ states was Naruni in manufacture, and was what most of the newly independent planets were most familiar with. Despite the fact that Naruni Enterprises has been all too happy to offer the newly freed worlds generous deals on rearmament programs, many worlds are leery of dealing with them, identifying the Naruni with their previous overlords’ arms suppliers, and none too eager to swap one set of chains for another. However, their militaries were most familiar with Naruni gear, and wanted similar equipment to replace their older machines. This has fuelled a wave of smaller arms and aerospace manufacturers arising to fill the gap, while local industries rebuild and retool for new production, with a slew of new designs, many blatantly based on reverse-engineered Naruni hardware.
The WZ-CGS-0161 Pteropus Compact Gunship was developed to replace aging stables of Naruni ‘Fire-Eater’ Attack Ships. Using the Fire-Eater as a basis, WZTechYards Anvil quickly prototyped the Pteropus, adding and subtracting from the original as performance studies suggested, with an eye towards militaries and pilots already familiar with the Fire-Eater. Built along similar dimensions and performance, the Pteropus is slightly less massive, mounts less armor, but is significiantly faster and more maneuverable than the Naruni design. WZTechYards Anvil decided that speed and agility would compensate for physical protection, but also equipped the Pteropus with several countermeasure launchers and EW weapons-lock jamming systems.
Another feature they did away with was missile and bomb carriage, favoring instead a weapons array heavy in energy weapons, and a main rapid-fire gravity gun, for strafing attacks. While this hasn’t sat well with all the prospective buyers of the Pteropus, WZ has argued that the lower cost, higher speed, and heavier direct fire capability are, all in all, a fair trade-off for the Fire-Eater’s rather limited missile capacity.
The Pteropus has done very well in initial sales, its high speed and low cost endearing it to nearly-seceded planetary militaries on tight budgets. Its cockpit and control layout, remarkably similar to the older Naruni fighter-bombers they logged their hours in under the Golgans, has gained it the favor of veteran pilots in those same militaries, while its more responsive stick and direct-fire design has endeared it to younger glory-hound hothead pilots in the same services. WZTech Yards is expected to begin selling the Pteropus in the Corkscrew and Thundercloud Galaxies, where similar sales success is anticipated, especially in the Free Worlds Council.
Type:WZ-CGS-0161 Pteropus
Class:Compact Gunship/Fighter-Bomber
Crew: One
MDC/Armor by Location:
Main Body 500
Reinforced Crew Compartment 200
Rotary Grav Cannon(1, centerline) 120
Light Laser Cannon(4, two ventral, two dorsal) 100 each
Particle Beam Cannon(top) 100
Variable Forcefield (900, 150 per side)
Height: 11.4 ft
Width: 27 ft
Length: 36 ft
Weight: 13 tons
Cargo: Small space behind crew seating for a survival pack.
Powerplant: Advanced Nuclear-Fusion w/ 15 year energy life
Speed:
(Atmosphere) Mach 1.3
(Sublight) Mach 11
(FTL) Not equipped for FTL travel
(Underwater) The Pteropus CANNOT operate underwater
Bonuses: +2 to Dodge
Market Cost: 62 million credits
Systems of Note:
Standard, plus:
*Countermeasure Flare/Chaff Launchers(2)---Two launch systems in the engine pods dispense clouds of thermal decoys and micro-mitter ‘ghost’ pods to confuse enemy sensors in direct combat.
Range: Close Defense
Damage: None; similar to Triax-style chaff
01-50 Enemy Missile or volley detonates in chaff and threat is neutralized
51-75 Missile/Volley diverts and may pursue/lock on to other targets
76-00 No Effect! Missile(s) still on target!
Will also temporarily blind and impede flying monsters who fly into it.
In space, anything flying at high speed through the cloud will take 2d6 MD +1d6 MD per every 100 miles of speed over 670 MPH.
Reduce APMs/combat bonuses/ speed by half for 1d4 melees
Payload: 12 per launcher, 24 total

*Sensor Jamming---An automated limited AI system that scans enemy weapons tracking radiations and counters with its own jamming, this system is meant to confuse homing missiles and targetting sensors; -15% to Read Sensory Instrument rolls and -2 to strike with command- and radar-guided ordnance. Enemy missiles are -6 to strike; ‘smart’ missiles are -4 to strike

Weapons Systems:
1) Rotary Four-Barrel Heavy Grav Cannon(1, centerline forward)---Mounted below the cockpit pod is this fearsome gatling-style grav-cannon, capable of spewing out a stream of hypervelocity heavy penetrator rounds that can punch through a hovertank’s hull or a bunker’s reinforced ceramacrete.
Range: 3 miles in atmosphere, 10 miles in space
(Kitsune Values: 10 miles in atmosphere, 1,000 miles in space)
Damage: 4d6x10 MD per 40 rd burst
Rate of Fire: EPCHH
Payload: 200 bursts

2) Twin-Barrelled Particle Beam Cannon(1, dorsal)---Mounted above and behind the cockpit pod is a twin-barreled particle beam cannon. This is the same model as is mounted on WZ’s Solace Escort Fighter, and is a proven and reliable design for anti-fighter work.
Range: 9,000 ft in atmosphere, 27,000 ft in space
(Kitsune Values: 5 miles in atmosphere, 500 miles in space)
Damage: 1d6x10 MD single blast, 2d6x10 MD dual blast(counts as one attack)
Rate of Fire: EPCHH
Payload:Effectively Unlimited

3) Light Pulse Lasers(4, 1 each side, dorsal and ventral)---The Pteropus mounts four light pulse lasers, similar in performance and design to the single one mounted on the Fire-Eater, but each in its own seperate powered-mounting, The four weapons are typically locked in a forward-firing position, but many pilots elect to slew two of them about and lock them in a rear firing position for defense against tailers. WZTech has equipped the Pteropus with a menu-driven fire-control system that allows the pilot to select upcoming targets on his VR HUD, assign one or more turrets to them, and have the turret lasers independently track and fire on the targets as long as they remain in range, then, unless otherwise ordered, swing back to the default firing position(straight ahead) once the target has passed out of range. However, few pilots use this option in combat, instead choosing to keep the cannons in a fixed fire position for the duration of a mission.
Range: 5,000 ft(1 mile) range in atmosphere, 15,000 ft(3 miles) in space
(Kitsune Values: 3 miles in atmosphere, 300 miles in space)
Damage: 1d4x10 MD each; 4d4x10 MD for all four firing on the same target simultaneously
Rate of Fire: EPCHH, or 4 attacks per melee in ‘lock and track’ mode
Payload: Effectively Unlimited

Variants:
WZ Tech Yards Anvil has been experimenting with a variant model to address the issue of hardpoint ordnance, adding two light hardpoints on the forward hull outriggers for carrying a long range missile each, three medium missiles, or a 10-shot mini-missile pod. The same variant also sacrifices the lower ventral laser cannons for another set of hardpoints, each capable of holding a three-shot LRM pod or heavy bomb.
Another variant under consideration extends the cockpit to seat an additional crew member; a dedicated EW officer charged with managing an expanded EW jamming and sensor cloaking system; this model is rumored to be aimed at upcoming sales to the FWC.

[Aramanthus]

Great design Taalismn!

[taalismn]

I have the stats and descriptions up, complete with formatting. I changed a bit here and there, see if it agrees with you, Taalismn.

See if you like them, guys!

BTW, Taalismn, What's Kisune Values?

I'm also in the process of eliminating and upgrading the images, including the Baskin. If you guys want them, and find that the download speed is too slow, just as me.

Google 'Kitsune's Palladium Web Pages'....He's a diehard workaholic Palladium fan who been posting nearly nonstop for the last few years to his website....He's also put up some very comprehensive rules revisions for Palladium space combat values more in keeping with Robotech weapons ranges...rather than the 'point-blank don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes' ranges and speeds of Rifts Phaseworld...

But for the sake of Palladium purists I find it's best to post both sets of stats....

When I can I'll go over what I've done so far t0 correct any spelling mistakes and add in anything I might have left off...

The 'consortium' idea came about as a way of reconciling your imagination with Palladium ship classifications...so the Blade-class destroyer which is more on teh size of a Warshield and is larger than the Mogami-class cruiser, is the product of one of the many firms comprising WZTechYards---from a company of a species that's just gotten out among the stars, and is using tech that's larger and more massive than other more advanced races are using....But WZ finds their 'destroyer' class ship hull is large enough to handle being upgraded to more modern standards...
In the case of the Blade, I'm thinking its destroyer-grade weaponry is fared into hidden retractable bays and turrets in the hull, and to make it more specialized, the space freed up by more modern automation and more fuel efficeint propulsion will go to either drone or mine bays....

The Mogami on the other hand is the result of an advanced society able to make what another nation might call a 'pocket battlecruiser'....all guns and glory....

But both are available/produced under the 'WZ' imprint with more companies getting credit, assistance in production and marketing, and a chance to compete with the big boys of THree Galaxies industry...

[taalismn]

I like your opinions. I have been thinking, perhaps the edge the WZYards have over the bigger competitors might be the powerplant.

I thought perhaps a new shoebox-sized powerplant. Something new. Clean and easily renewable.

I thought of bio-energy harness from plants, but that's already been used (Protoculture).

How about a "common" mineral-base energy matrix. When used, it also produces a vectored matrix around the ship to push it through to FTL. The technology, I suggest, was given to WZ by one of the older races for some great deed the founders did. I was thinking the K!zon. (I have been trying to link to this race.... )

The inner machinations of the powerplant is far too complex for any corporation to steal at this point. Moreover WZ has offered this plower plant cheaply enough to others that reverse-engineering it might prove a lot more expensive to do.

For comparison, one shoebox-sized powerplant can power 150 houses on Earth today. Each have a lifespan of 15-50 years, depending on the quality of the mineral used.

The minerals will be priced according to quality. Only the WZ knows what and where to find these minerals, and how to process them.

How's that?

Sounds good!
With a number of smaller companies, some of whom have good reason to hate/distrust the larger firms, and a fair number of renegade designers(such as the Kittani renegades who help design the roboDragon component of the Draco) from the big companies hiding out in their midst, we could have a number of 'breakthrough' technologies in development...
For instance...the Angel Fighter's 'Light-Wings'
The Raptor's Conformal Energy Charge...
The 'Tronic' skins of many of the ship designs
Not all of these technologies will be compatible with all designs or even some of the other new technologies, but it will give WZ designs a good edge per individual unit over their competitors' hardware...

[taalismn]

First correction in the initial draft of the history of WZTechYards...replace the word 'spwrawling' with 'sprawling'...my bad....

Looks like I'll have to do some dorrections of my own with the new material you came up with! Already my take on the Cachelot is obsolete, but no worries! I can incorporate the earlier version into developmental history of the latest version(fringe nation on borders of TGE space starts colonization efforts with massive colony ships...TGE invades, forcing the planet to convert their colony ships into warships to invade new territories themselves so they have new homes...old 'Cachelot' design emerges, but is found lacking in firepower...latest version mounts considerable firepower...with an eye towards paying back the TGE for their past offenses?)

[Aramanthus]

Then work together to create some new things for the forums and the publics usage!

[taalismn]

Then work together to create some new things for the forums and the publics usage!

I thought that WAS what we were doing...bouncing text and image ideas off each other....
For instance...
Darkmax does an image of the Cachalot....I start fluff text and some ideas...Darkmax revises image and adds text describing at least two weapons systems...I in turn revise fluff text after seeing changes and additions...realize first pictures could be of old technologies and that the arrangement of the engines and the open-'mouthed' prow could suggest a bussard ram scoop feeding a fusion 'torch' drive...note that the numerical designation he gives it ends in a 'TA'...I interpret this, for my own selfish purposes, as the 'A' meaning 'Advanced'...a 2nd or 3rd generation version using newer technologies...such as Darkmax's mention of a powerful new fusion/elemental/transuranic power source(need name or several, I've been calling it a 'Lucerin' fusion powerplant for convenience's sake, but there could be more/better names)...BANG! A new, more powerful energy source means the bussard ram jet can be ripped out and the axial cavity given to housing the 'major energy weapon' Darkmax has given it...
But this is a planetary assault ship...the massdrivers are easy enough, they're stock from Three Galaxies Dimension Book 6....nasty powerful buggers...so we need a weapon that does less damage but is better suited to attacking planets you want to land troops on...maybe a giant particle beam cannon that does moderate amounts of damage for a superheavy weapon, but does disruptions to shields and electrical systems area-of-effect? THAT requires some thought on new technologies...have to come up with something new...A stolen weapon or something done up by a new race entering the scene?

Meanwhile, Darkmax is adding to other descriptions...the Blade gets new stats...I have to decide; go with one description based on new data or think about presenting data on three or more variants using the same hull?...Let's see what's comparable and compatible!

'round and round we go...

[taalismn]

Actually... the TA was meant to be Trans-atmospheric Advanced. You got it correct!

Don't worry about those stats and designations or anything. Anything can be changed. including the pictures!

BTW I just brought back the Baskin in a newer model. Hope you like it. I meant it to pull 20 to 30 containers length wise. But as it is, the program has its limits on how far I can conjure.... broken wand...

Ah, glad am I when a misassumption turns out to be correct! My subconscious genius shines through again!

Okay...that makes sense...few cargoes that would fit in a coupla of stndard cargo cans would merit twin-turret protection on a ship with external cargo pods...

[taalismn]

Well..... one's gotta play tag with pirates....

I prefer to play pirate-tag with long range hypervelocity multi-warhead smart-nuke cruise missiles...

[taalismn]

Preferrably out of range of the pirates, right?

Of course!
The secret to surviving getting hit is not to get hit in the first place!

[Aramanthus]

Which ship are you referring too?

[taalismn]

Thought on the Extendable Freighter...both versions of the Baskin are significantly different and each design has its respective merits that if you got the original configuration around, I'd spin off a new freighter design...take the original Baskin config, scale up its dimensions so the cargo cannisters are now about 130 ft long(the size of the 'Giant' Cargo Can)....Call it the 'John Frumm' class Extendable Freighter(after the supposed founder of the 'Cargo Cults' of the South Pacific

The new Baskin has the advantages of better armament and a really fast escape mode(if it sheds its 'tail' of cargo boxes) but the Frumm is easier to unload, since it can simply detach its cargo pods from its central telescoping systems conduit/frame between the bridge, midpoint turret sub-hull, and rear engine block).

[taalismn]

Archangel....looks like a logical extension of the success of systems pioneered on the Angel...
But now we gotta define the advanced technology of the glowing wings...Some of sort of ambient energy collection system that absorbs energy attacks and converts it into useful shield/weapons energy(that which does not kill us only makes us stronger?) ...maybe a TW system?

[taalismn]

that's cool. BTW, I did changed the dimension to the new freighter. Is it not showing?

Also the new freighter is easier to maneuver and has larger crew cabins.

The reason why I changed the old design was that the old design has a rigid frame. It won't be very maneuverable and very difficult to escape since the front unit have no engine.

"So, for the sake and safety, of the hardworking customers, we have the whole ship re-designed to better cope with a heavier load while not losing maneuverability and defense. We have also design a much more comfortable crew cabin for those long distance and long duration spend in transit", quote a senior public relation officer of WZTechYard.

That's cool...But I was looking at the arrangement of cargo pods in the 2nd version Baskin...almost looks like you'd have to string control conduits externally between the forward crew compartment and the main engine...very vulnerable to fire and damage...at least in the old arrangement, the pods supplied some sidewall protection....
Besides, being smaller, I figured the old version/Frumm just had a limited manueverability detachable crew pod that could 'wave-surf' into atmospheres if a suitably habitable world was nearby...

The Baskin would be rather more expensive than the the Frumm because its crew compartment is essentially a scout ship modified to synch its own CG FTL drive with a trailing 'booster' unit that would allow it to haul cargo longer range...

As I said, you could get two ships from one...a short range local hauler and a long range 'red eye express'.

[taalismn]

looks scrumptious....THis would fall under the 'eccentric designers' that WZTechYards hires and encourages...(I,m already seeing some definite and distinct design-'lineages' within WZ's stable of ships and products...you have less advanced 'newcomer' races attempting to make some money breaking into the mainstream galactic markets, you have old aerospace firms falling on hard times and seeing assimilation by WZ as a 'second wind', new upstart firms with some good ideas but not enough, and not enough capital, to make it big on their own, you got borderline knockoffs, and you got the oddballs who just might have a workable idea...)
FYI, the Central Alliance aerospace firm building their new fleet is NOT affiliated with WZ, but is serving the needs of the CA first, and selling spare parts and transports to local spacers and the open market secondary...

[taalismn]

Absolutely freakin Beautiful!

Okay....personal note: I'm gonna have to focus on two or three of your designs to stat out FIRST, and finish up some old stuff of mine, before I start any new projects like these buggers....


Keep 'em coming, but I'm going to have to start finishing stuff up....

Otherwise you're gonna give me tech-overload!!!!

[taalismn]

Hmmm...looking at the Wraith recon ship, I'd delve into the Rifter #35 for guidelines on teh smaller/midsized ships....
This thing looks like a Promethean design(which would say a LOT about WZ if they were cooperating with the Prometheans)...the black ball in front immediately has me screaming advanced sensor array that makes the deployable long range CAF sensor array in the Rifter #35 weep in impotence...

The new space station looks the 'upscale' version of the Frontier-class, trading in the 'oil rig' utilitarian look of the latter for a more refined look(at a higher price with better systems and defenses...no point in buolding an ivory tower if you don't have adamantium shielding).