New ship - The Anarchist's Special

[thin spear]

One of the last few remaining vessels produced by Ganymedian shipyards

LORE [excuse for existence]:
Originally intended for removing space garbage - due to an increasing amount of derelict satelites in orbit around human colonies, measures were taken to counteract kessler syndrome. While most debris could be deorbited with a calculated missile strike, ships like this one were dispatched to dismantle and recycle wrecks that were especially rich in rare metals or too large to safely burn up in the atmosphere [or, due to a lack of sufficient atmospheric density in the case of moons, most wrecks in general]

Originally outfitted with 4 laser PDTs [front and middle hardpoints] and 2 drone systems [rear hardpoints] for rapid dismantling and collection of derelicts

Several of these ships survived the destruction of Ganymedian colonies thanks to being dispatched in the orbit of different bodies, in transport, as well as being used as evacuation vessels

Now modified by the GA to serve as sentinels against the BBW, replacing the heavy cargo bay shielding with significantly lighter (and more brittle) carbon fiber panels, applying dazzle camo to hide EVA and make it harder to discern the ship's durability, upgrading the dismantling equipment to a set of railguns and railgun PDTs, and carrying maintenance drones

Intended as a heavy-yet-nimble combat/stripminer ship

The player could receive access to it by being on good enough terms with the GA - for a price (or for free, if they're hailed as a hero among the anarchists), the ship would be left "stranded" for the player to "find" and take to the Enceladus for registration

[wintry sierra]

What I'm concerned about would be: "How would you get this ship if you piss off GA, or worse still, ||blew them up already||?"

[thin spear]

I reckon if you pose enough of a threat you'd get those vessels hunting for you

Then if you manage to disable one you can just yoink it like any other GA ship

[glossy trellis]

Could buy one independently, though I'd like to require forming contracts at the Space Bar and buying things like this at highway robbery prices.

Would be nice to have more small ships in the roster, though. We can't keep churning out massive haulers and warships. Given the environment, K37s and ships of a similar class should probably dominate your options.

[thin spear]

True true very true

I felt inspired to make this one though and let my heart guide me 😌

fwiw the racer is roughly K37 size and I'm planning a dinky little shuttle for the next sketch

[warm valley]

I feel like it needs more distinctive features
as it is it's very similar to the titan

[thin spear]

well I did intend it as essentially a lighter Titan

[true prism]

I like it. a dedicated warship for the pirates. though they kind of already have that with their converted S&R ships

[orchid hedge]

this looks sick. makes me think of an Fast RMX vehicle

[still pilot]

Do I see a massive spinal cannon?

Wait no, it's a bay

6 hardpoint ship... Me Likey!

With central radiator positioning that double as melters for ice... I like it more and more!

[true prism]

possible variant?

an additional hardpoint for the very big guns in the center instead of an MPU?

[still pilot]

Then it would be pretty much Roci....

[true prism]

https://tenor.com/view/smile-nod-yes-robert-redford-beard-gif-10489927

[glossy trellis]

What if you scaled this down? Keep the elongated hexagonal cross-section, keep a single top-down hexagonal profile, bring the size down a bit in line with an EIME-scale ship. Imagining three low-stress tool mount, two of them capable of cradles, and one drone mount. Get two main drives spread out on the hex, so they also constitute rotation thrust. It would also give you the points of the hex to mount rotational/translation RCS, which'd give it an interesting thrust profile.

Annnnnnnnnd, I got half way through designing this when I realized that I had designed a hexagonal Defiant. Also that the reactor's gonna need to be further forward to avoid absorbing heat from driveshine.

[thin spear]

very considerable!!

might be as simple as cutting off the front section and moving stuff around a little bit

[glossy trellis]

It'd be nice to see a GA-specfic ship that isn't actually a warshipl; this thing might be their version of the EIME, less gimmicky, expensive because it's custom-built, but with a focus on practicality, and their first proof-of-concept for a GA-built ship.

Mining focus of course . . . . annnnnnd we might need to make those cradle mounts cradle-only if we want to balance it against other ships. Maybe even cut into the side there to create a hollow, and call it a docking bay.

[thin spear]

it looks a little silly at the moment but it's a start lol

that's a bit better

the size feels right but I feel like I injected it with too much EIME DNA

[thin spear]

if only this excavator design wasn't already taken 😭

[glossy trellis]

It may look a little TOO fancy for a GA ship.

I like the thought of having the body of the drive hidden, with just cutouts to let the thrust pass. But that, too, may also be too fancy for the GA.

[thin spear]

Ganymede had at least 4 shipyards so I figure they'd have plenty of experienced engineers in their ranks

I like the idea of the underdog faction for once having a technological advantage; quality over quantity

one issue that would likely come up though is that this ship would need to be separated into 3 layers instead of the usual 2 since part of the hull is above the excavator and part is below it

so I need to cook a bit more either way

[rugged trail]

so, this wouldn't quite fit the original excuse for existence lore, but the ship could be more kitbash. With the GA taking pieces off of captured, destroyed, or derelict ships and modifying their original design. That could be the EIME excavator slapped on the front of a chopped-off garbage ship, and prospector engine mounts for extra thrusters, etc. Would keep it from seeming out of place against the standard beat-up GA ships, and potentially allow for several versions pretty easily.

[thin spear]

I considered making ships like that but uhh

When I play games myself and see things like this (i.e. "scavengers repurposing a vehicle they found") I generally tend to be a bit disappointed

For one, because it's lazy design, in my opinion - it's the boring option; and feels very derivative (granted, sometimes it's justified, but I find it overused)
and secondly, I'd like more stories to have underdog factions that aren't just crazed scavengers that live and breathe violence and build all their stuff from scrap metal

The setting of DV has the technology to properly repurpose and recycle material (they could literally just have a huge MPU for reprocessing ships on the station) and ganymede being a former large colony with a bunch of shipyards, it figures that the population would have a large amount of workers skilled in ship production

I like the idea of it being recycled from captured ships, but I don't want it to use too many recognizable parts

[rugged trail]

solid points all around.
I was less thinking "cobbled together from crap metal" and more "modifying an existing design to use parts that are easier to replace"
The core hull of the ship should definitely be an original GA design, but I can totally see significant changes being required as the intended purpose of the ship shifts, and probably the easiest method available would be to supplement it with components that they're likely harvesting anyways.

[thin spear]

Maybe!! maybe

We'll see 👍

[rugged trail]

you do solid work, I trust whatever you come up with 👍

[still pilot]

What about keeping the original size and shape but making it a some sort of Elon's fancy ride? Or .... (Spoiler) ||One of those corporate goons that blew up Obonto 1||

Cause lets be honest the ship looks just gorgeous

Could either be remnant of homemade GA ship or somethign as high-tech as Elon

Cause it looks the part

[glossy trellis]

Experienced engineers only really go so far without access to industrial supply lines and large organized design; the problem isn't that there aren't the people to make a ship there, the problem is that they aren't a corporation, there's no workflow for the design unless some guys shake hands on it.

[glossy trellis]

I think we just have too many big heavies right now, is the main problem. Looking fancy isn't my main objection to the original design, just to a GA design.

I feel like the GA wouldn't have easy access to expensive high-end parts for their construction.

They might run into a lot of "we don't sell to anarchists."

[unique lichen]

There's always the tried-and-true Tim the Toolman Taylor method.

Instead of going for high-tech, why not have the GA engineers use their experience to fit it with two reactors?

[thin spear]

But they also have a lot of friends among enceladus miners who can smuggle them into the station

[unique lichen]

To give it enough thermal power to run some big engines.

[thin spear]

...well I guess when it comes to story retcons we can go back and forth forever

Point being that this ship looks fancy but (at least when it comes to visible parts) it's quite simple - mostly flat sheets of metal with a bunch of support beams

the only mechanically complex part is the excavator rail

OH WELL I'll put it on the shelf for now

[unique lichen]

Where are the rads?

[thin spear]

once you take away the dazzle camo it becomes apparent how simple the shape is

[thin spear]

Exposed segment in the back, probably

[glossy trellis]

Nah, that would see driveshine.

[unique lichen]

Could make it only the outer edges of the sticky-outy bits.

Inside edge being thermally reflective material

[thin spear]

OH sorry I misunderstood lol

I thought you meant rads as in where the radioactive material is stored

That protrusion is supposed to be the reactor

as for radiators I think I'll just slap them on the large flat surfaces on the sides

[unique lichen]

I mean, I still like the idea of this having two separate reactor cores, to compensate for GA's difficulty obtaining the SSR series fuel rods.

[glossy trellis]

Might be on the small side for two reactors. Smallest ship with two is a CERF.

[thin spear]

That and I don't really see the functional advantage of having 2 cores with 8 rods each instead of a single core with 16 rods

[unique lichen]

Fair

[glossy trellis]

Well, it does give you twice the reactor to target.

"More vulnerability confuses the enemy who can't decide which one to shoot."--Sun Tzu, maybe.

[unique lichen]

It's also less about 'practical advantage' and more about practicality. Sunshards are cheaper, per gigawatt, than the molten uranium Yama cores, and probably easier to obtain.

[still pilot]

Only now it's EIME with normal engines

[thin spear]

and different hardpoints and different radiator and

[unique lichen]

So, if you're running 3 heat-hungry engines, you can use 2x 16 sunshards instead of 1x ssr12

[thin spear]

Well we'll see

for now I'm shelving this design

maybe it could be the space toyota later

modern but reliable, without unnecessary gimmicks

[glossy trellis]

I think the EIME bay might be recycling that design a bit too much.

[thin spear]

dinky

[thin spear]

and well that was exactly my grievance 😔

There are only so many ways to open something in 2-dimensional space 😭

[unique lichen]

What if you went with a smaller version of the excavator? A little bigger than a standard K37-style excavator, but instead of tilting open, it slides open, but not all the way back.

I have ZERO artistic ability but I will attempt to draw what I mean

(Seriously, you're a fucking wizard I don't understand how you do it)

[thin spear]

I'm not sure if I want to make it much smaller because a big thing with this is that uhh

these 2 angles are the same

and so it can open to a very nice fit

[unique lichen]

Tried to draw my idea. You're right, it looks silly

[thin spear]

there's also an option to make it open like this I suppose

[unique lichen]

Just go full silly and make it open like the standard excavator. Big chomp.

[thin spear]

🤔 perhaps

[patent bobcat]

This has real racing vibes. Like the little ships from F-Zero, if anybody still remembers that. Really cool looking

[still pilot]

Maybe splitting them into 2 different ships? I just can't help myself. The first design looks mean and lean

Like variants of one manufacturer, like varions K-numbers that we already have

[river stag]

Fuckin gorgeous looking ship though

[thin spear]

Thank you 😌

[fair salmon]

Anarchist doesn't mean disorganized, though. A group of their size, with the access to expertise and machinery that they have, they would likely be able to develop some semi-standardized manufacturing of a design that meets their needs and is within their capabilities to produce.

On the gameplay side of this, you actually reference the inconsistencies in production having each ship have slight variations in dry weight and center of mass (controlled by the same seed as the name).

[glad valley]

if GA has good engineers but doesn't have full access to complex manufacturing like Enceladus station does, maybe then GA's custom ships would focus on creative re-use of salvaged parts

idk if it's better to have it subtle so if you looked closely at the resulting ships you could see the resemblance, or more obvious/easier for them to manufacture, like (going with the 2 reactor idea mentioned earlier) they might create a larger hauler by combining two k37s and bolting their long sides together, perhaps adding the grinder of an eagle or the large excavator from the expanded cothon

[glossy trellis]

Again, I have no problem with the GA building a ship. Building the equivalent of a sleek, shiny F1 racer is a little out of character when they're smuggling in machined ammo and drones.

[true prism]

well they have access to all the material in the rings and the ability to process the raw chunks into processed material using MPUs and they have a good chunk of money from selling that ore to miners so they can buy any material the rings lack if they find someone to do it for them

[waxen widget]

I don't mind the idea of GA having a small fleet of high quality custom ships, each one could be a labour of love for the crew, engineers and dock workers.

A core of elite craft supported by a ton of salvaged/captured ships with railguns welded to the front is a neat aesthetic

[thin spear]

yeah that was kinda my thinking - they have few resources, so they make sure they do the absolute best with what they've got

[unique lichen]

Also, I had an idea for a new excavator shape; there's a central 'pillar' with a wedge on the front in the middle of the cargo bay's opening, and the doors open outwards to form a sort of... funnel shape. Here's an (extremely) poorly drawn version of what I mean.
The idea is that, in case of medium-velocity impacts, there's a higher chance of it deflecting off the front wedge shape instead of slamming into the garbage inside the cargo bay and possibly kicking out lots of tiny fragments. Or something to that effect.

Either that, or the nose-wedge is a literal drill that you push into ringoids with to break them.

[warm valley]

I've posted something similar a while ago
#1099351101695852564 message
someone said that nuggets would be too likely to bounce back outside in 0g

[glossy trellis]

I feel like doing the absolute best with the few parts you get would mean a lot of mismatches and a lot of exposed wires/incomplete plating, because making a ship pretty isn't typically the most efficient use of materials, and when you get parts by chance, luck, and bargain hunting, you just don't get matched sets and premium, first-use gear in pristine condition.

[thin spear]

Hmm fair fair

Noting that for tomorrow perhaps

[glossy trellis]

Easy analogue is just to look at real-world construction in third-world countries - they do more with less, but it ain't always pretty.

You just don't make an F1 engine by putting parts from three junkyard engines into one block.

I mean, don't get me wrong, I LIKE pretty ships, and I absolutely want to see some of these designs in the game at some point, but I feel like there might be a better fit.

[thin spear]

Yeah I get u I get u

Already shelved that one for something else

Hmmm

If I'll have time tomorrow morning I'll draw up a little thing

[thin spear]

Moving that to Monday . Spent way longer at my grandparents' place than I expected (absolutely happy that I did, tho)

[thin spear]

EH too k37 shaped I think

back to the drawing board

[gaunt dove]

That is very cool

[thin spear]

Thinking about a similar shape to the above buuuut one where you can see some of the insides. So now I'm making the insides just to cover them up with panels later

[unique lichen]

Well, that also has utility, in that you could have the panels come off, and internals revealed, when the ship takes reactor damage.

Like how the Eagle's cargo bay gets exposed

[thin spear]

Hmmm true that

Still a lot of work left to do on making them look good and more like uhh

Ship guts I guess

[quartz fiber]

Applying a body kit is not something you need a high level workshop to do. Our liberated ringmates could easily take a titan, cut front half off leaving only 2/3 of the cargobay left and use aftermarket kit to strap front of elon on it... which would give you similar design to what you originaly proposed.

and also make it look nice since its a kit ment to do that and not some psycho with a welder.

[autumn pulsar]

six hardpoints....
six arms

[still pilot]

"I'm fucking invincible!"

[glossy trellis]

Honestly? I'd keep some of that skeletal look. Utilitarian, practical, no frills. Just a gantry to bolt a mounting to and "screw you, my ship is BEAUTIFUL."

[torn wave]

Or even welded together ships in various Frankenstein configurations.

[golden tapir]

Question: Are those the fuel tanks in the side?

[thin spear]

Yes

Well that's the idea at least

really at this stage of concepting I'm in "whatever it looks like to you, that's what it is" mode

[golden tapir]

lmao

One wrong asteroid hit though…

[thin spear]

Well a bunch of ships have remass tanks on the outside entirely

[golden tapir]

eh true

kinda looks like a shuttle but upscaled

[thin spear]

Cothon, Titan, a few NPCs

really the worst case scenario when those are damaged is a leak

so not all that dangerous to put on the outside layer all things considered

[golden tapir]

true, it is just water isn’t it?

[thin spear]

yup

well I guess the actual worst case is that the tank depressurizes completely, the water turns into ice and makes it burst as a result

[golden tapir]

You got any ideas on the excavator portion?

[thin spear]

I was thinking either a grinder or a big ole beak

[golden tapir]

Me when it happens in my house:

[thin spear]

hold on I'll open up the model

this thing went through a bunch of revisions lol

[golden tapir]

ooooh we need more grinders, I only know of one ship that actually has a grinder

[golden tapir]

goddAM

the third one has ears lol

[thin spear]

yeah I made those so that like

there was this idea of a ship made of scrap parts that's actually just a huge mass driver

so this is the part with electromagnets

open in this position

and when closed it's just a big ol beak

[golden tapir]

you know

could say those are the cargo bay baffles

I mean, they wouldn’t baffle or anything but makes it a bit harder for ore to escape

[thin spear]

The whole thing is based off of the Eiffel Tower also lol

[golden tapir]

now imagine this penetrating your Titan at high speeds

Just terrorizing the local anarchists then suddenly your ship is split in half

[true prism]

do we get to fire iron chunks at a few km/s?

[thin spear]

🤔 reminds me of something

[golden tapir]

actually….now that I think about it, you could have it be both a beak and a grinder

[thin spear]

Maybe

we'll see

I'd also have to do some napkin math to see if this could crush a rock without getting mangled itself lol

[golden tapir]

tho now I’m hooked on the idea of an railgun ship, maybe one that uses the ore actually in the cargo bay

[still pilot]

Ramming speed!

[autumn pulsar]

I think I mostly look at these ship development threads to try and get the design process for something like this.
It never occurred to me to not make an entire scene in blender, but just one object for something else. that is probably just because I haven't been using blender for very long

[thin spear]

Generally that's the same way you'd for example make props or characters for later use in other scenes. Doesn't really make sense to model everything from scratch every single time

[still pilot]

You know. Maybe we should use original model as something new, something else? Like a bigger stronger Eagle. Because honest to God I just love theese hexagonal panels style. There's certainly a design idea there, which looks sharp and militaristic

[thin spear]

Of course, it's just getting shelved, not thrown out 🙂