Thundercraft's Shipyard

[Thundercraft]

Currently, there still aren't very many Avorion ships for players to download. And of these, even less are iron-tech and geared towards beginners or a new game.

 

So, I thought I would share this:

 

 

The Eos Mk I (iron) freighter with a large 345 unit cargo container. Max acceleration is 19.5 m/s/s and max deceleration is 11.1 m/s/s. Has 961 HP with cargo container.

 

 

Another view of the Eos Mk I (iron) freighter with cargo container, along with the complete stats.

 

 

The Eos Mk I freighter without a cargo container. Now max acceleration is 23.4 m/s/s and max deceleration is an impressive 16.1 m/s/s. Note that it has 414 HP without the cargo container.

 

 

Another view of the Eos Mk I (iron) freighter without a cargo container, along with the complete stats.

 

COSTS:

• Eos Mk I no cargo
  
  • 3980 iron
    
  • 5344 credits

  [*]Eos Mk I with cargo

  • 5687 iron
    
  • 9137 credits

DOWNLOAD:

 

MediaFire: Eos (iron) freighter.zip

 

The download contains two files of the same ship, one with a cargo container and one without, giving players more options. Myself, I plan to ship cargo with the container version, then (for the return trip) go into Build Mode and swap it out for the design without a container to obtain more acceleration.

 

DESIGN THEORY:

 

This was not designed for fighting. However, it can haul a decent amount of cargo for it's size and tech. It was designed for maximum maneuverability and deceleration, while not breaking the bank and still having a decent acceleration. I was only able to get this much maneuverability in a small package by adding hundreds of very tiny thrusters. Further, all thrusters are hidden safely inside so they won't be destroyed with a lucky shot.

 

CREDITS:

 

I did create this from scratch and spent time on it. However, the design was heavily inspired by one of Dead8Eye's ships. (See this post in the Dead8Eye´s Shipyard thread.) Also, I believe my Eos is scaled differently.

[Cossack]

Nice, always appreciate people uploading their ships for us to download. Adding it to my library thanks. :)

[Ertil87]

Thank you for the upload  *bows down*

[SageThe13th]

Nice.  I might use this on my second play through since I starter ship tends to just be an ugly flying box.

[Lannik]

Just to get the thruster design down. They work better if they're arrayed something like a heat sink. Like so  l_l_l_l.  or hollow boxes of small plates? When I get off work I may download the EOS and pop the hood.

[Thundercraft]

I've since upgraded my initial design with Titanium. This allowed me to add generator blocks for much better energy generation and some integrity field generators to make it a bit sturdier. The generator blocks allows the ship to replentish it's energy much better and I can 'step on the gas' for longer periods of afterburner use. I can also use more energy-hungry turrets. Cargo is still 345 units. But no armor or shields. This design still isn't ideal for combat. (Though, it can stand up to some punishment.)

 

Here's what the no-cargo and cargo versions look like:

 

 

I'm including four different versions in this download because I've added crew quarters so one version holds 15 crew and another version holds up to 18.

 

Here are the stats for each, side by side:

 

 

COSTS:

• Eos Mk II no cargo (15 crew)
  
  • 3228 iron
    
  • 2621 titanium
    
  • 34995 credits

  [*]Eos Mk II with cargo (15 crew)

  • 4969 iron
    
  • 2621 titanium
    
  • 38868 credits

  [*]Eos Mk II no cargo (18 crew)

  • 3270 iron
    
  • 2527 titanium
    
  • 34056 credits

  [*]Eos Mk II with cargo (18 crew)

  • 5012 iron
    
  • 2527 titanium
    
  • 37929 credits

P.S.: I've updated my OP with the costs for the Eos Mk I.

 

DOWNLOAD:

 

MediaFire: Eos Mk II freighter.zip

 

A WORD OF CAUTION:

 

I had planned to simply 'apply' the cargo and no-cargo versions of the ship blueprint to switch back and forth between having cargo space to haul stuff. This would allow my ship to have better acceleration and handling with not hauling cargo. However, I discovered a bug which limits my ability to do so:

 

The great 'Turret Disappearing' trick

 

Basically, one has to remember to remove turrets from the ship before applying a different design. Failing to do so will typically cause some of your turrets to literally disappear and become inaccessible. The only way I found to fix this issue is to re-apply the old ship design and remove the problematic turrets.

[Thundercraft]

The following designs were part of my failed attempt at designing a cheap ramming ship. (See this Ramming for the win topic for details.)

 

As part of an experiment, I tried designing a ship for ramming. Here's my iron version:

 

 

It's all iron, save for some titanium for integrity field generators to protect all the blocks. It has 793 HP, masses at 4709 tons, and has a top speed of 271 m/s.

 

In a galaxy set for full collision damage, I tried ramming a large-ish traveling merchant. But my ship exploded spectacularly without putting much of a dent in the target. (HP bar looked the same.)

 

I also tried ramming some pirates and found that I could finish off damaged pirates pretty easily by ramming them - and come out damaged, but intact.

 

Thinking I needed more HP, I redesigned it to use mostly Ogonite for the armor and Trinium for the engines, plus some Trinium shields:

 

 

As Ranakastrasz suggested, shields do nothing for collision damage. And that makes me very sad. :(

 

Anyway, this version has 5086 HP and a top speed of 185 m/s.

 

This is much more survivable as a ramming ship. I was able to repeatedly ram freighter ships many times larger than this ship's 3836 tons and survive. However, my targets were enormous, with hundreds of thousands of HP, and my impacts barely scratched them. Each impact was doing maybe 1% or so of their max HP in damage. By the time I could turn my ship around and recover my afterburners for another run, their mechanics had this damage mostly repaired.

 

Bottom line: Ramming as a strategy is not worth it. Shields won't help. And to make a ship big enough to destroy the enemy without destroying yourself requires too much cost in credits and materials - even if only iron. It's more economical to build a ship for traditional fighting.

 

BTW: In addition to the 5086 in hull HP, the Mk II also has 1890 in shield HP.

 

As I wrote, they were not very effective for ramming. But, I thought I would share these in case someone finds a use for them as the basis for a fighting ship or some other design.

 

COSTS:

• Ram-Rod Mk I
  
  • Iron: 1382
    
  • Titanium: 73
    
  • Credits: 2517

  [*]Ram-Rod Mk II

  • Iron: 780
    
  • Titanium: 73
    
  • Trinium: 871
    
  • Ogonite: 406

 

(NOTE: I'm tempted to try Skytale's Fully Optimized Iron Starting Ship as the core of some new designs. I had a vaguely similar idea, but this "void" or overlapping blocks technique works miracles and his design seems very efficient.)

 

DOWNLOAD:

 

MediaFire: Ram-Rod.zip

[Scytales]

(NOTE: I'm tempted to try Skytale's Fully Optimized Iron Starting Ship as the core of some new designs. I had a vaguely similar idea, but this "void" or overlapping blocks technique works miracles and his design seems very efficient.)

 

Be very careful when peeling off its thin outer armor. flying it bare might cause the game to crash. There are 90 thruster plates occupying the same place as well as 10 engines clipped into 1. The only reason it works is because I covered all of that up.

 

I've experimented on ramming too, and wished there was a nuke block like in "From the Depths." I found the endeavor excessively wasteful in resources.

 

My idea of a ramming ship revolved around cheap, fast moving ships you can spawn to dig into an opponent. Basically, you enter a sector in something that moves extremely quickly, move to the edge of the sector, exit the ship in your drone, spawn a ramming vessel, fly and slam into an enemy, respawn in your original ship, rinse, repeat.

 

I can do that with my X009s, but they're expensive for this purpose.  :'(