M-306 Vindicator Class Frigate 1.0

This is the Mark 306 Vindicator class exploration frigate.

It was built for the purpose of travelling the galaxy, identifying and destroying hostiles, and collecting raw materials.

Defense:

The hull is well armored with an all-around double layer of standard blocks, with tripple layering on the frontal plates - The exception being the engine housing, which had to be reduced to single-block plating to allow installing more powerful thrusters.

The vessel is protected by standard shields of 3KK strength, with 100K regen.

14 point-defense turrets with an (hopefully) all-around coverage protect the ship in dedicated anti-missile mode, making it very difficult to be hit while they are online.

Offense:

The Vindicator's main combat focus is frontal assault, as most of it's weapons are either fixed forward facing, or have limited traverse.
It excels at picking off enemies at great distance with it's two batteries of AI operated tripple-barreled long range cannons, which are powerful enough to shoot clean through the sides of an unshielded ship of similar tonnage in a single shot.
It can also unleash a terrifying bombardment of long-range high-explosive guided missiles from no less that eight pairs of launchers.

At medium range a set of additional weapon systems serve to turn the tide of battle in your favour:

- A prow mounted, quad barreled rapid-fire cannon with explosive shells
- A pair of individually operated multi-line Ion beams for quickly overloading an opponent's shields
- Two heavy gatling cannon turrets that can traverse 45 degrees in either direction, -20 +10 vertically.
- A 30 shot logic operated heat-seeker missile barrage system for dealing with swarms of lesser enemies, or confusing hostile PD turrets to allow undisturbed flight for the main missiles.
- Six laser turrets for harassing small craft that get into "knife-fight" range.


Combat tests revealed that while the AI can indeed strike targets at long range better than a human pilot, it's target selection routines are higly temperamental, more often than not trying to engage targets well outside it's firing arc, while simultaneously ignoring enemies it'd have a clean shot at.
This was solved by giving the duty of target selection for the main cannons and gattling turrets to a human operator, while still relying on the AI for calculating the firing vectors.
This in turn revealed a further issue, namely that the AI is just as happy to shoot at selected enemies, as it is to obliterate selected friendlies, shops, asteroids, trees, and small woodland creatures, with no care in the world for collateral damage.
Another fix and some lawsuits later, wireless controlls were added to arm / disarm these weapons, which drastically - if not quite completely - reduced friendly fire accidents.

Overall, the Vindicator class in combat should be used at long to mid ranges, for eliminating moderate level threats while flying solo, but due to it's lack of multi-directional firepower should only enter full-scale war as part of a fleet, while avoiding the melee and providing fire support for it's more nimble, or tanky counterparts.

Systems:

Above the standard reactor and power capacitors, the M-306 is equipped with an auxiliary reactor to supply it's immense power needs.
Due to the system's fragility, it's encased in an armored shell, safely tucked away in the rear of the ship. However, as no armor lasts forever, it's imperative that you ALWAYS strive to face your enemy head on, to make sure you avoid catastrophic damage to your power system.

To ensure the Vindicator's AI operated weapons and lock-on missiles can always see their targets, the vessel is equipped with a powerful scanner array.

With the aux system on, power generation is sufficient to allow full use of the radar jammer in flight, however this will restrict the use of your more power-hungry weapon systems.

The vessel's thrust to mass ratio is kept at 1:1 to allow for a reasonable amount of mobility, and a large part of the engines is taken up by a sizeable jump-drive to ensure a low downtime between jumps.
A vastly more efficient "chain drive" system was considered, however that kinda felt like an exploit that shouldn't exist...

The widening spread of the aforementioned technology provided a small mercy for the vessel; After installing all the other systems, only VERY MINIMAL space remained on board for a jump inhibitor, which, fortunately is still sufficient for discharging an opponent's "chain drive".

Last but not least, a powerful constant-beam salvage system is installed in the vessel's frontal third section, to let you quickly collect ore from asteroids or parts from defeated opponents.

Logic:

The M-306 employs a large amount of logic systems, the necessity of which are dubious at best, but provide a great source of fun and immersion.
Including:

-A sliding armor plate protects a deeply recessed airlock, in the hopes that it'll be able to withstand more battle damage and still remain functional.
If docked, this outer hatch automatically opens, allowing for a boarding ramp to be extended from the station.
Upon undocking, the hatch closes after a short delay, to make sure it doesn't pinch the retracting boarding ramp.
A safety switch ensures that a combination of automatic and manual opening won't confuse the system.

- The airlock itself consists of two sliding doors, each only able to open once the other closed.

- A three-story elevator with automated sliding doors.

- Shuttle bay hatches with comfort switch: Besides manual control, they automatically open when undocking a parked shuttle, and close when you dock with one.
A safety switch ensures that a combination of automatic and manual opening won't confuse the system.

- Armored blast shutters on crew compartment windows can be lowered or raised either with a button in the corresponding room or globally from the action bar, providing some additional defense in combat (though the double-layered crystal windows are by no means weaker than the hull itself )

-A previously mentioned logic operated missile swarm system.
Click once for a full salvo. The hatch will open and close on it's own. You have to let it recharge for a few seconds before the next salvo.

-Blinking running lights can be toggled on or off.

Interior:

- A cargo hold and shuttle bay at the lowest deck, with capacity for 6 x 142K units of storage and two shuttles.

- A command & control center with a super flash captain's chair, which you can slowly rotate towards your visitor / intruder and say " Ah, I've been waiting for you, Mr. Bond! " and reactor room / engineering, and access tunnels for the main cannons at the middle deck.

- The airlocks, and crew compartments at the top deck.
Included are a combined lounge-mess hall- kitchen, a medbay and a science lab, crew quarters with bunkbeads and a restroom, and the captain's office and private quarters.
At the far end of the corridoor, there's an acces point for the top missile rack's systems.

- The presence of the logic systems provided the ship with a small maze of dimly lit maintenance tunnels which are both functional (for repairing / reconnecting logic modules) and are a great place to be stalked by a stowaway xenomorph.

Exterior:

The design was heavily inspired by the Normandy from Mass Effect, the Fleet Patrol Escort from Star Trek Online, and Imperial Frigates from Star conflict, and of course some of my own ideas.
The ship is currently flying with the colors, markings, and insignia of my fleet, but feel free to change them to suit yours. I'd very much enjoy seeing screenshots of recolors, if you have any to show.