After much discussion and hunting for options, I decided to continue the project with some major changes. Partly this was due to the addition in my faction of a very avid miner/builder, which meant my resource crunch wasn't quite so pressing. Partly this was simply a lack of other options that I really liked.
However, there are some changes going forward.
The center of the craft, from about 20 blocks in on the sides and back from the edge of the citadel sphere (see first post for plan) is largely untouched. The cathedral and engines, basically, and everything I put in the guts of the craft so far (75k mass! whew!) remain as-is, though I plan to add two new engines. These will go on the center of the wings, right on the visible (for now) transition line between grey hull and standard armor on the trailing edge of the wings.
The dragon figurehead has been removed and that entity deleted; I'd like to add an angel figurehead (like the
rolls royce hood ornament) which is more in keeping with the theme of the ship and the Tenebris Lux faction.
The eight 25-meter turret bays will be merged into four larger turret bays (you can see in the picture I've removed the divider). I'd like to fit 40-meter main turrets but I might be able to fit 60-meter main turrets, and this is friendlier to the LVD ship turret policy (2 at 10k mass +1 per 20k add'l mass).
And the new wings add lots and lots of internal space -- I haven't added much to the length of the craft, maybe a couple meters, but it's using that length a LOT more efficiently and is already benefiting from that decision. I might wrap the wings around the nose a little bit just as a nod to Schlock Mercenary, but I might not. The docking claws ended (being the tip of the craft, technically) about where the wings end now, so I've only added maybe 20 meters.
