Solaris Combine Shipwerks

[Aerzaal]

Trick or treat

 

[Trollerbobman]

Awesome!

 

[Aerzaal]

Had to shelf the Oculus turret for a bit, the shape just wasnt working with a medium turret base. Try again when we get to large turrets. Widowmaker medium sniper turret is coming along. A few refinements, and we\'ll release that along with the Peacemaker.

 

[Aerzaal]

Not much to look at yet, we\'ve been playing with the armament of the Hunter Frigate. Stepped up somewhat from our original design specifications, this frigate will now feature one as-yet undeveloped large turret. Maybe we should get the hull finished before we start playing with the turret placement.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

After facing a Seeker in battle I have to say \"Corvette\" is a little small of a title for such a ship, her size and armament seems like she is much much more a gunboat or small frigate. We had to dispatch the Longsword Frigate UCC Acclaim to clean up after our Dagger Gunboat UCC Archangel failed miserably in combat trials.

 

[Aerzaal]

We manifest mouth-bits and move them in a manner imitative of a smile and insist that the vessel matches the displacement of old terran wet navy corvettes, and that they should, \"wait until you see our battleships.\"

 

[Aerzaal]

Taking out those turret mounts. It warms the coils of our cold, metallic hearts to know that our vessels give the living denizens of the galaxy so much trouble.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Yeah those duel computer turrets pack quite a punch and need to be dealt with very fast. I didn\'t think anybody else used those in their design and I\'ve used it a few times on heavier guns but after fighting the Seeker I am going to need to beef up a few of my standard turrets as well.

 

[Aerzaal]

But the fact that they add system redundancy and make our weapons more energy efficient doesn\'t hurt, either.

 

[Aerzaal]

Combine ships differ from other ships in a few obvious ways. They\'re red. They\'re sexy. They\'re deadly. They give off harmful radiation accross a wide spectrum. But they also differ in some ways that may not be so obvious. To help you get the most out of your Combine ship, we\'ve prepared a cross-section of a Seeker which highlights many of the important design elements common to all Combine vessels.

1. The Carapace. This is the primary armor of all Solaris Combine vessels. Though it may vary in shape and thickness, one thing that does not change is its structure. Thicker toward the front, and lined with shield dispersers, this is a ship\'s first line of defense. Between the forward carapace and the inner hull, there is usually a void. This can feature structural braces, fuel lines, and power cables, but is for the most part left empty. This is foremost a provision against torpedoes, allowing the explosion to diffuse through non-vital systems and hardened structures.
2. The sensorium. Typically located near the nose of the ship, this is the control center for the vessel\'s various sensors. Fire control, external cameras, radar, ladar, and ansible relays all route through here.
3. The Combat Information Centre (CIC). This is the control room for ship combat operations. Most of the hardmounted weapons are controlled from this area, as well as autonomous combat actions. When not inhabited by a Solarian consciousness, the onboard AI runs the ship from this compartment.
4. The Barracks. There are times when Solarians deem it necessary to utilize physical bodies. The barracks is where they store those bodies, called remote hosts, or sometimes walkabouts. Typically used for repelling boarders or effecting hasty repairs, Solarian remote hosts take on a variety of forms according to the whims and tastes of their owners. When not in service, the armatures are locked into vertical docks against the walls to charge.
5. The Super Solenoid Engine. The beating heart of any Combine ship, the S2 engine utilizes little understood Super Science and Mega Math to create virtually limitless power. Also it\'s a glowy ringy thing in the middle of the ships that looks pretty cool.
6. Stonewall Auxilliary Shield. Ever shoot a Seeker in the face when his shields are down and feel that rush of excitement as you anticipate the moment your next AMC shot will hit the core? That crushing disappointment you experienced next was a result of the Stonewall system. Adding a backup shield to the ship\'s core, Stonewalls are deployed in varying capacities in all Combine warships. Smaller ships, like the Seeker, may have only one small Stonewall, covering only the front face of the core, while larger vessels may have more.
7. Massacre Missile Pod. Pretty self-explanatory. These are hull-mounted missiles that are deployed in tight clusters. Basically useless on servers with speed caps over 50kph.
8. The Core Room. Clever name, right? Solarians live on massively parallel quantum servers, and download themselves into their ships, either via ansible FTL uplink or physical transfer. The core, and its supporting computer hardware, contain them while they operate the vessel. The number of Solarians operating a ship varies with the size of the vessel and the power of the Solarian. Weak, low level Solarians are often unable to fully utilize all ship functions unassisted, while some of the older or wealthier Solarians have the capacity to command entire fleets on their own.
9. The Halo Drive. The Combine\'s FTL drive circulates anti-matter through its rings to create rotating exotic electro-magnetic fields. These fields super-cavitate space-time, forming a bubble of non-space around a plane of space. The ship rides this spatial plane, remaining stationary relative to its local space-time plane, while outside the non-space bubble, space is compressed ahead and expanded behind the cavitation. Layman\'s terms? The ships go fast. Really fast. Really really stupid fast, without actually moving, therefore suffering no relativistic effects. And since ansible communication utilizes quantum entanglement to transfer data, this space-time dislocation has no negative effect on inter-ship communications.
10. The Quantum Frame. Unmarked is another, very important component of Combine ships. Visible throughout as a gray and red structure, the eery green glow emitted by this device is a hallmark of Combine ships. Acting simultaneously a massive battery for the ship and a computer network for its Solarian operators, the quantum frame is second only to the core itself for its importance to ship operations.

We hope you have enjoyed this enlightening look into the technology of the Solaris Combine. Unless you\'re on of our enemies. In which case we hope you fell asleep part way through and didn\'t absorb any of this.

 

[Aerzaal]

We\'ve been procrastinating about finishing our next ship. Between the Black Flag calling us away and selling our bodies to pay rent, we haven\'t had much time for it. Look for a new release by the weekend end.

 

[MisterVec]

Don\'t sell yourself too cheaply, lad.

 

[Aerzaal]

Ask, and ye shall receive.Behold the mighty Space Penis!

(What? This isn\'t the Space Penis? But the cue cards. Well, that\'s a little disappointing. Oh well, might as well make the best of it.)

Ahem. Behold the mighty Tusk Fast Attack Craft! Much less impressive and veiny than that other thing I though I was unveiling today, the Tusk was designed to fill a role which, were it not for the insistence of our loyal and beloved customers, we would not have been aware we were missing: that of being smaller than a Seeker and larger than a Talon. Easily a match for any Corvette on the market, the Tusk breaks the typical Combine mold in that it uses exclusively non-modular, hull mounted weaponry. What you see is what you get.

No flashy bells or whistles on this ugly mug, the Tusk is incapable of deep space operations on its own, relying on the long range communications of larger ships to maintain its connection to the Combine network. Slated as a system patrol ship, the Tusk only sees fleet action when deployed as a drone for much, much larger Combine vessels.



Hull is mostly done, barring small adjustments and detail work. Interior is incomplete. Look for a release tomorrow nightish.



And now a gratuitous fleet photo op!

 

[Aerzaal]

We\'re giving you a first-look at the insides of a Tusk fast attack craft. You\'ll get a better look later when you crack one open with a missile barrage.
Visible here is the compact omniorgan typical of smaller Combine craft. It packs the S2 engine, CIC, the Core chamber and the sensorium all into a single itty-bitty room. You probably want to avoid letting this get hit by anything.

 

[Aerzaal]

Just lazy. But enough about that, look at this!The Maw class light carrier, little more than a frame at this stage of development. But it\'s coming. You are not prepared.

 

[Trollerbobman]

I am prepared! :P

Looks scary though.

 

[Sven_The_Slayer]

Two dozen fangs? Are you sure this actually classifies as \"light\" anything?!

 

[busterbleede]

they look good but that have a lot of air inside u will probly need a prety big fleet of that little basterds to brign down my carier mounted with 10 3,6km turrets and lot of 1km turrets but doign so will probly also lag out the game ^^

 

[Mason]

1036km long ships are impossible, and a 1km long turret is just exessive. Also, did you really assume that was the finished ship? Because you said


they look good but that have a lot of air inside


Please use proper conventions, including capitalization, punctuation, and grammer. You shuold also never use text lingo such as \"LOL\", \"u\" and \"g2g.\"

Grammaticaly correct,

-Mason

 

[Aerzaal]

Yes. The Maw is rated only for small craft. The two Tusks on the front are there \'because we can,\' but the Maw has no capacity to actually service them. It\'s also going to feature a small onboard machine shop, since Fangs are so cheap and fragile that the likelihood of any of them making it back to the ship after sortie is close to zero.

We\'re hoping to one day build fleet carriers that can offer production and maintenance support to corvette and fast attack craft class vessels, as well as nominal support capabilities for cruisers and larger vessels, but that\'s a long way off. We\'ve yet to finish testing our large mount turrets, or even finish one of our medium-sized hulls. So many distractions.