275 ton Rock class Asteroid Ship and 25 ton Pebble class Launch

mavikfelna

Emperor Mongoose
In working on designs from High Guard Update 2022, I found there were 5 designs that were not carried over from HG. I went ahead and converted the Pebble and Rock ships but I didn't think the Rock was a very good design, especially in it's designated role as a Transporter. So I came up with this variation on the design, which, if you actually use the cargo space from the launch, can be profitable as a trade ship. It's still a fairly bad covert ops ship, which I think is its actual purpose since they mention spies using it, but that will be a separate design.

I couldn't get the Rock to be profitable at 300 tons, but dropping it to 275 and putting the Pebble on a docking clamp while leaving the engines for 300 tons was the trick that worked. Also, the original design is a Jump 1 ship that used 90 tons of standard fuel tanks to get 3 jump 1's in a row. Collapsable fuel tanks are a thing in HG so I've no idea why they would have done this instead of going with 60 tons of cargo space and fuel bladders in them to cover the extra jumps.

Anyway, my version is 18 MCr cheaper than the default version.

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The Pebble is a decent little launch but they went with extra fuel tankage instead of increasing the cargo bay and using a fuel bladder for increased capacity for it's skimming operations. My version saves about a mega credit, mostly from budge drives and a light hull.

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If the Rock is supposed to be a spy ship I would radically redesign it with a much better sensor suite, maybe a basic stealth coating, extra sensor stations and crew.

Ok, I couldn't help myself. Here's the spy version. Cost is silly high compared to the other version, but this one isn't suppose to be cost effective. I added a Biosphere for the crew so they don't need to leave the ship for supplies while they are spying and to help crew morale. And the missile rack is actually missile x2, sandcaster, so the ship has some extra defense and firepower if it does get caught.
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It’s from an adventure called expedition to Zhodane and the travellers find it. It’s a one off ship and was used by a mysterious professor ‘ooo’. It is only loosely a spy adventure, or it can be if that’s the way it pans out. It’s all against the backdrop of drop of the FFW and maybe might of been a good adventure to resurrect?
 
It’s from an adventure called expedition to Zhodane and the travellers find it. It’s a one off ship and was used by a mysterious professor ‘ooo’. It is only loosely a spy adventure, or it can be if that’s the way it pans out. It’s all against the backdrop of drop of the FFW and maybe might of been a good adventure to resurrect?
Thank you Tom! I had no information on it other than it appears in the 2016 HG as a design and the description there was hazy as to if it was supposed to be a cheap merchant or a spy ship. I think I'll keep both alternates, but the spy version is obviously the correct route for it's intended use.
Now, any suggestions on the spy design? Anything I should drop to make it cheaper? Freeing up 4 tons means it can drop to basic stealth, but I don't think most spy ships really need to be much worried about purchase or operating costs. But I'd like to make something that fits with the scenario it was built for.
 
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