mavikfelna
Emperor Mongoose
So, I've heard alot about the Harrier, but hadn't actually looked at it until now. All I have to say is, I was disappointed to be honest. For a 200 ton combatant it does ok in the commerce raider role but it's obvious the Sindalian Empire had it's focus elsewhere. There is also a glaring error with the design, the Jump drive has too modifications to be legal, since Stealth Jump requires 2 modifications to be used. So, me being me, I did up my "official" version of the ship, and then I did my version that I tried to follow the design intent of the original. I'm really not sure about the cargo scoop, I don't see much point in it. But if all you do it blow up opposing ships, rather than board and capture them, then it make some sense, I suppose.
Ok, so with the original, I chose to drop the Early Jump advantage. it's useful for quick get-a-ways but the ship is fast enough that shouldn't be that big a deal. I question the value of Advanced Stealth. It's just too expensive for it's bonus. Against merchants, you could get just as much use out of Improved Stealth for 10% the cost and literally cut the price of the ship in half. Against system pickets, the -6 negates most of their bonuses to see you, but once you hit medium range or open fire, even a half blind SDB is going to see you. And a single missile? Really? in MgT 2e? You're better off saving money and using just the particle beam at long range rather than shooting missiles, at least if the target has a beam turret. And where are the boarding options? A Boarding Launch? Forced Linkage? You're suppose to be raiding commerce people! Also, Holographic Hull, why? If the ship is running the holo hull, it needs to reduce speed or reduce hull gravity to move power to the sensors if you wants sensor coverage.
Ok, enough ranting. Here's my take.
For the moment, I kept the Holographic Hull and Advanced Stealth, though I think I would drop the holo hull and reduced the stealth to Improved to save money. But the Sinalians like to be flashy and overspend, so they stay for now.
M-Drive Efficiency beats out size reduction with the size reduction you can do to the power plant unless both the drive and power plant have very low ratings. You get the same situation with the J-Drive but Size Reduction gets beaten out by Reduced Jump Fuel. If you also reduce the power plant to only powering one of the drives at a time, you save about a third of the tonnage.
I used most of the cargo space to really up the raiding game of the ship and made up for the loss of internal space by giving it a jump net, so now it actually take small hulls as prizes. I upped the crew to a full military crew so they had a decent boarding force and could function 24x7. This necessitated putting the gunners and sensor operators in barracks to keep size down, but that seemed a very Sindalian thing to do. I also dropped the low berths, for prisoners i presume, and replaced them 2 AutoBerth Clusters. Only 6 vs 8 berth spaces but it saved me 2 tons that I desperately needed. I though seriously about using Emergency AutoBerths to give even more carrying capacity but they aren't big enough to large people or Aslan so I went with the Clusters. Also added in the missing medical bay and workstation that a raiding vessel really needs to handle casualties and repairs, respectively. Oh, and with a full military crew you have 6 officers, Captain, Lead Pilot, Astrogator, Chiel Engineer, Medic and Officer, presumably the XO, that all get their own stateroom The remaining mid rankers are in two double staterooms
Added the Forced Linkage and Boarding Tube. Now all the extra crew can be put to work actually taking prizes. Also added robot capacity in case you want boarding bots or cargo bot or moving the loot or what have you.
I don't know if you can use a Cargo Scoop with a Jump Net but I don't see why not, so you can still scoop up cargo and now you have lots of space to put it, presuming you're ok with jump 1 performance.
The biggest change though, is adding a 3x small Ion Barbette. So now you disable those pesky freighters before they can get away. With an average of 360 ion damage a turn, most merchies are going to fold pretty quickly,
So, what you do y'all think? Am I on track or totally off beat here? You can free up 15 tons by going back to a commercial crew, and an additional 6 tons by dropping the workshop if you want internal cargo space back.
Ok, so with the original, I chose to drop the Early Jump advantage. it's useful for quick get-a-ways but the ship is fast enough that shouldn't be that big a deal. I question the value of Advanced Stealth. It's just too expensive for it's bonus. Against merchants, you could get just as much use out of Improved Stealth for 10% the cost and literally cut the price of the ship in half. Against system pickets, the -6 negates most of their bonuses to see you, but once you hit medium range or open fire, even a half blind SDB is going to see you. And a single missile? Really? in MgT 2e? You're better off saving money and using just the particle beam at long range rather than shooting missiles, at least if the target has a beam turret. And where are the boarding options? A Boarding Launch? Forced Linkage? You're suppose to be raiding commerce people! Also, Holographic Hull, why? If the ship is running the holo hull, it needs to reduce speed or reduce hull gravity to move power to the sensors if you wants sensor coverage.
Ok, enough ranting. Here's my take.
For the moment, I kept the Holographic Hull and Advanced Stealth, though I think I would drop the holo hull and reduced the stealth to Improved to save money. But the Sinalians like to be flashy and overspend, so they stay for now.
M-Drive Efficiency beats out size reduction with the size reduction you can do to the power plant unless both the drive and power plant have very low ratings. You get the same situation with the J-Drive but Size Reduction gets beaten out by Reduced Jump Fuel. If you also reduce the power plant to only powering one of the drives at a time, you save about a third of the tonnage.
I used most of the cargo space to really up the raiding game of the ship and made up for the loss of internal space by giving it a jump net, so now it actually take small hulls as prizes. I upped the crew to a full military crew so they had a decent boarding force and could function 24x7. This necessitated putting the gunners and sensor operators in barracks to keep size down, but that seemed a very Sindalian thing to do. I also dropped the low berths, for prisoners i presume, and replaced them 2 AutoBerth Clusters. Only 6 vs 8 berth spaces but it saved me 2 tons that I desperately needed. I though seriously about using Emergency AutoBerths to give even more carrying capacity but they aren't big enough to large people or Aslan so I went with the Clusters. Also added in the missing medical bay and workstation that a raiding vessel really needs to handle casualties and repairs, respectively. Oh, and with a full military crew you have 6 officers, Captain, Lead Pilot, Astrogator, Chiel Engineer, Medic and Officer, presumably the XO, that all get their own stateroom The remaining mid rankers are in two double staterooms
Added the Forced Linkage and Boarding Tube. Now all the extra crew can be put to work actually taking prizes. Also added robot capacity in case you want boarding bots or cargo bot or moving the loot or what have you.
I don't know if you can use a Cargo Scoop with a Jump Net but I don't see why not, so you can still scoop up cargo and now you have lots of space to put it, presuming you're ok with jump 1 performance.
The biggest change though, is adding a 3x small Ion Barbette. So now you disable those pesky freighters before they can get away. With an average of 360 ion damage a turn, most merchies are going to fold pretty quickly,
So, what you do y'all think? Am I on track or totally off beat here? You can free up 15 tons by going back to a commercial crew, and an additional 6 tons by dropping the workshop if you want internal cargo space back.
