Eros Mining produces only small ships, the largest being an asteroid miner simply dubbed the Collector Class. Everything else is a fighter, and only one is capable of operating on its own. That said, they hold the designs to the most advanced and cost-effective solar panels in the galaxy, allowing every one of their designs to generate power at a prodigious rate and eliminating the need for large batteries to hold immense amounts of energy. The pros are fast and nimble craft that are hard to keep up with and extra space for weapons and upgrades. The cons are dependability on a mothership to travel from one system to the other (for most models) and limited ability to use energy-sucking weapon systems. Let's take a look at what they have to offer:

• Eros Defender: Basic fighter craft, basic armament, and requires a mothership.
• Eros Avenger: An upgrade from the Defender, though still dependent on a larger ship.
• Eros Vindicator: The largest design from Eros that is launch bay dependent.
• Eros Collector: The only asteroid miner design capable of defending itself reasonably well. That said, there is currently only one other design of asteroid miner, so it's sort of a moot point. At least it has a fluxdrive.
• Eros Starfighter: As the name says, it's a starfighter. Based loosely on the design of the Collector.

As you can see, nothing Eros Mining makes seems very exciting. That's because it isn't. They're known for their weapons and mining equipment—not their ships—for that reason.

Next update: an overview of Estee Luxury. Yes, I made a new name. As StarSword suggested, I tweaked a few names so they're not all 'something' shipyards.

Estee Luxury is the leading designer of luxury starships built for merchant duties. That said, they are only out-done in luxury by Atinoda. However, Atinoda only makes one freighter, and it's anything but luxurious. Therefore, Estee leads the way in luxury freight vessels.

That's not to say Estee isn't capable of defending themselves. They hold an extensive list of combat-worthy designs. Even their civilian models are tough to beat. This brings us to the second reason Estee is famous: security. Their ships are used heavily by the rich and paranoid. In the following list of models available to everyone, you'll see one design in spoiler brackets. There's one in the list of company ships, as well. They are important to the story of HOTS, so don't read them if you don't want spoilers. Just putting it out there for the three people still reading this.

• Estee Deimos: If ever there was a ship to compete with the Sapphire Dragons' Falcon Class, this would be it.
• Estee Uranus: Estee's very first design, these shuttles make competent landing craft for mercenaries and are good as defensive fighters on larger ships.
• Estee Phobos: These barely classify as interdictors. The fact of the matter is they pack enough firepower to almost qualify as cruisers.
• Estee Mercury: One of the recent designs, it trades some cargo space for extra speed and defenses.
• Estee Venus: The second ship built by Estee, the FF-6 Class was once used as a rudimentary carrier in defense fleets. Those days are long past, but it still carries two squadrons of Shuttlecraft standard.
• Estee Neptune: It's generally agreed this is the sleekest vessel you'll ever see. Other than that, there's nothing remarkable about it.

Unimaginative names, I know, but that's how Estee Luxury operates. They aren't here for creativity, they're here to provide security to merchants and rake in the credits as a result. I decided to give them better names, the old ones being so bland. Of course, you can't have effective security in space without a few warships.

• Estee Jupiter: One of only three battleship designs outside the military and pirates, this one carries more fighters than any other.
• Estee Pluto: Skipping the destroyer class completely, Estee makes one of the deadliest frigates in the galaxy outside the military.
• Estee Mars: This massive keel utilizes missiles and—to a greater extent—torpedoes to wipe enemy fleets out of existence.

While Estee Luxury does have a growing private navy of its own, it prefers to remain neutral rather than get tangled up in war and politics. Recently they've leaned a little more towards fighting pirates by giving small discounts to mercenaries and the Merchant Marines when they purchase Estee ships, but they haven't actually entered the conflict themselves. Many doubt they ever will. First founded in 3140 AF by Estee Daniels and his twin brother Elbee, it is now owned and run by Nancy Kovacich, wife of Dennis Kovacich and mother of Jesse Kovacich, DarthKev, and Kronos. You should remember who Jesse, DarthKev, and Kronos are, but it seems I neglected to mention Dennis before. Dennis Kovacich is the owner and CEO of Newton Electronics. Together, the 'Flying Furs' as they've been called are close to controlling the galactic market on starships. Their nickname comes from the fact every one of them (bar Kronos) has a cat that goes with them everywhere.

Next update: Elbee didn't just sit around while the company was named after his brother, he went out and started a travel agency using Estee ships as luxury liners and even built a few ships of his own. We'll go over those ships next and the current relationship between the two companies.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 29 November 2010 - 02:56 AM

QUOTE (DarthKev @ Jun 2 2010, 08:14 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

(*) Estee Frigate: Skipping the destroyer class completely, Estee makes one of the deadliest frigates in the galaxy outside the military.

Uh, one minor point: Frigates are actually smaller, less-capable ships than destroyers.

In Real Life, yes. In HOTS, no. When creating a new universe, the creator defines everything, including the basis for ship classes. Look at EVO. The Voinian Frigate is obviously more powerful then the UE Destroyer. You could argue that's because of the Voinians' superior technology, but I see the difference of power between the two as more than can be explained simply because of better tech.

This can be seen in EVC, as well. In many ways, the Confed Frigate is vastly superior to the Rebel Destroyer, and seeing as both factions are Human, you can't explain that as 'superior alien tech'. If you look at the stats for the two ships, the Confed Frigate is actually listed as larger then the Rebel Destroyer at 80 meters to the Destroyer's 52 meters.

Even in Star Trek did they switch things up. The Saladin Class is a Destroyer vessel, and one of the smallest classes used for open combat. Well, on the few occasions Starfleet goes into open combat. The Miranda Class, however, is a Frigate, and much larger and more capable than the Saladin.

I see your point, and I'm not trying to dispute it, just pointing out science fiction doesn't need to mirror Real Life. And yes, I do plan on using '' every time I write 'Real Life' here.

And since I'm talking about it, I'll give a list of my arrangement of ship classes. Non-combat first, smallest to largest. This does not include light, heavy, and missile variants of ships as those are subsets of the main classes:

• Shuttle: all tiny transport vessels. There are currently four versions of Human design in HOTS.
• Scout: not quite a shuttle, not quite a courier. They usually have long range and are slightly combat-capable.
• Courier: standard freight vessel. Fast and durable.
• Freighter: large but vulnerable. You won't see these alone very often, but rather with escort in fleets.

It should be noted there are some shuttles that have been converted into passable fighters, but are still classed as shuttles. Scouts, while capable of transport duties, are used as picket ships sometimes, but are usually kept out of conflicts. So here are the combat ships from smallest to largest:

• Cruiser: the largest combat ship that fits into a bay. That said, only carriers (and one version of battleship and one other version of frigate) can fit the bays large enough for them. The Starbridge is part of this class.
• Gunship: the actual picket ship. Usually armed with missiles and little else.
• Corvette: think of these as armed couriers. Gunships are usually better than these in a fight, but they are smaller so the Corvette goes after it in this list.
• Destroyer: grunt vessels. Usually the backbone of a fleet and show up in larger numbers than other warships. Can mount launch bays, but usually don't.
• Frigate: Next step up from the Destroyer. Always carry a few fighters for scouting and overwhelming.
• Battleship: battlefield juggernauts. These are insanely overpowered but are kept balanced by their small numbers and incredible difficulty for the player to obtain.
• Carrier: doesn't need an explanation.

You'll notice fighters aren't on the list. That's because the class of 'fighter' actually splits into several distinct types.

• Interceptor: smallest and weakest, but fastest. Best used as a defense against other fighters.
• Interdictor: usually large, rival cruisers in firepower, but small enough to fit in more common bays and are offset by their lower shield and armour ratings relative to cruisers.
• Bomber: slow, heavily defended, long range offensive abilities.
• Gunboat: a fast bomber. Usually not as heavily armed, but just as heavily defended.
• Starfighter: independent fighter, operates alone. Doesn't fit in a bay, and made only by Askan Shipyards and Eros Mining.
• Fighter: some fighters don't fit into any of the above types and so are simply classed as fighters.

And there you have it. If desired, I can provide a list of the prefixes corresponding to each class. This is in terms of model numbers, so things like 'S' means shuttle, 'BA' means battleship, and so on.

I'll give my update on Elbee's Travel Agency hopefully later today.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 04 June 2010 - 05:00 PM

If I could offer a suggestion for re-naming Atinoda... How about Aerie rather than Eagler? Eagler sounds a bit out there in terms of being a person's name, and aerie is just a relatively archaic term for a bird's nest ,generally ones hidden in cliff-sides, mountains, and the like (thus carrying vague associations to stoicism, dependability, etc...)

The business of luxury tours used to be a thriving business when space travel first kicked off for civilians. So many interesting sights, so many new places. Intergalactic tourists loved getting on board Luxury Liners and traveling the stars.

... That is, until the Space Squids came...

When the Fluxdrive was first invented, and the Onli came to Earth a second time, they gave us a few warnings regarding the galaxy so we wouldn't wander around blind to the dangers around us. One of these warnings was of massive creatures that live in deep space that seem to be extremely territorial and fiercely independent. From the descriptions given, they sounded a lot like giant squids in space. The Onli said they treated one nebula, later named The Badlands, as a mating ground of sorts so staying away from there would keep us safe.

For over 3,000 years we Humans obeyed the Onli's warning, until Elbee Daniels came along and made his own travel agency, Elbee Intergalactic. To get an edge on the competition, he promised safe trips to The Badlands and maybe even a glimpse of a 'Squid, as spacers had begun to call the now legends. They had never been seen thanks to no one going near the place. Now tourists were going in droves. At first nothing was seen. This was seen as good fortune by the Onli, but a waste of credits by the tourists. Eventually contact was made by a small flotilla of Elbee ships: three Luxury Liners escorted by six Rendelli Crickets.

Though they had been told to never enter The Badlands, the curiosity of the passengers grew too great. They bribed the captain of the fleet to enter the nebula. He figured these things may have gone elsewhere and there was no risk. Upon entering the Pax system, everything seemed to live up to the system's name*. There was nothing there except sensor interference and thick purple clouds of gas. One single small squid showed up on sensors and radar. At first it seemed to not have noticed the Human ships, but after a couple seconds it turned, faced the fleet, and darted toward them at speeds never before seen. The escorts immediately went into action, three going after the 'Squid and three staying to protect the Liners. The advance Crickets were quickly dispatched and soon so was an entire liner.

Only one Cricket managed to make it back alive, and barely at that. If it weren't for the sensor data, no one would have believed the survivors. Since then rumors abound of even bigger and faster 'Squids roaming the stars, but that's for another post.

Elbee Daniels decided if his employees were going to do stupid things despite being warned not to, they may as well be prepared. He struck a deal with his twin brother Estee and got access to Estee Freighters at a moderate discount. After a long life Elbee Daniels died at the age of 124, his company going to Estee per the instructions of his will. Estee died three years later, leaving both companies to his two grandchildren. The grandchildren were greedy and eventually were forced by the Earth Council to split up and run the companies separately less a small war break out between the two.

Thanks to this, Estee Luxury ceased granting discounts to Elbee personnel, so Elbee Intergalactic had to make their own ships.

• Elbee Liner: The most well-defended liner you ever have—or ever will—see. Little more than military surplus destroyers from the early days of space travel, they nevertheless pack a considerable punch thanks to the modern day upgrades they receive.
• Elbee Gunship: Another old gem from the Star Navy's younger days, these perform well with the speed of a cruiser and the firepower of a light destroyer.

Tensions between the two companies have cooled considerably since neither company is still owned by the families the started them. Their offspring stopped having offspring many years back. Elbee Intergalactic is still in business, and the only travel agency to do so. They're the only ones with the firepower needed to regularly protect their passengers from danger.

Well, that became a bit more convoluted than I had planned. You got my planned overview of Elbee Intergalactic and a bit of background on Space Squids. No one is quite sure how these giant creatures manage to live in the vacuum of space, not even the Onli whom have observed them for well over 6,000 years. The most popular theory states the 'Squids can seal their shells entirely when leaving The Badlands to prevent internal decompression and carry tons of nebula gas to 'breathe' with until they return, similar to how whales hold their breath underwater. Also, they seem to have a taste for Human flesh as they've been sighted more and more frequently outside of the nebula, attacking Human ships whenever they see them. It's either that or they feel we desecrated their territory by entering the nebula. Onli vessels have suffered attacks, as well.

While I'm typing this, I'll also mention I've added a link to a the gallery I made containing screenshots of every ship I've made so far for HOTS to the first post in this thread. If you don't recognize a name of a ship in there, congratulations, you've just found a spoiler. Every time I post in here, I'll notify you guys if I've added new ships. I won't make posts solely to notify you of that, though, so it's up to you if you want to check regularly to make sure you see new stuff when it gets there.

Now just one last thing:

QUOTE (Heretic95 @ Jun 4 2010, 07:52 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

If I could offer a suggestion for re-naming Atinoda... How about Aerie rather than Eagler? Eagler sounds a bit out there in terms of being a person's name, and aerie is just a relatively archaic term for a bird's nest ,generally ones hidden in cliff-sides, mountains, and the like (thus carrying vague associations to stoicism, dependability, etc...)

While I appreciate the suggestion, I'm not changing the names. That's just the way it is.

Next update: it seems I've forgotten about a couple of other civilian models of ships made by Sol Shipyards. Since that list is short, I'll also talk about the 'independent' designs around the galaxy, ships that are made by tinkerers and available only on one or two planets. Usually one.

*Pax is Latin for 'peace'. Saying the system lived up to its name means, in this case, being peaceful. But you knew that.

In the first few years of interstellar space travel for Humans, we had only two classes of ships made for such travel. Everything else was stuck flying around the Sol system. Those two ships were a freighter and a frigate, used for colonizing other worlds and protecting colonizing fleets, respectively. Their true names have been lost to time, but they're so sturdy they've lived through the past 3,200 years to still be in use in present day HOTS. They're still a rare sight, and it'll cost you a lot of money to buy one used, let alone new, but it can be worth it depending on your goals.

• Shuto Freighter: A massive vessel, it's cavern of a cargo bay can haul a ludicrous amount of goods and passengers.
• Shuto Frigate: Hands down the deadliest ship in the galaxy outside the military and the Onli. It may be slow, but don't get close to it or you're fried.

The Shuto Freighter is pretty self explanatory, but there's a method to the Shuto Frigate's madness of firepower. During WWIII a powerful concept in weaponry was devised by the creators of the Solar Ships themselves. With every shot fired, Solar Ships built up immense energy. However, most of that energy was never used, instead kept as backup power in case something went wrong and the ship needed to get out fast. As safety precautions improved and electrical systems became more reliable, this energy wasn't needed as a backup as much, but rather than take away the ability to generate that power, it was made into an additional weapon.

This weapon was dubbed the Tazer. It consisted of numerous focusing lenses arrayed around the ship's generators and batteries. Those generators and batteries had special modules attached which were called 'energy valves'. As their name suggests, they were meant to let energy out when needed but at controlled rates. When the Tazer needed to be fired, the lenses would be angled and the energy would be released. The lenses focused the energy into a powerful beam capable of vaporizing most materials nearly instantaneously.

As it was Humanity's most powerful close-range weapon at the time we left the Sol system, the Shuto Frigate was equipped with these in excess and even designed to do so. It fits them so well, no other ship is capable of using Tazers as much as the Shuto Frigate is. The Shuto Freighter is also armed with these weapons, but to a lesser extent.

So far HOTS has four independent designs made by third parties not part of a major corporation. They are the Mantis Class Cruiser, the Ceres Class Mining Ship, the Vulture Class Defense Drone, and the Boltbucket.

• Mantis: The Mantis was designed by a group of tinkerers on Alpha Centauri 1 planning to cash in on the success of the Starbridge. Cruiser designs are far and few between, the Starbridge nearly dominating the market.
• Ceres: The Ceres was the first mining ship ever designed by Humans and is the main reason the Sol Asteroid Belt is as empty as it now is. Eros Mining has been trying to step into the market with the Collector, but the Ceres is still seen as superior thanks to the squadron of Vulture Class Defense Drones it carries.
• Vulture: Another Centauri design, this was designed in an attempt to give merchants a way to protect themselves with launch-able craft without needing a ship large enough to mount a launch bay. It's completely automated and controlled remotely from the parent ship by a pilot in a virtual-reality chamber.
• Boltbucket: Solar Ships modified with a Fluxdrive, these proud craft are given the nickname 'Boltbucket' because they barely hold together compared to more modern ships. It's only sold out of the moon Magma, and even then is rarely bought.

And that ends this update. For those interested, I have a screenshot of the Ceres Mining Ship in the gallery, so go check it out if you haven't already.

Next update: we delve into the world of ADB when we analyze their powerful Atinoda Line of frigates, among other vessels.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 10 December 2010 - 08:57 PM

The Atinoda Design Bureau was a top-secret, military-funded project by the Star Navy started in the 2200s AF. It's purpose was to design better ships that could combat the pirate threat. The project was proceeding nicely until its lead designer went missing and most of the team was killed during a pirate raid on the outpost the project was stationed at. The designs were thought lost and so the project was shut down and quietly cleaned up.

A few years later pirate ships matching the secret military designs started showing up and it was clear the pirates had captured the designer and the plans for the new ships. A search was made and the orchestrators of the attack were found on a station orbiting the planet Jobaki in the Farazon system, making a killing selling the mil-spec ships to pirates and anyone else living outside the law. The operation was quickly overrun by Star Corps personnel and shut down for ten years until a rich entrepreneur bought the rights to manufacture the stylish ships for civilian use. He argued that, since the pirates already have the originals, civilians needed them, too, in order to defend themselves. The Earth Empire agreed on the condition ADB's facilities would be on the same station the pirates used and stay under the jurisdiction of the Earth Empire with a garrison of Star Navy troops on board at all times.

Today ADB has earned the Earth Empire's trust and has managed to buy their way out of Empire jurisdiction despite the Earth Empire colony now on Jobaki. ADB has also upgraded the designs further to outmatch the dated version pirates have. They've even extended the line, more than tripling the number of designs they produce, and redesigned the few that were originally designed by the initial project.

• Atinoda Condor: The fastest freighter in the game, it's really more of a large corvette, but classed as a freighter due to its enormous cargo bays.
• Atinoda Accipiter: Atinoda's space-superiority fighter. Basic but lethal.
• Atinoda Milvus: A gunship to be feared.
• Atinoda Aquila: One of the two ships originally designed by the initial project, the Aquila is the lightest of Atinoda's three frigate designs.
• Atinoda Bateleur: One of ADB's own designs, this is one decked out missile frigate.
• Atinoda Kestrel: The second ships designed by the initial project, the Kestrel Class Heavy Frigate carries twice the fighters of most frigates.
• Atinoda Megakestrel: The only ship ADB manufactures that it doesn't sell to the public, this battleship haunts the nightmares of hundreds of pirates.

For those interested, I have screenshots of the Condor, Aquila, Bateleur, Kestrel, and Megakestrel in my gallery. You may also want to look through earlier posts about Askan Shipyards and Estee Luxury. I've changed a few things in both.

Next update: because their individual lists are somewhat short, I'll be combining the last two corporations, CDX Starworx and Maskirovka Shipwrights, into one post. After that, we'll get into the specifics of individual ships starting at the beginning.

Okay, one article of business before we get to Mosoto Design Studios and their subsidiary, Darwin Commercial Design. As you can see, I changed the names. I had a burst of inspiration and decided the Kestrel is enough of a tribute to EVC on its own due to its epic-ness. Following is the list of companies with their previous names and their new names and acronyms. Not all of the companies are in there, just the ones whose names have been changed:

• Rendelli Stardrives -> the Dragonfly Syndicate/DFS
• Atinoda Design Bureau -> Eagle Enterprises Incorporated/EEI
• CDX Starworx -> Darwin Commercial Design/DCD
• Maskirovka Shipyards Corporation -> Mosoto Design Studios/MDS
• Consolidated Express/ConEx -> Goliath Shipping Company/GSC

I'd like some feedback on the new names, so I expect about two posts after this one.

Darwin Commercial Design's first ship was the now old Clipper, a freighter design still in use by USEC. Their next three designs were the Argosy, Heavy Hauler, and the Courier. USEC currently utilizes the former two, but the Courier has remained with its creator. DCD stopped building for USEC in the year 3121 AF when Moso Mosoto bought the company and set them on new designs. At the moment they produce four distinct ships.

• DCD Courier: Your basic courier. What did you expect from a ship simply named 'courier'?
• DCD Puffin: It doesn't sound tough, but it's won the Imperial Award of Defense for 30 years for its thick hull and potent cannons.
• DCD Tern: Named after a vicious gull, the Tern Class is a heavy gunship meant to compete with Sol Shipyards' Starbridge Class Cruiser.
• DCD Swift: The fastest ship in the galaxy and the design that inspired Askan's Machete Class Corvette.

Mosoto had these ships built with the purpose of combating pirates in mind. These ships are available to civilians both for their own defense and to provide a means for freelance mercenaries to have a chance when pirate hunting. However, these aren't up to most pirate specifications, and let's face it, such ships would be out of the price range for most merchants.

For this reason, Moso Mosoto started his own firm, Mosoto Design Studios, and began producing near-mil-spec combat ships sold only to the Merchant Marines. His designs are some of the most balanced in the galaxy thanks to the ingenuity they inherit from Human shipbuilding tendencies and the advanced alien tech Moso brought with him from the Onli. This shows in their physical appearance, as well, resembling fierce space monsters more than starships.

MDS builds five different ships:

• MDS Gunship: Though most stories regarding this vessel are greatly exaggerated, there is one documented incident where three of these successfully tackled a Pirate Destroyer and its three Wraith fighters, coming out nearly unscathed.
• MDS Heavy Gunship: If ever there was an unneeded upgrade to an existing design, this would be it and then some.
• MDS Corvette: Though meant more for secure shipping, this corvette can nonetheless give pirates a bloody nose, arm, and leg before retreating.
• MDS Destroyer: Simply put, you won't find a more powerful warship outside of the military, and you won't find a more powerful destroyer outside of the SD Mercs.
• MDS Attack Fighter: A fighter so durable it should be a starfighter. And yet, MDS has the gall to fit them in launch bays.

Mosoto's design skills were envied throughout known space, and many tried to hire him on as a lead designer for new ships, though none succeeded before he was killed in 3186 AF at the age of 134, a young age for an Onli. Pirates raided his ship in an attempt to force him to build new ships for them. Instead most of them were vaporized by Mosoto's ship and the few that lived had to limp away when they finally disabled Mosoto's ship being in no condition to practice docking maneuvers. Mosoto was killed in the battle when a rocket hit the engines, almost causing an overload that Mosoto gave his life to prevent.

Next update: we take closer looks at individual ships, starting with the Turtleshell Class Freighter... once I build it, that is. I'm behind on civilian vessels, instead making a bunch of warships. Once I do, though, I'll post an update and you guys can finally see some graphics in the thread instead of in a little gallery. No texturing, though, since I still can't get things to convert right. Yo krug! Any luck figuring out the problem?

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 15 January 2011 - 11:41 PM

Sol Shipyards FF-46 Class Freighter (Turtleshell)

The Turtleshell Freighter is so named for its slow speed and well protected nature. It's an old design, the maker of which has been lost to time, but is so useful that it is still manufactured by Sol Shipyards and sold on the open market. With heavier armour than any other freighter of its size on the civilian market, this vessel is a good buy.

It really is heavily armoured despite its open design. So much so, they're practically invincible in-game against basic weaponry. They won't defeat a warship, but should you manage to make one fast enough you could most likely live through any attack.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 28 June 2010 - 02:19 AM

Sol Shipyards LL-74 Class Luxury Liner (Tulip)

Another old jem, the Sol Shipyards LL-74 Class Luxury Liner is the most luxurious way to live in style while traveling the space lanes. Unfortunately, despite upgrades to its sheilding and armour, it isn't well protected and usually requires escort through hostile territory. Still, if you fly one of these, people will pay a lot more to travel with you and many merchants have made a lot of money through offering luxury cruises.

This is the class of vessel that was mentioned in the first contact between Humans and the 'Squids. In-game players will gain access to special high-paying passenger missions when flying one of these or one of the other two vessels rated for luxury cruises. The other two are Estee Luxury's Venus Class Freighter (formerly classed as a liner) and Elbee Intergalactic's LL-5 Class Armoured Luxury Liner. These missions, however, will involve flying near some danger zones such as any of the three major nebulae (the Horse Head Nebula controlled by the Mafia, The Badlands inhabited by the 'Squids, and a large nebula cluster infested with Shipwreck Rogues) and the Hellzone, a system full of inter-spacial anomalies, dense scanner interference, and strange gravitational fluctuations that make exiting the system by Fluxdrive possible only to the fastest of ships. Everything else must risk flying into one of the anomalies and hope they don't come out in the middle of a battle or back in the Hellzone.

My next ship is supposed to be the Starbridge Class Cruiser. However, I'm having a problem designing it. Read this thread for more details.

This post has been edited by DarthKev : 28 June 2010 - 02:20 AM

Sol Shipyards CR-29 Class Cruiser (Starbridge)

The Starbridge is a relatively new design, first built in the 2700s for wealthy merchants as an escort craft. Nowadays it is used by almost every faction in the galaxy, including civilian merchants as its cargo bay is actually of a good size. It incorporates the best shielding of any cruiser class on the open market and even has a more powerful reactor installed as standard for energy regeneration. Some privateers have actually opted to mount Starbridges in larger launch bays so that they may carry one for their personal use on their own larger ships. As one can see, the Starbridge is a very successful ship design.

Sp3cies, I can't thank you enough for designing this. When I get to making përs ships, I'll contact you on what you want it to say, be named, etc. I hope you like the color scheme I picked for it and all the other Sol Shipyards vessels. Also, I neglected to mention this before, but the Starbridge comes in two flavors in terms of paint jobs. The standard civilian version you see above, and another, upgraded variant used by Star Medical.

You all may or may not notice a small difference between the image above and the screenshot Sp3cies posted. For those who can't, I'm talking about the foremost tip. In Sp3cies' screenshot, it's straight and lateral with the rest of the body. In my image it takes a downward curve. I did not alter it myself, that is the model I got from Sp3cies' download link.

Next I'll show you the Taurus Class Freighter, and then the Shuto ships. After that, we continue to Newton Electronics.

Sol Shipyards FF-53 Class Freighter (Taurus)

The Taurus Class is an old vessel from Humanity's waning years of space travel. Nevertheless, these are hardy ships and have survived the test of time. While it never was a combat vessel by any stretch of the imagination, some upgraded variants can act as light civilian cruisers, especially when in large numbers.

This is meant to be the IDA Frigate of the HOTS universe. Indeed, I'm currently using the IDA Frigate's sprite as a placeholder till I can start rendering these. I'd also like to note that, while its description says it would never qualify as a warship, that's when compared to other HOTS warships. If placed into EVN with all of its armaments and shuttles (yes, you can carry shuttles as if they were fighters in HOTS) even if those armaments were edited to compare with EVN weapons, the Taurus packs enough firepower to take on Auroran warships if needed and take them down. Trust me when I say combat in HOTS is fast-paced and battles will often end quickly unless you're clever enough to draw them out.

Sol Shipyards FF-26 Class Freighter (Old)

This 3,000-year-old design is still produced by Sol Shipyards due to its sturdyness. Like its successor, the Taurus, these leviathans carry a massive amount of cargo between the stars and are nearly impossible to completely destroy because of their sheer size and thick hulls. Ships of this design were some of the first to leave Earth after Carly Shuto invented the Fluxdrive and were used as colony vessels before commercial starships were built.

Sol Shipyards FR-26 Class Frigate (Old)

This 3,000-year-old design is still produced by Sol Shipyards due to its lethality. Based on the design of its freighter cousin, these manticore-esque vessels carry massive firepower and are nearly impossible to completely destroy because of their sheer size and thick hulls. Ships of this design were some of the first to leave Earth after Carly Shuto invented the Fluxdrive and were used as escort frigates to protect colony ships from possible danger.

These two ships are essentially the same frame with different sections added on for different duties. In fact, players will be able to buy a 'refit kit' for either vessel to switch over to the other design while flying one. Despite their age, they truly are some of the best ships one can buy before unlocking the better mil-spec ships. The freighter can carry more cargo than any other ship in the game and has incredible defensive systems. The frigate can melt almost any other ship into slag in seconds when in close range. They do come with exorbitantly high price tags, though, so it's nearly impossible to hire one, let alone buy one.

I notice most of your designs are boxy and irregular -- do you have any plans for sleek ships like a Valkyrie?

Oh sure. I doubt anything I make will be as sleek as the Valkyrie, but not too far off. Check out my gallery, there are a lot more ships in there that I haven't posted yet. In particular are the Snakeskin, Gladius, Ranger, Mosquito, and Wasp. You'll also want to look at Estee's ships.

My next few posts will display Newton Electronics' designs, a few of which are fairly sleek themselves. They're also based on Ishiman ships from Ares, both in design and color.

I haven't played Ares in awhile, but I guess soon wouldn't be a bad idea.

The Heavy Cruiser is the one with multiple Missiles and a hefty array of primary weapons? Oh yeah. Good one.

QUOTE (DarthKev @ Jun 4 2010, 05:56 PM) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

(*)Interdictor: usually large, rival cruisers in firepower, but small enough to fit in more common bays and are offset by their lower shield and armour ratings relative to cruisers.

According to dictionary definition (I know you stated that you get to define everything, as you are the creator) an interdictor is an aircraft designed to interrupt enemy supply lines through aerial bombing. Now I know that there are a LOT of different ships with the name interdictor (this definition, Interdictor Cruiser from Star Wars), but what you have isn't even remotely close to either of these. Just a thought.

Ah, but I never specified their purpose, did I? I only described their abilities and mentioned they could be carried aboard larger ships.

The fact of the matter is interdictor class ships are often put on patrol near enemy outposts and used to quickly destroy enemy transports. In raids conducted by both the Earth Empire and the various pirate factions interdictors play large roles and are sent en masse with support ships to carry loot and take on larger ships. Larger ships will carry interdictor class ships on raids, as well, extending their range.

On a separate note, it's taking a little longer than I expected to organize the images for the Newton designs. I'm also considering naming them rather than just 'Newton Fighter', 'Newton Courier', etc. Suggestions welcome.

All right. I know someone's gonna get mad because I didn't read from the beginning of the thread, but do you have an idea of when HOTS is going to come out?