klauss wrote:
Besides, having this ship in two versions makes much sense for the forsaken: Originally, it was a seed ship (although a little small... hm... perhaps an escort of said seed ship?). Hence, the heavy armor: you would face lots of unknowns (hostile aliens aside, lots of debris around the destination star system, for instance) and you wouldn't want an impact to send centuries' worth of a mission down the toilet. Eventally, it got retrofitted into an assault gunship (given its armor, it fitted this role). When the forsaken needed a corvette, for escort, they stripped some of those ships armor and there you have a corvet. Makes a lot of sense to me. What do you think, JackS?
@klauss: Your conception of the Forsaken is a bit out of synch timeline-wise. FTL discovery in VS is ~600 years prior to game time (I'll abbreviate as 600 BGS). The big land grab by which the Forsaken became dispossessed took place 500-400 years BGS with late arrivals showing up primarily 500-300 BGS. Thus, while receiving the short end of the straw in several aspects of their existence (having their planets stolen out from under them, failure of nanite-based technologies, resultant cold-sleep damage, settling in what proved (admittedly unknown at the time) to be a sparser region of the jump network, lack of prepared landing sites, progressive waves of dispossessed immigrants, etc. ), they have had 300-400 years to play catch-up. What they have never acheived, due to a consistently depressed economy and disorganized governance (relative to the other human colonies), is the heavy space industrial base necessary to produce large, modern capital warships (one will note that the Forsaken do not produce remotely modern designs for anything (excluding the Catfish's use as a "shell carrier" in addition to its normal freight roles) larger than the Condor, which is merely a largish Frigate). Anything larger is either purchased (as from the Uln (who, despite being rather a large distance away from the bleeding edge of any technologies, have nonetheless had a very long time to develop their space infrastructures) or Shmrn (their economy and tech base having been propped up by the Andolian Protectorate (the only other human faction that the Shmrn tend to be willing to do business with), and augmented by favorable positioning along the Rlaan border)), or cobbled together from older craft. Both the Condor and Vulture, however, are produced in quantity.
Thoughts:
I actually find the basic ship body quite pleasing, although, as scribbled below, I believe the rear needs some additional bulk. Some additional engine mount points likewise do not seem unwarranted. The Vulture and Condor, both sub-capital vessels of the Forsaken, I envision as actually quite modern (if not actually competitive one for one with the high end craft of similar size and date of design from the Confederation, Rlaan, and Aera - especially in terms of durability). The Vulture is the Forsaken's homegrown replacement for the ancient Thales class corvettes (purchased and obtained by many groups in many flavors and revisions over it's exceptionally long post-deemed-obsolete-by-the-Andolians career) and, unsurprisingly, is a significantly better performing craft (the Thales, even with substantial retrofits, revisions, and modern upgrades is, at root, a more than century old design (it was originally considered a light cruiser) - it's the x86 instruction set of the VS starship set, so to speak). The Vulture is a capable craft, if in a very limited set of roles, and produced with military, rather than peacekeeping, use in mind. The Vulture will be a good example of a common theme in the Forsaken line of ships, featuring more lighter, cheaper, weapons rather than a smaller assortment of expensive/specialized weapons.
key -
Red: Fill this in somewhat - looks too anorexic otherwise
Yellow: Ummm apologies, this didn't turn out well - extensive anti-fighter missile lauch space. This was intended to be a bit more shapely, closer to the hull, and underslung, but I didn't feel up to drawing it until it looked right.
Blue: Engine-type-things here - I was pondering having 2 more side pods, and going for a tall, thin X configuration with the missile launchers centered between rather than underslung, but I just drew a simple enlargement - feel free to run with either.
Green: Some weapon placement suggestions (general vicinity and number- don't take as specific requests)
Orange: External docking port - having an internal landing bay on a ship this small is rather silly.
Forsaken color scheme directions-
Burgundy and Ochre on Tan/light brown (on metallics)
4 spinal mounted light capship beam weapons (dead front)
2 rows of small anti-small-craft turrets
10 "heavy"(only relative to the above) anti-small craft-emplacements
assorted PD turrets (top/bottom towers on sides, two dead rear, two frontal, maybe more)
Lots of anti-small-craft missiles
Additional turret points possible (to be decided later)
Throw some sensors on the top tower too.
If it has windows, it's not the bridge, it's an observation deck. The bridge will be somewhere in a heavily armored portion.
This vessel is not designed to be remotely dangerous to capital vessels, but, deployed in small groups, it is well equipped to engage assault craft and their fighter escorts, take part in hit and run operations on support craft, or convince the local riff-raff to mosey elsewhere.