The Zoner Gunboat

[Jinx]

let me clear a few things up that were talked about when the ship was finally finished...

the ship is meant to follow certain characteristics - namely the Eagle idea... a LARGE ship that is very very agile. - as a matter of fact, the zoner gunboat is only matched in its turning / agility by the very tiny ( and similarly armed ) BHG gunship ( they got the same turning etc. )

now - the BHG GS is a pure military ship by a faction that glories in combat. - a feature that one can not really say about zoners. where the BHG is blunt like an axe - zoners are sneaky bastards. - it won t be THEM that will come after you and kill you... they ll just pay someone to do the dirty work - the sort of people you can hardly catch. - often, they don t even pay someone - but just drop a few comments here and there.

about the ship itself.

my original concept was indeed around 1000 cargospace. - and we discussed it in the dev forum. - at a point i decided that i d rather like to have a slightly above average cargo - but a vastly superior agility - and be asured, the zoner GB can fly circles around the order gunboat.

about the weaponry - at first glance it appears to be weak. - weaker maybe than even some transports or who knows.... some of these new assault freighters. - but it really is not.

people that believe that the twin mine launcher is just a neat little toy, a feature are mistaken.... a twin EMP mine will strip 50.000 shields off an enemy - and it costs the zoner gunboat almost no energy at all.

one must know that very few gunboats actually have the ability to drop mines - and the zoner GB drops 2 ( and no, mines don t collide with each other and explode ) laying a thick minefield in which even a destroyers shields crumple isn t too hard.

then you have 4 turrets and a small GB plant - that is not much indeed. - even 4 normal zoner turrets drain the power slowly - but it is also able to fire 2 pulse + 2 razors - along with the mines - the ship can be a nasty surprise for someone that mistakes it for a harmless transport mk2

and THAT is the point of it. - it is not meant to fight in the first place - but any pirate should know that no matter what he is flying - this ship is harder to take down than a liner or other stuff. - bombers find themselves in a minefield of dozens of nuke mines maybe - and a single reinforced / train CD will blow them to pieces - 4 turrets might not be too much - but its enough.

85k armour is average - but with the agility - its ability to survive is as great as maybe an order gunboat. - it is MUCH tougher than the BHG gunship ( due to its dual mines )

of course - when you run into many enemies - you re still in problems - but i daresay even a pirate in a gunboat will pay heavily for his daring.


from a balance point of view...

i wanted a ship that was available to almost everyone but still useful enough. so called "generic" stuff tends to be weaker than factionized stuff - and so the gunboat is weaker than some others.


i was disappointed that i couldn t convince mjolnir of 1000 cargo when we discussed it - but i realized that the ship was really good enough. - when you fly one of the heavy gunboats with 8 guns - and then fly the zoner GB, it feels like flying a spatial and then switching to an eagle.

from my point of view it is powreful enough - i have not done serious pvp with it though - but i have beaten 900k missions vs. gallic royal police - groups of 8 nomad assassins and ... ok i have totally died vs. a random spawn of 5 gallic bombers:P- but i daresay - even a battleship would have been in trouble vs. those funny bomber squadrons that spam two dozen SN on you.

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Shipdesigns made for DiscoveryGC