The "Black Rhino"

[worldstrider]

Zomg wut.

Fair to say the ship game me a very serious laugh when I first spotted it. For a moment it struck me as a joke reply to the fleets of Trident gunships flying around Liberty.

I'm not, overall, a huge fan of kitbashing myself nor do I really see this as the type of design that DSE would be putting out. That of superglueing some of their smaller designs together. Furthermore the model itself -does- look extremely flimsy, if it were to bother executing a turn it would need a lot more re-enforcement.

But as a lulz concept? Absolutely hilarious. I about spit out my morning coffee.

As a serious concept, which I am nod adverse to in the slightest, I think that a proper model would be called for. In every sense of the statement, as I do rather like the ship.

This post does bring up a fair but sad point, there are a lot of really nice freighters out there that drop to the wayside the second someone brings together enough cash to grab their first transports. Sweet little models that serve as little more than stepping stones. I loved my Camara myself when first got one as a noob.

That's sort of my point--though it is very much what has been done in aircraft design. European NATO aircraft are made now with interchangeable modular components that are used cross design. It makes a lot more sense to utilize standard designs that are in mass production. If one of these needed servicing, most parts could be taken from a Rhino or Camara for repairs--economcal and common ships.

I'd love to see a similar shaped fighter made or whatever but you know what? We end up with another new, funky Disco ship that moves us farther away from where we are. As suggested before hull could be halved and another alternative that would work very well is drop it down to Rhino power and maneuver and make it a mining ship with class 1-3 turrets. In theory there is up to over 1300 cargo hold available.

We have plenty of "completely orginal designs" here this is nice in keeping some continuity. It also provides a baseline--using existing stats to estimate size and performance instead of just inventing it. If all the ships were relative using common values it would give good guidelines to model creators.

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