New ship plans

[Knucklehead]

I thought this thread was supposed to be for new ship classes...

I like the idea of more support ship types. Right now we have the Heavy Lifter and Repair Ship. (Which I don't think I've ever seen anyone flying, by the way. Or maybe I'm just not there when they are... Anyway...)

A medical ship has been mentioned.

How about some runabouts for Orbital Spa & Cruise? Light passenger vessels designed to ferry small groups to and from the exotic locales OSC is known for. Even if they end up mostly flown by NPC's. Give them agility similar to the VHF's (though not quite as good) with only minimal weaponry. These are built to haul passengers, not to fight.

How about a mine layer? A small ship with 3 mine slots but little other armament. Maybe make a special type of mine that has an extra long fuse time but requires more energy to drop than even a heavy bomber's powerplant can produce. (Idea for the infocard: Each mine must receive a significant infusion of energy in order to maintain the stasis field used to contain the high-energy payload.) Give the ship a small transport powerplant but only 4 class-9 gun slots (maybe even lower). The idea is to get in, unload the mines, and get clear before the fireworks start. Bomber agility to account for the extra large powerplant, of course.

Another support ship I was thinking of would be something like a modern Electronic Warfare craft, like the EA-6B Prowler. Something designed to make it harder for the enemy to attack your ships by either causing interference or taking out their defenses. Of course, the only way we could really accomplish this in Freelancer is by slapping a whole bunch of countermeasure droppers on a fighter and having them fly between the big ships dropping the flares. Imagine a Hawk with Countermeasure Droppers at every joint on its wings, throwing up a curtain of flares to stop those incoming Battleship Missiles or Nova Torpedoes. Granted, we'd probably need a new type of countermeasure for this as well, and it wouldn't do a thing against non-projectiles.

Feel free to pick my suggestions apart. I'm too tired to work out any more details on them right now. (Although if I did add any more details I could probably call it a thesis paper...)

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It's official, I have too few ships now...