A ship concept

[elgeeko]

Players/Factions can not build a base overnight wherever they'd like.

IE any base a faction wants has to be built on a per-mod-version basis.

Now for something completely different.

I was playing the Homeworld demo for the umptienth time today (yes this all DOES have a point)
and I was stricken with an idea for a 'ship class' of which there might be two or three.

(A BW one, a KS one, an IMG one, a Zoner one, a BMM one, and a GMG one to be more precise)

What is this mysterious new 'ship class'? I call it the Mobile Support Tender. MST for short.

What does it do and what is it?
Several things;

1; carries enough bots/batts to resupply several fighters repeatedly
2; has the equivalent of a medium grade transport shield
3; has a mediocre but not too shabby armor rating
4; has some small-fry turrets that are more for show than anything but could in theory assist escorting fighters and shoot down incoming torpedoes
5; has no thruster
6; has the longest feasible cruise charge time the mod can sustain
7; has almost no turning
8; is built to allow players to cozy up inside it like a open hangar
9; has two to three times the cargo size of a transport
10; is as easy to hit as a barn

Why? Imagine this scenario;

In the farthest reaches of space a player run unofficial faction runs a mining operation.
It works by having some players mine, others stand guard/escort the transport(s), others run said transport(s) back and forth every so often to sell off the commodity at a base where it will make profit. (assume this is a LONG trip)

Do these guys want to have to jet back to the nearest base (long ways away) to resupply? of course not!
Do they want to idle around doing nothing while waiting for each transport? heck no!

Solution? MST. It provides a great role-play opportunity to a pilot willing to put his life in the hands of his escorts and willing to act as a galactic 'water-boy'

The scenario is that a fighter/freighter (or 4 as a rough max) comes and pretends to 'dock' by nestling into the generous (and appropriately hitboxed) opening. They can then drop mineables which the MST tractors, pretending it was a port-to-port transfer. this lets far-flung miners store large amounts of commodities away from bases.

The procedure can be done in reverse to;
A; replenish bots/batts on other ships
B; replenish RP items on said ships (food crew etc)
C; transfer mineables to the transport, except that the transport would dock to a port on the side, not inside the bay.

I for one would love to either fly, or fly with such a ship. It could act as the command center and nucleus of a group of explorers, miners, or whatever have you. It involves no new .mats, and I will make the models/Hitboxes unless someone else *really* wants to.

Like? Dislike?

It should be noted;

1; This would be a good ship for weapons/items dealers. It might also add to their RP to see someone visibly 'dock' with them.

2; This would be a powertrader's dream *EXCEPT* that because of the no turning, no thruster, and amazingly long cruise time, no matter how massive its bots/batts count it would be balanced so that it could be fairly easily destroyed if it tried to act without the help of escorts.

3; Pirates could use this. EG lane hackers set a BW one off the lane guarded by two fighters while two others mop up a convoy. Then a freighter and the fighters work to transfer all the loot to the MST, and replenish on their supplies.

Ok, hit me with the opinions. :)

EDIT; It struck me that there should be a generic pirate version and a junker version. Possibly one in the same.
I would also like to mention that house militaries do not get these. They're like poor-mans 'carriers'. I'd make them all 'generic' but since the IMG and GMG are mining factions and would seem to be able to make great use of one of these I put them on the recieving list.

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