This SV was made by Pyston, not by me. But he apparently left Empyrion a year ago so there are all these old creations of his floating around that lack the new cargo system and wireless blocks. So I updated the SV for 9.x by giving it container controllers and wireless and figured I might as well post it because it appears to currently be the best SV out there, so other players will probably want to use it in Alpha 9.x and I already updated it. It is the perfect SV for my CV.
Last time @Pyston was in the Forum was when A9.0 was activated - Dec. 2018. Sine that time he may lurk around or have indeed stopped playing/designing
PROXIMA SKIPTRACER SV BY PYSTONWORKS UPDATED FOR ALPHA 9.X I was looking for the best SV in the Empyrion Workshop to use with my Anubis CV and while spawning loads of the best looking blueprints I realized the Proxima Skiptracer was exactly what I was looking for but alas, it was not updated for Alpha 9.x. So I rolled up my sleeves and updated it, and what an amazing process that was. It turns out that Pyston built the Proxima Skiptracer with the new Cargo system in mind. All the necessary space was already available. I didn't even have to replace any lagshot shield blocks (pyramids) to make room for extension blocks. So now on top of being a very well armed SV with great speed and maneuverability that looks amazing, the Proxima Skiptracer also has 9.433 total kSUs of Cargo storage and 3 kSUs of Ammo storage which you can max out with 768 tons and still fly using the back thrusters and speed to get off the ground with 6 m/s in all directions and 13 m/s of back thrust. With 264 tons of cargo you can lift up via normal down thrusters with 10 m/s in all directions and 21 m/s of back thrust. I also switched from two pilot seats to one centered pilot seat with gun/thruster activated LCD screens on both sides, made a slight improvement on the hallway and bathroom sliding doors logic, and added a lever for the quarters window shutters. And I added a sensor for the lobby light so now you have to flip the legacy lobby light/Flight Lights lever ON if you want the lobby lights on while you are seated and flying. You can find the original Proxima Skiptracer by Pystonworks here (Original Proxima Skiptracer by Pystonworks). Blueprint included.
This is my first hauler SV, its intended to be compatible with exposed thrusters and ment to carry one or more HV to and from planet surface. As built theres room over the pilots seat for warp drive and loads of other usefull extra equipment, also its only equipped with gatling guns. The core design idea is the slant underside, making the ship park at a 30 degree (or so) upwards angle, in order to deploy both forwards and upwards thrusters during takeoff. This does make the hangar bay tilt in flight. But if a HV will evert dock in this thing, you only need it level when the SV is landed anyways. Theres some speculation into making small HV's that are basically just turrets and docking them on the exterior for parking defence (placement should be obvius) But this again requires SV carriers. Not painted, just red lines to indicate level flight direction.
So, 4 years ago, I started crafting this ship. I'm not a prolific ship designer, I found a design I really liked and have been refining it ever since. Here's where it started: https://empyriononline.com/threads/the-ship-sharing-thread.805/page-3#post-13321 And, here is where we are now. Rumor seems to have it that engines will damage blocks soon, so I redesigned the latest version to account for that. It's a single seat POI attack craft with some cargo space, a shield generator and pentaxid tank, etc, and is great for planetary exploration.
For everyone who don't like steamworkshop and for Eleons library Alpha 10 the Vasquess Prototyp. An experimentall Point Attack Craft. It got 6 Gattlings, 4 Rail Guns and 4 homing Rocket Launchers. Warpdrive, Shields, Production-Line with 2 constructors and 20k storage + 3k Ammo, 2 Fridge and a Medic Cabinet also a bed for longrange trips. edit: forgot to mention Alpha 10
The Legara is my first experimental 10 build. Designed to be an all around vessel that is pratical and affordable the Legara excels at little but is good at almost everything. Built with shields and warp drive it is lightly armored (regular steel except cockpit area). It has a 5ksu main cargo container and 6 X 250SU containers making it quite a viable POI looter. Armed with 2 gatling guns and 4 rocket launchers it will hold it's own VS enemy POIs but is not intended for heavy combat. Weighing in at 57,5 tons it has an upward thrust of 36m/s allow it to carry more than it's weight in cargo while still taking off from any starter planet. Unlocking at level 10 and not costing more than 1k of any material it is meant as an affordable and flexible solution for your early to mid games needs. As always any commentary, good or bad, is welcomed as are all suggestions to improvements. Shameless workshop link. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1753060100
Oh, hello? A new Horse in your Stable? I think I gonna test one with my next fresh Start after EXP A10. IV get released
Modular wings... are the just small décor or do they have a use ( for adding things onto like guns ) ? If using cockpits is there a way to get the player to exit behind the cockpit (inside the craft) and not on top of it ?
My "Battle Angel" SV done in exp 10.3 Painting and decorating when I figured out how to mix colours..
Modular wings serve no hard purpose per say but I find them useful. First of all they can be quite good looking. Secondly they add a large area buffer. Let me elaborate on that. Enemies love to shoot at your weapons (it is smart). enemy rocket turrets especially can get quite nasty. The modular wings allow a low weight (relatively) option to move those out from the main body. They also serve as ablative armor quite efficiently. Eating an artillery shell on the wing will definitely destroy it but most likely save you from a direct hit to your hull (and the squishy things inside). Using a closed cockpit will make you spawn on top of it when you exit. I've not found a way around that but someone else might have. Cheers!
Finished my SV. Removed most of the guns to get it to a level 12. Any feedback to help me improve is welcome. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1768680884
Here are some thoughts, they are purely my opinion and may be far from everybody's. 1-) You do not usually need more than 2 weapon types on a SV. Sure you can stuff it full of weapons and that can add versatility but I've found you only ever really use weapons for two scenarios. Popping drones or popping turrets / engines. One light weapon that is easy to aim (with cheap ammo) and one heavy weapon system is all you really need for any PVE scenario. More / fancier weapons can always be cool but it is not essential in my opinion. 2-) Avoid grouping all of one thing in one tiny place if you can, redundancy is king to survival. Having 3 engines one next to another means that they can all die at the same time. Having something like an egine, a block, an engine, a block etc is overall more viable. I get that sometimes for the look that's just not really possible though. In my book it is simply good if you can work more redundancy into any design. 3-) If you plan to use a ship in atmospheres make sure your lift is at least double the gravity you plan to use it in, at a strict minimum. Your ship has 24m/s of lift which means that if you are on a 2g planet it would only have 4m/s of lift. You would find dodging to be.... difficult. Takeoff might even be impossible when you factor in extra cargo (if you play with weight). I am not trying to be overly critical, simply stating my design philosophies. You are the boss of you creations, doing what you feel is good is always the way to go. Cheers
Thank you very much. I did not now about the engine lift bit. With the new shields I thought having a bit more weapons to chose from would be good, but I will reduce them. As I removed almost all the weapons but left the locations marked players can chose where they want them. I will keep in mind all you said when I try my next build.
Workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1769539655 Please understand that the 'DSEV' and the 'have to calculate to get off 1.1g planet' parts corelated and thus intended. It is only ment to grant 'safety' for 1.0G planets with Mass & Volume active or in 'normal & freedom' mode.