[RELEASE] WildShips OXP

[Thargoid]

New ships from the Aquarian Shipbuilding Corporation of Aqualina in Galaxy 3, plus the Kiota class stations.

Stations:

The Kiota is a new modular design of station, allowing customers to quickly commission a variety of custom-made stations for a variety of purposes. Each is based around a central "Wanyama" hub module with a simplified bi-directional central docking area. The hub area has spacious areas which can be used for either spaceship hangar and maintenance, an extensive machine area or central low-gravity work or recreational space.

The hub is linked as standard by a transportation system out to whichever modules are attached to it, or optionally a solid strut array if additional occupiable space is required.

Standard varieties of the Kiota include:

* Habitat - These huge stations can accomodate several hundreds of thousands of people in their spaceous ring design. If this is insufficient, then the double-ringed mega-habitat variant can accomodate and sustain the needs of a million inhabitants.

* Research - The research Kiota offers a wide range of laboratory and investigation environments, in either two or four isolated modules.

* Manufacturing - Offering either two or four distinct factory zones, these stations offer a hugely flexible and economic route to mass production to fulfil the needs of all bar the largest mega-corporate entity.

* Bio - What the manufacturing station offers to the industrial worlds, the bio variant offers to the agricultural. Each of the two or four zones is an entirely isolated and distinct ecosystem, suitable for the growth of almost anything natural to any world.

* Communications - A relatively cheap and powerful communications array. Suitable for system-wide coverage and boosting of galactic signals. Massive signal processor arrays are fitted as standard in place of the shipyard areas of the central station hub.

* Solar - Often used for solar research, fuel harvesting and power generation. This station model features additional heat shielding, at the expense of the shipyard areas available in most of the above variants.

Ships:

All of the ships feature a new and more efficient quirium plasma drive system. This enables greater fuel efficiency by replacing the normal quirium reaction "burn" with a plasma reaction. This gives not only the improved thrust rates and speeds, but is better for the space environment as no unreacted exhaust trails are given off by the vessels.

* Duma - These fast multi-purpose ships are designed for the similar multi-role usage as the common and popular Cobra 3. From trader to bounty hunter to military and police applications, these versatile ships are masters of all.

* Tembo - Bulk haulage is the role of these vessels. Rugged and simple, their sole purpose is to move as much cargo as possible with the minimum of fuss and cost. The base ship can carry up to 500 tons at a time, and the optional trailer unit can double that capacity. Lightly armed and armoured, they depend on escorts to ensure they get through safely, but when it comes to carrying they are second to none.

* Chatu - A large jump-capable combat ship designed for military, naval and general system protection roles. It has limited cargo capacity, but makes up for it in speed and all-round fighting capability.

* Nyoka - The little brother of the Chatu, this short-range escort fighter packs a similar punch to its big brother, but lacks the jump capability and cargo space.


I'll post some screenshots when I get some time, hopefully later this week. Some of the stations are a little intensive on the graphics side (can cause a couple of seconds lag on system entry for lesser-spec systems - like mine!) and this OXP looks best with shaders.

Download via the wiki or from my box.com account or Click Here to download directly.

The CTDs etc reported in this thread have now been dealt with.

[pagroove]

Sounds good. Downloaded it already. I did not run into one of the new ships or stations. Are the stations positioned around certain planets with a higher tech level or government? Anyway hoping to see some screenshot indeed .

[Solonar]

I like this one so far. I have seen some of the new stations and ships. It seems to work correctly and I had no significant issues at this time.

[Thargoid]

Sounds good. Downloaded it already. I did not run into one of the new ships or stations. Are the stations positioned around certain planets with a higher tech level or government? Anyway hoping to see some screenshot indeed .

The stations are shown as "K" on the ASC, so you should be able to find them quite easily.

They appear pseudo-randomly (repeatably per system), mainly along either the planet<>sun route or the witchpoint<>sun route.

I'm on a business trip this week, so may not have time to post images or update the wiki fully until either this weekend or next week, unless someone else would care to do the honours for me.

[Thargoid]

OK, some images of the ships:

Tembo hauler, plus trailer unit.


Nyoka escort


Duma multi-role fighter/trader


Chatu multi-role fighter/trader

[Thargoid]

And the Kiota station variants:

Habitat Station


Mega-Habitat Station


Research Station


Bio Station


Manufacturing Station


Solar Station


Communications Relay Station

[Commander McLane]

OK, some images of the ships:

Tembo hauler, plus trailer unit.

Nyoka escort

Duma multi-role fighter/trader

Chatu multi-role fighter/trader

Nice to see some Swahili names.

I suppose the Duma is very fast, although not in the long run?!?

[Thargoid]

Yup. Kiota is also Swahili (it means nest).

You can blame Disney's Animal Kingdom - kept bumping into Swahili words and names there and some of them sounded quite good for such a project...

[Capt. Murphy]

Those stations are stunning Thargoid.

[pagroove]

stunning stations indeed . Great work!

[cim]

Very nice. I'll definitely be installing this one since I'm up in the Sidewinder Expanse at the moment...

[Gimbal Locke]

Shiny ships, most beautiful stations, the moving elevators are awesome, and slalom flying between the spokes of the Mega-Habitat is great fun.

[Thargoid]

Glad you're all liking them

If there are other suggestions for variants I'd be interested to hear them. The station design is modular (the arms are sub-ents, as are the rings) so they can be swapped quite easily. And mix-and-match stations are also simple, although for me the uniform design looks better.

[JazHaz]

Just downloaded this OXP, as the stations look so good! Questions, where do the stations spawn? Do they replace standard stations?

[Thargoid]

Mostly along either the witchpoint<>sun route or the sun<>planet route. But the habitat stations will occasionally replace the main station (0.1 role weighting) - mainly dodec's and ico's if I recall correctly.

All of them have ASC beacons of "K".