[RELEASE] Piranha

[mandoman]

This is the escort ship, Piranha. This ship is fast. Very fast. There are good reasons for this. All it has for self defense are forward, and aft lasers, ECM, and speed. It is NOT designed to carry missiles. This is due to the fact that it's tiny size is totaly dedicated to engines, and energy storage. This ship is not one to live in, as all it has for human space is the tiny pilot's cockpit. It's five tons of storage space is full of energy equipment, fuel, and engines. It is purely an escort ship. It has no Witchspace drive to jump from one system, to another, much less one Galactic point, to another. The Piranha has to ride the wake of the ship it is escorting in order to use Witchspace. There is simply no room inside to mount a Witchspace drive. It's energy recharge rate seems relatively high at 3.5, but that is seriously challanged by the relatively low max_energy of 300. Believe me, in the heat of battle that energy disappears quickly. After testing this ship a bit, I found it quite suitable for escort duty. It's speed is a weapon, because it can use it to catch almost any hostile, out run any missile, and switch directions, and targets in a blink. I think it's a fun little ship, and it is very little, measuring 38 X 26 X 40 meters. When docking with a station, all that has to be done is to center the little scamp onto the docking slit, and fly in. No messing with leveling it, as it just isn't big enough to hit any part of the slit if flying in centered. It's an escort, small but deadly.

https://www.box.com/s/b388e39a683d9053126e

[Shipbuilder]

I like the look of this ship Mandoman

Good to see you posting some more of your ships.

My only concern would be a ship that can outrun any missile seems a little too fast but then again this is your ship so of course that is up to you.

[mandoman]

It's not the only ship oxp out there that has the speed to out run missiles. I have two others that will do the same, just not as fast as the Piranha, and they are the Sunbat, and SunbatMkII. Any ship that can accelerate up to, and beyond 550 can out run missiles, and with the new fuel injection booster oxp, a whole lot of others that wouldn't be able to do so normally can now out run missiles, IF they are so equipped. So any ship with a normal max speed of 275, or higher, can out run any missile if they are packin' the fuel injector boosters. Kind of cool.

[Griff]

Nice ship design! Any plans to give it some paint? a few of the guys here on the forum posted up a few links to work by an amazing artist called Chris Foss in the Science Fiction Trivia thread:
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.ph ... 61#p119961
https://bb.oolite.space/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=10603
Something similar might look amazing on your ship

[mandoman]

Man, that guy is incredible. I had a different paint scheme originally, but it was a bit flamboyant......at least, I thought it was. Something tells me that Foss would probably NOT want to mess with my little toys.

[DredgerMan]

This is the escort ship, Piranha. This ship is fast. Very fast.

It's also very hard to kill as pirate vessel.

All the Piranha's I have encountered so far take a full mil laser blast, then turn round and flee on injectors without any hope of going after them on injectors and catch up with them. They tend to come back a bit later on but then it is the same story again. Of the ten or twenty I have encountered so far, I managed to kill only two, and then only when they re-appeared three times. Annoying little blighters, I must say. Nicely done, Mandoman!

[mandoman]

Yeah, the only ship I have that can come any where near it is my SunBat, and I still can't catch it even with that. They haven't got much punch, though. I had to laugh last night, as I cruised into a system testing out a new ship, when I encountered a Snapper and it's six SunBatMkII escorts. There were pirate ships all around, and I had to fight, AND flee to keep my skin, but non of them even tried to attack that Snapper group.

Thanks for the compliments, DredgerMan. It's good to know someone else is enjoying my ships.