Attacked!

Building ships requires materials.  Lots of materials.
Even though we live in an amazing age where matter can be disassembled, assembled, stored digitally, compressed, and converted into compounds, components, and parts in very small spaces, it could not be created from nothing.

So while I would rather spend my time building the Alannis, it became clear early on that I would need to retrieve far more materials from space than I had already mined.

I took a missile-turreted SVG Speeder out to known asteroid fields and soaked up rock.  And more rock.  And still more rock.

While mining Speeder's sensors detected two incoming pirate vessels, and her missile turrets opened up. Before long the pirates had called in re-enforcements and it was time to retreat back to the safety of my turret-defended shipyard and budding base.

But for every pirate vessel that got destroyed, three more appeared, and soon my shipyard and it's defenses of several missile turret emplacements were swarming with small pirate attack craft busily carving up my defenses.

The dumb-fire missile turrets did their best to predict the movement of the enemy craft, but only 1 in 20 shots landed... and although highly effective when they did hit, they didn't hit often enough to make a real impact.

Before long the pirates were taking down turrets and shooting up Gustav, SVG Speeder, Taxi and my shipyard too.  The Alannis took a small share of fire but the pirates seemed to be focusing on the active vessels and turrets... perhaps they felt the Alannis was worth salvaging rather than destroying.

By the time the smoke had cleared the pirates were gone, my turrets were completely destroyed, and my shipyard and budding factory had huge holes smashed in them.  Gustav's remains glowed hot and red.  It was a sad sight to see all my hard work all but destroyed.

I decided I would need much greater defenses.
Missiles were far more effective than lasers for the same materials and space investment, but they were slow and therefore often missed.  I would need to look into ways to make missiles that could track a target and hit it regardless of it's maneuvers.

Time to build some homing missiles and build a solid defense... the next attack would probably be much larger.

Engines and escape pod completed.

 Soon enough I'd finalised the engines, and saved their design as a template for future builds.

Once the engines were completed I moved on to the escape pod, nestled between the reactors. Downward facing at the stern, the escape pod bay would be hidden behind armor and heat sinks for the reactors, and would allow a rapid escape in the event of the the Alannis going critical.

The internal access to the escape pod is also completed, including lighting.  Wiring and consoles will be added later as systems are installed. The pod has a double-thickness blast door (pre-open ready for rapid escape), radar jamming that will last for nearly 15 minutes before needing a refit, and a strong inertial destabilisation propulsion unit, all underneath thick armor. It is an escape pod designed to escape in the middle of heavy combat.

On either side of the chassis the main power systems are currently being installed.  These will drive the Alannis's shields, radar jamming, and weapons systems.

Reactors, intake manifolds, and thruster reactors completed.

The engines, reactors, and heavy water tanks were produced first, with thruster units and power built into them ready to be fired up when the Alannis is finished being built.

 The intake manifolds and rear reactors will be connected by the pressure regulators, control computers and cooling units in the gap between the rear reactors and the intake manifolds.

Once completed the engines will have power modules, radar jamming modules, and shield modules placed between them, then the hull will be built around it followed by the armour and turrets and various sensors.

CRV Alannis

Once the shipyard was completed, I began the process of building the new ship.  I started with a new corvette... small enough to become familiar with the process of building and piloting a larger craft, but large enough to be able to be put to good use defending mining fields and perhaps even battling marauding pirates.

I carefully measured out her central point from the shipyard, built a receptacle, and placed her core.

From here I measured out her dimensions with framework, and ensured she was aligned to the shipyard.

Once the frame for Alannis was aligned to the shipyard, she got locked off with clamps around the core, and around the X (port) and Y (stern) axis.  These three clamps will prevent her from drifting off or moving during the course of construction.

Once the clamps were in place it was time to build on the frame.  The Alannis would be a fast flying turreted vessel with basic radar jamming ability. Speed and agility would be one of her primary features, allowing her to dart about in battle while turrets punished enemy vessels and turrets. Large engines would feature in her design, and they would be built and mounted first.

I marked out their positions and began the process of building and attaching them to the frame.

Dry's First Shipyard

Inspired by the size and power of the NSS Versator, it was not long before I decided that my little armoured battle-scout Gustav and even the missile-turreted salvager SVG Speeder were laughably feeble in the grand scheme of things... I would need something much more powerful if I was going to be able to defend my patch of space and avoid being killed or taken back into servitude.

Ultimately I would want a huge well-defended station and also a carrier or dreadnaught to flagship my fleet, however for now I needed to become familiar with process of building (and flying) larger vessels.

I would need a shipyard to both protect as well as provide an anchor-point for my new vessels.

I began immediately by producing a metal mesh structure large enough to hold a frigate-sized vessel.

The shipyard includes a few decks and carefully spaced framework that will allow accurate measurements for all dimensions of the upcoming ships.

The decks will be used to contain tools and materials used in the build, as well as production modules to compliment the basic factory units located in the small production facility I have had for some time now.

Derelict NSS Versator

While mining in a sector not far from my small poorly defended home base, Speeder's sensors picked up the signature of another vessel... My heart lept as I saw the size and power of it and its proximity, before I realized that it was just a derelict.  Good thing too, it was monstrous!

I decided to investigate, and approached the vessel.  It had some power still, but was mostly a decayed husk of a vessel, destroyed by years of exposure and neglect.

On approaching it, the size of the craft became ever more apparent.  It dwarfed the SVG Speeder, which I had previously considered a reasonably large vessel.  I halted Speeder and disembarked to investigate the derelict closer, and perhaps see if I could find a way into the ship.

The ship was riddled with blast damage, and I found one of these holes in the hull led into a small breached crew quarters, giving me access to one of the ship's internal passageways.

Labels inside the vessel identified it as the NSS Versator. The engine still thrummed somewhere off in the distance, but the derelict was clearly in a bad way.  Lights were spotty, tubes were smashed, debris scattered in every corner, most monitors dead, and an eery lack of activity made the entire place feel menacing.

I reactivated systems as I found them and was able, and moved about exploring the insides of the vessel.  It wasn't long before I discovered the bridge, a vast control room filled with three levels of banks of control consoles, a large open bay window, and a holographic representation of the entire NSS Versator.

Large open rooms of unknown purpose...

A grand mess hall with a majestic all round open view of space. Creepy and vast when I first discovered it, but with the mostly functioning lighting re-activated the grandeur of the NSS Versator began to become apparent to me...

From the deck docking bay, my view back along the derelict to the parked SVG Speeder gave me a real sense of size.  Speeder hovered above a part of the derelict about three quarters back from the bow towards the stern.

A Humble Beginning

My name is Dry Broez.

I am a freeman miner from Upsuli system, having recently bought my freedom for my descendants by honor-killing my former master and enslaver Haft Nexshrakt of the clan of Gundabadt.

Now my destiny is my own, and with it I have discovered the thrill and also the fear of unprotected freedom.

For now I tip-toe through space, and have set up a small processing plant within the protection and convenience of a Trading Guild shop that I discovered during my escape from Gundabadt station.

I mine nearby asteroids mostly consisting of Cinnibar, Lukrah, Sand, and some Fertikeen. This has earned me enough to build a small processing plant, a small mining craft fondly called "Speeder", a rapid-transit speeder craft called "Taxi", and a small radar-deceiving, lightly armoured battle-scout called "Gustav".  The processing plant has been fitted with a small basic armoured turret to bolster my defenses, but my proximity to the Trading Guild station as well as my secretive mining approach seems to have kept my operation safe from assault so far.

But I'm not content to be a mere miner hiding in the shadows.

I have dreams... ambitions.