FRG Thor's Bridge, Turrets, and Engines are completed

FRG Thor was proving to be quite a complex and interesting project.

Her missile systems, shield and power systems, and armor were the first to be completed. I then began work on her engines, turrets, armor greeble, Bridge, wings interior, access airlocks and passage ways, and some minor details.

Several trips out to the asteroid fields in SVG Excavator were necessary to retrieve the necessary materials to build FRG Thor's systems... although I was unable to find some minerals... something I would have to solve sooner or later.

Thor as seen from the shipyard deck closest to the factory module.

 I fit the top and underside of Thor's wings with missile-targeting fast-shooting micro-turrets, although during tests it seemed they were as efficient at shooting down Thor's own missiles as they were at defending her from incoming enemy missiles.

I hoped I was able to resolve this with better programming, but resigned myself to the possibility that I would need to convert them over to targeting enemy ships' shields instead of missiles.

Thor's anti-missile micro-turrets were 3x2x3m, unshielded rapid-fire cannons that proved quite effective at shooting missiles out of the sky, and covered 88% of FRG Thor's visibile space with only these four  micro-turrets.

Her engines were a new design of Nuclear Fusion which provided far greater thrust than her predessors fitted to Alannis and Excavator.

Taking parts of Excavator's Fusion Engines and combining it with parts of Alannis's Ion Compression engines has resulted in much more powerful engines for the same space and mass being occupied. FRG Thor is more manuevable than any other ship I've built (except Taxi), despite being much greater in mass.

While most of Thor's external armour and greeble were now completed, a few systems still need to be fitted.

Apart from crew facilities, FRG Thor was now fully operational.

By far the largest ship I've built so far, Thor tests the docking capability of the shipyard to the maximum.

While Thor's internal engineering decks were reasonably raw and cramped, her officer and crew areas were much brighter, cleaner and more organised, with access to key systems being prioritised over rapid access to the rawer underlying systems that drive them.

Thor's Core has access passages to her two main forward passages (at deck 4 level), her two wings, and aft to her bridge, crew quarters, and engines.

Port-side passageway between Core and port wing allows access to engineering systems and ventilation shafts if necessary.

At the end of the wing passageway (a mirror image of starboard side) is the internal access junction, where the interior of the wing can be accessed, and also where the port side airlock can be entered.

Inspection hatches to both micro-turrets allow crew to take manual control of them at any time, as well as their controlling systems.

The airlock contains a gravity activation module and is currently the fastest way to access the Core from the factory, which it faces.  For this reason, this airlock is high traffic at the moment during the build.

Thor's Bridge had control points for officers overseeing the ships main systems, a captain's chair overseeing all officer's stations, and a 7x4m view screen, and bright lighting. 

The Bridge is accessed from the rear by two large ramps coming up on either side of the Captain's Station from the Core.  The Obs Deck blast door is next to the Captain's chair, and gives access to her main cannon's control computers if necessary.

The Engineering Station gives readouts and direct control over many of Thor's most critical systems, including Radar Jamming, Shielding, Power generation and storage, weapons systems overview, superstructure, AI, doors and hatches, and engines.

While the ship was able to be operated by myself, it was far more efficient to crew her with deck officers capable of directly interacting with her systems simultaneously.

She was now estimated to be approximately 80% completed, and her launch was anticipated to be in approximately 2 more months (one real-time day is equivalent to one game-month).