Thor crushes a small nearby raider outpost

After months of building using Dry Station's shipyard and automated construction facilities, the frigate FRG Thor was finally ready to be launched.

She had all paint, decals, computer systems, navigation lights, docking, weapons, and crew systems in place, and was fully outfitted with a full compliment of fuel, water, food stuffs and weaponry.

My first frigate was ready to her inaugural voyage.

Thor ready for launch.

I recruited a single officer from the Trading Guild, one Ensign Zakfield, to man the engineering systems and tested Thor's systems ready for her launch.

Everything came back green, and Zakfield confirmed we were ready for launch.

We eased FRG Thor out of dock and took her on her inaugural flight to the nearby raider's station responsible for the recent pirate harassment on Dry Station, and which had also harrassed SVG Excavator on a few recent trips to the nearby asteroid field to collect resources.  It would be an excellent test of her abilities and send a clear message to the raiders that Dry Station was not to be trifled with.

After several hours of travel Thor arrived in the airspace of the raider station and was immediately swarmed by dozens of fighters who opened up on Thor and barraged us with small fire.  Thor's shields absorbed hit after hit and we sat with impunity in half the range of the frigate's large rocket launcher commanding the surrender of the station and her fighter contingency.

FRG Thor's shields absorbed an unprecedented amount of fire from raider fighters.

The pirates ignored our transmissions and grew in numbers as still more fighters flooded into the system from nearby asteroid fields.  Soon Thor's considerable shields had dropped to within 80% capacity and my patience drew to a close.

I targeted the station with the Thor's main rocket array and let a single round loose.  It covered the space between Thor and the station in seconds, screaming a blue trail behind it as it went, before battering the station with it's colossal detonation.  The station's shield fizzled and arced as it strained to disperse the immense energy of the blast around the structure.

Another round was released as soon as it was chambered, and this time the station shield could not restrain it.  The shield collapsed and superstructure crumbled under the blast, exploding metal, glass, bodies and gas into space from a gaping wound in the structure.

The station's radio chatter went quiet, but the assault from the cloud of fighters continued unabaited.

It was time to turn Thor's attention towards the swarm.

The main rocket launcher on board Thor was like shooting ants with a shotgun, although somewhat cumbersome.

Her smaller wing-mounted lock-on missiles fired rounds much faster and were more effective against the smaller craft.

Turning the frigate to track the highly maneuverable fighters was a small challenge, however I found that once I'd locked the weapons onto a target that the lock-on missiles (including Thor's main rocket) would follow the target regardless of it's maneuvers.  In this way I was able to swivel, track, and swat one fighter at a time until I was swimming in a sea of burning wrecks and drifting debris.  I was flying a one-ship exterminator, and I liked it.

Thor was almost invulnerable to attack from a swarm of raider fighters, while she swatted them one by one.

Zakfield kept the frigate's main systems operating at peak and continued cycling the phase of the shields while I focused on target tracking and blowing fighters out of the sky, and the system worked well.

Destroyed pirates would often spill debris and loot into space as their cores overheated and crew perished.

Before long my frigate was surrounded by drifting debris, overheating cores, and a rapidly expanding field of atmospheric gases released from shattered hulls... Her shields never dropped below 75%, and were now slowly recharging as she sat unmolested in space outside the silent raider station.

Thor parks outside the raider station while I board and inspect the ruin.

I exited her airlock and made my way into the huge hole that Thor had blown in the side of the raider station, while Zakfield held Thor menacingly outside with weapons trained and ready.

Thor sat outside the station while I boarded and inspected it.

The station had several very large holes blown into it as well as small fire damage from fighter cross-fire.

The station's main cores were intact however... no threat of nuclear meltdown just yet.  I left them thrumming healthily while I returned to Thor waiting outside.

Within the station I found several dead raiders, destroyed computer systems, and shattered debris as a tribute to my total domination.  A raider survivor was found hiding in the main control facility, and I captured him and held him in the crew quarters of Thor for the journey back to Dry Station.

Little else of value existed on the station, which I resolved to soak up later by returning to the zone with SVG Excavator.

Thor returns triumphantly to Dry Station with her cargo of loot and a prisoner of war.

 That particular raider station would trouble me no more.  I could take Excavator safely out into the asteroid fields without fear of harassment or raids.

Experimental Escape Pod and Hatch

The original plan for FRG Thor included plans for an Officer's Escape Pod (all crew on this automated vessel are designated officers) located at the aft dorsal section of the ship, just behind the Obs Deck, shielded by a mirrored set of blast barriers and covered by an armored escape hatch that would detonate free in the event of escape-pod launch.

It was ambitious and new, but Thor's design and build went ahead anyway, knowing that it could be altered if for some reason it was unable to be achieved.

With the completion of the Obs Deck, Bridge, and internal areas around the area that the Escape Pod would be located, it was now time to build the Pod as well as the Escape Pod bay, and that meant tackling the hairy prospect of a seperate detonating escape pod hatch.

Between the Blast Barriers set just back from the Obs Deck the Escape Pod Hatchway and Pod Bay was created.

The internals of the Pod Bay don't need to be armoured and so are quite raw, in a similar style to CRV Alannis.

Once the Pod Bay was created (which had been done similarly to the Escape Pod Bay of CRV Alannis), it was time to see if I would be able to successfully attach a hatch to the hatchway and pod while it was docked during standard operations.

Proof of concept was a success!  A hatch could be successfully docked to a docked escape pod.

The underside of the hatch, docked to the Mock Pod to gauge depth requirement of Pod.

The mock pod docked to the base of the Escape Pod Bay.

Now that I knew it was possible, it was time to build the escape pod.  Rather than build it within the confines of the Escape Pod Bay within FRG Thor, I decided to manufacture the Pod on a small addition off to the side of the shipyard, to the stern of Thor. Once completed the Pod and Hatch would be manuevered into position, however manufacturing it in space rather than in the bay meant greater visibility and access.

Escape Pod and Hatch was manufactured in a new small additional wing to the shipyard.

The Escape Pod was a basic design, fully armoured, fit with highly maneuverable engines, and a radar jammer to assist escape.  The Hatch was the original design cut and moved from the top of Thor and fit with the necessary docking systems.

The interior of the Escape Pod is cramped but functions perfectly to rescue all six crew members.

The Escape Pod fits 6 people with the possibility of a further three under extreme conditions.  1 to enter the Core and pilot it, four seated on the red seats, and 1 to 3 standing on the Core between the seated passengers.  The interior of the single-layer armour was fitted with as many shields as possible in the cramped space, giving the Escape Pod the greatest possible chance for escape during a battle scenerio.  The exact specifications of the shielding are kept as a closely guarded secret to help any passengers survive an attack.

The entrance to the pod was closed behind a new armoured Blast Door manufactured specifically for the Pod.

Now that the Pod was completed, it was time to manuever the Pod into the Pod Bay, ready for active duty.

Escape Pod and Hatch are maneuvered into position above the Pod Bay, ready for insertion.

Hatch is detached and Pod is inserted into the Pod Bay.

Pod in final operational position, with Hatch removed.

Once the Pod was inserted, docked, and wired into Thor's systems, it was time to cover her with the armoured Hatch that would protect the Pod during combat operations.

Hatch has final additions fitted to it so it covers the Pod Bay securely.

View from within Pod Bay as Hatch is maneuvered into position.

Hatch being moved into final position as seen from the shipyard.

Hatch fitted successfully, with Pod secured and wired in.

The internal view of the Escape Pod Bay, showing the Hatch in place and the Blast Doors open on the Pod ready to receive passengers.  The fore-side panels of the Escape Pod Bay still need to be fitted and aligned to the escape passages as they are built.

So the overall build was a success.  An experimental design that I did not know would succeed in fact succeeded.  I was pleased that my efforts had not been in vain, and set about finalising the escape passageways leading from the Bridge and the rest of the frigate's internals.

Thor's Mess Hall, Medibay, Core Room, and Halls are completed

After weeks of production, the internal main-stream traffic hallways, Core Room, Medibay, and Mess Hall are completed, along with the closure of the hull surrounding the crew quarters and engine facilities.

Crew Quarters, shield and jamming facilities, and some other basics like waste disposal and engine supporting systems still needed to be fit... but Thor's overall production was fast approaching launch.

The front of the Core Room was fit with one of several Gravity Syncronisers, as well as three Matter Banks for storage of various materials necessary to repair and maintain the frigate.

The Port Wing access hallway was completed awhile ago, and grants access to the external port airlock among other things.

Looking sternwards from the Core (through an open blast door) is the ramp to the Bridge, and the hallways leading to the Mess Hall, Medibay, and Crew Quarters.

The ramp upwards to the Bridge.

Looking back from the main hallway to the Core Room, past the base of the ramp to the Bridge.

Further back down the main hallway looking forwards towards the Core Room, showing access to the ramp up to Medibay.

Thor's Medibay sports two triage beds as well as a central operations table, state of the art and fully automated, able to repair a body short of necrononomy.

One of two triage beds.

Triage beds can be darkened to allow a patient to rest if necessary.

Main computing core of the Medibay provides access to most systems, as well as a vocal AI that can assist with most diagnosis and treatments.

A little further down the hallway from the Medibay access is the entrance to the Mess Hall.

Mess Hell serves 6 at once (Thor's entire crew) with all food and utensils provided by the Epicurian Combinator and a waste-disposal chute disposes of finished meals and utensils to be broken down and re-combined as necessary.

I found that during the build I was beginning to use Thor's systems and facilities more than Alannis's and even more than Dry Station due to their high degree of comfort and accessibility.

I was still sleeping in freefal in my suit, however once Thor's crew quarters were complete I knew that I would be using them as my main digs...

The Library

As time went on I found that one thing tended to lead to another.

For example the build of FRG Thor required me to use particular types of components (for example shield capacitors), which in turn required particular types of materials (for example Rammet and Sertise capsules).

As I had since breaking free of the now obliterated Gundabadt, I had been purchasing materials and even components from the nearby Trading Guild station, however the station was having supply issues due to pirate blockades in a nearby system, and were unable to provide me any more than I had already purchased.

As a result, I was reaching a point where more and more items were now unable to be built or purchased, and the only way I would be able to build these items for any more vessels and expand my budding empire would be to mine and process the minerals myself.  Or destroy the blockade.  If the Trading Guild couldn't despatch the blockade, then clearly I would have no chance, so really, the only option was to find, mine, and process the necessary minerals myself, and use them to manufacture my own items.

But I was new to this, having been a process slave in Gundabadt I knew nothing about minerals, asteroids, what they looked like, where they could be found, et cetera.

I would need to begin exploring, sampling, and cataloging my discoveries.

I knew this would require a huge amount of processing power, and so the concept for a Library addition to my shipyard station was born.

Databases and servers whir and blink as they wait to absorb, catalog, and as required present compiled information about the discoveries I made.

Everything from asteroids found, mineral content, resources, capsules, refineries, technologies, building techniques, blueprints for ships, research, starbase and asteroid field locations, and a host of other information would be fed into these servers and processed by their AI into a range of useful information.

Connected to the main deck of my shipyard and the basic factory I had previously built, the library is almost as power-hungry as the entire shipyard and factory to date, warranting the addition of another 2 3x3x3 power generators.

To protect the delicate servers from random pirate fire, the Library has a much denser structure than the rest of the shipyard's facilities, and is wired directly into the power grid.

This Library Wing adds a further 10x5x10 structure to the basic factory and power/shield generator grid structure connected to the shipyard, and is helping to form a small station attachment to the entire structure.

With the docking arms (completed with ship maintenance systems and cargo siphons) added to the station some weeks ago, the entire shipyard complex is becoming much more like a small station now.

Dubbed "Dry Station", my shipyard was almost a small port nowadays.

Pirates seemed to give me wide berth these days, although occassionally a sniper or two would sit outside the range of my homing missile turrets and pepper Dry Station with long shots... but they did little more than give me a smirk if one managed to actually strike the base instead of sail by through empty space.

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).