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[Fighter Blueprint] Argon Nova M3 [X3]

Commissioned by the Argon Federation to replace the aging Elite, the Nova was designed and built in the legendary shipyards of Omicron Lyrae. Tested for only two years and then rushed into service, the Nova has quickly come into its own as a respectable heavy fighter in Commonwealth space. Featuring solid middle-of-the-road performance in most areas, but with above-average shields and, unusually, a single rear-mounted turret, the Nova is a versatile heavy fighter that can be effectively utilized in a variety of roles. While its average speed stat makes it a poor choice as a dedicated interceptor, the wide variety of weapons it can mount (including the Phased Repeater Gun, High-Energy Plasma Thrower, and the devastating short-range Plasma Burst Generator) allow it to function as an effective sector patrol ship, corvette killer, and escort vessel. If loaded up with Hammerhead missiles, it can even function as a decent bomber. While some slower M3 designs are known to have problems against missiles, the addition of the rear turret gives the Nova a missile defense option that many other M3's lack.

Several variants of the Nova exist - one of the more popular being the "Raider" variant, which sacrifices a bit of cargo capacity to gain a welcome improvement to the Nova's speed. In less scrupulous hands, the Nova has become a popular choice for pirates, who are known to use several cheaply modified versions. It is rumored that the shipwrights of Omicron Lyrae are allowing some individuals to test a new "Prototype" variant that supposedly offers significant performance improvements across the board, but as this model is not yet available for sale at shipyards, obtaining one could prove challenging.

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This build of the Argon Nova is based on the X3:TC standard variant. It is exactly 200 blocks, and besides a persistent shadow across the nose that I had to play around with for a half hour trying to mitigate, I think it turned out great. While the Nova had quite a few variants (Raider, Vanguard, Sentinel, Prototype, Pirate, and Pirate Raider) that each had some differences in shape and paint job, I am not planning to do those at this time. There's still a bunch more X3 fighters that I would rather do first before getting hung up on variants.

Screenshots (besides the auto-generated preview image) show fighters at true scale - when you use this blueprint to produce fighters, that's the level of detail you can expect from the final product.

This ship is intended for use as a fighter blueprint, as it lacks the critical ship components necessary for player control.

Suggested weapons: Plasma gun, pulse cannon, launcher, chaingun