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[Fighter Blueprint] Paranid Perseus M3 [X3]

The Perseus is the standard M3 heavy fighter of the Paranid Empire. It was originally developed in secret by the Paranid government to be an unmatched state-of-the-art superiority fighter, capable of defeating fighters and corvettes alike. However, this dream of lasting Paranid superiority in the M3 class was cut short when a Perseus prototype was embarassingly stolen by pirates. The stolen ship was eventually recovered by the legendary Argon pilot Kyle Brennan, but the secrets of the Perseus were out, and other races quickly caught up to the Paranids with their own fighter designs.

Despite this rocky early history, the Paranid government has continued to field the Perseus as their main M3 over the years, keeping it updated to modern specifications. Nowadays it is one of the longest-serving fighters in the entire Commonwealth. While the Perseus no longer has the decisive edge over the fighters of other races, its attributes are sufficient to keep it competitive. It is a bit slow by modern M3 standards and its cargo bay is quite small, but its shielding is solid and its forward firepower is above average. The Perseus also sports a rear turret, giving it a defense against missiles. Capable of mounting the High-Energy Plasma Thrower, Phased Repeater Gun, Pulsed Beam Emitter, or even the Paranid-designed Fragmentation Bomb Launcher, the Perseus can direct an impressive amount of firepower at its target. Its all around decent performance combined with its substantial killing power makes it viable in escort, anti-fighter, or light bomber roles. Perseus squadrons often operate out of the hangar bays of the Paranid Zeus M1, as the Perseus' small cargo hold limits the fighter's range otherwise.

Several variants of the Perseus exist, including the "Advanced Perseus," which boasts improved shielding and a welcome improvement to speed. The notorious Yaki pirates use a modified version of the Perseus as their own heavy fighter, which they call the "Susanowa."

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This build of the Paranid Perseus is based on the standard variant as it appeared in X3:TC. It is exactly 200 blocks. I was really worried about this build, as I thought there was a good chance that I wouldn't be able to get it looking good in only 200 blocks. I'm happy to say that I was completely wrong and that this ship came together a lot more easily than I thought - it actually turned out to be one of my favorite builds thus far. This was my first X3 build where I was using a 3d model viewer of the actual X3:TC assets for reference rather than trying to find images of the ship online. It worked out well enough that this will be the new standard going forward.

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, laser