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MEC 'Polistes' Mining Carrier (8-Slot)

(UPDATE: 5/7/2019) This ship has been revised to better utilize the new Mining Update features.

The Muthos Engineering Consortium 'Polistes' is a mid-sized carrier designed for heavy mining and salvage operations. With hangars capable of fielding a full ten wings of fighters, the 'Polistes' can be deployed to dense asteroid fields and wreckage sites where its mining and salvage fighters can get to work picking the area clean.

What sets the 'Polistes' apart from other carriers is its ability to contribute to its fighters' mining and salvage operations. While many carriers deployed for mining or salvage are content to let their fighters do the heavy lifting, the 'Polistes' is designed to use its own mining or salvage lasers to make these operations more efficient. Large hardpoints along the dorsal fin and ventral side allow the 'Polistes' to carry a large number of its own mining or salvage turrets, and give it the coverage it needs to be able to work with at least half of its turrets from any angle. Additionally, powerful thrusters allow the Polistes to safely maneuver around resourcing sites.

The 'Polistes' uses the MEC's patented 'HEX-E' capital ship drives, and the all-new Mk. III 'Swarm Pod' hangar system. This new innovation has all but completely eliminated the docking issues that wide fighter designs experienced with the Mk. I version.

Pros:

-Low credit cost
-Fairly good shields and armor
-Decent sized cargo bay
-Does not rely on inertia dampeners for brake thrust*
-Large hangar bay
-Plenty of armored internal frameworks for customization
-Hardpoints are in good coverage positions for mining/salvaging
-Small crew requirement
-Integrated origami studio on deck 6

Armament:

-17x size 1.5 mining/salvaging laser hardpoints
-4x size 3.5 heavy mining/salvaging laser hardpoints
-4x size 1 point defense hardpoints

Cons:

-Cannot build or replace its own fighters very well
-Only two hangar bays
-Mediocre hyperspace range (can be improved using frameworks or subsystems)
-Origami can be frustrating

(Detailed statistics and costs are available in screenshots)


For fighters, the MEC recommends the VF-1B 'Xanthoptera' for both mining and salvage operations. Other entries from our extensive fighter catalogue also make great choices if a defensive combat wing is desired.

Below each of the wings of the 'Polistes' are hexagonal areas each containing (behind glass) the logo of the Muthos Engineering Consortium. Customers are encouraged (though not required) to replace these with their own logo or heraldry of choice.

FInally, our legal team would like us to note that while the 'Polistes' has good weapons coverage and fairly decent shields and armor, it is not a vessel designed primarily for combat. Its twin hangar bays cannot launch a full complement of fighters very quickly, and it lacks the production facilities to do anything more than minor, occasional maintenence on its fighter wings. For a dedicated combat carrier, we recommend the larger MEC 'Vespa' hive ship.

The 'Polistes' is bundled with VPD-1 point defenses and a set of VCT-1 and VCT-2 mining/salvaging turrets. If you'd like to use it with other MEC turrets, check out the MEC Signature Collection!

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The MEC 'Polistes' was a project that almost didn't happen. I've had a bit less free time than usual to work on builds, and while I had several class names and basic ideas for other MEC capital ships, this one was not initially very high on my to-do list. I've been pouring most of my Avorion hours lately into a HW super-capital build which should be coming along soonish, but it's been going a lot more slowly than I had hoped and I decided to work on this ship to give myself a break.

*At one point in development, AI would not use inertia dampeners properly (it would thrust in reverse to brake instead of coasting to a stop). I am not sure if this is true anymore, but it was a design consideration when this ship was built.

The 'Polistes' Mining Carrier is named for a large genus of paper wasps.