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Jaculus Destroyer

Fully vanilla. Survival ready.

Long-Range Support/Artillery Destroyer
Phoenix Fleet Systems

A rebuild of Lord Commissar's Jaculus Artillery Destroyer.

Mass: 2,424.6t (+45.6t loaded)
Acceleration: 8.8m/s²(-0.54m/s² loaded)
Jump Range: 2062km (-38km loaded)

Dimensions: 155m x 82.5m x 20m
Gyroscopes: 31

Environment: Space
Connectors: 5
Cargo: 39 Containers (1 Large, 38 Small)
Fuel: 2 Tanks
Oxygen: 10 Tanks, 6 Generators, 8 Farms
Power: 19 batteries, 1 Large Reactor (~528MW, 41% reserve)
Weapons: 1 RDSA Cannon, 2 RDSA Particle Turrets, 4 25mm Rotary Cannon Turrets

Production: 2 Refineries (2 2E/2Y), 8 Assemblers (6 1E/1S, 2 1E), 2 Drills

Crew: 6 Required, 10 Possible
> 1 Pilot
> 1 Astrogator
> 2 Weapons Officers
> 1 Communications Officer
> 1 Engineer
- 4 Passengers

Standard Inventory: 45.6t Total
- 5000 Uranium Ingots
- 192 25mm Cannon Ammunition
- 15000 Ice
- 18865 RDSA Cannon Ammunition (weight, 5x)

The Jaculus was originally a stealth attack ship - it would use other ships and celestial bodies as cover during thrust phases, and shut down almost entirely during coast phases. To the enemy, it would appear seemingly out of empty space; the first sign of its arrival a withering hail of shells. One was often formidable - against pirates and other unwitting targets, a squad of them spelt death.

Of course, the CEU was intimately familiar with the idea - that was their primary offensive tactic, and they knew exactly how to counter it themselves. By the time the Europa Conflict started, the Jaculus was in the process of being replaced by the Shadow missile drone; heavy losses sustained against the CEU only hastened its fate.

Later on, several Jaculus frames found new life as testbeds for weaponry development. Originally designed for long independent missions, they were cheap to run, easy to maintain, could manufacture their own replacement parts, and had plenty of redundancy. Their two large turrets were ideal for all manner of large weapons.

They were also easy to piece back together after catastrophic incidents. Many a space engineer began their careers repairing shattered Jaculus frames, often altering them to simplify the process.

With the old Kraken auxiliaries on the way out, the Navy sent out a request for replacement designs as part of the Typhon Initiative. One PFS team suggested the Jaculus - the logic was that a team of fast, small auxiliary ships could both service more of a fleet at once and react to threats with far more grace than a single large auxiliary. It helped that the Jaculus already had the infrastructure necessary (and then some), and many newer engineers had experience working on them.

Released in early 2112, the new Jaculus was a combined auxiliary and artillery ship. High-efficiency manufacturing systems ensured a steady stream of parts, and the original drills ensured the ship could continue to work even without drone support. On the flipside, the latest particle weaponry and even a gauss cannon ensured any enemy mistaking it for easy prey would not live to regret their mistake. Many alterations made to the original weapon testbeds were incorporated, simplifying construction and maintenance. Finally, many features originally used for stealth were turned towards efficiency, resulting in greatly-increased mission durations.

Today, the Jaculus is among the most numerous auxiliary ships in service, and shows no sign of leaving anytime soon.

A rebuild of Lord Commissar's Jaculus Artillery Destroyer. Many thanks to him for building awesome ships like this one.

So I wanted a proper test ship for rotor guns. This was the result - the Jaculus seemed to fit the role perfectly. Thus, it's received an overhaul. All modded blocks have been removed, the hull has been rebuilt to fit, the interior has been replaced with a typically-cramped tail-sitter configuration to bring it in line with the latest PFS ships, and the conveyor and manufacturing systems have been rebuilt. Also added are oxygen, hydrogen, and jump drive systems.

The advice from the original remains true - it relies heavily on speed and long-range firepower to win. It cannot and will not last long in a short-range brawl.

The rotor cannon turrets have a muzzle velocity of ~250m/s and a high fire rate; by some miracle they are also stable enough to light up an Argentavis at 5km with proper aiming. The fixed-forward cannon has a much lower muzzle velocity of ~140m/s and a much lower fire rate (owing to the need to weld the merge block at least) - the advantage is much higher damage per shot, and is best used for long-range sniping.

It might not be backed by a 100% money-back guarantee to ruin the day of the poor sorry sucker in the crosshairs, but it does come fairly close.


Pilot



Delta-V is the speed the ship can accelerate to before running out of fuel. A good measure of a ship's 'range'.
Delta-V values do not account for atmospheric drag or planetary gravity. The only exception is when a ship's dedicated lifting force causes a power overload, as that takes gravity into account.
Everything is calculated for loaded mass under 1G (except for the dry mass).