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Stheno Heavy Superiority Fighter

The STHENO Superiority Fighter is a small grid patrol- and enforcement-craft for space and non-atmospheric, low gravity environments. In order to provide a long operation time while requiring a minimal amount of resources to maintain, the Stheno runs on Ion Thrusters only and is primarly powered by a set of batteries. Armament consists of five 25mm gatling guns, including a dedicated sniper-array, as well as two manual loaded 200mm rocket launchers.

This item is full vanilla and easy to build in survival. It is fully conveyed, thruster-damage compatible and uses no mods or subgrids.


The STHENO is part of a series of multiple heavy fightercrafts that evolved on our dedicated server. Based on the original prototype, this specifc model was created as an anti-piracy vessel, dedicated towards carefully disabling pirate-spawns and dealing with their drones.


Blocks: 947
Non-armor blocks: 186
PCU: 6,198
Triangles: 792,095
Grid mass: 52,059

• All Ion-Thrusters
  The Stheno runs on Ion Thrusters only which make it a pure spacefighter-design. However, the ship comes with enough uplift to be safely operated within moon-gravity.
  
• Battery powered
  While carrying a selection of small reactors, the main power supply of the Stheno comes from its batteries. Combines with the Ion Thrusters, this ship requires no additional supplies to remain operational, as long as it can be regualry docked to a base.
  
• Sniper array
  in order to disable large vessels with a minimal amount of collateral damage, all gatling guns apart from the main canon can be turned off with a single button. This allows the pilot to precisely (as far as vanilla weapons allow it) take on the ships turrets and other defence mechanisms without spraying surrounding blocks, causing unneccessary damage and wasting ammo.
  
• Active Countermeasure
  The STHENO comes with four Harpoints to carry various ammunitions and mission-pods. They are preset with light armored decoy-pods that can be detached and launched towards an enemy before engaging in close quarter combat. This way the STHENO can initiate a direct attack while the enemy turrets are distracted for a few valuable seconds.
  
• Useability & comfort
  No mandatory requirements on uranium, no requirements on fuel, an oxygen tank and a cargo container make the STHENO a low-maintenance and enduring patrol-craft, capable to carry all the supplies needed to stay out in space for quite a long time. However, if you should actually run out of power, a jumpstart-reactor stands by to get you back on your feet. An onboard-projector allows for easy reloading of your mission pods as well as hasle-free repairs.

Created to take on Space Engineers PVE-content, the STHENO is a survival-ready design that has been shaped for almost a year and a half to engage and disable random spawns as well as taking out the drones that might come with them. The Stheno has a long history on our server, being designed by a beginner-player, then continuously adapted while we gained more and more experience.

Sure, the STHENO is neither the best armed, nor the most agile fighter you might come accross. But it is setup to be primarly battery-powered and runs on Ion-Thrusters only. Requiring no fuel or mandatory onboard uranium, the fighters deployment-time is very low and steady acceleration among all axis make it very user-friendly and suited for unexperienced pilots.

Due to this, the STHENO has been one of our most successful plattforms, both for survival gameplay and modifications. Even though we don't keep count anymore, the STHENO was involved in deactivating and retrieving a number of pirate-spawns that is easily in the three digits by now. This fighter has been the measurement for all our fighter designs that came after it and even though this thing was never ment for pvp, we had quite some fun with it in dogfights.

Even though the STHENO is still in use on our server, most of our players have made multiple own fighter designs, that keep challenging and outperform this old beater. However, the original creator and myself regulary come together to keep the STHENO a valid competitioner among the stars, resulting in the GORGON Heavy Fighter Project - an attempt to explore new territories with this reliable platform.



Special thanks goes out to Ajivo, who has been the creator of the original design. Cooperation started here when I asked If I could do some visual improvements and from there on we regulary came together to revaluate the design, make slight improvements or try out new things.
While I was struggeling to make my own fighter-design, flying and working on this thing gave me tons of ideas and inspiration form my own projects, eventually resulting in the Vargr Strike Fighter. This wouldn't have been possible without this ship and its creator!

Visual Mods & Skyboxes for Screenshots
Milky Way Skybox (insane resolution) by Darth Biomech

Edge Be Gone! (Cleaner Armor No Edges) by Whiplash141

Screen Gunk Be Gone! by Whiplash141

Varia
Logos were converted to LCD-Panels with Whips Image Converter[github.com]