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[UEF] Argonaut-class Assault Frigate

Argonaut-class Assault Frigate Mark-I

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The Argonaut-class Assault Frigate is a licensed hull from the Alpha Orionis Engineering Yards at the Betelgeuse Shipyards. The UEF needed a new Frigate design due to their aging hulls of her previous classes and the inability to operate forward motherships. BSY/AOE introduced a redesigned Virtue Corvette Hull to meet the specifications put forth by the UEF.

The hangar was removed to extend engineering forward and to place 4 Hydrogen Engines. It also allowed for a makeshift CIC to be placed behind the medical bay. With advancement in Shielding Technology, the vessel was fitted with a Defense Shield. Her Buoy system was removed, and she had her sides midships fitted with a blistering amount of firepower. On her Port and Starboard, she is fitted with 5x 122mm Casemate guns. Above them on the lower ramp, she has on each side 3x Point Defense Cannons for close defense. On her top she has 4x 122mm Gun Turrets. Further aft she has 2 top and 2 bottom Point Defense Cannons and below her Port and Starboard Access Ramps she has 1x GAT-1 Compact turret. This gives her an impressive broadside for her weight. The contract beat out the Ares Yards and the Reave Engineering Core (REC).

Argonaut is designed to support the Jason-class Light Cruisers in forward operations along with an assortment of Aegis-Destroyers and a mix of Corvettes. It's job is primarily to backup Corvette groups when heavy firepower is necessary to overwhelm smaller vessels. She maintains her Jump Drive, allowing her to fill the role of the Aegis-Destroyers to jump in Multiple Corvettes for short Jumps; however, she only has the one drive meaning she has a 5-6 minute down time. To maintain having a Jump Drive, the original design had to remove a Large Cargo Container, leaving only one on her Starboard, but she still has 21 Small Cargo containers to make up for that loss. She is capable of 1200km with a Combat Load, but this goes down when she is bringing Corvettes to 800km with 2x Light Corvettes. This allows her to keep pace with the Jason-class Light Cruiser.

The Argonaut works well with the Light Corvettes as it is also fully capable of High-G Atmo combat allowing it to assist with targets attempting to get away into atmosphere. For extended operations, she can put her reactors into off, shield into down, and turn off her hydrogen thrusters and operate on Ions only with her Hydrogen Engines and batteries for quite some time. This allows her to operate for some time before needing to refuel, especially if you load her down with some Ice to refuel over time.

If you like the update to the vessel, give an upvote and share. Also check out the original ship that the Encounter Corvette is based upon by k_medlock https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=853462583

Overall, this ship came about due to the amount of times we kept salving the encounter to use during new server starts that it ended up just becoming part of our fleet early game. Across 10 players that frequent our server, there is probably around 8 versions of this ship in a different form, including a stealth version.


(Mod Disclaimer) This ship does not require the NPC Crew mod to operate, it just gives the ship an additional 300% power and thrust which makes it far more reactive in combat.

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1297 Blocks
16355 PCU

Mass 1300 Metric Tons Empty
Mass 2100 Metric Tons Combat Weight

36 Length
15 Wide
9 High

Cargo and Supply
1x Large Cargo Containers
21x Small Cargo Containers
2x Large Hydrogen Tanks
2x Small Hydrogen Tanks
3x Oxygen Tanks

Power and Engineering
4x Small Reactors
4x Hydrogen Engines
10x Batteries
6x H2/O2 Generators
1x Jump Drive (1200km Combat Jump Range) (800km with 2x Light Corvette Escort)

Propulstion and Systems
14x Gyroscopes
39x Small Hydrogen Thrusters
2x Large Hydrogen Thrusters
17x Small Sci-fi Ion Thrusters

Weapon Systems
4x 122mm One Gun Turrets (Oki)
10x 122mm Casemate Guns (Oki)
10x 25mm Point Defense Cannons (MCRN)
2x 25mm GAT-1 Compact Turrets

Shield System
1.7 Mil Shields (Darkstar Defense Shields)

Scripts
Blarg's Aggressive Airlocks
Whips SIMPL
MMaster's Automatic LCD's 2