Subscribe to download
HMES Jester

Here's the fifth post of the third round of Avem Empire airships! I'll be doubling my fleet size in this update, so make sure to check out all the other designs.

Jester is a bit of an odd design. Her cannon armament is quite weak, being just a pair of 94mm simple guns and some weak simple AA guns mounted in the superstructure. Her strength, and in fact her only reason for existence, is her ability to lay mines. Minelaying was quite powerful in real life warfare, but it's kinda hard to do in FtD. I decided that a fun way to do it would be to just drag mines on the water behind her as she does attack runs. By using regulators and harpoons, she can carry multiple salvos of fragmentation mines behind her and deliver them to the enemy in attack runs. Sadly the AI isn't great at this, so she'll often miss moving targets, but it's still a fun idea and a nice proof of concept, if nothing else. By taking manual control you can just about alwas hit the enemy. There is a functional advantage to mine dragging over regular bomb dropping, though. By dragging mines, Jester can deliver as much damage each attack run as if she had three times as many missile launchers, and missile launchers are expensive. I would suggest trading out the fragmentation mines for EMP mines, since the frag just doesn't really do a lot, but it's up to you. It looks great when she just drags a line of mines straight through a wooden target, and that's really the point of her. Just delivering a swath of fragmentary destruction to whatever poor ship she decides to fly over.

Let me know how you like her and if you'd like to see more similar designs. I wanted to also try doing a bomb bay that built up mines of the inside, which would've helped with getting a better hit rate, but I ran into a bug where the bombs just fell straight through the spinblocks of my bomb bay doors. Maybe I can get it to work in the future. Until then, enjoy her as she is.

I have to give credit to 𝕰 𝖝 𝖎 𝖘 𝖙 𝖊 𝖓 𝖈 𝖊 for taking these screenshots for me. He did a phenomenal job with it. Also keep in mind that the colors and reflections and overall appearance of my airships will vary significantly based on your graphics settings, so feel free to mess with your settings and the paint colors until you get them to look how you like.

Also, feel free to join the United Builders Discord! We'll sometimes have weekly FtD events (adventure, campaign, or designer) and the community is great. It's also where I share a lot of my WIP pictures, so if you want to see more of my work you can find it there. Here's the invite: https://discord.gg/NdBpnFM8vF Just read the rules and send a message in #foyer and we'll let you into the rest of the server.

Make sure to check out some of my other designs, too!
Here's my workshop collection: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2274580607
And here are all the other individual ships, labelled by their type.

https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2274542925 - Escort Ship HMES Action
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2274538050 - Escort Ship HMES Orbiter
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2274511376 - Destroyer HMES Independence
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2274568329 - Assault Ship HMAS Resolution
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2274611124 - Battlecruiser HMLS Unity
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2274625948 - Battleship HMLS Monarch
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2304348526 - Flamethrower Tugboat HMAS Flammenwerfer
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412166759 - Flamethrower Tugboat HMAS Flammenwerfer (B variant)
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2279543070 - Light Cruiser HMLS Mirror
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412154860 - Light Cruiser HMLS Mirror (B variant)
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412302998 - Bombardment Ship HMAS Bombardment
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412271190 - Cargo Ship HMTS Zebra
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412262614 - Destroyer HMES Adventure
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2412254207 - Carrier Ship Benevolence
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673509786 - Dreadnought HMLS Nassau
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673513471 - Panzerschiff HMLS Raider
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673518862 - Monitor HMLS Warrior
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673523946 - Protected Cruiser HMLS Fortitude
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673530737 - Minelayer HMES Jester
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673536771 - Destroyer Escort HMES Rapid
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673542020 - Bombardment Ship HMAS Armageddon
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673549884 - Destroyer HMAS Vengeance
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673554695 - Destroyer HMLS Zenith
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673560787 - Heavy Cruiser HMLS Conqueror
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673566780 - Heavy Cruiser HMLS Excellence
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673572257 - Shipyard & Resource Base
https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2673574745 - Resource Outpost Spheros