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IMDC Hydra Scout Corvette (2023 Update)

Not my design, simply my update of it. Original by JD Horx (all rights reserved)
Original here: https://steamhost.cn/steamcommunity_com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1708177497

Lore:

The Hydra Scout Corvette served a crucial role in the IMDC, locating valuable minerals and suitable sites for new bases. It also served to locate and scout enemy positions, although its light armament meant this was only done from a distance and with the utmost caution. As time went on, however, shortcomings were noted, primarily in terms of its habitability. The lack of suitable berthing and crew bathing facilities was the primary concern, which resulted in a rather unpleasant crew experience after just a few days. The discovery of more distant worlds also often required longer duration missions, which simply exacerbated the problem. The IMDC thus began a program to update these valuable ships.

The upgrade saw beds replacing the cryopods as the primary crew sleeping arrangement, and the integration of a full shower. Additionally, the crew complement, originally two, was increased to three resulting in reduced workload and fatigue. A single cryopod was retained to accommodate injured crew members. Unfortunately, the vessel's small size prevented the integration of new weapons systems, but as it was intended as a scout this is of little concern. While primarily still suited for short missions, at least the ship is now capable of sustaining the crew in relative comfort for longer periods of time.

As there was minimal hull work required, field maintenance depots are able to perform this modification relatively easily. As Hydras came in for maintenance, they received the upgrade. During the upgrade, it was found the Hydra's original hover thrust was insufficient, and additional lifting thrusters were installed. The upgraded ships are now ready to perform their duties for years to come.

Out-of-character:

This was a fairly simple upgrade, taking less than a day to complete. JD Horx built this ship very close to modern game standards, and thus it didn't take a huge amount of work other than locating a little bit more internal space to take advantage of. The ship's design precludes any external changes other than integrating reinforced conveyors and enhancing thrust, though, so it remains mostly the same. I discovered the ship could barely fly in 1.0 G with a full cargo load, let alone actually reach orbit, so I had to rework the bottom thrusters but blended it in so it looks natural.

I could have done a full Deco Pack 3 Medical Room, but I felt it made the room too crowded. If you remove the stuff immediately to the right of the engineering room door, all the way to the conveyors, you can do it. Then just replace the old Survival Kit with a full size air vent. Don't take it into combat except against exposed engineers or lightly armed small-grid ground vehicles; it's very lightly armed and has a number of armoring weaknesses even before I worked on it that are impossible to rectify.

I managed to fix Ascent Cruise Control, so that can still be used to reach orbit in a fuel-efficient manner.