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Strafer (Surgical Strike Ship)

It all started with an attack on a pirate district headquarters. I took out a mining outpost with a little drone and two gats, so how much harder could this next base be, right?

Strafer is the sixth generation answer to finally destroying that headquarters once and for all. No more being trolled from above while targetting below, or vice versa. It's a heavy behemoth with multilayered light armor and heavy ribbing covering the essentials. Gats and missiles alike, this ship has it all and is all about destroying your enemies.

Downside is mobility and power. When making a flying death machine that weighs more than the fat lady riding a circus elephant, eight large atmospheric thrusters only go so far. Sure, they'll hold up, but only just. Therefore upward thrust has been supplemented with hydrogen boosters. Forward and aft thrusters have been as well, allowing for some fairly nasty bombing runs.

Power! Power is essential, and sorely lacking. To fit it all in this small(ish) package and watch our weight, the onboard reactors will barely keep you in the sky. They're paired with several batteries which require a fair amount of recharge time and will only support one to two strike missions. The hydrogen's the same way, with four tanks, the boosters are for emergencies and the generators won't supply enough for continuous operation.

If you can handle all this, then you're ready for the rebuildable decoys mounted on the sides with built in printers. Deploying them requires you stay stationary, or tilt about 90 degrees while flying at breakneck speeds. I vote the latter, but watch your altitude. The front boosters help slow your fall for this short maneuver.

All in all, the Strafer's a sound strike vessel that only gets faster the longer the fight drags on, assuming you're losing half your ship. All power and thrust is distributed so the only point of failure is the pilot. Redundant piping also keeps you in the fight even after losing a junction or two.

Purely vanilla and survival ready, if you have the production capacity to do so.

Note: Projector is a bit finnicky about staying on, and autohover script to level out ship requires restart upon re-entering any game. All controlls are located on tab 2 of the cockpit, which is buried just above the connector at the break in the top ribbing.