Cloudrunner
Progress: 22/28 (+13 =5/4/4)
Prototype
[Efficacy: 1 Cost: 5 Bugs: 1]
It takes an uncomfortably long time for Wrethan engineers to actually show off the prototype Cloudrunner. They spend a great deal of time waxing poetical about how much they've managed to reduce the cost of the vessel, making her an affordable warship that can be deployed to round the clock defensive assignments, or to escort transports, or to impress the Wreth with her sheer majesty.
The fact of the matter is, that's all she can really do: jobs that don't involve high speed or maneuverability- the two things that were supposed to be hallmarks of the design.
The hull itself was basically reinterpreted as a scaled up skiff, which provides a nightmare rats nest of issues when it comes to weight distribution and interior volume. The engineering is left towards the nose, which, in a skiff, is balanced by the cannon weight, but in the Cloudrunner forces her center of mass forwards heavily. This is compounded by certain parts of her hull structure echoing that of a standard transport- not in shape, but in construction. The result is a much weaker hull that isn't able to stand up to severe stresses- such as those brought on by rapid acceleration on any vector. Her power distribution is sub-par, and her layout means that her web interferes with the arc of nearly every cannon when fully deployed.
Worse, those are actual design issues, not bugs, per se. Her power distribution was designed off of the transport, and there are crippling issues. The additional web that gets run out to absorb power pushes energy in through two main cables, which, if the core crystal is a standard small, provide too much energy per second/per area, and result in overloads that (at best) burn the webbing connectors out. If the core is upgraded to an Itshana to handle the additional input, then the output circuitry can't handle the core output, and there are random burnouts and fires in everything from the guns to the trim crystals. Even when the engineer's power management is spot on and she doesn't catch fire, the poorly structured hull means that extreme actions, such as hard turns or quick ascents, have the tendency to severely damage the hull. During the initial trial runs, a hard turn nearly tore the ship in half.
Affordable though she may be, the cloudrunner is virtually useless as a vessel of war in her current state.
Projected Hull Cost: 9 wood, 3 ore
It is now the revision phase. You have two dice left to spend.
May God have mercy on your souls.