Windrider Corvette
[Time: 6 Progress: 2+3+3 Cost: 2]
The new 'Windrider' project progresses much more swiftly than the original Cloudrunner, though explanations for this vary. Accountants spin a tale of how the engineers have finally been scared into submitting for their entirely sensible regulations and have actually taken the time to fill out their paperwork, while engineers explain that they finally told the accountants to cram their paperwork someplace sunless and resorting to begging, bartering for, and stealing the materials they need and then just filing after-purchase expense reports.
It's a costly, though initially effective, way of doing business.
Windrider Corvette: 8/16 | 6 wood + 3 Ore | Rushed 0 Times | Nothing Invested
Prototype
[Efficacy: 3 Cost: 6 Bugs: 1]
It rings a lot of warning bells when the engineers claim that the new Windrider is 'almost as cheap' as the failed Cloudrunner, still, they are able assuage that a bit with the actual reveal of the new vessel.
Unlike the Cloudrunner, she's a competent entry, and makes a striking impression with her armored skin and sleek hull. She's not just a pretty face either, and is capable of being brought up to an impressive speed using Select trim crystals networked onto her dedicated power core. Turning is good, though it's the beginning of where there are minor issues in the engineer's report. While she certainly looks impressive, she also has lot of inertia during turns due to the weight of the copper skin and the increased hardware needed to run her dual core configuration. In fact, she's fastest going up and down, where the lift crystal and trim crystals can pitch in together to produce rapid changes in altitude.
Her gun coverage is, for the most part, excellent, with blind spots only directly below, directly above, and in a diminishing triangle immediately behind. The main issue with her gunnery is the manual movement of the cannons. While putting them on swivels has been down for a long time, skiff captains typically lock the cannons in place and then maneuver in order to aim. This approach gets around the issue of having a gunner wrestling with an eight-hundred pound bronze cannon that is resisting the inertial changes of a maneuvering vessel. As it stands, independently aiming with the cannons is only capable during low-intensity maneuvers, and even then they're slow to adjust and difficult to manage. The broadside cannons are also slightly cramped, and up-gunning them later might be difficult due to limitations of the original design.
The Windrider's power system is where the more critical problems begin to surface. The brass whole-heartedly endorses the idea of redundant systems and/or dedicated cores, but the implementation could be... improved. The engineering area is cramped, and will be difficult to increase the size of the crystals used without a significant refit. The idea of creating an internal webbing structure is interesting, but swiftly brings the local aetheric energy down to levels too low to be of use. Thus the internal webbing is reduced in weight and kept on as an emergency system, only to be connected as an auxiliary power boost in the event of catastrophic damage to the primary web. This brings us to the matter of the primary web. The Windrider has a big one, a very big one, and one that exhibits very similar issues to the one used in the Cloudrunner. Specifically, it can only be fit to a Select Core, otherwise it causes rapid overloads and very expensive explosions. Her actual circuitry routing power is similarly inadequate to the task of compensating for the Itshana core's increased output, and catches fire or short circuits with frightening regularity, making cannon banks or trim crystals go useless and dead until the issue is fixed and the fires extinguished. Furthermore, though the cause is unknown, her weapons circuits will occasionally run a very high intensity power spike into a cannon's weapons crystal when fired, causing an immediate overload that destroys the cannon, the gunner, and anything in the immediate vicinity in a ball of light and a spray of molten bronze. It's an event that happens approximately 1% of the time, which still much too often.
As a final note, and one the engineers want to point out is a limitation of the current technical understanding of shroud interactions, the second core crystal cannot raise a shroud immediately after the first one buckles. If the first shroud buckles fully, it appears to leave behind some kind of disruption that prevents a new shroud from being raised in the same location. It disappears after approximately ten seconds, but ten seconds can be a very long time in a combat situation. Disengaging a damaged (but not buckled) shroud and then reengaging a fresh one can still be managed without issue.
There's a solid ship in there, but she's got a few kinks to work out.
Projected Cost: Hull Cost: 9 wood, 5 ore
Windrider Corvette 9 wood, 5 ore for one.
The Windrider is the spiritual successor to the Cloudrunner, which is the last official reference to the Cloudrunner project that remains in public records. She's roughly three times the length of a skiff, sports a lightly armored hull, and redundant power systems. As a corvette she's readily maneuverable, but the weight of her armor and the additional infrastucture needed to run her dual core configurations makes her a bit more heavy than originally intended.
She's fast, durable vessel with excellent coverage on her ten guns- and efficient production practices make her hull easy to produce. She's just a bit pricy to outfit, and requires select crystals in order to function properly.
She has no usable cargo capacity.
Armor
Light Copper skin (Built-in)
Mounting for 2 Armor Sections
Armament
10 light cannon mounts. four on each broadside and two bow guns.
Requires:
2 Core Crystal (Must be Select Small, can fit up to Small)
2 Lift Crystals (Must be Small, can fit up to Small)
4-16 Trim Crystals [4/8/16 Poor/avg/excellent maneuvering]
8 reams of webbing
It is now the revision phase. You have three dice left to spend.
Author
Topic: Arms Race: War of the Cinder Spires | Spire Wreth (Read 159560 times)