"Diva's Lament" Custom Type V-1

[Reverb]

Official Name: ”Diva’s Lament” Custom Type V-1
Faction/Affiliation: Independent, Owned by Anwar Lorn-Sadis
Classification: Light Freighter
Stock/Custom: Custom
Stock Model: CE Type V-1 Trailblazer (limited production)

Dimensions
Height: 14m
Width: 19m
Length: 36m
Manufacturer: Century Engineering, Kuat Shipyards

Energy Source: Ion Reactor

Hyperdrive Rating: 6

Crew Necessity: Bare 1, peak 4. 

Modified Armament:
1x concussion missile launcher (4 missiles), 2x dual light blaster cannon turrets (side mounted, manual access), 2x Heavy Blaster Cannons (fire linked)
1x concealed surface defense blaster (bottom mounted, automated)

Passenger Capacity: The V-1 had a single room for living quarters that had 6 cramped bunks. The Diva has converted this into a single lavish, if cozy, private quarters. There are now very modest guest accommodations in the Cargo Bay. (fold out beds and a drawer with screens) 

Cargo Capacity: 11 metric tons

Consumables: 5 weeks

Hanger Facilities/Starfighter Capacity: none

Other: Docking clamp. Light exterior scavenging/retrieval arm. The hold had large closets for heavy ordinance used in clearing asteroids. For the Diva, these spaces have now been repurposed into a smuggling compartment, a garage/workbench, three (very) small bunking stations, and a modest meditation chamber. There is a small kitchenette in the main hold as well.

Statistics (Diva)-
Speed: 6
Maneuverability: 7 (in manual)
Effectiveness vs. Starfighters: 6 
Effectiveness vs. Capital Ships: 2
Shielding: 5
Armor: 4
Sensors: 6
Reliability: 5

Description/role:
** images not mine, but were the inspiration for this ship
Action Shot
In the Hangar
Just Enjoying the View

Century Engineering went into business hoping to fill a niche market in technological needs. “A reputation for innovation” was their working slogan, and they backed it up time and again with creative and highly functional designs. They eventually expanded into starships with a successful line of luxury transports, and a new concept for salvaging that redesigned the controls for exterior robotic arms. Finally they received a magnificent opportunity through Kuat Shipyards to develop a ship for navigating and clearing heavy debris fields to restore or open up travel routes. The challenges before them were to navigate dense and unpredictable obstacles, and to be able to efficiently dispatch them. The bright young talent at CE outdid them selves and developed the V-1 Trailblazer. The independent positioning of the thrusters allowed for yet unparalleled maneuverability. (see pic) When set to automatic, or locked, the thrusters moved together at the appropriate angle for easier flying with still impressive handling. When piloted in manual, free control of the thrusters offers nearly limitless possibility for maneuvers. With a two-person cockpit, and two domed turret stations on the side, a crew of four could manage any job, and she bunked 6 for a mechanical officer, and relief crewman. They left the design open for easy modification depending on the specific requirements of a job. It seemed perfect. The reality nearly destroyed Century Engineering after they produced just a few dozen expensive V-1 chassis. The Trailblazer was wildly overpriced for the contractors, and the advanced piloting skill required was well beyond the pay grade they wanted for what was considered maintenance work. It was an immense feat of engineering, and an enormous failure that lost CE their contract. They sold their existing models to Kuat to try and recoup some losses. They failed to realize that what they HAD made was a remarkable transport with impressive firepower and unheard of agility. Kuat, saw their market and slowly began unloading the small stock to "special needs"  clientel at a huge mark-up and with a wider range of custom options. The most famous custom V-1 Trailblazer to date is the “Diva’s Lament” owned by Grey Jedi & Bounty Hunter Anwar Lorn-Sadis, who uses is it as his personal transport, and usual place of residence. Purchased after he inherited a small fortune, it has had most of its systems upgraded to near their highest capacity, and is modded to allow him forward weapon control while flying manual. He has richly furnished the interior to his taste, and has a multi purpose droid named “goober” capable of piloting on automatic, and assisting with weapons operation. He has reserved a portion of food storage for a thoroughly stocked bar, which Goober also tends. Diva usually see's the most action while hunting Pirates, a favored target for her captain. 

[Fromikeable]

Soooooooooo a few quick things:

First off, this thing's a bit small to be a Light Freighter. 9 metric tons might sound like a lot, but in freight-hauling that's chump change. Considering this thing's barely 30 meters long, it's definitely on the smaller side for a type of ship that can go to almost 100 meters. Given everything, it's really more of a Courier, so that's how I'm going to approach it.

With that said, I'm not sure where you'd slap a hyperdrive on this thing, especially one with a rating of 4. Keep in mind that it's an ascending scale with 10 being the worst and 1 being the best. One could make the argument that a smaller ship has less mass to convert, but hyperspace doesn't really work that way. Actually, according to the lore, bigger hyperdrives are what are really resultant of better ratings, and therefore ships bigger than this one would probably be better able (if at all) to achieve a hyperdrive rating of 4.

With all that rambling done, I'd say that needs to get knocked down to nothing higher than... let's say a 7.

With that said... *whistles* This thing's gotta' lose some guns. It's not even 30 meters long, yet it's packing enough firepower to take down a gunship and then some Not to mention one fusion reactor probably couldn't power all of this stuff anyway (at least one the size that would be practical a ship of this size). You'll want to drop most of it; I'd say at best, this thing could sport a few (and by a few, I mean no more than 4) light laser cannons. If you really wanted a missile launcher, you'd probably have to settle for just 1 or 2 cannons. As a side note, if you want something that clears asteroids, you'll want something quite a bit bigger.

The stats are also way too high, but we can deal with that after all of that. As a closing remark, lemmie just say; this thing is the galaxy's equivalent of a compact car. Thus my line of thinking.

Gut? Gut.

[Reverb]

Fixed.

Thanks for the review, I almost gave up hope. Size up, stats dropped, the weapons overload was clerical error and now fixed. I had deliberately set the cargo low as compensation for all the upgrades. I added to it, but it only seems fair it take a hit. I dropped the Hyperdrive to a .6. The means of acquisition for this ship is in my character's bio, but I added it here to make it clear how he afforded to soup up the ship.

"...place of residence. Purchased after he inherited a small fortune, it has had most of its systems upgraded to near their highest capacity, and is modded to allow him forward weapon control while flying manual. He has richly furnished..."


A suggestion, I based a lot of my initial measurements and hyperdrive stats on similar ships from the approved section of the site. I definitely needed a size upgrade, but some of this "lore" you mention would have been really helpful to find in the Read Me files on ship construction. Some more information on Power sources would be helpful as well. Again I just took my lead from what was already on the site.

Thanks again for checking out the Diva. Hope to get her squared away soon.

[Fromikeable]

Excellent. And yeah, the Tech section's in a small degree of disarray lately. I'm gonna' see if I can't do something about that in the near future.

But for now, the Diva! She's looking much better, so we can start narrowing down on the last few things and hopefully get her zipping across the stars.

To be honest, with all that out of the way, the only real issue left is the heavy blaster cannons and the stats. Heavy cannons (at least in my mind) are the type you'd find on battleships; those mammoth guns with barrels a meter in diameter designed to positively shred through hull and pound hard on shields. With that said, those things require huge amounts of power and a big ship capable of handling the recoil. Shooting some such gun would probably topple (or very nearly topple) a ship of this size. With that said, I think you're underselling a normal, small laser cannon. Y'know the Milenium Falcon? The guns that had? Those were small laser cannons. I'd say 4 (at max) of those on this thing would be plenty, not to mention still be a big draw on this thing's electrical systems. It's just impractical to have anything bigger, plus it'll end up hurting your stats.

Speaking of which, they still need to come down a fair bit. Either your speed and maneuverability or your armor needs to come down a tick (I'd say two points for whichever you decide to lower) considering that they're opposing stats; the more armor you have to protect the ship, the more mass the engines have to move. With the aforementioned problem with heavy cannons, I'd also say this thing gets a 2 or so against Capital Ships(normally it'd have a one, but it has that missile launcher), but can certainly keep its score against Fighters considering it seems to be built for speed rather than straight-up hauling. The only thing that remains then is the Sensors and Shields; since its custom, I'll give you some slack and just ask one of them to be lowered by a point.

Aaaaaaaaaaaand... that's it. Just get those last few changes, and you're cruising down easy street =P

[Reverb]

I fully intend to acquiesce to what you've asked, but if yo don't mind I just want to ask you about two things first so I can understand what I'm doing.

First is in regards to stats. In the ship application template, it states that stats are relative specifically to the classification of ship. This gives me the impression that, in the case of the Diva, stats (with the noted exception of reliability) are presumed to be on a scale of 1-10 as it relates to light freighters. In regards to stats such as  V.S. Capital Ships this would mean that a 5 translates to average performance against a Capital Ship for a light freighter. I already assume that light freighters are bullocks against capital ships, so anything less than a 9 still means your freighter is probably going down if your are fool enough to directly engage. This is the logic I applied to all my stats in the way I conceived this ship as an overall slightly better than average light freighter, knowing that this still does not translate into Diva being some galaxy crushing super beast. This is why a 2 and some other stat adjustments you advise seem inconsistent to me, and I want to clarify the logic I am applying before making other changes. 

Second, the reasoning behind "heavy blaster cannons". Again, I will say I based this armament off other currently active ships on this site, as well as referencing similar cannon ships on wookiepedia. I was under the impression based off what I have seen that Heavy Blaster Cannon is to Light Blaster Cannon, as Heavy Blaster pistol is to light. What you are describing is what I always thought of a turbo lasers. On Wookiepedia a search for Heavy blaster cannons results in a lot of models being quipped on much smaller craft than this, and even being available for surface use in relatively compact personal turret form. Light Blaster cannon's even come in a shoulder mounted form.  In a few entries I even see the ever popular quad laser being described as a Heavy quad laser cannon. Hopefully you can see my confusion. It is also extremely challenging to discern the difference between laser cannons and blaster cannons, laser cannons also having a heavy counterpart that is mounted on light star ships. 

 I am not trying to be defiant, I just want to make sure I know exactly why and what I'm doing before I carry on. I have made a modification to specify the surface blaster as anti personal, effectively just a repeating blaster rifle akin to solo's ground buzzer.  I have also dropped shielding to 5. 

Thank you again for being my reviewer on the diva so far. Your help is greatly appreciated 

[Rugs]

Yo tech ain't really my thing, but quick observation:

I am, just from watching how tech has been reviewed since we implemented the current system about four years ago, about 99% percent certain that the starship stats have been judged on a hard scale, just like everything else on the site.. If you read the descriptors for the categories, the example scales given breaks down if it's a fluctuating scale, rather than a hard one.

For example:

Speed: (1 being practically immobile, 5 being your average light freighter, and 10 the fastest ship in the galaxy)

Armor: (The hull strength and thickness of your craft once the shields have been penetrated, 1 being an escape pod, 5 being a medium freighter, and 10 being a capital ship with more armor plating than actual interior)

Neither of those make any sense with a scale that varies from class to class, and like I said, from observation alone, the grading during reviews has pretty much generally fallen along the lines of a hard scale.

Why that note is there, I don't know. But that's been my general observation. But for a ship of this size about a two vs capital ships is personally reasonable.


The rest is between you two, but before I skeedadle back out, is that hypdrive rating supposed to be .6 or is there a stray period in front of the number there?

[Fromikeable]

Yeah, I will concede on the laser cannons thing. I had sort of forgot that turbo lasers were a separate term, ergo your guns aren't mammothly over-sized, ergo you can keep them

With that said, I do see the bit you're mentioning here in the note (dubbed the "IMPORTANT NOTE", all in red) in the Starship Application referring to a difference between Small Craft and Capital Ships. Frankly, I'm amazed that's still there, as Rugs is right; we've been working on a hard scale for years now. To be honest, I'm probably going to go in there and change that as soon as we're done here.

But with that said, let me assure you that we are on a universal, hard scale here. I therefore hold by my earlier assessment and reasoning, as I was rationalizing with a hard scale in mind.

[Reverb]

You got it. No argument here, I just wanted to know, ya know? Changes made. Thanks for all the help gents.

[Fromikeable]

I hear ya'. I'm glad you brought it up, actually; it let me fix it

On that note, here is your



Go forth unto the stars!