Varada tiny shuttle/racing ship

[bszlrd]

I've started working on a tiny little shuttle/courier/racing ship from Mandarava-Csepel yesterday.
Something like a motorcycle, or akin to Xylophis, but with smaller hold and better accelerations. Absolutely uncomfortable for longer trips, good for joyrides. A brave soul could refit it to a courier.
Named after the indian river Varada.


What do you think?

[Nyankosensei]

i love littles ships :), and we need more for close the gap from little shuttle to couriers

[bszlrd]

And we also need some medium ships, like Deneb too. I think I'll be doing some drawing tomorrow. :)

[Nyankosensei]

i'm watching for #24 i think is not too big and wave need some sisters

[bszlrd]

Wanna model it? ;) I'll do some more detailed drawings then.

[bszlrd]

And a bit of update. The mesh is ready.

[impaktor]

I just love watching what you skilled modellers pull out of your hats. Really cool.

Yeah, we need more medium ships, that could have 10t-20t cargo hold after fitted with basic ship equipment. Kind of like an ASP/Cobra mkII.

[bszlrd]

Here's a flyable WIP. It's largely untextured, and lacks some parts from the drawing, but fit for fly testing.
The ship is very light and has very small capacity (5t, the room for a class1 hyperdrive and 1t on hydrogen). It has good acceleration, and somewhat good deltaV (about 5000km/s with full load). It's intended to be in-system ship, that's why you can barely squeeze in that hyperdrive. This is a ship of tradeoffs. If you want jump, then no autopilot or weapons but your range is above 60ly.
And since it only has a cramped cockpit, you don't get much comfort on long travels.
The basic idea is really akin to a motorcycle.

[Alyas]

What would be awesome is a small craft similar to this with a single very powerful missile for hit and run missions. I'd love to take something like the Japanese kaiten up against a capital ship in something like Freespace.

[bszlrd]

Just to show a bit of progress on the texture I managed to snap as a bit of recreation before I start the endyear rush. :) Here's the mod file.