Airships V

[Baneblade]

Well after several large posts on the OF over a year ago, I think I'll make a post here for brainstorming. It has undergone many evolutions, from simply Galaxy gunships to continent impacting Star Wars scale Destroyers.

I think though I have the basic idea of what would work best overall.

I'll first introduce them.

In the Terran Republic's corner is the Foxtrot. For the New Conglomerate we have the Arcadia. And for the Vanu Sovereignty, there is the Scythe.

The Foxtrot's original incarnation was of a massive carrier mobile base. It is apparent that such a monster isn't appropriate for PlanetSide. The original Arcadia was a veritable battleship with more guns than usefulness, the main problem with that is it would dominate any engagement relatively easily. The original Scythe had a cloaking shield rather than a protective shield.

These Airships no longer contain spawn rooms, nor do they have extensive internal space. The effective crew is at least a squad. That is not including air based personnel. In this incarnation, these Airships are carriers. Not as imposing as the original Foxtrot, and certainly not as overpowering as the Arcadia, and lacking the stealth of the original Scythe.

The aspects that remain unchanged however are numerous.

The rules that Airships abide by:

• They cannot fly lower than 250 meters.
• They cannot fly higher than 350 meters.
• They run on NTU, which they can only get from a Warpgate.
• The crew boards via a routerlike teleporter. When 'landed' this is active and anyone can board (any empire)
• The only other way someone can board is from the air.
• The Airships have flight decks that can accomodate about 15 Aircraft (based on Airpad sizes, it will not be hard to be more efficient).
• None of the Airship weapons are particularly effective against the ground (that is what the aircraft are for).
• There are no generation facilities for vehicles, but there are equipment terminals.
• The Airships will rearm and repair friendly vehicles* like normal airpads.
• Docking an Airship is simply a matter of parking it on a token ring in sanc.
• Airships are owned by Outfits, only the OL can authorize an Airship's undocking. However the actual controller is not important.

The Foxtrot has superior Damage over Time. The Arcadia has superior Range. The Scythe has less Range than Arcadia and less Damage over Time than Foxtrot.

Top Speeds
Foxtrot: 30 kph
Arcadia: 25 kph
Scythe: 35 kph

Acceleration
Foxtrot: 30 seconds
Arcadia: 35 seconds
Scythe: 25 seconds

Armor and Shield Values
Foxtrot: 100,000 Armor, 200,000 Shield (1,000/sec recharge)
Arcadia: 110,000 Armor, 240,000 Shield (600/sec recharge)
Scythe: 90,000 Armor, 160,000 Shield (1400/sec recharge)


NOTE: Keep in mind when looking at those values that the weapons on these Airships do upwards of 20k in 60 seconds...each. Note though that they aren't too useful against ground targets.


Fully recharging a shield from 0 takes 10% of total NTU capacity.

Weapon Systems - Energy Long
Foxtrot: 2x Dual 160mm Neutron Cannons
Arcadia: 2x Single 200mm Neutron Cannons
Scythe: 2x Single 180mm Neutron Cannons


Weapon Systems - Energy Short
Foxtrot: 3x Quad 40mm Ion Beams
Arcadia: 3x Dual 60mm Ion Beams
Scythe: 3x Dual 50mm Ion Beams


Weapon Systems - Conventional Long/Short
Foxtrot: 1x Locking Torpedo Launcher (1000 meter range)
Arcadia: 1x Guided Torpedo Launcher (800 meter range)
Scythe: 1x Locking and Guided Torpedo Launcher (600 meter range)


Weapon Systems - Other
All Three: AA Flak turrets (like Skyguard)


The Flight Deck on all three is a through deck design. Imagine it to be one long garage with openings on both ends so that you can fly through nonstop. They are designed to be long enough that a damaged aircraft can fly though and come out the other side full repaired and rearmed without any complicated maneuvers.


Landing on the flight deck is not permitted. There will be Landing pads outside the Flight Deck that are like the ones bases and towers use right now. Those pads are protected by the Airship's shield, but not the armor.


I'll post the weapon details soon.