Over the past week I had hoped to get the last Zann frigate and a couple of corvettes done but this virus, bug or whatever it is has remained and in fact has hit me hard yet again this morning. I have been unable to kick it despite medication, useless cold and flu tablets, days in bed resting and eating healthy. In fact I now have aches and pains from it.
Anyway I haven't done any modelling which is annoying as I don't want to loose my momentum I had built up. But it has given me time to think, and while I want to release the Empire first I am at the moment focusing on the Zann Consortium. Being a Pirate faction, in the arms race they will be a little bit behind the Empire and Rebels. They use mostly outdated designs and modified civilian ships for their armed forces and navy. A great example are their frigates, their Interceptor frigates are retrofitted old Action IV cargo transports, the Alderaan frigate is an outdated frigate from the Clone Wars which was old when the conflict began.
I have also introduced (but not modelled yet) a Bulk Cruiser, while cruiser in name it's a frigate in function and was actually built for the Separatists however due to the abrupt and rather sudden end to the conflict and rise of the Empire the design was obsolete with the Empire only purchasing a few and later selling them off. The Rebel Alliance in it's early years also fielded a few with the majority of them sold to private companies, small governmental bodies and the like. Most of these groups also sold them not longer after purchase due to their high maintenance costs and fuel consumption. Due to this many fell into the hands of pirates like the Consortium, due to this they are a rather weak unit and cost a fair amount of resources to build, so what good is it? Well while it costs a fair bit of one resource it will be cheap as chips for the other more rarer resource known as credits. This means it can be spammed a bit in-game early on.
The last frigate will be well known to anyone who has played FOC, and that is the Vengeance frigate, the only unit equipped with a cloaking device this unit is a valuable asset to the Consortium. However due to the power costs of the cloak the frigate has no shields with makes it vulnerable, to make up for this it has added armour which in turn makes it rather slow. Does this ever end? Not yet, due to the rarity of cloaking devices in the Star Wars universe it's a limited run unit. You can only field like 8 or so at once (I haven't come up with a concrete number yet) this means they are best used for strikes thanks also to their heavy mass driver weapons and is excellent against slow moving or stationary units like mining stations and freighters.
I have also thought about the stations a bit and have decided each faction will have a unique station like in Stock A2. However they won't be over powered like in stock. I have decided upon one for the Rebels yet but I have decided to give the Zann a orbital palace which will act like those Borg stations and generate a resource (most likely credits) however it will be a slow process as to not unbalance the race too much like it is in FOC. The Empire I plan to give a gravity well generator that like the Immobiliser and Interdictor ships will zap all the special energy from enemy units that are in it's range. Since there is no hyperdrive in the mod this is a nice alternative. I am also hoping I can set it up to disable impulse engines as well where they can't move unit the station depletes it's own special energy.
I am open to ideas for the Rebel faction's special weapon. As currently the only idea I have is something similar to the Zann's station which I'll use if nothing better is presented or thought up.
I'll leave you know with images of the Vengeance frigate. Comments and Feedback welcomed.
Talking about missile turrets, will you have SOD-based missiles in your mod?
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