this is CD not shutting up about the Prometheus class

[Kokuten]

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Your parasites

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picture this.. a wedge/arrowpoint shaped 'control pod' with a long, slender 'drinking straw' spine. The spine is somewhat length-controllable, as in chunks can be broken off in a 'wet dock' service operation, and strapped to either the outside of remaining 'chunks' or to the outside of attached modules.
Modules are threaded onto the spine in an Easy class drydock/Very Difficult class wet dock operation, and are available in multiple types.
Modules include
-Enhanced Drive, providing power generation and higher-speed Warp drive
-Carrier, packing a small-but-signifigant number of fighters (6? make the whole assembledge hexagonal...)
-Enhanced Sensor, providing better resolution, response, tracking, etc, etc
-Weaponry, providing enhanced weaponry, etc, etc, etc
-Freight, providing haulage and loading/unloading capability via Enhanced Tractor.
-Shop, providing fabrication and repair facilities for modules/other ships
Modules fasten to hardpoints on the backside of each other or of the pilot module. The primary drive module fastens to the back of the spine, and to the rear hardpoints on the rear module.
While the modules contain crew/material/power conduits, often the primary conduits for same, the spine itself provides limited conduit capability.

Basically, you've got a dirt-cheap multipurpose ship. Slap a couple of carrier modules, a storage module full of spares, an engine module, and a sensor module, and you've got a carrier. Slap a few weapons modules, an engine module, and you're cranking a fairly beefy little gunship.
Slap a mess of freight modules, and you're pulling a mule.
The design would, in my mind, _require_ basic impulse and limited warp capability for a 'solo' pilot module.. While intended to be moduled/demoduled in depots, I imagine that module swapping would become a fairly common occurence, possible a merely Time Consuming maintenance task.
--- Kokuten Daysleeper, Retired Epicced Officered DorfWire Geek - Burning the weak and trampling the dead since 1979