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Eskion 'Libretto' Carrier (9-Slot)

The Libretto-class is one of the most important elements of the Eskion Collective's defense fleet - almost every major patrol and response group is built around one or two of these carriers. They have become something of a symbol of Fleet Command itself, with a striking silhouette that frequently appears in artwork in and around the Eskion Cluster.

The 'Libretto' is fairly well armored and, like most Eskion capital ships, heavily shielded. It carries four heavy weapons up front (usually lightning prisms or heavy vector lances). Medium vector lances and point-defense plasma pulse cannons round out its armament, giving it excellent coverage. Coupled with its fighter wings, it can easily win most of the skirmishes it starts. The primary tradeoff for the 'Libretto' is its lack of dedicated production space - a design decision made to keep the ship as nimble as possible. Eskion Fleet Command reasoned that it can replace damaged or destroyed fighter wings with resupply operations, but can scarcely afford to be losing carriers.

In recent years, that decision has had consequences. With the increasing frequency of Xsotan attacks and border conflicts with the Gatesta, Eskion forces have been stretched thin. Supply line complications have pushed the 'Libretto' to its limits and forced the Eskion to get creative with maintaining their fighter wings. Fleet Command hopes that the introduction of the 'Cadenza' elite fighter and 'Zarzuela' combat drone will buy them time to find a more comprehensive solution.

Key features:
-9 upgrade slots (can be increased to 10 with computer cores)
-Good shielding (840k base)
-Good armor coverage (unusual for an Eskion ship)
-Significant internal framework space for custom upgrades
-Good hangar capacity with 4 launch bays
-Good hyperspace range (12 sectors base)
-Excellent weapons coverage
-Pretty good cargo capacity (7200 base)
-Two Eskion Guardian statues to boost pilot morale

Armament:
-4x size 3 heavy weapons
-8x size 1.5 medium weapons
-8x size 1 point defense hardpoints
-3x forward torpedo launchers

(Detailed stats available in screenshots)

The 'Libretto' uses ET-1, ET-2, and EPD-1 turrets (marked as required items) and is designed for use with Eskion Collective fighters, which can be found here:

Scout - 'Arietta'
Interceptor - 'Cabaletta'
Bomber - 'Cavatina'
Elite Fighter - 'Cadenza'
Miner/Salvager - 'Tessitura'
Combat Drone - 'Zarzuela'
Boarding Shuttle - 'Seria'


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Please note that roughly 1/4 of the ship's internals are frameworks - this was done to keep cost down and to allow customization, so the actual max stats of the 'Libretto' are significantly higher when fully outfitted. You can also add assembly blocks this way if you'd like to make it a production carrier - though I'm planning a dedicated Eskion production carrier in the future (the Maestro-class).

I'm pretty excited to finally be able to share this, as I've been working on parts of it for a little over a week now. I was honestly a little worried about doing Eskion capital ships, but I'm very happy with how this one turned out. The block count is a little bit higher than I might have liked, but it's not far above what I expected for a build with lots of circles. It was originally supposed to have 4 "filaments" around the front part of the ship, in order to resemble a musical score, but I cut it down to 2 for block count reasons. The statues were a project all their own - I actually have two more of them that I'm saving for future Eskion capital ship builds and a parts collection.

The escort ship seen in some of the screenshots is also on the workshop - it's a Sforzando-class heavy corvette.