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Columbia Class Destroyer

The Columbia Class Destroyer, now in blueprint form! Mods included are the Titan Engine, Letters, and Armor Thrusters by Darth Biomech and Access Door by SAGE. Skybox is the Dune skybox.

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The Wars of Dynastic Succession left the various naval forces of the warring worlds of the old Aelannian Empire materially devastated - the size of the average ship shrunk more than tenfold, and ships like the Vanguard class - at 500 meters, formerly considered a mere ship of the line - became flagships. The Treaty of Joyous Gard allowed the various exhausted belligerents a chance to lick their wounds and rearm, but it soon became evident that the massive imperial fleets that had formerly been the standard would be impractical to build or maintain for the diminished resource bases of the successor worlds.

The Columbia quickly became the most famous of these post-war vessels - designed to be operated by as few as one crewman, it combined a high degree of speed, maneuverability, and armor at the expense of firepower. Its most unusual feature, however, was its detachable engine pod, suspended on pylons above the main hull - containing two massive Titan Engines, the design was ostensibly to allow the Columbia to shed the heavily armored engine pod during battle should it became too damaged to operate, and allow the main hull a chance to escape. However, it was famously used as a projectile weapon during the Battle of New Anghiari, smashing into and through the bridge of a Tunis class assault cruiser, crippling it and allowing the Columbia to finish it off with its smaller but no less deadly missile bank.

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The Columbia is a survival-ready large ship with a military focus - it has few amenities and cargo capacity primarily for fuel and ammunition. Its unique design makes it nimble and responsive for a vessel of its size, though it pays for that in terms of its armament, which is relatively light (ten missile launchers, total). Engine pod seperation is achieved by first deactivating the Shipboard Clamps, and then the Shipboard Connector - the same painful and stupid dance you have to do to get loose from a connector applies here, unfortunately. Deactivating the engine pod's merge blocks or connector is not recommended, as it will make hooking the two back together a bit more difficult.

The missile pods are all located on the underside of the hull, in a "bomber" configuration that was inspired by Purrfect's TIE Bomber. So using the ship's armaments are a bit different, in that instead of flying face towards the enemy to attack, the goal is to overfly them. A sensor should automatically activate the missile pods when a ship or object passes within 50m of them.

And yes, I'm aware that without the engine pod the Columbia looks like a dong. You're just gonna have to deal with it!

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In terms of handling, the Columbia is probably the most responsive large ship I've built so far. With the engine pod, it accelerates a little bit north of 1 m/s, which probably isn't the best that people have managed with large ships but it is one of the better rates I've had so far.

That said, while its numerous gyros assist in helping it turn the hull on a dime, if you're at speed this tends not to work so well. It's often easier to simply let the braking Titan bring it to a stop, turn, and hit the gas again if the course change is radical.

It's also possible to make an engine pod seperation at speed - but you need to take care. With the dampeners on, activating the first step to seperate - the clamps - will push the hull up, and the engine pod down, with predictably disastrous results. So be sure that forward is the only direction you're going, then go hard down, and activate the clamps and unlock the connector. If all goes well the engine pod should break off up and away. With dampeners off, it should then also become possible for a talented pilot to target a station or ship with the engine pod and accomplish the very maneuver I described in the fluff text about using the engine pod as a kinetic kill weapon.

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Planned upgrades will include an additional connector on the hull, engine pod, or both, to allow the Columbia to take on fuel and supplies without jettisoning the engine pod. Also going to see whether or not it's possible to get sensors to automatically fire missiles. Barring that, I'll see about setting up a series of key-presses that will effectively turn the engine pod into a big-ass missile.