Hello all! It has been quite a few years since I last played this game, last time I truly invested time into it, it was still in Early-Access, it's been at least 3 or 4 years. The games changed so much! Yet it's still definitely the same game I invested so much of my time into so long ago.
(I apologize in advanced, this is a bit of a tangent, there's a blank line between the tangent and what this post is supposed to discuss)
As I get back into it, I'm realizing that many of the vehicles I had used before no longer function in the current game. I had quite a few hover/thruster craft, and some helicopters that relied on Lua block code to function, which itself relied on the ships AI. How the AI functions has changed a lot, so these vehicles no longer function as they are. Though most aren't lost causes, thankfully, since I can now properly set these vehicles up as they're supposed to be using properly tuned PIDs, which I definitely look forward to doing. Sadly though, there are some more compact vehicles that I can't retrofit to utilize the PIDs. Because of how tiny they are, there's no space to fit the PIDs without sacrifices, and Chariot of Fire is the primary example of this.
For those who may be newer to the game, or just haven't heard of or used it, the Chariot of Fire was basically a tiny, 11x11 thruster cube programed using a Lua box to fly directly at its target and, upon reaching it, hover in a small circle above it, allowing the player to jump off of it and onto the enemy craft to capture it. It was a very basic vehicle, it barely even had any detection on it, relying mostly on other friendly craft to provide it with tracking. I used it a ton when I played before, since capturing enemy craft when possible was and still is my preferred strategy.
Sadly, with how much the game has changed, especially with how AI has changed over the years, the Chariot no longer functions, along with all the other old vehicles I have that rely on Lua. Most of them are easily fixable, I just remove the Lua box and replace its function with some carefully tuned PIDs, but with how compact and basic the Chariot is, this isn't really an option. I'll need at least 3 PIDs, and I'll have to add more resource storage, and probably increase the engine power, which there just isn't space for. So instead, I'll be building my own craft to fulfill the role in its place.
Now, even with the many hours I've put into this game, I can't really say that I was that good at it back then, and I'm still quite a noob even now. I only played with universal materials on, and pretty much would steal enemy craft, throw on a few prefab turrets, shove some detection on it, and send it back into battle, and throw in a few craft from the workshop when possible, but I never really built my own functional vehicles. I have a few that I had been working on, but I never got them to a functional state. I wanna change that, I wanna use some of my own designs in campaigns from now on, starting with a new hover/thruster craft for capturing enemy vehicles.

Sorry for the long tangent, here's the part where I would love some input from the much more knowledgeable and experienced community. If you didn't read the above post, heres the summary: I used a thrustercraft cube called the Chariot of Fire that was programmed with Lua to fly to and above enemy ships so I can capture them, but it doesn't work in the current game, so I'm gonna build my own to fulfill the same function.
I need the craft to be cheap. It's function is to beeline towards the enemy, so it's just barely above disposable, and I also wanna use it right from the start of the campaign.
The main thing I'm trying to figure out is where to balance out price and function. I want a tiny hovercraft/plane hybrid, that can quickly get me to its target and use as little resources as possible getting there. It'll be totally unarmed, and at best have some alloy armor on it.
I'm thinking of using mostly dedi-blades as it's means of rotational and directional movement, with a few ion thrusters for turning, but mainly for forward propulsion. I need this thing to keep up with most vehicles, except for the fastest of them, so what would be my best bet?
After refreshing my memory on how Detection works, I'm considering trying to make this thing a semi-stealth craft. It'd be ideal if enemy ships ignored this guy as much as possible, anyone got some good tips for avoiding detection? I was planning on having this thing depend on other vehicles to track its target and giving the AI an inter-vehicle transmitter, but if it's gonna be a stealth craft, then IR cams and passive radar would probably be the best, right?
Lastly, I'm thinking that I could possibly build multiple versions of this thing, each on a larger budget and/or for a specific purpose later on in campaigns. For example, I could have a pre-done retrofit for when I start encountering lots of enemies equipped with advanced detection and lasers, stuff like that.
Any and all suggestions and ideas are welcomed! I'll be sure to post the finished craft here, I'm also brainstorming a name for it. Also, if you guys have built vehicles that also fulfill this purpose, I would love to see them!