panzer1b

Still functional, the FK-103 burns retrograde until it is back in Duna's orbit. Being an ion drive with no damage to either the fuel or engines, it has more then enough range to accomplish this. Afterwards the ship rendezvouses with the remaining enemy warship, and charges its remaining weapon, 1/3 of a SRM-6M. With 2 shots remaining the pilot is extra careful to make sure she hits the target. The first shot blows off a chunk of weapons and separated the two ships from each other. The second shot hits square into the middle of the rear, but visual inspection shows no damage was dealt. A detailed scan of the target revealed that the ship's internal engine was gone. With all three enemy ships unable to move far (all that remains is RCS and unless i massively underestimated the amount of RCS fuel you have inside), it appears that the AKS strike group is safe from enemy attacks for the time being. That said, with all remaining ammo being drones and a single shot of a SRM-6M, the captain of the last remaining class-IV corvette doubts that an actual compete kill can be achieved. Therefore i say its a minor AKS victory, because all enemy ships are unable to actually engage any AKS vessel on their own (really the only way this would work is if AKS decided to park a ship ontop of the enemy). Now i need to find a way to make my ships a little less prone to being 1 shotted to death right off the bat! Also, a few tips for future ship building: Your basic hulls are rather solid (that poof debri cloud the SRM-6M did is more luck then anything else and you cant really defend against drilling and luck based phasing weapons reliably nomatter what you do, the SRM-6M sometimes kills, and other times doesnt do more then minor damage, all its good at is targeting exposed stuff like engines). You need to look at protecting engines. You have a stack of 4 of them clipped together (essentially a single weak round can potentially wipe out the entire cluster with ease as you saw the 1st shot from the fighter do). There are two approaches to engine protection that i know of. The first one (and arguably easy to do) is to add a backup engine or 2, which have enough of their own fuel (assuming they dont use same fuel your primary engine uses) to give you ~500dV to work with in the event your main drive is kaputted. The other option is a combination of engines that are fully enclosed, and make sure you propulsion system is spread out. Mine isnt a great example but it gets the point across, the 3 engines are far enough away from each other that a single shot is extremely unlikely to knock out all 3 at once. Avoid excessive clipping. This is primarily with regards to the clipped quad nuke engine, but even so try to cut down the clipped fuel tanks too. Those didnt appear to weaken your armor much, but they could have increased the odds of the whole poof-debri-cloud that happened to the 2nd ship. Some clipping is fine (if you want keep the fuel tanks as they are as it seems to work), but if you want true survivability minimize or better yet completely eliminate clipped parts. Your weapins seem solid, quite comparable to my stuff (i intentionally chose not to bring my high end competitive torps or you probably would have been 1 shot killed from any angle regardless of ship design, i dont enjoy 1 shotting every opponent and instead like to actually have a challenge and require some aiming skill). One other tip i have it to lower the part count of those smaller weapons. instead of having 6 sepatrons try 2-4 but with more fuel and engage from a longer range, itll give you the same lethality but lower the part count and allow you to use the part count for more armor or whatever else you want to bring. All in all, great game, once i get my fleet updated (the class-IV needs a major overhaul asap) ill be glad to fight you again! And in case you want to take a look at the game (or continue provided your ships can still move at all, heres the persist

Here is my save before i deployed any of my ships Just use that...

With the loss of a class-IV corvette, AKS is forced to use the 2nd corvette in an attempt to take down one of the enemy's ships. Taking a look at both targets, and noticing the Ariel has both more fuel capacity (and thus range), better armor, and vastly more firepower then the smaller model, the corvette decides to take it down before it can do much more damage. After rendezvousing, the ship opens fire with the RT5 cannons, destroying all but one of the engines. Switching to drones, 2 are fired doing more damage. Finally, the ship unloads with its SRM-6M obliterating teh final engine and its final shot managing to turn the target into a cloud of debris. Sadly the kerbal piloting the enemy ship did not survive, but all is fair in war and war, and well there was nothing that could be done to save them. After the attack, the ship goes to the leftovers of its sister ship and pulls as much fuel as possible out of it in an attempt to extend its already depleted range. Finally, it burns into low Duna orbit to try and outrange the enemy ship. Persist Also, something got messed up with my imgur album so a few screenies are out of order, rest assured i didnt quickload or cheat.

AKS launches a strike group from KSC due to its Duna fleet being busy with other matters. Two capital ships, both of a new design are deployed, with a FK-103A5 starfighter. Shortly afterwards a replacement fighter needed to be brought after the FK-103A5 deployed its fairing and fell victim to the resonance kraken, tearing itself apart in the process and killing a brave pilot. The replacement is a FK-103B1 prototype rushed into service at the last second. Hopefully the replacement is viable because AKS cannot afford to keep loosing vessels to the kraken. With the new fighter appearing to be functional, the strike group burns from LKO to Duna, and does a minor correction burn along the way. The FK arrives at Duna first, ahead of the capital ships, and quickly detects three hostile vessels. Confident in her new fighter, the AKS pilot attempts to engage one of the heavier vessels. On closer inspection, it appears that there is a major weakspot, namely the rear engine cluster. Lacking the firepower or ammunition quantity of a capital ship, the FK powers up the SRM-6M and fires 2 shots into the rear of the target, completely destroying its main engine assembly. With plenty of ammo remaining, the pilot takes two more shots at the midsection, taking out some of the armor and a few weapons. Just as the fighter was about to leave for high orbit, the pilot spots that the armor plate that was shot off has exposed the ship's main weapon array. It takes 2 shots of the secondary weapon to destroy the ship's primary source of firepower. With only 2 shots remaining on both the primary and secondary, the ship decides to leave and save its precious remaining ammo in the event it is needed later in the battle. Finally, after a few days, the main force arrives, with both class-IV corvettes entering the system and attempting an aerobraking maneuver. The first ship manages to get into a stable orbit without a hitch, and with minimal onboard fuel wasted. On the other hand, the second ship goes too deep into the atmosphere and ends up having to waste considerable amounts of fuel to get into orbit. While the fuel losses are not critical to the mission, having only 50% of its primary booster fuel remaining may end up being a major problem in the long term. Hopefully the enemy does not learn of this problem and take advantage of the now heavily reduced operating range of the second warship. Persist Sorry it took a while but i actually enjoy stuff like orbital maneuvers and actually getting my ships to destination without hyperedit. Also, while i completely botched the aerobrake on the last ship, wasting too much fuel, i dont mind since its still my own stupid mistake and everything goes once i get my ships into LKO. Finally, i hope you dont mind me taking one of the ships to Ike orbit (its not around Duna but its within Duna's SOI so in my opinion this is fair game, but if youd prefer not using Ike at all i can always move that ship out of there and send you another persist.

Ill make my move in evening, need to finish something irl, then ill attack...

I calculated 660 to be the same mass fraction compared to regular tanks, so thats why i went with it. I dont consider this a cheat because i maintain the same effective dV had i used any other fuel tank, its just in a smaller area. Have been using this for AGES in SSTOs or anywhere where i needed more fuel in a smaller area but dont want to rely on a stack of clipped tanks that is too high on parts. That said, i just got a truly evil idea: using XL girders as fuel tanks! I MUST TRY THAT NOW!

I like weights from 50-80t for most of my ships. The reason is that under 50 you start to make too many sacrifices either in armor or firepower, and above 80 you start having overall part count issues at least for a combat ship. 60-70t is my sweet spot right now, where i can get a bit of everything, armor, firepower, TWR, and useable dV (above 2000 is adequate for my preferences given most of my combat is either in high kerbin orbit, or mun/minmus, all of which have rather lowish dV requirements. Never liked super specialization, so i tend to build generalistic vessels that arent screwed in any type of fight, be it range, firepower, or armor, but are also not excessive in any of these categories either. Specialization is for flagships and the like that can rely on an entire fleet to support them so things like dV and secondary weapons are usually omitted where escort ships defend it against fighters and it just uses its primary weapon to obliterate the enemy. This ship reminds me of something... I know...Just about every single AKS warship hull (minus the front and rear and engine that sticks out the back ). Did you get the idea from my ships or was it just a coincidence? Also, just released 2 new warships... AKS SK-CRV-IVg2 Alliance Flagship "Regulator"

I know its completely unpractical, and itll only be used for cinematic purposes as an Alliance command vessel, perhaps killing something with its hypercannon, but ohh does this look epic! What do u guys think, ohh and anyone know what its modeled after? And apparently this thing is incredibly tough to kill (provided you can get past its "lagshield". I have yet to kill it with anything (although actually hitting it is hard enough with the slowdown of the game) aside from a Tripedo-S/H (which used XL3 wheels and thus does not count). Built using the same principle of the SK-CRV-IVg2 but scaled up to actually be a destroyer...

I ALWAYS have something going on, doesnt stop me from doing various projects, both fun and not so fun... Currently im on summer break from college so i have time to have fun. Working some on my KSP comic which is at most a side project i do when im in the mood. I kinda stopped doing that for a while (fed up with lag), but now that 1.1's out and im done with my semester im working on next chapter a few pages a day (its taking way longer then i planned since i started photoshopping near every battle to add stuff like missile trails and muzzle flashes/cannon smoke, and when i have 500 pics to work with it takes a while). That said, KSP is by no means the only game i play, although it is probably my favorite sofar (i really like the fact that its so open and you can do whatever you want, from destroying capital ships to the occasional peaceful refueling mission or whatever, that is ofc within the limits of game engine). One other project im working on is skinning some vehicles for an older WW2 game, because im so fed up with the default textures that look worse then something from doom. Didnt really have time to bother with that during semester as it requires like a week of work per tank i do (i prolly could do better but since i lack UV maps and have to match every seam manually, it takes forever to do). As for time, i usually have lots of it, especially with the recently lousy weather that kinda keeps me from being outside for hours on end... If anyone wants help with a series (i dont have video recording software but i could get it if needed) im game, just dont expect me to work on something 24/7 because while i may be a gamer, i do actually have a real life too. In other news: Im almost ready to release a new ship that i feel is my best sofar in terms of armor. The hull is a bit high on parts, with the entire ship (+ weapons) at 330 atm, something im working on lowering. That said, well worth it given its the first ship ive ever made that is truly competitive armor wise (weapons layout is another story). Its primary issues are suceptibility of engines and weapons to being shot apart, somewhat vulnurable bridge (although better then older versions), and pitiful dV (2200 is nothing to brag about, but workable on most moons and duna). Weapons consist of 3 HSG hardpoints on the front, the center one intended to pack a SRM-6M, but always can be used to carry regular 1.2m torps, the sides normally carrying Tripedo-S or M weapons. And ofc packs 8 KDrone-S for anti-fighter or harassment purposes.

Im in, but i dont use skype (its the worst piece of shat software ive ever come across as using it to do just voice makes the internet go from fiber optic speeds to dialup). Anyways, im willing to help out with ship design, pretty much anything space based from starfighters to heavy capital ships, and i also have made a few land vehicles which range from useless to barely functional as i dont use BDA and prefer stock combat, which is actually very difficult to do well on the ground. I dont quite have the time to devote myself full time or anything, but if you need help with other stuff (im actually decent with video editing minus special effects as the software i use lacks that) im glad to lend a hand, especially since both macey dean and hatbat seem to have gone MIA so we dont really have a single decent series being made anymore.

Its an older ship ive seen before btw (a long time ago for that matter, seen it in 1.0 if not earlier). Well here is my review: Armor is so-so, but comparing it to what is out there it is actually very good. Its pretty comparable to my SK-CRV-IVg1 armor and firepower wise except its higher on part counts (but it does get better dV thanks to ions). Now as for specific weapons, its decentish vs competitive torps, with my popper-H knockoff usually able to damage but not completely neuter it in 1 shot. There was one try where the entire thing went poof-debri-cloud, but thats it. As for SRM-6M, dies just like anything else, although its not a guaranteed death, and you need to manually fire every shot into the same area to guarantee a kill (turning off sas makes this feat much more difficult once it starts rotating). RT-5s are so-so, ive had a few trials where the entire thing was split after the 2nd shot, and ive had trials where it took 4 direct hits with only a few chunks missing (but still fully functional). Its defenetely a solid ship, especially with how miniscule it is, but it suffers from teh number one problem in this entire game, lack of part count efficiency (yes 1.1 has made high part counts workable, but myself i still try to make hulls that are under 200 parts). Also, i dont know if its just me, but it seems that high end torpedoes like the popper-H seem to be inferior in terms of killing ability to things like ibeam stacks. Only with tire based impactors does this change, but even then it is literally 75% luck as to whether the thing phases in and interacts with what we want it to interact with (namely the skeleton or core or whatever you want to call it). There is a hull design component (ofc terribly built hulls will die way more often), but it seems that designing a hull specifically to defend against that type of weapon is a waste of time as the super powered ones rely on high mass and velocity (to the point you cant really make anything to counter a lucky shot), the tire impactor types just obliterate whatever they phase into every time, and the shrapnel ones are really the most hit and miss, sometimes with luck they will shred internals, sometimes they split a ship, sometimes they dont do jack. Ibeams (specifically centrally mounted drilling models) are some of the most reliable weapons ive seen, with very few ships able to actually take more then a few hits before they get split. The whole trick is to use cockpit aim (sometimes using the autoaim feature also does the trick but can be countered very easily by having your so called root part be somewhere far away from teh actual ship core) to direct more then 1 shot into the exact same spot, virtually nothing aside from excessively excessive thick plating can deal with this (in which case we are looking at some 1000-2000 part monstrosity). Now RT-5s seem to be a middle ground. Certain ships seem to be extremely esy to kill with something as simple as a RT-5 with a decoupler atop it (not even any structural impactor). From my experience anything sporting a drek styled interior seems to be the worst against these things. By drek interior i mean a long spine of XL-3 girders off of which the fuel tanks and hull is attached to (i just call it a drek interior as the drek was teh 1st ship ive ever seen use such a core). RT-5s are somewhat bad against multiple layered armor that is surrounding a single root part (hence why i started working with that style now), but even then multipke direct hits will just tear the ship apart. All in all, as a few tips to anyone who is getting into combat, the single most part count efficient weapon is a stack of RT-5s separated by 1.25m decouplers (place either a decoupler on the 1st one in the stack or a nose cone if you liek appearance. The thing isnt even that heavy either with a single round being around 1ton, and each round is 2 parts. The other best general purpose weapon is a single long ibeam with 4 sepatrons pushing it. These are less part count efficient then the RT-5s, but they are lighter, and most of all much easier to use in large numbers because they are smaller and can have like 8 or so jammed into the same cross sectional area that a single RT-5 takes up. Great to carry 4-8 of them as backups (or even close range primaries), but generally you want to avoid spamming them as they make your part count go through the roof nomatter how you try to minimize that. Otherwise, stick to long range torps, these are fairly reliable, multipurpose, and most of all futureproof as it looks like real time MP will all but kill short range munitions on anything that isnt an interdictor or otherwise excessively mobile, or a fighter (completely different playstyle and role though there).

Just paste the link in plain text, i can just select it and copy it to the bloody URL bar like i normally would with links anyways (i dont trust those clicky ones so i avoid em unless i have no other option). And yeah, squad banned mediafire (not that i care myself as i still use it, just forum will not make clickable links (you need to paste it in plain text). Also, looking forward to giving it a shot as you are one of those people that always bring something new to the table (most of us including me until a few days ago were using drek styled internals with some modifications, they ofc suck in 1.1.2). It appears that the best method for making ships is super heavily reinforced core with everything else branching off of it. The whole idea of a skeleton made of XL girders seems to have died off with teh advent of my SRM-6M (basically a drilling ibeam cannon which is impossible to defend against when center mounted), and ofc RT-5s seem to have become far more lethal these days, a weapon that was mostly ignored in the past.

Your link is broken...

Ill be honest and its complete fodder to anything based on ibeams... SRM-6M will RELIABLY kill it 90% of the time (most trials left it with 1-3 shots leftover after it killed the spine). You switched over to using a XL girder spine throughout teh entire vessel, something that cuts part count but comes at the cost of being fodder to most decently built weapons. If you are looking for ideas towards your next ship try the concept that im working with right now. You have a SINGLE stubby girder as your core, and attach at most 8 parts to said girder radially. The rear node can be used to have a stack of fuel tanks (with optional engine on back), the front can be used to attach a docking port to mount a centralized weapon, or be used with fuel tanks. A cockpit can also be placed either in front or in back of the girder. Also, anything attached to said girder should have at least 1 strut going from it to the girder, and preferably also a few struts to other components that are touching the girder. Build your entire ship up off of the parts that are attached to teh girder for optimal effect.

Forcing any mods is a bad idea period, at least in my perspective as the whole thing i enjoy is the challenge of combat with 100% stock KSP (well minus stuff like targetron which makes actually managing a battle possible once it becomes a debri field)... Anyways, my solution to this is to disable SAS. Its not a fix all solution, but it will at the minimum make it very difficult to hit the exact same spot multiple times as the 1st shot will start the ship in a spin. That said, luckily there are limits to what you can do with a drilling style weapon. The thing HAS TO be centralized to work well, and that means you have to have either a fully exposed weapon sticking out the front (thus easy to shoot off), or build it into the hull which lowers internal space for fuel and other systems (an issue with my Sk-CRV-IVg1). You need to keep the missiles within a 1.25m profile, which makes ~8 shots the absolute maximum you can theoretically have (ive managed to create a SRM-8, but it was buggy and inaccurate thus defeating the purpose entirely). If you have a offcenter launcher you can sortof hit the same spot event time but it requyires cockpit aim and knowing exactly where the missiles will hit relative to centerline (easier said then done). Really, im starting to come to the same conclusion many othrs have come to, that armor can only go so far. I havent given up my dream, and probably never will give up trying to create a ultra low part count extremely resilient vessel, but i think that armor right now is less important then it was since everyone is running around with weapons that can kill anything 90% of the time, and rarely even need to use all of their ordinance on a single target. You need enough armor so that a single shot doesnt kill you, but trying to defend against the entire arsenal of a super heavy warship (100+t and 400+ parts) is just futile...

Sofar that type of core is the absolute best thing you can use, despite its flaws. The whole chain of XLs is too suceptible to being split, and well dies just as easily if not easier to drilling weapons like the SRM-6M (as in the weapon fires multiple times as the exact same spot cutting through and eventually reaching the core). While it may seem dissapointing, i say stick with that basic idea, everything else is so lousy right now as armor that we dont have many alternatives. The only solid hulls right now are based on the concept of a single root part with branches coming out in multiple directions, with the core itself heavily armored from all directions. This design is inherently weak against anything that fires shot after shot into the same area (its all probability, a phasing round may or may not 1 shot ur ship every time, but if you fire multiple you stack probability against the enemy ship as every next shot adds considerably to teh odds of destroying that core (assuming your aim is top notch that is). Another viable hull ive come across is a semi-procedural build that takes advantage of multiple docking ports spread strategically throughout the ship so in the very likely event the core is toast, at least something remains intact. It worked ok, near invincible against single shots, but multiple direct hist would eventually cut their way through all the spines and split it. Really the only other option i can think of is highly redundant ships, which was something i tried back in 0.25, but the part count was an issue. My idea was a ship that had something like 3-5 segments connected to each other. There was a dedicated drive system (with nukes) in the back, a dedicated unguided weapons system (in the front) that carried a few ibeams and 2 RT10s, and the rest were fully self-sufficient mini warships that had their own guided weapons, fuel for both their own backup engines (if i remember correctly i used 2 24-77s per segment) and the main drives (although that was manually pumped to the rear because part counts were so bad i couldnt afford fuel lines), and their own control units (i think i just used probes back then since it wasnt a manned ship). It worked well, and remained funtional even after being split in half, not to mention its armor was quite strong from the get go. That said, those were different days, we are nolonger able to make such systems efficient because nukes require LF only and i cant just cram the entire ship with teh same fuel tanks to feed a wide variety of engines. In 0.90 i actually had a ship that used the same concept (but relied on vernors to do the redundant engines) and that also worked so-so, but as with any ships of that type, the part counts go through teh roof and you are carrying alot of dead weight that may or may not be useful (until you are actually split apart there is no reason to have all those engines all over).

Love your use of the radiators as makeshift doors... Now if only there was a way to stop the stupid thinsg from rotating, same with the solar panels... Edit: guess its back to the drawing board... Apparently my SK-CRV-IVg1 is suceptible to SRM-6Ms (and given that ibeam+sepatrons is the primary weapon i use, i cant have a AKS warship die to that crap so easily). Im gonna try a smaller and more compact core, perhaps itll help with lowering probability of having the root parts destroyed, which is a death sentence to this thing (and any other ship for that matter).

As for large ASMs, ive honestly stopped bothering trying to defend against em as every kill with them is 75% luck, 25% hull design (provided you have something to stop shrapnel inside like bulkheads there isnt much else you can do). As for teh SRM-6M, the reason its so lethal is because its center mounted and because i have (from lots of experience testing various designs) found the optimal range to engage at for the given weapon im using. You need to have these things centralized for optimal effect because the whole point is to fire multiple shells into teh exact same component (cockpit for aiming right behind the gun is near mandatory as relying on the autoaim doesnt alwasy target optimal spot). If you fire too close you wont build enough speed, and if you fire too far you will either trigger the "instakill target" bug or have entire shell phase thru your target outright doing 0 dmg. Anyways, keep working towards ur armor design, its not a bad ship, just needs competitive weapons, lets face it, RCS tank warheads are useless even vs MK2 fuselage (and thus every one of my own fighter designs). Your missiles are so-so though, i tried them and they do do damage to a target, just not quite enough to kill decently built ones.

Is that a guided or unguided round? Also, are you firing from 150m or less, firing any farger engages a bug that i would consider cheating (because it results in near every vessel dying regardless of construction. Anyways, i also did my armor test (and limited myself to firing at short range with unguided to guarantee no bug instakilling ur ship). Results for a few select weapons: Popper-H Knockoff (single guided missile): decent. Not once did the ship get permanently neutered in 1 shot, with the absolute worst damage i managed to do after ~10 shots is obliterating an entire half and then some, but the ship retained an engine and a few of its secondary weapons so it wasnt exactly destroyed. SRM-6M (6 shot long ibeam+4 sepst cannon): extremely susceptible. Virtually every time it got sawed in half (when firing from the sides). Firing from the front/rear its better but still usually gets cut in half before i reach the 6th shot. Dual ASC-H (RT5 based weapon with 2 shots per weapon so 4 total): ok. Depending on the trial but it usually retained at least 1 engine and some weapons. A few tests completely vaporized the ship (as in tore it into like 6+ pieces) but most left enough there that it could at least move and shoot. opps almost forgot to add a album of testing images. Ohh and i never diss a design until ive both tried a variety of weapons and done at least 10 tests per weapon. Now as for my actual opinion of the design, i like the looks, and its defenetely unique, but it is not part count efficient in the slightest. Do you actually NEED that many RTGs? Same with reaction wheels, nothing wrong with good maneuverability, but i feel its a little over the top there. Armor is actually above average imho because you can actually survive a salvo of RT-5s, which is a feat in of itself as my recent testing has shown that 4 ASC-H rounds can tear apart almost anything based on drek style hull design (long spine of XL girders with everything coming offa those). Its a little easy to obliterate with a SRM-6M, which isnt the case with all ships, but it does still take a full launcher's worth of rounds to do so (so no single ibeam kills you, rather the repeated shot after shot into the exact same spot). As for high end ASMs, its actually decent against those. You need to find a way to better armor the middle section (where your core is located, especially from above and below). Otherwise its a good ship, but a little highish on part count for the armor it offers.

Ill be glad to fight you although i will need a fighter of some sort since i only have 70t warships laying around (i can do 150t easily with 2 of them and a 10t fighter). If you want a battle over weekend then by all means, ill defenetely have a fighter since im working on a few for my comic im also working on. Speaking of which, the pirate asteroid base's super heavy cannon works great. Too bad ammo for it is so excessively heavy and high on parts (as in never gonna be used on a warship cause dv would go out the door unless its like a single shell). Poor SK-CRV-IVg0-V7 prototype... The production models are alot tougher though as this one was defective because the struts got broken while saving it (and i didnt notice until it was already launched and enroute to minmus, quickly deverted it to go suicide scout the pirate HQ.

Im just theoretical testing for now. Im not done yet and im rearming it as to lower part count as the Tribeams are just lousy part count efficiency, i think ill swap those for 2 stacks of 3 RT-5s each. All my design has proven is that sofar its very solid vs anything i throw at it discouting tire impactors which i havent thoroughly tested. Its heavily resilient vs RT-5s (the most ive done to it is blow off a solid chunk of the ship's outer armor and destroy all engines (vernors were still intact). As for ibeams, the thing just doesnt care about those at all, and it seems that the Popper-H (a weapon i use to test armor more often the not) has excessively hard to to kill it (let alone neuter it for that matter). Once its finished ill upload it here so you guys can try it and point out any flaws (as im sure i wont be able to find every weakness with the ship myself).

I like it, looks great... What is the part count of this thing, cause just looking at its exterior thats probably at least 300 parts for the hull.

So i see you also came to the conclusion that a RT-5 is the ultimate weapons in terms of mass/part count efficiency. The weird thing is that this was NOT that case until 1.1 came out, where RT5s were so-so weapons, still effective but not exactly 90% kill rate on anything. Now it seems that RT-5s are your best bet if you are concerned about part count, but are willing to deal with the RT-5s rather large size and inability to be used at long range. In other news, my new hull (SK-CRV-IVg4) is super effective vs ANYTHING, although RT5s are still quite decent against it (though i have not been 1 shot obliterated once sofar from any angle by any weapon that isnt using XL3 wheels or is just excessively large and heavy). Now if only i can solve the rather annoying engine loss problem i think ill have the lightest and lowest part count hull out here that is actually capable of eating enemy fire to some extent. I'm especially proud of the cockpit which not only lets the kerbal get in or out (i dont even with squad's broken cockpit blocked bs) but is both heavily shielded (only a phasing round which gets very lucky or a direct hit into the upper drone bay can destroy it) and gives you a very nice view to the front of the ship for manually firing the forward facing weapons. As for weapons, it comes in a few configurations, but all of them have 8 0.6m hardpoints in the upper and lower drone bay, and then a single HSG hardpoint inside an internally housed gun barrel (a stack of 2-3 RT-5s, 2 modified Tripedo-Ms, or a SRM-6 either S, M, or H type), and there are also 2 triple 0.6m hardpoints to each side of the gun barrel which can be optionally replaced with 2 single 1.2m hardpoints which can carry the same options the gun barrel mount would. Firepower is less then the older SK-CRV-I models that carried 5 1.2m hardpoints (potential for up to 30 0.6m weapons total), but given its new role of a support ship (whereas the class-I was more of a generalist ship) i think its adequate. The only killer issue is the relative ease of loosing engines (and to some extent weapons), but i dont see how one can solve that without actually making the ship itself larger, and thus defeating teh point of it entirely. So yeah, it has an achilles heel even if the hull itself is superb in the armor protection and while its not quite my standards of part count at ~250 parts, it is still far better then the average ship i see on here if you look at parts. 350 parts armed, but most of that is from the excessively high part could Tribeam-S missiles which are my new WIP 0.6m shipkillers.

Well development of new armor is going well. Still not quite tough enough, and it is a tad high part count (200 part hull), but its the first hull since 0.90 that seems to be very resistant to anything ive thrown at it. Apparently strut spam (used correctly) can give you a near invincible core structure from which you essentially use brached off hull design. The whole idea behind it is to have one root part that has around 8 branches attached to it. Then you use those 8 parts to branch the rest of the ship out offa. Ofc those 8 parts are so heavily strutted to each other and the core that its virtually impossible to loose anything there. Really the only killer issue is when that core piece gets destroyed, but ive yet to pull that off. Hopefully ill have a workable hull by the end of the day... Still need to solve the issue of internals being vaporized even if the hull as a whole remains intact most of the time.

I like it, although id like to know where you got the idea for such a thing. Looks 100% identical layout to my old and obsolete SK-CRV-II (not that i mind u using my ship's layout as inspiration, especially since it never worked all that well and was never deployed in any role besides command ship where it is still useful). Also, does anyone know how to defend against RT5s? Ive currently got a B-Corp warship which is armed with 8 RT5 missiles consisting of a decoupler on the front and a RT5 behind it with 50% fuel load. This thing is able to RELIABLY SPLIT ANYTHING (including the entirety of the warships ive downloaded from you guys) when set at a 1000km orbit and the target is rendezvoused with a 0.1 lead using hedit. Not a single ship can survive it. Given i cant have B-Corp fielding such overpowered weaponry, i think ill need to redesign that warship (B-Corp lacks super high end weaponry). Anyone have any hulls that are resilient vs RT5s? Im completely stuck as none of my own nor anyone else's ships seem to be capable of doing so. Edit: Not going to get my hopes up prematurely but i think i have something that can sortof tank RT5s and ibeams without taking excessive damage in the process. Now i just need to figure out a way to make the internals not get gutted instantly...