Modular spacecraft

Because of the nature of the conflict between the Terran Federation and the Rising Hand, many starships in the Heresy War universe came to cover more than one role, be it civilian or military. The first to employ this philosophy were the members of the Rising Hand, who could not afford to build massive fleet of specialized spacecraft to suit their needs; therefore, their focus went to converting existing designs or re-building ships from parts of other ships and turn them into versatile weapons of war.

As developers we faced a new challenge: to build spacecraft that are recognizable, functional, and can support multiple configurations for various roles. To solve this, we designed the roles that a ship would fit in its respective army, and built the hull in such a way that it supports various multifunctional modules, standard for the faction that it belongs to.

In the following images we’ll give you some examples by using one of the ships that you’ll encounter often in the game, the Intruder class corvette.

The corvette’s hull sports a number of magnetic locks that are commonly found on Core vessels as attachment ports for turrets and other modules. This is how the base hull of the corvette looks like without any add-ons.

The heavy assault refit is used when corvettes are employed in capital ship combat, but also versus other medium targets that have a degree of maneuverability. A 1 meter thick blast shield is fitted in the frontal slot of the corvette, helping it withstand a great deal of damage from capital ship fire.

This is an ultra-specialized refit used only during assaults of capital ships or star-bases. While the corvette is able to dish out an incredible amount of damage to targets that stand still, it is a sitting duck versus fighters or any other maneuverable craft.

When intelligence suggests a large fighter force, the corvettes are usually equipped with this setup. Here, all armor and heavy assault weapons have been removed and replaced with rapid-fire point defense turrets, which are a nightmare for every Rising Hand fighter pilot.

The micro-carrier load-out truly shows the versatility of the Intruder. While in this state, the corvette is able to carry, along a complement of point defense and heavy turrets, one fighter wing. This is extremely useful during covert operations behind enemy lines, where fighters cannot normally go because of their limited range.

All these are just a few examples of what kind of modifications can just one ship take in our game. For more information check out our upcoming updates.

Thank you for reading and Happy Holidays!