Back out to the unknown.
In reply to Cyril Zotmund (msg # 950):
"Unfortunately increasing armour adds considerably to weight, which makes you much slower. If engines are then increased to maintain speed, you are basically become a much larger ship, essentially a warship. To send a warship for a first meeting with Aliens, if there are more, is generally not a good idea if one seeks peace. I would prefer you ran away from a fight, and used light scout craft to investigate dangers rather than risking the ship.
Already your cargo hold is too small. I have been experimenting with a small 20 dTon crawler dubbed the L Miner, but at 40 ft long and 15 ft, it is too big to fit in your hold. It would contain a small robofac, capable of mining goods, refining them and then processing them into finished products, such as parts for the Fusion reactor that nearly had you stranded, given enough time and raw materials. Obviously designed for remote colonies so they would not be dependent on critical supplies as much, though its capacity is too low to replace supply convoys, and at 25 million each, they are not the cheap option.
But after the last mission, I feel you need the capacity to manufacture sensitive equipment yourself. I am therefore installing and Industrial Robofac in the Dastavka to make sure you can come back this time. You simply will not be able to operate it during combat, since the power requirements will be too great. Of course, you would have to provide the right raw materials, so we have also produced a new modular miner based on the AK APC to this end, and it might be advisable to take one of them. But that is up to you.
In order to fit the robofac and the twin power supplies, which combine to be slightly larger than before, I have had to further reduce your cargo capacity, such that you can now only carry 6.5 dTons of supplies or ammunition, plus 9.5 dTons of supplies in the ships boat. Even if you carry 60 missiles and 60 sandcasters, which will not be needed so much with extra beam weapons, that will be enough to last 120 days, unless you increase your crew."
This message was last edited by the GM at 08:18, Sun 22 Apr 2018.