Shopping for Ships

As Kita looked at a few ships, His eyes suddenly caught one. He pointed at the projection and said,

"Tell me more about this one."

"Ah. I see you have an eye for ships." The Man said, before pushing a few buttons that showed an enlarged projection of the ship in question that also added a lot of details about the ship. He began to explain.

"Before you is the Fedora Class Light Cruiser known as Ligaera. It was built about half a decade ago. Commissioned by a merchant who wanted a ship that could guard his shipment in transit but also be useful outside of guard duty. He commissioned a Shipwright in the Hoblos System to design him a ship that met his criteria. The result was this beauty.," Osrtich said before pushing a few buttons again.

This time the projection focused in on the internal layout of the ship.

"The Ligaera is 1.6 KM in length, 700 meters in width and 500 meters tall. Internally, it boasts a whopping 40 floors combined. It has a small read hanger that can hold up to 5 shuttles or 20 mechs.," Osrtich said while pointing at the projection.

"Only 20?"

"Sadly, yes, Carrying mechs wasn't really a priority."

That made sense, not everyone could afford to hire and maintain a mech squad. It was really expensive to buy so many mech and keeping the pilots on payroll was even more expensive. So few companies kept a mech company under their payroll.

Instead, they tended to hire mercenaries for missions where they might need mechs. These mercenaries would bear all the expenses related to mechs and all the risks that came with it. In exchange, they charged a hefty fee for any mission.

Such high expenses, combined with the relatively fewer opportunities where mechs could be useful, made mechs a second priority.

The merchant was way better off adding additional capacity for star fighters and shuttles.

"As you know, Mechs provide relatively less utility when compared to something such as a shuttle or star fighter. That's why they opted against adding too much mech capacity."

"Understandable. Tell me more."

"As you can see, As per regulations, The ship only has 2 primary turrets that can fire a variety of warheads both big and small. It also has around 20 secondary laser turrets that can fire a varied collection of laser beams. As for the Point defense, it has many automated machine guns to cover for the really closer enemies."

"Hmm, Interesting. It boasts a really good collection for a ship it's size. But with only 2 turrets, it doesn't pose much threat."

"Sadly. But according to the regulations, any civilian cruiser can only have 2 main turrets at most. This is the official regulations set by the empire."

'So there's a regulation about it?' Kita wasn't aware about this regulation.

Normally a cruiser can easily support up to 8 smaller main turrets. It was a pretty standard configuration for the military vessels. But for Civilian Vessels, this number was regulated down to 2. As the empire couldn't let the civilian vessels get too powerful and be able to compete with the military, these regulations were put in place.

Osritch explained the Ligaera a bit more as he highlighted different aspects of it. Another thing that Kita didn't like about it was that it only had a single FTL drive. Which was a standard Configuration. But Kita wanted to have at least 2 FTL drives in his ship. That way, he would have way more flexibility when in a sticky situation. Instead of waiting for his primary FTL drive to finish cycling, he could just fire up his secondary drive and get out as quickly as possible.

"Can it handle a second FTL drive?", Kita asked.

Having a single FTL drive wasn't too big of a problem, Kita could just buy another one and install it. But it wasn't easy as that. The ship needed to be able to handle two FTL drives.

"Sadly, it can't. The power generators and other components won't be able to handle the stress of a second FTL drive. But the primary FTL drive is a really good model. It's average cycle time is just under 16 hours!"

That was still too long by Kita's standards. He was aware that for a FTL drive this size, Kbom Industries had created ones that could cycle in under 8! That was almost half as fast!

So cycling in 16 hours didn't impress Kita.

He didn't feel interested in this ship any more, so he said to Osritch.

"Although the Ligaera is a good ship, it has too many limitations. Show me some that can at least support 2 FTL drives."

"Of Course.", Osritch said as he fiddled with the tab.

The Projections changed to show a few more ships. Soon, Kita pointed at another one and asked. "Is that a Battleship? Which class is that?" The ship looked too big for a cruiser, but too small for a battleship. So Kita couldn't figure out the nature of the ship.

"Ah, The Netros. Good choice, Sir.", He said before fiddling with the tab to enlarge the projection.

"The Netros is a Subvertient Class Heavy Cruiser. The original designers designed it such as it just fits the requirements to be considered as a Heavy Cruiser instead of a Battleship."

"Ah. I see. I assume they did it to avoid the heavy tax that comes with owing and operating a Battleship Class ship?"

"Yes, You are correct. The Netros original owners intended it to be used for protection against aliens while mining in the outskirts of the empire. One can never be too careful when mining outside the empire borders. The Netros was built to provide Protection against alien attacks that might happen.", Osritch said before fiddling with the projection again.

The Armor and the Turrets were highlighted this time.

"The best part of the Netros is the heavy military grade armor that it uses in its exterior. It also has 3 primary turrets that are the maximum limit for a heavy cruiser. Combined with the Armor, The Netros boasts a really high defense and offense. But because it has such thick armor, it's also really slow when compared with its rivals. Even among the heavy cruisers, It can be considered extra slow. But for the original owners, it was a worthwhile tradeoff." Osritch explained.

"I see…"