The last in
#EXECUTRON's current gen of manned craft is the Bonneville Executive B3. Our CEO, Phineas T. Crankenhauser, has always been a fan of
#ClassicCars, especially the styles from the 1950's an 60's. The fact is, you can't restore an original to this kind of condition. She wouldn't be seaworthy at all.
Thus, the B3 is Crankenhauser's statement, used to impress clients on trips to and from space, and intimidate industry rivals. We wanted to blow the competition right off the lot, and field parallel parking tests have proven we can, time and time again. The B3 is essentially the company car for EXECUTRON.
Like the enterprising CEO who had the prototype commissioned, it excels at forward and upward motion, trading away quick descents and retrothrust power for more forward momentum. It can execute fairly sharp turns for a vehicle of its size from its 6 side-mounted gill thrusters, and the massive vertical thrusters enable strong barrel rolls and lift.
The afterburner has its own dedicated conduit from the reactor, acting as a second gas pedal with straight-shot forward thrust, which can be engaged by itself, or in concert with the other thrusters. Escape velocity and re-entry are a breeze in this baby *slaps hull*.
It is built to withstand impacts and is massive enough to deflect most medium sized targets, and destroy smaller ones entirely, thus making it an ideal blockade runner in a pinch.
The Bonneville does not participate in
#Salvage operations directly. However, every asset in our fleet has to carry some water, and the B3 is no exception, being used in the following scenarios:
1. Round-Trip Space Flights.
2.
#VIP, Executive & Dignitary Transportation.
3. Extended excursions between planets and their satellites.
4. Mobile
#FleetCommand Center.
5. Long-range
#Telemetry support.
6.
#ElectronicWarfare, including both
#EA and
#EP deployments.
As far as its stock capabilities, the
#BonnevilleExecutive reserves most of its
#FusionReactor output for the
#IonThrusters. Stock
#EW systems include the AP1
#IonAcousticPulse Generator, which can drain the capacitors of nearby vessels and scramble communications. The pulse is enharmonic to the operating frequency of all EXECUTRON
#Exoatmospheric equipment, so the risk of a fleet surge on your end is minimal.
The chassis itself is its main selling point, although we have no intention of bringing this prototype to the wider market. EXECUTRON has achieved a unique chassis design which expands auxetically in the direction of impacts, redirecting the force back out. The coup de grace was the polymer
#nanolattice that allowed our material to stretch without shattering at higher tolerances, while still exhibiting
#memorymetal ductility.
Most collisions with the
#Bonneville do more damage to the incoming object than the paint job. See the attached
#joyride video.
#DevNotes on this one:
1. We wanted all different kinds of
#Rigidbody Controllers in the game so players could toy around with different styles and see what they enjoy doing. We already had a "jet", a "helicopter", a "hoverbike", a "bomber", and everything in space is kind of already a boat, so the last main type of controller that isn't a
#UFO or a
#drone or a
#biologic is basically the "automobile".
2. Doing a "car" meant for space travel demands a couple things: it goes faster forwards than backwards, and you still want to be able to drift it, even if there's nothing to skid on. That means you need enough turning thrust to cut the turn, but also enough extra throttle to push through the turn and alter it. You also need to get the
#rigidbodydrag balanced so it stabilizes through the turn or out of propulsion instead of leaving you confusingly adrift all the time. We're using Ion Repulsion, so we assume you can come to a stop, unlike rocket propelled spacecraft.
3. Rarely in a space game do you have any kind of vessel meant specifically for ramming enemies.
#EveOnline has
#RammingFrigates, which we find thoroughly amusing. It's a
#MeleeBuild, taken to a strange setting. Of course, writing a vehicle like this up will have you wasting all of your
#Claude3 credits trying to figure out which
#metamaterials you could use to make an impervious but sleek composite hull. Good times.
4. Giving it a point-blank
#melee attack and a ranged
#AOE effect that powers down hostiles rather than destroying them makes it the
#Paladin class of the fleet.
So really, the most unique parts of this from the
#UnityDev side are that
#rigidbodies are always going to process collisions, but we wanted to deal damage mostly from the front bumper.
While the vehicle itself has a
#MeshCollider shaped like the chassis and fins and thruster tubes, the front of the vessel has an extra capsule embedded on it that works with the
#PhysicsDamage script we implemented. Using some typical momentum calculations and a bit of a modifier comparing the
#Bonneville's hefty 250-ton mass against the impacting body, we deal damage if the object in question has a
#HealthController, proportional to the speed of impact and the summed vectors of travel of the bodies on impact.
Again, see the attached video, it's a bit like bullfighting without an escort in this combat simulation, but every once in a while you get a good run at something and utterly obliterate it, scattering chunks off of your Diamond Nitride windshield.