Von Neumann Class - a mid-pop solgov ship

[Pockets-byte]

About The Pull Request

I've been playing NSV on and off recently, and many of the ships we play on have some glaring issues- the first of which being that they're all... Just. Too. Big.
the first goal of this ship is to reach near full functionality in less space use, to allow crew function more effectively during combat and out of it- in this it currently is a little over half the size of the atlas while still mounting most of what I'd consider an effective ship to need. secondly, the other solgov ship currently in rotation suffers from a serious lack of redundancy, and is frankly too big for it's crew complement, the von Neumann was designed almost from the ground up with redundancy and damage control in mind, although this has been toned down. in addition, solgov ships suffer from muni being overly simplified, which this ship also attempts to address via the inclusion of a full VLS system and a strong emphasis on muni-operated laser PDCs, as well as generally requiring at least one person per weapon
finally this ship does nothing to singularity engines =(

the ship itself is powered by an overclocked ANGCR, and has a disconnected TEG for people who want even more power. it also mounts a shield, and has provisioning mostly inspired or copied from the wisp. for armament, there are six laser PDCs, a small full VLS system with 8 silos. a heavy LAMS system, and two burst phasers. it has no heavy weapons, and will be the most fragile ship in the game comparatively, but the powerful reactor and high maneuverability make up for that
most departments exist in some form on this ship, although a few things have been cut in the name of compactness, there is no church or chaplain, no lawyer, no viro, brig physican, deputy, or ATC. in keeping with the star-treky theme of solgov, the ship does mount replicators in a couple places, although there is both botany and a kitchen-bar.
maint was initially overlooked, but has some presence. and the there are two hangars and a full turing drive as with respects to the ship's higher crew requirements.
the ship's sprite is also fully animated, and has semi-realistic navigation lights

description very out of date

Why It's Good For The Game

more solgov ships good. more energy weapon propaganda, small ship that shouldn't be completely awful.

Testing Photographs and Procedure

Screenshots&Videos

https://github.com/BeeStation/NSV13/assets/55299415/4080afcf-42f2-4fd0-bf8b-2faa735139ca

Changelog

🆑
add: a new shipmap
add: two new solgov ship-sprites
add: a new AI ship for solgov, the VN class frigate, a lighter ship mounting no heavy weaponry, but carries torpedos making it just as dangerous as any other solgov ship
tweak:solgov interdictor has it's own sprite
tweak:changed twoish laser descriptions slightly to respect the setting more
/:cl:

[DuskLight9978]

Ping me to this PR when the ships complete as it regards SOLGOV ships

[Bokkiewokkie]

Only specific things for requests are what I marked in the code. I don't see any functional issues on the map outside of things I have previously mentioned (e.g. tight hallways)
For me to approve it, though, I'd like you to justify why this ship needs a complete Thirring drive and AGCNR, while it is supposedly a small and simple ship (as both of these things make it more complex and require more crew)

[Pockets-byte]

Only specific things for requests are what I marked in the code. I don't see any functional issues on the map outside of things I have previously mentioned (e.g. tight hallways) For me to approve it, though, I'd like you to justify why this ship needs a complete Thirring drive and AGCNR, while it is supposedly a small and simple ship (as both of these things make it more complex and require more crew)

the AGCNR is actually the only engine that can meet the energy requirements of this ship as far as I know- and at least with my engineering skills, it still needs a significant fuel use rate to power the ship. I don't remember the exact stats, but I believe the overall power draw is actually higher than the wisp for example with the weapons and shields charged.

the thirring drive is there, partially because I prefer it over the FTL console, and because it lines up with the population guidelines in the requirements- this ship was designed to be small and compact, but not necessarily low pop- you could theoretically fly it with one person, but I don't believe you'd see any actual capability that way. to actually see functionality out of this ship, you need at least 4+ people, and ideally 9-10+ people to really get your money's worth.
I think a full crew could well be 15+ people, but I'm not sure where the real cutoff for crew count is.
if you want I can replace the second pylon set with more maint-space

I wasn't really aiming for simplicity here honestly. small yes, simple, not really.

[Bokkiewokkie]

Only specific things for requests are what I marked in the code. I don't see any functional issues on the map outside of things I have previously mentioned (e.g. tight hallways) For me to approve it, though, I'd like you to justify why this ship needs a complete Thirring drive and AGCNR, while it is supposedly a small and simple ship (as both of these things make it more complex and require more crew)

the AGCNR is actually the only engine that can meet the energy requirements of this ship as far as I know- and at least with my engineering skills, it still needs a significant fuel use rate to power the ship. I don't remember the exact stats, but I believe the overall power draw is actually higher than the wisp for example with the weapons and shields charged.

the thirring drive is there, partially because I prefer it over the FTL console, and because it lines up with the population guidelines in the requirements- this ship was designed to be small and compact, but not necessarily low pop- you could theoretically fly it with one person, but I don't believe you'd see any actual capability that way. to actually see functionality out of this ship, you need at least 4+ people, and ideally 9-10+ people to really get your money's worth. I think a full crew could well be 15+ people, but I'm not sure where the real cutoff for crew count is. if you want I can replace the second pylon set with more maint-space

I wasn't really aiming for simplicity here honestly. small yes, simple, not really.

Sorry for the late reply.
Regardless, the SD is designed with a specific solgov variant to power ships like these better. You can use that, or even upgrade it a bit yourself too (within reasonable limits, it doesn't need to always run the shields at 100% capacity on a normal mix either, and remember that in a good situation, if the shields are enabled the armor pumps can be disabled for extra power, adding more unique dynamics to save power too!)

Secondly, if the weapon power draw is your issue, maybe turn off or remove some of the weapons? The whisp is already incredibly powerful, so if you are using more power than it, that's probably a sign you will be fine after removing a few!

Your personal preference for an FTL drive, in this case, does not seem like a good reason to me. But because you have mentioned the ship is not for lowpop as the second, I will then be raising the player limit for the map to at least 15 as well (to fit the requirements in the mapping guidelines, as you referenced). We will hopefully be making the "regular" FTL drive more interesting in the future as well, though right now it is obviously still as it remains.

Replacing some of the pylons still seems like a fine idea to me too, that's up to you, though.

[Pockets-byte]

Only specific things for requests are what I marked in the code. I don't see any functional issues on the map outside of things I have previously mentioned (e.g. tight hallways) For me to approve it, though, I'd like you to justify why this ship needs a complete Thirring drive and AGCNR, while it is supposedly a small and simple ship (as both of these things make it more complex and require more crew)

the AGCNR is actually the only engine that can meet the energy requirements of this ship as far as I know- and at least with my engineering skills, it still needs a significant fuel use rate to power the ship. I don't remember the exact stats, but I believe the overall power draw is actually higher than the wisp for example with the weapons and shields charged.

the thirring drive is there, partially because I prefer it over the FTL console, and because it lines up with the population guidelines in the requirements- this ship was designed to be small and compact, but not necessarily low pop- you could theoretically fly it with one person, but I don't believe you'd see any actual capability that way. to actually see functionality out of this ship, you need at least 4+ people, and ideally 9-10+ people to really get your money's worth. I think a full crew could well be 15+ people, but I'm not sure where the real cutoff for crew count is. if you want I can replace the second pylon set with more maint-space

I wasn't really aiming for simplicity here honestly. small yes, simple, not really.

Sorry for the late reply.

Regardless, the SD is designed with a specific solgov variant to power ships like these better. You can use that, or even upgrade it a bit yourself too (within reasonable limits, it doesn't need to always run the shields at 100% capacity on a normal mix either, and remember that in a good situation, if the shields are enabled the armor pumps can be disabled for extra power, adding more unique dynamics to save power too!)

Secondly, if the weapon power draw is your issue, maybe turn off or remove some of the weapons? The whisp is already incredibly powerful, so if you are using more power than it, that's probably a sign you will be fine after removing a few!

Your personal preference for an FTL drive, in this case, does not seem like a good reason to me. But because you have mentioned the ship is not for lowpop as the second, I will then be raising the player limit for the map to at least 15 as well (to fit the requirements in the mapping guidelines, as you referenced). We will hopefully be making the "regular" FTL drive more interesting in the future as well, though right now it is obviously still as it remains.

Replacing some of the pylons still seems like a fine idea to me too, that's up to you, though.

The reason the weapons on this ship out-draw the wisp is because the main armament is entirely a large number of secondary weapons- the phase cannon absolutely draws more individually. Then again the VLS system does exist for a theoretically heavier hit than the weapons provide.
I'll be honest my worry is not that the ship will be overpowered, it'll be that it'll be underpowered- the laser point defense is not what I would call an overpowering weapon. But if you think that the armament is excessive, I can decrease it, I'm not entirely sure how to make a type V produce the something like 40-60 gw to power this ship though. And yes, power comprises can be made, but the ship is also made of tissue paper. I'll look at the code and mapping for the mark V, I'm more than a little nervous about that though(and am kinda not wanting to completely redesign engineering completely a third time) - I'll get back to you on that after I've done some research.
As for the Thirring drive I'll shrink it