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Barracuda Battleship

For my second ship on the workshop, I've included many of the same design details that I use virtually every time: conveyors and tubes connecting everything, air vents and air-tightness, interior turrets used as point defense, possibly ready for survival (untested though), and otherwise completely vanilla.

This ship is big and complicated. It's a lot of fun but will punish most computers. Use at your own risk.


The Barracuda is intended to be a capital ship created around multiple stand-off weapon systems and capable of engaging multiple targets at long range, while remaining fully protected in CQB.

The Barracuda comes equipped with a full-sized Harpy Missile System (unlike the cut-down version on the Tigershark Frigate) and 4 massive Kraken missiles, all directed by the long-range weapon seat on the bridge.

The centerpiece of the Barracuda design is the new Gauss Cannon multi-projectile slug thrower, which fires unguided slugs along the major axis of the ship, and therefore controlled by the pilot.

For those up-close battles, the ship is equipped with 15 standard missile turrets, 12 standard gatling turets, and 17 point-defense guns. For a heavier punch in CQB, the Barracuda also has two main rocket batteries with 8 launchers each, and a total of 8 point-defense batteries with 4 gatling guns each. These turrets are all controllable from the short-range weapons seat on the bridge.

Finally, to give the rest of the crew some control over the ship's fate, the Barracuda carries 8 Pixie drones--small, unmanned fighters controlled from 8 separate control stations in the center of the ship.

Aside from weapon systems, there is a sizeable hangar at the rear of the ship (empty), O2/H2 generation and storage, cargo, 8 jump engines (in case you have to jump really far or really often), 3-way floorplan view to watch for damage. In case the bridge gets destroyed, there is a second control seat deep in the center of the ship. Last but not least, the Barracuda also contains a massive gravity drive capable of pushing the ship to the 100 m/s limit in 5 seconds or less, either forward or backward along the ship's axis.

The controls may be mostly non-intuitive but there are LCD screens near each of the 12 control chairs, all of which will give some summary of how to operate the attached systems. That should help you flying!

The Harpy missiles, Kraken missiles, and Gauss Cannon projectiles all contain warheads. The missiles' warheads count down against a fixed timer of a few minutes, while the Gauss projectiles can be changed prior to firing (in 10-, 20-, 30-, 60-, or 120-second delays; default is 60s).

The Kraken missiles are fire-and-forget: once you fire them, you can forget about having them. Unlike the other two main weapons, the ship does not fabricate replacements.

Missile direction is through a standard gatling turret that is programmed to not attack anything or idly move. This provides challenges in that the turret will sometimes spontaneously turn off, and in that fine control of targeting is VERY difficult. If the game ever allows operation of rotors via remotes and gyros again, I may change the designator to that type. The intent was to have a second player be able to target the missile systems, rather than aim by turning the ship, and this is currently the only option available.

Setting the Red Alert or All Clear from the pilot seat will alter the targeting of the turrets to fixed levels. The controls can be more finely adjusted from the short-range seat, but changing alert status will revert. Targeting choices are available for both kinds of batteries, as well as for each individual turret type.

This ship was built and tested without the 100 m/s speed limit, so the carnage you can generate will depend on whether you mod that or not.


Missile guidance: Whip's Optical Missile Guidance Script
Harpy system inspiration: Komodo Guided Missile Destroyer
Floor plan script: Floor Plan Script Mk1
Battery AI: Whip's Turret AI Slaving Script

Idea for the Gauss Cannon: when my 10-year-old asked if there is such a thing as a Nerf shotgun...