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AAM Donau Guided Missile Corvette [All Vanilla]

Note: In response to feedback, I'm pasting a description of how to fire the missiles into the bottom of this. I'll also be putting up a world with the missile blueprints included shortly, in case those are giving you trouble.

Donau-Class Guided Missile Corvette

Specifications
Manufacturer: Ardentrall Aerospace Manufacturing
Mass: 879, 689 kg [unloaded]
Powerplant: 198 MW [6 Small Reactors, 9 Batteries]
Gyroscopes: 8
Time to max velocity: 6.8 sec
Acceleration: 15.4 m/sec^2
Maximum jump distance: 2000 km
Armament: 3 ASM cells, 2 rocket launchers, 4 gatling turrets, 12 CIWS turrets
Cargo Capacity:
Refinery Facilities: No
Assembler Facilities: Yes [1]
Medical Facilities: Yes [1]
Artificial Gravity: Yes
Small Craft Complement: None
Length: 100 meters
Width: 47.5 meters
Height: 12.5 meters

At the recent yearly review of ships from the seven provincial fleets, observers from the other provinces were quite surprised when Rostov announced that it would be presenting a new squadron of corvettes. As the smallest province, all of Rostov's ships have historically been older vessels, most purchased from the fleets of other provinces.

Surprise gave way to shock when, instead of preowned ships, the vessels in question were new, sleek ships more akin to pocket destroyers than traditional corvettes. Secretly built under contract with AAM, the Donau class is part of a new movement in Ardentralli shipbuilding that moves away from the traditionally static "line-of-battle" methodology, and into a more rapid, maneuver-based school of thought.

The Donau's most striking element are the three dorsal launch cells for guided missiles and ECM pods. AAM spared no expense with the main armament, contracting with WMI and Eisenstern Armaments to provide the latest in guided missile technology, allowing remote guidance of up to three Goryo anti-ship missiles by means of quantum entangled pairs. These missiles are theoretically unlimited in range, but concerns over the supply of entangled pairs led EA to allow the missiles to also be controlled via a more traditional radio link, giving the missiles a range of 5 km, which matches the range of the Donau's compact, low-power twin antennae. The Donau also carries a complement of Loki EWAR pods, which give it the ability to spoof enemy targeting systems; a common tactic is to fire one Loki and two Goryos, causing point defense to focus fire on the less harmful missile, leaving the more dangerous missiles with a safer approach. Forward armament is provided by twin rocket launchers in the bow; their fire rate is staggered (again, courtesy of WMI) to ensure that interception of one missile does not lead to the destruction of the other. Four gatling guns provide a defense against small craft, and twelve CIWS turrets help to boost the Donau's defenses against missiles.

That the Donau's radio antennae are short-range is not seen as a problem. It does have a laser antenna for longer range communications, but the vessel is largely intended as a stealth vessel, relying on surprise to ambush pirates and other agressors in the dense Henriksen Belt encircling Ardentrall's orbit. Its jump drive has a range of 2000 kilometers, giving it the ability to strike from long range, or to withdraw if it finds itself overwhelmed; its ion thrusters give it commendable acceleration at sublight as well. Even more so than most Ardentralli corvettes, the Donau is extremely lightly armored and should not let itself get into a slugging match: it is designed to engage smaller craft at close range, or larger craft at long range with its missiles. However, as it features firepower previously restricted to Ard-Con frigates while massing less than most of their corvettes, this fragility is seen as an acceptable price to pay.

Crew accomodations are minimal, which is to be expected of a vessel that masses less than a thousand tons, but the vessel does feature a medical suite in case of injury on long-range operations. The habitat is split into two sections, with the quarters and medical suite in the forward section, and the command center in the aft, with the airlock separating the two. The Donau is small enough that it cannot use standard docking collars; as with the Lynx, crew must cold-suit over to the ship.

There has been considerable speculation as to how Rostov obtained the funds needed to finance the development and construction of these ships, as the province is the least wealthy in the Confederation. Theories range from backroom business deals, to collusion with pirates, to treasure found in the bellies of the giant mythical creatures said to reside in the depths of the Henriksen Belt.

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How To Fire Ze Missiles
=The projectors are turned on manually, on the second page of the hotkey bar. This is inconvenient, but it allows you to select what loadout to fire (all antiship missiles, all EWAR, or the default loadout of one EWAR and two ASMs).
=The welders are also on that page, and also manually activated (I've had bad experiences with welding at speed :( ).
=Launching the projectiles is done by running the programmable block that is also on the second page; this will activate Whip's fantastic guidance script.

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I've always loved the look of the Alliance ships in Mass Effect, but I haven't managed to carry the look across in my ships as much as I've wanted to in the past. This time I decided to just go the whole hog with it. There are a couple things to note. First, many kudos to Whiplash141 for his awesome scripts; testing his Komodo out convinced me that I needed to implement them as an indispensable feature. However, as noted above in the fluff, if you prefer more conventional means, the missiles can also be guided by good ol' antennae. Additional thanks goes to 5URG3 for the active ECM system, which I adopted from his Tempest (which you need to go check out right now); I personally seem to be having trouble with all decoys right now, so I'm hoping Keen fixes that soon.

The launch cells are quite stable -- I've fired missiles successfully at speeds above 90 m/sec -- but as always with anything rotor-based, let the buyer beware.

Now if you'll excuse me, I have some calibrations to perform.