Posts incoming tonight, but I wanted to drop the ship writeup here for you all before I put it into the Char tab for reference.

[hider=AS-01 Pandora]
The AS-01 [i]Pandora[/i] is, so far, a vessel completely unique. Its engineers invented the designation “Advance Ship” for its use, and though a broader Pandora-class had been theorized none had been slated for commissioning at launch. The [i]Pandora[/i] is strictly the name of the composite vessel composed of a central ship and the additional Colony Module that supports it. The CM lengthens the ship by 100m and more than that broadens it by at least half, though it tapers down about halfway up the length of its core ship. It’s not accurate to say that the CM attaches to its stern, the truth is that the central vessel slots into it until the CM ends roughly midship. Numerous bolts hold it in place and a multitude of airlocks join the two almost seamlessly from the interior. 

The Colony Module itself is meant to be reconfigured as a permanent orbital, or planet-side, installation upon arrival. In addition to itself being the raw materials it carries within it the facilities (and stockpiles of the materials) to fabricate anything that could be needed at the journey’s end. Immense 3D printers, fabrication equipment, and expandable free-floating construction bays ensure that there is no conceivable scale restriction on what could be created. The mining equipment aboard can extract raw materials found within the Proxima system itself, if the stockpiles aboard are insufficient. The scope of its mission required Pandora to be a self-sustaining mobile foundry, fabrication, and development station and its designers exceeded even their own expectations. But all of this equipment imposes a substantial mass penalty on Pandora, and the ship’s own drives would have required much more time to accelerate the AS-01 to its top speed with the Colony Module attached. Not to mention the power required to run the wealth of equipment contained within it and provide the future Hope Station with all of the power that it would require. 

So the CM is equipped with not one but two carrier-scale Oberth Reactors and a series of incredibly powerful EM drives arrayed to its rear. Owing to the complex series of interconnected relays between the two components of Pandora these thrusters are completely controlled from the bridge and these Oberth Reactors (and their capacitors) can be called upon to supplement the core vessel’s own power reserves. 

The core vessel is the CVA-1002 [i]Pyxis[/i] Ares-class Battle Carrier. Though the [i]third[/i] ship in the class Pyxis is the [i]first[/i] to be commissioned. CVA-1000 and -1001 though planned, designed, and ordered have (as of launch in 249) been kept from commissioning due to running revisions to the class. Flaws detected in the CVA-1000 [i]Ares[/i] required a return to docks for revision and a substantial delay in the construction of the CVA-1002. 

After refits the [i]Pyxis[/i] is, itself, a substantial retrofitting of a class that has not even properly entered service. 

Even though it was brand new [i]Pyxis[/i] was requisitioned for the Proxima expedition owing to the compatibility between the expedition’s mission parameters and the Ares-class’ intended operational parameters. Ares-class carriers were designed in defiance of traditional fleet, or even Orbital, doctrine that would cast the mothership in the role of a defensive vessel relying on Orbitals and supporting vessels for offensive and additional defensive functions. Even and especially after the rise of Heavies and their successors carriers have been built first for hangar and living space, second for defensive systems, and lastly for offensive capability. The Ares-class takes advantage of next-gen Oberth efficiencies to provide for them all. By scaling it up almost to the scale of an old supercarrier the class has excellent carrying capacity and still retains the space for armor like a dedicated battleship… and the offensive capabilities of one. 

[i]Pyxis[/i] sports ten rail-powered CIWS installations along its port and starboard sides, with some of them distributed to cover above and below as well. Ten cyclical missile launchers also run along either flank, each one capable of putting a cluster shipkiller (or any other munition) into space at a rate of one every five seconds. This gives the carrier a throw weight of a hundred and twenty missiles per side per minute, as long as munition supplies hold. This is [i]without[/i] factoring in the additional, smaller launchers on either side dedicated to passive point defense such as chaff, anti beam dispersion, and other functions. Pyxis also carries eight dual barreled rail cannons with 225 degree firing arcs, four top and four bottom, and a spinal beam cannon that runs three quarters the length of the ship.

Defensively, [i]Pyxis[/i] has a full EW suite, energy reinforced armor, and an armored secondary hull around its most important inner spaces. In addition to the bridge, Pyxis has a full auxiliary control nestled deeper within the ship. The ship’s hangar has four magnetic launch catapults, two pointing forward and two pointing back though the rear catapults are presently inaccessible due to the Colony Module. In the event of catapult failure, there are manual release doors and hatches to get the Orbitals into space unassisted.
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