The Dark Flame

~ Start Entry ~

The Dark Flame is the ship captained by Errol Hawkins in the (as of yet unnamed pirate alliance).  At one point in time it was the BlSS Emperion, a Triad class heavy cruiser, however, it was captured by the crew of pirate vessel, primarily in thanks to Hawkins.  Most of the crew was killed or escaped during the boarding, but a few joined the pirates, including IQ-10 the rogue shipboard AI, who greatly aided in taking the ship.

The ship is a heavily armored Blacktron assault ship, though the pirates don't always have enough crew to man all the weapons.  The ship also includes a small fighter contingent and a couple of dropships for boarding parties.  The underside of the ship features a large device that appears to be some form of a weapon.  However, the encryption concerning the files is so thorough that not even IQ-10 can break through it (much to his chagrin).

The Dark Flame is not the fastest ship in the fleet, though it does manage to keep up with its fleet, however, thanks to various maneuvering thrusters along the hull it does manage to have a decent bit of agility.

- Specifications -

- Specifications -

Length: 430 Meters
Beam: 80 Meters
Height:  Meters
Crew: 120 pirates
Boarding Party Detachment: 50 pirates
Fighter Pilots: 5
Dropship Pilots: 3
Shuttlecraft: Misc stolen craft
Dropship Contingent: 3 unnamed (AKA uncreated) dropships
Fighter Contingent:  6 unnamed (AKA uncreated) fighters, plus 20 light drone fighters
Armor: 6 feet of Blacktronium.  (HECK I DUNNO!)
Shields: 5 Phazon class Shield generators
Engine Drives: 2 mid-sized FTL drives, 6 heavy impulse engines
Weapons: 4 heavy mass drivers, 4 Shock Cannons, 4 broadside ion cannons, 10 sub-shock cannons, 6 forward mounted torpedo tubes

- Images -















- .Lxf -

https://www.dropbox.com/s/okdut9byel571tt/Dark%20Flame.lxf?dl=0

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*whistles* Now that is a beauty! I love the sort of double-lobed construction. Awesome greebles, sweet colors... All around, a great ship. Nice work!

I like the turrets.

Pretty sure I've already told you my feelings on this, but I like it too much to care. This is one of my favorite J-red ships.

I fear that I failed to express how much I love this ship on the chat earlier today. 

I fear that words will fail me now.





It's beautiful.


It's so evil.


I love it.


I love it.


I love it.

Although I'm not a fan of the stark black/silver contrasts, I assume they're meant to suit the Blacktron aesthetic, so I can forgive it for that.

The whole thing carries itself like a compact powerhouse - bulky but not chunky, with systems bristling at every angle. I especially like the engine details - it's neat to see people experimenting with more non-Trek design choices.

Also really like a couple of the lore elements - the rogue AI and locked-out cannon especially - really helps bring out the unique character of the ship as a whole.

Danke to everyone!

@ Mighty - Wow! I made a ship that you don't think is OP! XD

@ S-H - Actually, Blacktron design typically goes by one of two color schemes, the first series of Blacktron had black as the major color, with yellow as a secondary (This was the color of the windscreens as well), and transparent red for detailing. Series 2 had black again as the primary with white as the secondary and transparent neon green as the detailing (This was the color of the windscreens for this series)

I chose the gunmetal, silver, and aluminum colors, primarily because I didn't want the ship to just be black with hints of trans red, so I decided to add the metallic colors. Why the metallic? I like them. On all my other ships I try to make the greebs and weapons in metallic when I can. I do think it looks a little odd myself, but it's the best fit that I could see.

Of course, that probably means it's underpowered....

(Well, TBH, I'm actually intentionally avoid calling stuff "OP" or not until I can properly innumerate the whole thing- which is a long way off. )

I dunno about being underpowered, I put weapons pretty much everywhere.

Did I mention I adore the SNOT on this ship? 


As to coloration, I'm okay with the gunmetal, but I think the silver is a bit much. 

And it's probably just right in power, although I do find the use of shock weapons odd as this is not a Captain Johnnyred of the PCG designed starship, but rather, a Blacktron designed vessel.

@ S-H - Oh! I also neglected to thank you for your comment about the engines! Those were actually fairly last minute, I had everything else built and I was just like... "How am I gonna do these...?" And then I came up with an idea, which was not this one. Said idea wouldn't work thanks to the alignment of certain pieces, so I came up with this design. At first I didn't really like the design, but it's kinda grown on me now.

@ Dino - I put the silver on to differentiate between the turret and the barrels, also, to give the impression of some sort of coils or something underneath the gunmetal phone pieces. You're right, I thought the Shock Cannons were unusual as well, but just in case you were wondering, Shock technology is available to anyone within the PCG, it's not super top secret or anything, I was just trying to fill out the weapons specs before I left for work. I'll probably change them later if I can think of something to put in there.