The Aluminum Mallard

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The Aluminum Mallard is one of the favorite boarding crafts of the crew of the Dark Flame. Though the Dark Flame has multiple Aurora class dropships that they use for boarding craft, the Aluminum Mallard has become the favorite of the crew due to the fact that it's the only one that the crew has never had any trouble with.

The Aurora Class Dropship is widely used around the universe, being cheaper than most dropships, yet durable (at least for a few years). The Aurora had decent maneuverability, though it's speed is somewhat lacking and it can't make sharp turns. The pirate variation however, has decreased mobility due to the lack of stabilizers that most of the Auroras have.

The pirate Auroras have removed the stabilizers to allow the ship to pull up close to the ship they're boarding whereas the original configuration only allowed for planetary drops.

The Aurora is equipped with a heavy blast door that seals so that the pirate crew may exit with EVA suits without exposing the pilot to hard vacuum. There is a pressure equalizing mechanism that allows the interior of the ship to depressurize without first opening the door so that any loose items aren't sucked out of the ship when the hatch is opened.

The Aurora is equipped with a light Anti-Air Pulse Turret to take out any fighters that might be engaging it, as well as two heavy Pulse cannons mounted on the front, and a missile rack built into the front to allow the ship to blow a hole in the side of their enemies hull to allow the pirates to board.

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- .Lxf -

https://www.dropbox.com/s/ww5outairuz8sxj/Aluminum%20Mallard.lxf?dl=0

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Love the geebling, love the offset missiles/cockpit, and as I've already said, I loooove that cockpit. Overall you did really great with this!

I like the side windows on the cockpit, that turned out really well! I also like the name, because ducks are the best.

A glorious rust-bucket if I've ever seen one!

Like Ant, I'm a fan of the cockpit and rear engine designs. Nice job with the coloring and internal details too - although I question the practicality of having a lounge in the middle of a boarding shuttle. Then again, pirates might prefer a little pleasure over practicality every now and then.

I'm not sure how I feel about the boxy center hull, but I tend to gravitate towards slicker designs anyways, so that could just be personal preference kicking in. Also the main hold has gaps which expose the entire compartment to space. Minor nitpicky thing, though. Regardless, good work.

I think S-H pretty much hit the nail right on the head with this one. Beautiful rust-bucket design, with great greebling, cockpit, and turret, but the main hull is quite boxy, which goes against my own personal preference, not that it would be a problem in space really. 

Overall, you have a great, endearing design here, J-red!  

@ Ant - Danke!

@ Talmid - XD It's actually named after a ship from a sci-fi game. Someday I'll post a list of all the references in all my characters/stories/ships

@ S-H - My thoughts exactly on the couch. That's why I put it there. XD In the military version of it, that'll be replaced by a holo-map table or something and the table and chairs in the back will be replaced by... something as well. I intended it to have the boxy design to make it look like more of a junker. The military type Aurora I may streamline a little more. As far as the gaps, I can really only see two, one where the hinge parts are on the front which is kinda unavoidable without building a second wall inside the ship which is kinda impractical. The other one at the boarding ramp I hadn't noticed before, but I think by the time I get the military grade one out I can find a way to fix it. I hope.

@ Dino - Danke! As far as the hull, see what I replied to S-H.

Ooo, me likey! I really love how the whole thing is all lopsided. The no-nonsense bulk of the thing combined with the cockpit position and huge bubble turret create the perfect look for a pirate shuttle. Excellent colors, too! I could totally see this thing scuttling around the Outer Rim in the SW galaxy. Awesome work!

Danke! I personally am a fan of lop-sided spacecraft myself. I hope that the militarized version is as well received as this one. I'm not sure what faction that it'll be geared towards though, my guess is Space Agency since that seems the best. Star Fleet would just use transporters or a shuttle instead of one of these, and the PCG has far superior dropships than these (despite the fact that we don't actually have any built yet. ) And yet there's not really anywhere just to post a random private corporation built, cheap dropship. It's lower quality than anything that Delver, Yaka, or PXE would put out, so, meh, I dunno. I'll figure it out.