BR7 Shuttle Series

Armament

1 dual laser turret

The stock BR-7 shuttle comes with only light armament of a quad-barreled ball turret mounted on its rear dorsal hull. It does, however, offer several mount points for modula weapons upgrades below its wings.

Name: BR7 Shuttle Series

Manufacturer: Shicon Dynamics

Dimensions: 30 x 22.6 x 4.5 meters

Gallery

The Barracuda

The Barracuda is a heavily modified BR-70 Combat Shuttle and is the personal ship of Vince Trageton. Awarded to him as a gift and a responsibility from his one-time mentor and patron, Vido Corlini, it temporarily went under the name Blue Phantom. To customize the ship to his requirements, Trageton has installed a large number of aftermarked modifications, modifying and upgrading ship way past recognition and transformed it into a fierce fighting craft.

In addition to the ship's stock rear ball turret, the Barracuda has been upgraded with a pair of forward facing DIP plasma cannons, two EMP cannons and a set of warhead launchers.

Upon joining the UPMF, Trageton changed the ship's public name to 'Barracuda' to hide the Phantom's dark past, although the original nameplate was stashed away in a hidden compartment aboard the ship.

Many years later Trageton would pass on the Barracuda to his daughter Kyaara.

The Scorpion

The Scorpion is the prototype of the new BR-75 model within the BR-7 Shuttle series and is the personal ship of Myrna Qhalic. It was gifted to her by her father and Shicon's CEO Luhyien Qhalic for 'testing and evaluation' purposes. During her service as a black ops agent to the Briceran Overlord Jarris Vaylon, Myrna installed numerous upgrades and modifications to the ship and, much like her one-time mentor and friend Vince Trageton, turned this already formidable combat vessel into a deadly fighting machine well on par with contemporary starfighters.

Along with its ball turret, the Black Scorpion has been outfitted with a pair of DIP Plasma cannons, two EMP cannons and a pair of warhead launchers. Later through the ship's lifespan, the EMP cannons were eventually replaced by a pair of powerful Energy beam cannons salvaged from Dhilani fighters.

During the Task Force Warrior Rebellion, the Black Squadron received a few additional upgrades in form of powerful weaponry and thrusters that were salvaged from captured Dhilani fighters. These upgrades gained the ship a 10% top speed increase and a signifficant upgrade in firepower and range.

Dev notes & Origins

The stock version of this ship was actually a by-product derived from the Barracuda model.

The naming system has changed from its original conception. Not only have I reduced the model number from 3 to 2 digits, I have also decided to remove the 'X' from the stock version, as in the Shicon Dynamics naming system for transports the 'X' usually stands for a combat focused variant. Furthermore I'm adding a 'S' for variants with a focus on stealth (as of now, there are none tho). 

The Barracuda, although labeled a modification, was actually the original instance of this series with the stock model being derived from it. It originally belonged to Jarris Vaylon, overlord of Bricera and the former main character in early story drafts. As the character of Vince Trageton was further developed and moved into focus as one of the main characters, I rewrote the Barracuda to belong to him.

The ship's design has undergone various reimaginations already. Its very first shape was reminiscent to that of a contemporary fighter jet, its color palette consisting mainly of crimson and chrome. I would later pick up that old design and turn it into a Sinicyan Shuttle. A later version featured a wider cockpit and a pair of large engines at the back with smaller engines being attached to the wings. Parts of that esign would later be used for the Dhilani Stingray.

The cockpit shpape of the final design was actually instpired by a early 2000's minivan me and some friends used on a road trip. Ah memories. It is also slightly reminiscent of a Raptor head from the Jurassic Park franchise. I just love that shape!

The Black Scorpion was further derived from the Barracuda, when it became apparent to me that the main character focus would be switched or expanded from Vince to Myrna. For the XWA Campaign the ship is supposed to take over the role of the vanilla game's Family Transports, Sabra and Otana. For this I also came up with the idea of the ship "evolving" through numerous modificationis.

HD Remake

This redesign focuses on a few things, mainly adding detail and improving some weird shapes. The emphasis here lies with the cockpit. In hindsight, the huge windows make it look more like a fighter than a transport and not only diminish the feeling of scale but also are structural weaknesses, which I'd like to get rid of. Also the cockpit interior uses up a lot of space for no reason, which is why I'm moving the rear wall forward to line up just behind the side windows.

 Apart from that I want to revise the main fuselage as well as the shape of the engines, which look a bit too atmospheric at the moment.

 I'm currently reworking that lower section, where the two booster engines are attached. Firstly they kinda look like a pair of hydrogen boosters ductaped to the underside. My idea here is to have them integrate better into the overall shape, drawing some inspiration from the GT-series' modded engines.