Ships The Keelback Club

The Keelback may be the inspiration for my next ship to design and build in Space Engineers. I've already done the Vulture and the Krait, and the problem in SE is you need really strong vertical thrusters to keep a ship from falling out of the sky. ED's thrusters are magic! Notice the two huge VTL atmospheric thrusters on my Krait (attached). A ship like the Keelback could (and should) use those rotating "pod" thrusters both VTL and regular flight, thus requiring less thrusters overall. Theoretically we should also be able to 180 one pod (like Serenity in pilot episode of Firefly) and achieve insane yaw as well!

iu
 

Attachments

  • Krait III-1.jpg
    Krait III-1.jpg
    686 KB · Views: 289
The keelback itself is a great ship. A lot of people just don't think of it as anything other than a cheap SLF transporter... pity...

IMO, it and ships of its class are perfect if you are getting bored with the game. If fitted right, it can do most things... just not well enough that you can do it without having to really think about what you're up to. Even the simplest tasks require hard choices on what to fit and what not to. In ships like the Krait or Python, or definitely ships like the Conda or Corvette, you can pretty much fit 1 ship to do everything all the time and just change up tasks by simply doing them. Even moreso if you have specialized ships for each task; just swap to the right ship and off ya go. It's very efficient and effective, but can also get boring once you've gotten those ships set up.

But in the Keelback? No, you'd need a totally different module outfitting for everything, because otherwise you'd just do all of it poorly, if at all. I actually have to think about each mission or task a bit and how I could do it in my ship. I have more versatility than the folks who have tried to do it all in a Cobra mk III or even a sidewinder, so I'm not completely locked out of gameplay styles because of the ship, but there's definitely more to think about than folks who moved on to the Asp X and beyond.

And despite how it sounds, those limitations are basically what keep me playing.

r7jZEQL.png
 
Last edited:
The Keelback may be the inspiration for my next ship to design and build in Space Engineers. I've already done the Vulture and the Krait, and the problem in SE is you need really strong vertical thrusters to keep a ship from falling out of the sky. ED's thrusters are magic! Notice the two huge VTL atmospheric thrusters on my Krait (attached). A ship like the Keelback could (and should) use those rotating "pod" thrusters both VTL and regular flight, thus requiring less thrusters overall. Theoretically we should also be able to 180 one pod (like Serenity in pilot episode of Firefly) and achieve insane yaw as well!

That Krait is awesome! Did you stick it on the workshop?
 
That Krait is awesome! Did you stick it on the workshop?
I did! It's called "Krait III Prototype" by Old Duck. I designed it in creative and now I'm building it from scratch in my survival save. This will be my first proper ship in my main save, the one I will use to set off into space and explore the solar system. I suspect I'll be tweaking the design as I use it in a practical setting. But to the topic at hand, I do plan on building other ships someday, including one with rotating thrusters like the Keelback / Firefly. In fact, someday maybe I'll build my own small fleet carrier!
 
Playing around in Space Engineers (My other Space addiction) and decided to recreate my favourite ship in said game.

I tried to get the same scale given some of the stats I've been able to find about the KB and my own viewpoint from VR etc. So far I have done the exterior and the rotating engines (need more work to get the engines to rotate and thrust at the right times). I have kept internal space enough for a SLF and SRV bay. Once I get them up and running I'll and the interior finished I'll do a full walkthrough of the best ship in the galaxy.

Here's a screenie to whet your appetites :)

lCFguXW.png
 
Playing around in Space Engineers (My other Space addiction) and decided to recreate my favourite ship in said game.

I tried to get the same scale given some of the stats I've been able to find about the KB and my own viewpoint from VR etc. So far I have done the exterior and the rotating engines (need more work to get the engines to rotate and thrust at the right times). I have kept internal space enough for a SLF and SRV bay. Once I get them up and running I'll and the interior finished I'll do a full walkthrough of the best ship in the galaxy.

Here's a screenie to whet your appetites :)

lCFguXW.png

Welp, now I have to play this game. Any chance you put it on the workshop? =D
 
Welp, now I have to play this game. Any chance you put it on the workshop? =D

For sure. Once I have something workable for the interior I'll deffo post it on the workshop, I've kept it vanilla modules so far so it should be fine for stock game and survival...
 
It's got a copilot seat, a SLF, a ton of equipment slots and hardpoints in a ship size that shouldn't be able to hold all that.

All it lacks is speed and agility but it's versatile and very tough if built right.

The Keelback reminds me of a badger and even larger predators don't take that small animal lightly.

 
My Keelback is kitted out for exploration, but also for some salvaging (since we invariably find hundreds of crashed ships and distress beacons in every system...).

I'd named her Discovery, but I'm considering renaming her something else because Star Trek Discovery has so soured the name for me.
 
Top Bottom