EscortDeck

Build up your escort fleet and hold on an external deck attached to your ship.

First you must buy Escort Deck equipment then you will see an attached platform in your aft view.

Ship rules

A deck provide 4 landing pads for escort ships with max. 130t mass, 70m width, 29m height and 95m length: Adder, Asp, Cobra Mark I, Constrictor, Fer-de-Lance, Gecko, Mamba, Moray, Sidewinder and Viper.

If your ship is over 130t mass like Cobra Mark III then can hold another two small ships like Adders (max. 15m height, 39m width and 65m length) on the sides of the deck.

The mass of your escort must be less than 40% of your ship's mass. For example an Asp (75t) can hold 4 small escorts below 30t: Adder, Gecko or Sidewinder. You should use a ship over 40t mass to be able to use Adders (16t) as escorts. Ships below 30t mass can not get Escort Deck.

Beware of replacing your large ship to a smaller one, all of your escorts will be salvaged which isn't fit into the smaller limits.

Wide deck

Ships over 260t like Python receive wider deck variant to hold escorts up to 95m width like Krait or Tiger Ray.

Purchasing escorts

You can buy escorts in the ship outfitting (F3) screen. These are not available in the local shipyard but ordered from a remote owner so your time will forwarding a lot if you buy one, but in this way you can buy advanced ships in the low tech worlds also.

Name	Cost	Energy	Recharg	Speed	Pitch	Mass t	Eqipment
Adder	80000	85	2	240	2	16	Pulse laser, Injectors, Shield booster
Asp	400000	350	4	400	1	75	Beam Lasers forward and aft, ECM, Injectors, Shield booster
Gecko	100000	250	4	300	1.5	25	Beam Laser, ECM
Sidew.	76000	240	2	370	1.6	26	Beam Laser
Viper	600000	180	4	320	1.8	34	Military Laser, ECM, Injectors, Shield booster and enhancer

• Adder Escort can utilize the mini landing pads on the sides of your Escort Deck. This special design can hold a Pulse Laser only and no cargo but has Injectors and Shield Boosters.
• Asp Escort is the fastest and most enduring core escort ship what you can purchase with forward and aft Beam Lasers, ECM, Injectors and Shield Boosters.
• Gecko Escort is a pirate ship so not available at main stations but strong, small and equipped with a Beam Laser and ECM.
• Sidewinder Escort is a small and agile ship, useful if your ship isn't large enough to hold heavy escorts. Equipped with a Beam Laser but can not use Injectors.
• Viper Escort is an used GalCop ship, available at main stations only and if your status is clean. This old ship has much lower speed and energy than the modern Interceptors but contain many military equipments.

There are very good pirate escort ships (more if you install EscortPack) but these are not purchaseable in main stations: you must force to eject the pilot or find in the outfitting list in alternative stations.

There are rumors about ace sniper pilots in pirate stations with better ships than an Asp, but these surely costs more than 1MCr if you want to hire them into your escort fleet.

Derelicts

You can pick up derelict ships: put your target lock on, go nearer than 500m and with less than 100m/s speed difference. If you can not target it (due to the target has jamming device) then you can collide very slowly to trigger the pickup.

If an "usable" message shown in your console when target a derelict ship (Combat MFD show it also) then you can use this ship as your escort, else transfer it to a dock on your deck and you will get some money for the salvage.

If you have Towbar OXP then you will get reputation also for the delivered salvage.

Heavy escorts

There are heavy escorts around 120t mass, these are multipurpose ships modified for escort jobs which mean removed cargo capacity and some bonuses (please install EscortPack OXP to get these).

You need a ship with 325t mass to be able to use all escorts up to the maximal 130t, so an Anaconda or special (OXP) Pythons can hold heavy escorts but a Cobra Mark III (215t) or a Boa (182t) can't.

Usage

You can prime Escort Deck with Shift+N then activate with "n" key to launch or call back your escorts. The mode key "b" select a single escort for launch or callback. There is an auto launch if you enter into red alert and auto callback when changed to green.

You can prevent the launch of any ship if you select it by the mode key then activate once only: the first press will change the status to "LOCKED". The second activate will remove the lock and launch it, but you can call back instantly with a third keypress if you want to stay on the deck without the lock.

There is an auto launch if you enter into red alert and auto callback when changed to green.

There is a Multi-Function Display of Escort Deck, you can turn it on using the ":" and ";" keys.

This show the list of current escorts, a "->" mark before the selected one, name, energy, fuel (if this escort has working Injectors), distance, bearing (^> mean up left) and activity:

ATTACK: Attack a hostile ship (your target first)
DECK: Landed on the deck
FLEE: Flee from a missile or recover some energy (from 40% to 80%)
FOLLOW: Follow your ship at 2km range
GOTO: Go to a hostile ship using Injectors if available until arrive within Beam Laser range (15km)
INJECT: Attack using Injectors until distance is over 10km
LANDING: Landing approach, will not do anything else until landed
LOCKED: Stay on the deck and will not launch with the other ships
SALVAGE: Unusable ship, will be salvaged in the next dock for a few thousand credits
SNIPER: Sniper attack, need a forward laser over 15km range, like Military Laser

You can pick up a new escort even if no more free landing pads listed on your MFD if you select a pad and maintain a target lock on the new ship when try to land or an escort is not in your deck. In these cases will replace the old one what you will find a bit farther behind your ship.

The released escort will follow you (if is not derelict) until you stay within the same system and don't take a rest (reload the game), but will not defend you just itself. So you can pick up a derelict ship by replacing one of your escorts, transfer it into a station for payment, then leave the station and relock your old escort to the deck.

If you dock or enter into a wormhole while some of your escorts are not in your deck then those that is within your scanner range will be docked also. Others can be lost, especially if travelled far from you.

If you want to exchange the positions of two escorts on your deck then do these in order:

1. Select an escort by mode key (b) if Escort Deck is primed with Shift+N and all escorts landed.
2. Launch it with the activate key (n) and wait a few seconds to go out of landing distance.
3. Press activate (n) again to order it back to landing and turn your ship to keep it in your screen.
4. Press mode (b) until you select the second escort to flag the wanted landing position.
5. Put your target lock to the launched ship: press "r" and aim well with your crosshairs.
6. Wait for landing when the exchange will be done.

The MFD can show the ship on Towbar in the last line, maked as T: . You can release the towed ship by selecting and activating it in this MFD. If no ship on your Towbar then show the maximal mass which your ship can tow (1.6 times of the mass of your ship).

Your escorts will be refuelled when you buy fuel for your ship.

Cost: 2000.0 Cr.
Techlevel: 1

Escort Deck XL

If your ship is over 400t like an Anaconda then you can buy XL deck instead of the common deck can hold 8 escorts behind you, but the mass limit is lower: max. 60t, so you can't use Asp and heavy escort ships.

If you have Towbar then you can't pick up any ship there due to the long XL deck occupy the same space behind you. The simple escort deck is shorter and Towbar compatible so if you plan to salvage larger ships than small escorts then you should choose the normal deck.

Warning: your ship can be "uber" if you use 8 escorts, so if you want limit yoursef then stick with the smaller deck and avoid the XL variant.

Carriers can hold 10 escorts on the internal XL deck (the "neck") and the mass limit is 130t as in the normal deck. Moreover the first two pads (on the top) can hold wider and heavier ships up to 378t (40% of Carriers' mass) and 130x35x95m including Cobra Mark III, Krait and other large ships also. This is even more "uber" but intentionally: a Carrier should be able to hold stronger fleet than others.

Cost: 2000.0 Cr.
Techlevel: 1

Ship mass table

Adder   	16
Moray    	51
Cobra Mk I	52
Fer-de-Lance	53
Asp     	75
Boa     	182
Cobra Mk III	215
Boa2    	216
Python  	267
Anaconda	438

NPC:
Gecko   	25
Sidewinder	26
Constrictor	28
Viper   	34
Mamba   	36
Krait   	94

Escort Deck variants

You will get one of the following variants depending on the mass of your ship.

• Below 30t: You can not use any decks.

• 30t-130t: Small deck without side pads.

• 130t-260t: Normal deck with side pads for two additional mini escorts (Adder).

• 260t-: Wide deck which can hold ships up to 95m width (Krait).

• 400t-: You can choose either the wider deck or XL deck.

• Carriers can hold the most powerful escort fleet, using the big hull as a deck.

For more information see the regarding discussuion.

Screenshots

Flying peacefully:

Escorts released to counterattack a bad guy:

License

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike License version 4.0. If you are re-using any piece of this OXP, please let me know by sending an e-mail to norbylite at gmail.com.

The 3D models of decks are derived from Leviathan Platform in Aquatics OXP, thanks to Thargoid and P.A. Groove.

Escort locked sound is equal with Towbar locked which is based on bgs-m_fx_shipyard1.ogg in BGS OXP.

Download

EscortDeck.1.6.oxz (downloaded 300 times).

Recommended: EscortPack, Carriers, Towbar

Old versions:

EscortDeck.1.5.oxz (downloaded 1340 times).

EscortDeck.1.4.oxz (downloaded 289 times).

EscortDeck.1.3.oxz (downloaded 251 times).

EscortDeck.1.2.oxz (downloaded 387 times).

EscortDeck.1.1.oxz (downloaded 727 times).

EscortDeck.1.0.oxz (downloaded 329 times).

Changelog

2015.10.04. v1.6  Escort Deck Interface added into the F4 screen.
                  Deck positions can be locked to avoid launch of some ships.
                  Deck cost raised to 2000cr as suggested by Vincentz.
                  Escorts start with heat shield for sunskimming, requested by QCS.
                  Chance to find an usable derelict escort is reduced, salvage increased.
                  MFD show the ship on Towbar in the last line, maked as T: .
                  You can release the towed ship by selecting and activating it in MFD.
                  Show the mass of attached salvage ships on MFD.
                  Fixed for the change of weaponPositions to array in Oolite 1.83.
                  Escortship personality is restored from Oolite 1.81.
2015.04.14. v1.5  MFD show max. mass and sizes of empty decks depending on player ship.
                  Further increased distances on deck before Oolite 1.81.
                  Fixed maximum mass check of escorts, must below 40% of owner ship's mass.
                  Hard and Granite escorts counted with original mass (without double density).
                  Fixed equipment restore on escorts if depends on another equipment.
2015.04.11. v1.4  Collision fixes, needed before Oolite 1.81.
                  Granite ships on deck do not prevent hyperjump anymore.
                  From 1.81 slower steering and acceleration in proportion with the mass on deck.
2015.04.06. v1.3  Increased distance around player without Injectors to 5km, thanks to QCS.
                  Workaround against escort terminated by Witchpoint Beacon.
2015.03.20. v1.2  Refined escort landing sequence to prevent collisions, thanks to QCS.
                  Added a collisionException between the Witchpoint Beacon and escorts.
                  Fixed rollback price of unsuccessful escort purchese in Rock Hermits.
2015.01.20. v1.1  No escort launch at injector speeds nor autolaunch at maximum speed.
                  Fixed escort equipments after load game.
                  All escorts got a missile pylon to workaround a bug with Carriers' sit into feature.
                  Escort view positions added.
2015.01.11. v1.0  First release.

Quick Facts

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Version	Released	License	Features	Category	Author(s)	Feedback
1.6	2015.10.04	CC BY-NC-SA 4	Personal escort fleet	Activities OXPs	Norby	BB-Link