Tadpol

The goal here was to make a fairly interesting but balanced submarine. This is not and was never meant to be a super-submarine that cures all your sea-going ailments.

** In-game description: ** "Tadpol is a light-attack vessel that features fair coilgun coverage, a drone gunship, numerous installations, and a powerful auxiliary engine for when extra speed is needed. The onboard systems are unreliable and require frequent maintenance. The batteries are notoriously bad. Running the auxiliary engine at full thrust will also heavily load the fairly weak reactor down."

Full overview:

Some noteworthy features of this submarine are:

• (First, and most important to some people) Decent coilgun coverage

• Drone gunship

• Automatic and self-correcting detachable ballast

• Automatic drone docking port

• Auxiliary engine

• Numerous installations

• Two switching-relay periscopes

• Helm status readout

• Bot-compatible (as far as I can tell...)

** The good: **

• (Reiteration)Fair coilgun coverage. Not perfect as there are a few blind spots.

• Fairly agile, especially so on the x-axis when the auxiliary engine is used. Tadpol can easily reach 30km/hr un-upgraded by using the aux. engine.

• Comes equipped with a drone gunship.

• Quality of life stuff like the presence of fabricators and stowage for longevity, helm status readout, and a few automatic mechanisms.

• Fairly small dimensions, meaning Tadpol doesn't need a large crew to operate and it can fit through smaller passages.

** The bad: **

• Most installations degrade very quickly and need frequent repairs. This can be fixed somewhat with sub. upgrades.

• Only two coilguns can be manned at once since one of the coilgun-linked periscopes is a switching-relay periscope. It can be switched by either the gunner or the captain at the nav. terminal (order bots onto appropriate gun before switching or they will not fire at enemies).

• The auxiliary engine sucks up a lot of power when in use. If the thrust is maxed, the (un-upgraded) nuclear reactor's turbine output will be maxed out, not leaving room for much else unless the extremely unreliable backup batteries are used.

• If the drone is undocked or lost, the submarine's coilgun coverage becomes essentially that of the default Orca's. It leaves the entire underside of the submarine uncovered. Only, on Tadpol, there is no depth charge tube or discharge coil.

• The gunnery compartment, armory, and drone (only when docked) are essentially one big linked room. They can be a flood hazard if left unchecked.

• No railguns.

** Special thanks to the following development testers: ** BomberNut™ Astronuts puff the bearded dragon Alley