Podship

Starship Databank Entry

The Mycon Podship is, depending on who you ask, one of the best ships in the game, or one of the worst. Its weapon systems are powerful yet cumbersome, and its ability to regenerate its crew gives it incredible staying power. On the other hand, it is fairly slow and difficult to control, which makes it an easy target for faster ships. The Podship also devotes a considerable amount energy to the life support systems to maintain the Mycon's preferred environment.

Propulsion

The Podship is a bulky, medium speed, slow turning ship with moderate acceleration. It is heavily affected by gravity wells, which can be used to great advantage.

Armament

Primary

The Podship's weapon system is a slow, long-range, semi-sentient ball of plasma, which will relentlessly seek out enemy craft. At close range, this weapon is staggeringly powerful, but as the projectile moves through space, the plasma slowly disperses, reducing its effectiveness. Enemy fire that strikes the plasma will also disperse it and reduce its damage potential.

One notable feature of the Podship is its ability to outrun its own weapons fire. Due to the plasma's low speed, firing while the Podship is at speed stands a good chance of hitting the ship itself. Due to the high amount of damage caused by a "fresh" ball of plasma, this is often fatal to the firing Podship. Make sure to shoot backwards whenever possible to avoid such unpleasantness.

Secondary

The secondary function of the Podship regenerates some of its own crew. Four Mycon are revived in an instant, but the process consumes the Podship's entire combat battery. This sudden expenditure leaves the Podship unable to fire for a while due to the large amount of energy required to launch a plasmoid.

Tactical Overview

Against slower, less maneuverable ships, the common tactic is to get up to speed (a gravity whip will do nicely), fire a couple of shots at close range, then fly away and regenerate any crew lost. Lather, Rinse, and Repeat.

Against reasonably fast and maneuverable ships, there is little that you can do. Zoq-Fot-Pik Stingers, Pkunk Furies and Arilou Lalee'lay Skiffs all hunt Podships for sport. A common game for them is to take down a Podship without firing a shot, instead they lead the homing plasma in such a fashion that it is turned on its owner.

Quick-moving ships also have the option of letting a Podship shoot at them, and then reversing course as the Podship inevitably turns around. The slow-moving Podship will be caught coming straight at them with lowered energy, and it's plasmoids will be easier to avoid because it is turned the wrong way, allowing a devastating strafing attack to occur.

Yehat Terminators and Utwig Juggers can, on the other hand, approach the Podship head-on, raise shields when the predictable plasmoid comes, and discharge their guns when in range.

3DO Mycon Podship Basic stats Crew: 20 Value: 21 pts Battery: 40 Batt. Regeneration: 0.2 units/frame Armament Primary: Homing Plasmoid Secondary: Regenerate crew Refire delay: 5 frames Refire delay: 0 frames Energy use: 20 units Energy use: 40 units Propulsion Max speed: 27 world units/frame Turn rate: 0.14 facings/frame Acceleration: 1.29 units/frame Mass: 7