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SCV-Caisson Medium bulk freighter

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The Stellar Commerce Vessel Caisson is a older class of starship, designed during the initial rush of private starship ownership in the Imperial Star Republic, and is still produced and in service today, many years after it's introduction. The immediate draw of the Caisson is it's unique double hull design and four multi-directional thrusters for improved manueverability and precision station keeping, as well as providing the starship with VTOL capability. Also unique to the starship is it's engine core design and placement, which is located above the main hull of the stern section while the main drive sections for both it's sublight and FTL engines are located in the rear. Beneath the engine is the cavernous cargo bay, which can hold twice as much cargo as the then next ship in it's tonnage class. The cargo bay could also be accessed from the upper hull via funicular, or by the fore and aft cargo bay doors.

The Caisson was originally developed by the now defunct Hespirosa Corporation, one of the many competitors present during the early days of private starship ownership for Vocian citizens. It's early success sales and design wise helped pave the way for what would become the standard for Vocian-designed starships, though it's early fortunes would not last. Eschewing traditional hull designs, Hespirosa instead opted to stand apart from the other shipwrights of the era by attempting to dazzle potential customers with the unique hull design and engine layout. The upper hull contains living space for up to fifteen passengers, each with a private cabin, although the ship can operate with a crew as small as five people. The  habitation area's layout is fairly simplistic in design; passengers enter through the front bow facing airlock into the main suit storage compartment, and from there exit out into the main corridor. From there, passengers and crew can immediately take the stairwell (another design choice unique for it's time) to the bridge deck, which contains, expectedly, the bridge and it's main communication and datacore processing compartments. Continuing down the corridor, crew have easy access to the port and starboard engines in upper engineering, which allows access to the otherwise inacessible (save for EVA) multi-directional thrusters. Beyond the upper engineering bay is the crew compartments which were for the time, spacious. Beyond the crew compartment are the acess points for the starship's life support systems and water storage, as well as access to the galley which contains a bank of windows which look out over the lower hull. Also located in this section is the funicular to the lower hull, where the cargo bay and main engineering sections are located.

The Caisson was also lauded for it's bridge layout and ease of navigation. While many full fledged starships of it's era were meant to operate entirely in space, the Caisson was the first civilian starship capable of operating efficiently and safely within atmospheric conditions, despite it's boxy design. The bridge layout copied that of Vocian military starships, although on a smaller scale, having a small three tier design that could be configured as each proceeding station was universal, save for the pilot/navigator seat that sat directly in the middle of the bridge.

Once again abandoning the traditional designs, Hespirosa Corporation opted to not bury the Caisson's main power core deep within the hull, instead opting to lay the engineering section over the top of the main cargo bay to allow for maximum storage capacity without expanding the hull beyond it's design. The main cargo bay could be configured as a singular open deck for transporting large cargo or into multiple platforms, depending on the needs of the crew and ship. Aside from the funicular, the cargo bay (and by extension, main engineering) could be accessed either through a mid-sized bay door located at the fore of the bay, or the much larger bay door in the aft. The size of the rear bay door was also to allow easy access and service to the main drives section, which while accessible from the main engineering deck, could be lowered into the more spacious cargo section for maintenance. Also located in the lower hull were the hatchways that allowed access to the rear multi-directional thrusters, identical to those on the upper hull. On the lower hull are the landing struts.

While the Caisson enjoyed a extreme burst of popularity at the start of it's life due to it's unique designs, it quickly encountered problems that had both been seen and unforeseen by it's designers and manufacturer. One of the major flaws was it's unbalanced and un-aerodynamic design while operating in atmosphere as the general public and Hespirosa's competitors were quick to point out the Caisson's undeniable box on box shape. While criticism of the freighter's boxy design was somewhat unexpected, Hespirosa had planned and expected the 'unbalanced' attacks. indeed, Hespirosa had been overconfident in the Caisson's unique design, intending from the start to also sell docking cradles specific for the Caisson to starports on the expectation that they would dominate the market and crush it's competition, forcing starports to buy the cradles in droves. However this plan failed dramatically as the Caisson's popularity skyrocketed and starports across the Imperial Star Republic were unprepared, many having only both a handful of docking berths for the starship. This led to many 'improvised' landings as captains gambled on the Caisson's two under-developed landing struts to bear the weight of the freighter, which led to many accidents and some fatalities as the struts, more often than not, collapsed or simply could not balance the ships. This, in conjunction with starports refusing to buy the Caisson specific docking berths in the numbers expected, led to a costly recall that hampered Hespirosa's early successes as the starship was given more robust and larger landing struts, as well and reinforced universal docking clamp sections on the port and starboard sections of the lower hull. This early recall cost Hespirosa much of it's initial profits and allowed for competitors to catch up, ending the corporation's and the Caisson's early lead in the race.

Another design drawback was the irregular placement of the main engineering deck and drive core access. While many critics praised the simplicity of the multi-directional thrusters and their ability to access the engines both inside and out of the starship, very few kind words were said for the rest of the engineering designs. Many complained that the main engineering deck was "Too exposed for their liking" or exceedingly cramped. Criticism was also leveled at the main drive section, specifically the lack of space to perform even routine maintenance without having to retract the drive cores and lower them into the cargo bay for even the smallest problem that could not be fixed 'on the surface'. This had been another design choice by Hespirosa, while intially planned for safer maintenance and overhauling, the corporation had also designed the cores based on the assumption that they would dominate the market. Instead of the traditional route, Hespirosa was, based on their projected sales of the Caisson, planning to initiate a 'three years' plan, wherein they were phase out the Caisson's drive cores for new cores every three years and recycle or resell the old ones. In truth the new drive cores were planned to only be marginally better each cycle, but just enough so that freighter captains would supposedly be lining up to purchase them for a 'small fee' in order to stay ahead of their own competition.

However on top of the criticisms of the design, Hespirosa also had a leak that revealed these plans to deliberately nickle and dime their customers. This leak came immediately after the expensive recall and failure of the docking berth plan, sending their already stumbling public image into a nose dive. Because of the leak, the recall and the criticisms of the design, the Hespirosa Corporation's public image was dealt a severe blow and were place squarely in the sights of the Imperial Bureau of Corporate Oversight. The ensuing public relations disaster derailed all of Hespirosa's plans. Bad press meant that less Caissons were being bought, which meant a ramp down in production and a surplus of stock and expensive manufacturing equipment that was no longer being used. Legal fees and recalls drained most of the corporation's remaining funds, and it's competition had finally fully caught up and even surpassed Hespirosa and the Caisson. After seven years, the Hespirosa Corporation quietly shut it's doors and allowed itself to be dissolved by the Imperial Bureau of Corporate Oversight.

However, the starship's life did not end there, as despite all the bad press and it's design flaws, the Caisson was still considered a solid freighter in all other respects. It still had a huge cargo capacity for a starship of it's class and still had the advantage of being fully operable in space and in atmosphere. The starship, once freed from the overwhelmingly negative public opinion of it's original manufacturer enjoyed a moderate popularity in it's tonnage class, even as newer and more modern starships came into existence. It's staying power was so great that eventually the Caisson license was eventually purchased from the Imperial Bureau of Corporate Oversight by Zenith Industries, one of the premiere and most well respected corporations in the Imperial Star Republic, and the starship was put back into limited production, though the rumor that a potential name change under the new owners has been floated for years.

Ask any expert about the Caisson today and they'll tell you that the Caisson is a capable starship that had it's bright future stained and stolen away by a greedy corporation that cared more about establishing a monopoly than pushing forward with the successful innovations that had been created by the starship's development.

Seen here, a Caisson is making a berth-less landing in on one of the Imperial Star Republic's sandier worlds.

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So...yeah. I actually saw this ship (as I do many of my things) in a dream. And I had always wanted to take a crack at designing something with gimbaled engines, so thus, the Caisson was born. I'm not really sold on the name, but eh. Essentially if you made the Firefly class from the TV series Firefly twice as large and then merged it with a Delorean, you'd have this ship.

I may put up a generic all angles view at sometime in the future, but for now I just really, really wanted to do something different and really show the ship from a different angle.

Starship made with DoGa L3.
Background taken in Space Engine.

Hespirosa Corporation, the Imperial Star Republic of Vocenae, Vocians, and Zenith Corporation belong to me. Do not use or re-post in any way without my expressed permission.
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© 2016 - 2024 ManiacalSpark
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