[Black Wolf]

The Mercury class shuttlepod has been in Terran service for the last six decades, in one capacity or another. Throughout that time, despite various upgrades, its mission has not changed � it is designed for the short range, short duration transport of people and light cargo in space. The base model is unarmed and incapable of atmospheric operations and subspace travel, although its long service life has led to the creation of a multitude of variants, many of which have some or all of these capabilities. The Mercury is one of the most common vessels of any type in the Terran military and civilian fleets � it is estimated that in excess of two hundred thousand of these ships have been created over the lifetime of the class, and many remain in service today.

DOWNLOAD: http://www.mediafire.com/?ufs1971v19zsrsj



So, this is continuing on in the vein of the Hemsut which I released a couple of weeks ago. Rather than doing some kind of model dump or whatever, I've decided to go through and do the last little bits and pieces on several models I've had laying around half finished for some time. This time, it's the Mercury class shuttlepod. I've always been a bit miffed at the lack of a real shuttle in FS2 - the closest things we have are the Elysium, which is actually pretty damned big (see below) and the Hermes, which is a good size, but is meant to be an escape pod. Using it as a shuttle seems hackish to me. The mercury comes in at around 14m, which is perfect for small fighterbays and the like.




There's obviously strong influence from the Hermes for the textures, and more than a little bit of Star Trek in the general design, but I think it looks reasonably freespacey with those independent, Loki style engines and the GTVA people in the cockpit. There's no readme in the zip (I forgot ) but everything's very straightforward - textures, pof and a tbm, and I'm releasing it under the same system I always use - free for anyone to use for their campaigns, you don't need to ask permission, but if you are going to use it, it's always nice to know that it's being used, so let me know.

[Oddgrim]

It's ADORABLE! *downloads*

[Darius]

Hooray! No more using the Hermes every time I want a shuttle. That pod is quite a looker, too

[Dragon]

A generic Terran shuttle. I like it.

[T-Man]

Fantastic mode wolfl; reminded me vaguely of the escape pod in the first DS9 episode, or the shuttlecraft from Voyager. This will be perfect for pre-small warp campaigns like U-War or TVWP; our carriers needed a little shuttle like this (Elysiums don't actually fit in their bays).

EDIT: Just noticed the POF model has two communication subsystems; assuming one of them is meant to be the sensors stated in the tbl?. Thought you'd want to know.

[Black Wolf]

Doh! I will fix that and re-upload. Didn't crash anything on my end though, so shouldn't be a deal breaker for people who've already DLed it.

[T-Man]

Doh! I will fix that and re-upload. Didn't crash anything on my end though, so shouldn't be a deal breaker for people who've already DLed it.

Nope it works fine in game; system just ignores the 2nd subsystem and the sensors entry.

[Black Wolf]

Fixed - new version is linked from the first post.

[SypheDMar]

Sweet looking thing! It's like a cute baby.

By the way, do you have a rough estimate of how many people can actually fit inside the Mercury comfortably?

[Black Wolf]

Comfortably? Well the current pof has 6 chairs, and one bloke standing up, so 6-8. If you wanted to open the pof up and add more chairs, well, maybe a dozen or so, if you were packed in like on an aeroplane?

[Vasudan Admiral]

That's awesome!

[mjn.mixael]

I love how the download comes with 55 cache files.