The Luvly Laady

This MOC was made for the dual purpose of a contest on Eurobricks and for what is planned as Part 3 of De-Classic-Space. Due to contest time constaints and part limitations it isn't exactly what I want so it will be tweaked further in time.

The Story

The story behind The Luvly Laady is an odd one.

Clive Robertson was a successful business man living on Talemi, who had made his fortune selling bread. He was much loved too, mostly because he was the lead-by-example type. At least once a week he helped out at one of the factories, taking over any one of the workers jobs, and offering them the day off. (It was an informal tradition to stay anyway.) Since the bread industry was highly automated, this was a quite big deal; most factories had at most 20 workers. It was one of these days that he was driving a transporter, and it all went wrong. One of the engines cut out, leaving the transporter with insufficient power to maintain altitude. Clive could have ejected, but (as he said later) he didn't want to loose the cargo. That he was able to save... but he lost his right leg and left hand. (The bread was OK.)

Here's where the story gets odd. Ordinarily losing a limb is a minor concern; clone repair or a cyborg replacements are commonplace and relatively cheap. But Clive refused these and instead got by with... a hook and peg-leg. He then sold everything, and put all his money in commissioning this ship.

It became the talk of the galaxy; nice guy looks like a cliché pirate due to accident and then builds ship to match. It all seemed so funny... until it was finished and he actually started acting like one as well! He'd set up an ambush in a busy transit corridor, fire a warning blast, and radio 'Prepare to be boarded!'. However since his only crew was a robot it was never taken very seriously. Eventually though something had to be done, and thus he was arrested when he berthed next on charges of piracy.

The trial didn't last long however. Considering his past (and his rather expensive lawyer) it was mostly dropped and he was given the punishment of community service. For this he did some free transporting using The Luvly Laady and once it was over he just kept working in shipping. He even occasionally does tourist trips...

The Ship

The Luvly Laady is not as impractical a ship as a casual glance would imply. She's capable of deep Dimensioning, of almost fighter like acceleration, and is very manoeuvrable considering her bulk. While she's more designed as a pure space craft, planetary operations are possible. The forward mast is in realty a crane arm, and the main one is used to generate a ram-scoop field. Even the rudder is useful; it's capable of directing the auxiliary drive! Inside she can carry two standard containers.

In terms of armaments she is powerful, but inflexible. 48 military surplus plasma cannons give her the same fire-power as 8 Jury-Class fighters, but since Clive chose to ignore thousands of years of warship building experience, they are all fixed on the side. Thus while The Luvly Laady has an absolutely killer broadside, she is vulnerable to the top, bottom, side and rear. This also means she isn't a very good pirate ship as she can't accelerate with the main or directional drive and fire at the same time. (This was one of the main arguments given during the piracy trial.)

Like most ships of this size, she's highly automated so aside from Clive only an android is needed for normal operations.