Had this idea awhile back, it would be more useful with things like cargo and wormhole scanners, but those haven't happened yet, so this is what we've got. An Atlas whose main purpose in life is to do research, thus pre-equipped with a heavy storm extender (thus from Ineubis) and a mineral scanner. Faster, so it can more quickly do sector surveys and run from bots, but with a decreased hold and similar mass, due to the scanners and extra engine area to boost everything up (the thrust-to-mass ratio is somewhat higher than the best hornets and hogs, but still much lower than the high-end valks). I left a Large port on there because most mining beams are L-port, and also most things I would consider putting on this ship (mines, etc.) Ideal for prospecting, be it for the badge or just for your own personal roid list.

Ineubis incorporates its own Heavy Storm Radar Extender into this Atlas, as well as a Mineral Scanner, and they have also modified the design to boost the top speed and thrust, at the cost of a fair deal of cargo space. A very capable survey vessel.

Ineubis Research Atlas
Licenses: -/-/-/6/1
Armor: 5000
Cargo: 15
Ports: 1L
Mass: 11000 kg
Thrust: 500 N
Max Speed: 65 m/s
Spin Torque: 14 Nm
Turbo: 210 m/s
Turbo energy: 52/s

EDIT: reduced Turbo speed from 220 m/s to 210 m/s. I didn't intend this as the new best Deneb Run ship, and you don't have to go all THAT fast while outrunning bots. :P

You should study the current ships before suggesting new ones.

Xang Xi makes the small extender, but TPG makes the ship with the built in extender. Ineubis makes the large extender, so some other faction should make the ship with a built in large extender.

The small extender is light, so it's mass is easily lost in a ship design. The large extender is heavy, your mass does not reflect that.

The Atlas X has a thrust of 375? and it is the only Atlas that can go 210. You have listed a thrust of 500.

Your minor reduction to the armor is insignificant compared to the monster you have spec'd out here, not even counting an extender...

Sounds like the perfect pirate ship.

But hey! They put that totally unbalancing Ineubis blaster in, so go for it!

I agree with some of what you say, but disagree with other bits. I'll start with the stuff I agree with.

Armour: It is entirely reasonable that this should have more of an armour reduction, and I'll put that in. It doesn't really need to withstand much fire, as it's meant to be a recon vessel and not a combat vessel.

Faction: That is true. My thought-processes were somewhat jumbled and nonsensical about this, classifying XX as more mainstream than Ineubis (which it sort of is, but only in terms of the areas people tend to frequent), and so more willing to partner with another corporation (which doesn't really make sense). My only question would be which faction would get it? As it stands, Ineubis is the only independent faction without a ship (unless I'm completely mistaken). This would somewhat fill that gap, I guess it would just depend on whether spreading out the manufacturing or the special ships is more important.

Mass: Hahahah, this is actually me just being really wrong with my math. That should totally be higher, though with me dropping the armour it won't need quite as big a boost.

What I disagree with:

Thrust: I was originally intending the thrust to be more like 400 or 420, until I saw the thrust/mass ratio of the Valks. This ship is intended to do surveying of possibly bot-infested sectors, so a high ratio makes sense. And the X is still a cargo ship, which this is decidedly not. With the increase in mass due to me being stupid about the added mass from the extender, a thrust of 500 only gives it a ratio a little bit above the X, which, after all, has a much lower mass. As it was before I would probably have agreed with you, but with the increased mass I think this thrust is reasonable.

Pirating: At first I dismissed this as silly because of the lack of ports, but then I remembered that MPosi is great for pirating (at least NPC voys, I obviously wouldn't know anything about what's good for pirating players! :P). Perhaps, in order to offset that, I shall up the turbo energy to 52, which still makes sense because doing surveying you're probably going to be changing course and not just using infiniboost. That keeps the main usefulness of the ship while simultaneously reducing its perfectness for pirates.

Okay, so that didn't break down into what I agree with and what I disagree with nearly so well. I appreciate your feedback, even the stuff I disagreed with, and I hope the changes I made address some of your concerns.

Oo, I like this. I can see this thing being useful, especially if some low-cargo hauling missions come in for higher-licensed players
(something to do with the upcoming inter-corporation war missons?)

It could be used as an interceptor-type ship as well, with the uber-high acceleration and low-but-not-too-low drain.

Either way I like it.

Can't say I read most of that honestly, not really into technical stuff right now. Just had to throw something out there though: Why an atlas? I mean, they seem to me as being a better bus, and a bus with research? I dunno.

It might be just me but something that's research might be more of something like the... uh... Raptor. Light, fast, not to cumbersome. Honestly, most research is going to be done at a station. Data might be collected with the ship, but analyzed at the station. Therefore I'm thinking research may be synonymous with reconnaissance.

Here, you can have your two cents back.

I was thinking an atlas because it has enough room for all the required sensors. Research was meant more in an exploration way, and not in an analyzation way. I don't know, it just seemed like the most appropriate ship for what I was thinking about, having reasonable speeds and accelerations and also the room for the job.