This time, Hong Tao dragged back the shells of a total of three Meteorite-class destroyers, in order to make them compatible. As a battleship meteorite-class multi-purpose, after decommissioning, it should be a good choice to change its identity as a civilian ship.

What Hong Tao likes the most is its weapon installation base, a total of six, and the number is almost catching up with professional mining barges. With these ready-made pedestals, it is possible to install a modified laser miner or gas cloud collector, giving the collection capacity far beyond that of ordinary medium-sized mining vessels, and competing with large professional mining vessels such as mining barges.

As for the shortcomings of mediocre defense capabilities, mediocre speed, and large signal radius, it is not a problem at this time. Mining ships, it's useless to have such high defense, and if you slow down, you can slow down. As soon as you go out, it's days or even months, and who cares if it's fast or slow. It doesn't matter if the signal radius is too large, anyway, you are born with no ability to fight back, and it makes no difference if you are easy to be locked by the enemy.

But it is not without shortcomings, the most terrible thing is the cargo hold. As a battleship, its cargo hold is already large, but as a mining ship, these hundreds of cubic meters are really not enough, especially after equipping six miners, it is a bit like a person with six hands, grasping things quickly but the clothes pocket is too small, and in the end it still can't take too much.

For this defect, Hong Tao felt that he could overcome it, as long as he didn't go out to mine alone, this kind of mining ship would be very advantageous in the mining team. Didn't He Xizhou say that the mining team usually has cargo ships to act as warehouses for everyone, and the ultimate benefit is not who loads more into the cargo hold of their spaceship, but who picks more.

To put it simply, this kind of modified mining ship named by Hong Tao as the Squirrel class is born to serve the mining team, if you want to fight alone, please take a look at the next hamster!

Poor miners of New Eden, who didn't even know what a rat was, fell headlong into a rat's nest. The origin of the hamster class is not as noble as that of the Squirrel class, and its shell is a small civilian cargo spaceship, the Thorny Dragon class.

This is an animal that lives in the Commonwealth, and the New Edenians like to refer to many animals as dragons, but they have nothing to do with dragons from the Earth era, but rather resemble large lizards.

For example, the spiny dragon looks a bit like a wild boar, but it has no hair on its body, all scales, and three rows of bone spurs on its back. Despite its ferocity, it is a vegetarian who feeds on algae plants and has toxins in its blood that are harmful to the human body and cannot be eaten.

The history of the birth of the Thorn Dragon cargo spacecraft is not long, only more than sixty years, it was originally designed to transport supplies for the space station, the volume is not as large as industrial ships and cargo ships, and the loading capacity is naturally not a level, it is better to be small and flexible, not to do long-distance bulk cargo transportation, and it is indeed more economical to run around in a few galaxies.

That's what the designers intended, but the reality is not the same thing at all, and consumers don't buy it. They feel that this kind of small spaceship is the most useless, the flexibility is not comparable to that of a frigate, and the loading capacity cannot be compared with that of an industrial ship, which is completely chicken.

Strangely enough, this kind of spaceship survived tenaciously and was built for more than 40 years before it was discontinued. The reason is particularly interesting, the survival of the thorn dragon level is inseparable from smugglers and pirates.

In the Gao'an system, the New Edenians prefer to use large cargo ships and industrial ships to transport goods, but this kind of ship is too large and cumbersome, the jump initiation time is more than 20 seconds, and it is not armed.

The Thorny Dragon, on the other hand, is much stronger in this regard, although it cannot carry large cargo, but smugglers and pirates do not mine stone to sell, and the things they transport are often small, lightweight, and high-value, such as nerve synergists.

Small in size, relatively quick to start a jump, able to use stealth mobile devices, and able to carry as little as 3,000 cubic meters of cargo, it is perfect for smuggling spacecraft.

When Hong Tao saw this Thorny Dragon class in the rags, he gave it a new identity, a mining barge!

If you can increase the output power of its energy core, expand the bandwidth of the ship's main brain, and add two external equipment bases, it will be a mining ship with four laser miners. If you change the cargo tank, which is not too small, into an ore tank with primary ore processing capacity, it will not be a mining barge.

Given that it doesn't have a lot of equipment inside, two or three ordinary drivers can handle it, and it's a good choice whether it's going out alone or joining a mining team.

Of course, its modification cost will be higher than that of the Squirrel class, in addition to the larger hull, the energy core and the main brain of the spaceship have to undergo major surgery, and they also have to attach an external equipment base, and some equipment can not be picked up by picking up the rags, so they have to go to the market to purchase.

When the design plan was available, Hong Tao did not rush to start construction, but called Old John and them for a ventilation meeting, and let these mining experts choose for themselves, and if they didn't like either plan, they would redesign it. Anyway, Hong Tao doesn't want to follow in the footsteps of thorny dragon designers, and no one buys it after working for a long time, so he can't force people to buy it.

"I like the Squirrel class, it's the foundation of the battleship, and the structural strength will be fine for another fifty years. Even if you encounter a few more pirates, you can resist a few more times, and it is still no problem to escape. Captain Li, can you not choose a hamster and build me a squirrel?"

The outcome of the ventilation meeting was so good that every miner drooled over both designs, and the four young men chose the hamster class, they didn't intend to follow the mine team forever, hoping to go it alone when they had the chance. Whether you make money or not is secondary, young people, ideals are very important.

John Sr. and the other two miners chose the squirrel class, they have long lost the urge to break into the world, and they pursue stability in their work and life. Although joining the mining team will still be stripped of a layer of skin by the mine head, having a mining team is equivalent to having a relative security guarantee, and each has its own advantages and disadvantages.

The only one who has an opinion is He Xizhou, he picks the most carefully, as long as he can think of the details, he has to ask clearly before he can make up his mind. As a result, it was too late, and all three squirrels were picked up, leaving only one hamster, and if you didn't want it, you had to ask for it. But he didn't give up yet, and planned to go through the back door.

"Or give you Old John's squirrel! The reason why I was able to get these parts is thanks to him, which is also the request of the stationmaster Alfonso, who has any comments can go to the stationmaster to mention. "Hong Tao doesn't like to see this guy who doesn't do anything, eats something fragrant, and is very gossipy, but he can't be left behind at the moment, because he is a porcelain clansman.

The porcelain people are notoriously different, and their appearance determines that wherever they go, they are fellow villagers helping fellow villagers. His new identity is the porcelain clan, if he offends He Xizhou, it will attract the hostility of other porcelain people in the space station, and he can't lose a big one because of a small one.

But it is impossible to change ships, there are a total of six hulls pulled back this time, three meteorite-class warships, two Thorn Dragon-class and one unknown, and they have not yet had the ability to innovate independently, and they can't save a new spaceship out of thin air, so they can only use materials.

If you want to ask why you don't pull a few more warships back, it's not that Hong Tao doesn't want to, it's that you really can't pick it out. The reason why warships will be scrapped is that the vast majority of them are not a luxury of the federal navy, but war damage.

Since it was battle damage, the hull had to be wounded. The injuries of these three ships are relatively light, the main structure is fine, and the others are more miserable, with all kinds of penetrations and breaks, which are no better than the Future, and there is no way to follow the cat and the tiger.

What does it mean to be unknown, it means that there is no specific class division, because it is a pirate ship. That's right, it's the ship that looks like a Federation warship, but actually uses a lot of Imperial technology.

Its appearance is quite miserable, and two large holes have been opened in the middle of the hull, but when Hong Tao scanned the blueprint, he found that this spaceship was actually quite lucky, it had suffered so many space missiles without any structural damage, as long as the damaged shell was repaired, it was no different from the intact.

Is it just lucky Hong Tao can think so, but the data doesn't lie. The results of the scan clearly show that this corsair has a unique design and has achieved the ultimate structural strength without greatly increasing the mass, which is worth learning from.

In addition, the internal equipment of this ship is also the most intact, except that the main brain program and memory have been preserved, and even the weapon system has not been dismantled. Thinking that the Federation Navy thinks that it is not a standard weapon, and the dismantled parts cannot be replaced with the Federation warship, it is simply effortless.