The Mittellspannung Yards are the heart of the deWulf Corporate Navy. Originally designed by deWulf Heavy Industries (dWHI), it was turned over to the Corporate Navy in 1.0 AS once dWHI had gotten their initial investment paid out by the government. Over the years since, the yard has evolved into the Corporate Navy’s primary logistics and production node. While other satellite yards have been built over the years, either by local political forces or by the Navy recognizing that a nodal supply position was needed, the true home port of the Navy remained Mittellspannung in Fenris orbit.
Originally, the yard was built to support the construction of smaller Frigate and Destroyer hulls, with the capability of also building Light and Heavy cruiser hulls (the former in an advanced prototype at the time, the latter a purely theoretical concept). In this configuration it also manufactured quite a few of the first spacegoing freighters for various corporations. It also conducted annual inspections and certifications for the same ships. Prior to the First Contact War funding was exceedingly tight, which forced the Corporate Navy to source out alternative sources of funding.
The Binary War (with the Ibizans and the Narilei) had just begun when additional funds were allocated to expand the yards. In addition to more construction bays (Mittellspannung was expanded from ten to sixteen), the bays were rearranged. Eight bays were configured to support the construction of Destroyer and Light Cruiser hulls, while four were set aside as “Capital” bays. These four were expanded to handle even Battleship mass hulls, each over four times the displacement of a Destroyer class hull. Several of these yards were (re)built with components salvaged from the Sintillan shipyards, though everything short of the main structural components was eventually replaced.
Another addition was the incorporation of an industrial munitions plant for the Navy. While this proved to be a source of future frustrations (primarily around the sheer size and resource demand that the plant would eventually demand), having the main production center located where the main shipyards were substantially simplified logistics and design testing.
I’ve done a lot of art for deWulf ships and starbases, and even some individual components. But where all these things are built, well… until now I didn’t have much of a design. I’ve got a few other sketches that are… inspired by other complexes, but the broad layout of Mittellspannung is mine (for once!) It’s also a bit of a broad design, one definitely lacking in details, especially when compared to the old Sintillan shipyard. That yard however was the subject of several art renders and other images, which explains why it got so much detail design work.
The other reason I like this set of sketches is because it shows something else. The evolution of a shipyard. In games, it’s often one of the capital fixed expenses, since the size and capability of your yards dictates the size of your fleet. Crucially, it also dictates how fast losses and damage can be replaced. So of course as time goes on, one’s yards are expanded and rebuilt.
Dollarton Proxima Shipyards 