Constellation Class - Auton Bay - How to Expand??

[vitara]

Hi all:

Downloaded this game, bought all the vanilla expansions, and am LOVING IT!!

I'm now playing a game with a Constellation-class freighter (and with Corporate Command). I still remember when I started the game that I chose this ship because of the auton bay, which the starting screen said could be expanded up to 200 tons. I've already passed St. Kat's and am on my way to Sanctuary, but so far I could not find a single cargo hold that could help expand my auton bay to 200 tons. I then went back to the one and only auton dealer I found at the starting system of Tau Ceti but even that dealer didn't have the means to expand my auton bay. Nor did the corporate stations, commonwealth stations, weapons/armor dealers or even the black market shipyards!! I'm pretty sure the mule autons are not the expansions I'm looking for...

Did I miss something here? How and where could I get this auton bay expansion?

Meanwhile, I doubt I could use the auton bay to fix / upgrade Volkov or Rama's armor/weapons/devices in vanilla Transcendence but it would be really cool if I could do it considering how small (supposedly) their ships are compared to the Constellation...

[AssumedPseudonym]

 The Constellation says its cargo bay can be upgraded, but it already comes with the auton bay installed, which takes up the space for a cargo bay enhancement. Since you can’t uninstall the auton bay from the Connie, you’re stuck with what you got.

[Song]

Quite. See, originally the Constellation was really bad. Worse armor, worse shield, and that starting turret had such an absurdly low range that you couldn't hit anything with it. And you started with an autosentinel, which as you've probably noticed is not exactly very survivable. You usually pottered along barely alive, lost the auton, barely scratched your way through a few sectors on that horrible turret....and then Anton Nasser would OHK you (ok, he still does that, but it usually takes a Mk.VII or multiple small hits to kill you now. Back then ANY hit would OHK a stock conny).

But because it was so bad, a few people (including me) realised that if you removed that auton bay and sold it, you got a LOT of money. And could buy it back for not a bad price (once you did some trading). And it let you replace that horrible starting gear without committing suicide on enemies, so it was really a no brainer Once you had good gear, you could buy it back, or just not bother and use the ship like a regular freighter. Because George didn't really like that the ship was better if you sold its gimmick and ignored the role it was supposed to have, he patched the ship to have a reasonable starting configuration with a sane armor/shield combo, made the turret have a range that allowed it to hit things, and made the cargo bay fixed to the ship to fix the exploit of selling it. Unfortunately, that comes at the price of not being able to upgrade the cargo space. It could probably do with a space upgrade, actually...


But I really like the conny myself. Now that it's been buffed, it's quite fun. Not perfect: the auton system is still rather flawed and I despise the way mules work....but it's good.

[vitara]

Quite. See, originally the Constellation was really bad. Worse armor, worse shield, and that starting turret had such an absurdly low range that you couldn't hit anything with it. And you started with an autosentinel, which as you've probably noticed is not exactly very survivable. You usually pottered along barely alive, lost the auton, barely scratched your way through a few sectors on that horrible turret....and then Anton Nasser would OHK you (ok, he still does that, but it usually takes a Mk.VII or multiple small hits to kill you now. Back then ANY hit would OHK a stock conny).

But because it was so bad, a few people (including me) realised that if you removed that auton bay and sold it, you got a LOT of money. And could buy it back for not a bad price (once you did some trading). And it let you replace that horrible starting gear without committing suicide on enemies, so it was really a no brainer Once you had good gear, you could buy it back, or just not bother and use the ship like a regular freighter. Because George didn't really like that the ship was better if you sold its gimmick and ignored the role it was supposed to have, he patched the ship to have a reasonable starting configuration with a sane armor/shield combo, made the turret have a range that allowed it to hit things, and made the cargo bay fixed to the ship to fix the exploit of selling it. Unfortunately, that comes at the price of not being able to upgrade the cargo space. It could probably do with a space upgrade, actually...


But I really like the conny myself. Now that it's been buffed, it's quite fun. Not perfect: the auton system is still rather flawed and I despise the way mules work....but it's good.

Thanks Shrike. The background really helped and made me feel a lot better. I actually started off with a 300D Defender in the auton bay (without me even knowing it ...!!) and eventually earned myself enough credits to buy a triton propeller upgrade and an omnidirectional turbolaser, which helped me blast away a Marauder Raid Platform (and got myself a 100W reactor and other goodies!!). Armor and shields now upgraded and a number of autons I acquired along the way (even the AutoSentinel) got upgraded too. The Constellation is so far so good, IMHO.

[PM]

Constellation used to have a slower turn speed, as slow as EI500. Now it turns slightly faster so that it is not totally inferior to an EI500 with an auton bay.