The Comm Guild Maelstrom's Edge

We've previously covered the aquisition of resources with interstellar hydrogen harvesting and mining ships, but those raw resources need to go somewhere! Refining such a large volume of material can be done at any scale, but the largest and most stable fleets of craft have dedicated ships for the purpose.

The refinery ship is a very energy intensive craft, capable of processing extreme volumes of materials. Traditionally, they were used to maximise delivery speeds when moving materials from one world to another, but post-Maelstrom, they are used by the richest and most powerful groups as part of their great nation fleets. Most commonly seen amongst Epirian franchise HQ fleets, refinery ships grant almost unlimited range within the galaxy, and therefore represent that most precious commodity - long term safety.

When travelling at speed away from the ultimate destruction of the Maelstrom, the need for constant resources is always there. We've covered this with interstellar hydrogen harvesting and automated crop ships, but there is another key piece of the puzzle.

Stopping off to manually harvest asteroids and other space detritus is a slow, energy intensive and hazardous affair. One of the most important post-maelstrom ships is the mining ship - a huge vessel which flies at the head of a fleet, ingesting physical matter from space and performing some basic processing of it.

Larger material that would not fit in the intake is usually blasted by flanking assault craft so that as much as possible can be consumed for the long journey towards the galactic rim.

In the Maelstrom's Edge universe, massive numbers of people are forced to flee ahead of the ever-expanding galactic explosion that is the Maelstrom. We've previously shown one of the ships used for energy and resource acquisition, but converting that energy into food to keep the population functioning is another challenge all together.

While the majority of vessels are equipped with simple algae and fungal vats which can provide a balanced, if unappetising meal, there is a huge amount of variance in space travel cuisine. Many, such as the majority of the Broken, give over entire floors of their vessels to livestock to introduce more options to their food choices. The Epirians tend to produce large volumes of food that can be stored indefinitely, travelling with generations worth of supplies on their largest craft.

The most desirable food source are the Automated Crop Ships that traverse the galaxy. Traditionally they were not widely utilised outside of distant terraforming excursions, but the Maelstrom has caused them to be in massive demand. They are a pure luxury which increase the satisfaction of a fleet's populace immeasurable. A constant supply of fresh fruit, vegetables, nuts and more is possible with even a single Automated Crop Ship in a group of survivors, and it is relatively common to see populated ships sacrificed by a fleet if there is a chance to save their crop production facilities when resources run low or dangerous circumstances arise.

In the Maelstrom's Edge universe, massive numbers of people are forced to flee ahead of the ever-expanding galactic explosion that is the Maelstrom. Evacuation fleets require large amounts of energy, both for travelling long distances through space and to support the many lives aboard each ship on those long journeys. Over time, fuel and other resources inevitably become scarce.

The scientists and engineers of humanity have had millennia to consider solutions to resource optimisation in space. One of the most prevalent is the Interstellar Hydrogen Harvester, or 'IHH'. This relatively small ship has a huge set of harvesting films affixed to the front of it, which allow it to grab every possible scrap of interstellar material that it can. This material is then redirected to a storage hub at the rear of the craft which is periodically emptied into the purpose built storage ships in the fleet.

Harvesting is dramatically more efficient in resource rich areas of the galaxy, such as nebulae. However, objects of large mass tend to attract the Maelstrom at a greater rate than open space, so diverting a fleet for more efficient resource collection is never a decision to be taken lightly.

A handful of IHH ships can massively extend the practical range and viable capacity of an evacuation fleet, and are therefore extremely valuable to all of mankind. Countless fleets have been destroyed in combat over the smallest rumour of IHH possession.