u/DarknessInferno7

Was looking through Keen's workshop uploads, as it's been a minute. I was really amused to see a little helicopter called Dragonfly. Pictured here next to Keen's one is my heavy-lift helicopter... similar in design structure, also called Dragonfly.

Like I said in the title, it is really amusing to see parallel design in effect. And honestly I learned a lot looking at this little guy, it's quite clever in how they've managed to keep the weight down without compromising on the style.

I don't usually share my builds, because frankly they're not that impressive if you ask me, and usually weirdly niche towards my whims, but I figured once for fun couldn't hurt.

Development:

During my group's modded salvager run (couple updates ago) I'd started to grow very out of love with small grid ground vehicles. Every time I'd use one to assault a base, if the defenses so much as blew wind at you (IE a stray few large grid gatling rounds) you just fell apart, no matter how thick your armour was. And if a cannon hit you? Your vehicle is gone. After that server was sunset, I'd decided to retire my building of these types of vehicles entirely, with the Messenger S1 just not being viable for the "meta" of the game, so to speak. (I'll share an S1 picture if anyone asks for it.)

Then comes the update with the 3x3 panels. After some ballistic testing for battleships, it dawned on me that these are my chance to fix the tank issue. That resulted in a rebuilt from the gound up Messenger S2. With survivability as its focus, this bad boy can eat a large grid artillery round to the front plate and still limp away perfectly functional. (I've shot at it a lot.) The extreme angle of the turret also frequently deflects incoming rounds with minimal damage.

No idea what more accomplished builders will think when they look at this design, but this represents the pinnacle of what I can personally manage out of a small grid manned tank without going block/size crazy. Good firepower, armour, mobility, and cost effective.