Astro Pod

The Astropod, aFrigate class vessel was again, another converted troop carrier from the pre-colony days. Basically a remotely operated one way transport device, this craft was an early attempt at creating what eventually became the Thief and the Pirate. It was designed to open a one way jump-gate that would catch smaller vessels and teleport them directly back to a holding pound within the PDS, the only problem was, that anything remotely volatile exploded on contact with the field and the idea was quickly scrapped. The project was kept on hold until the discovery that essential resources were to be found residing in seams deep within asteroids, one bright spark within the Tech council realised that these old vessels could be used to transport these lumps of rock rich with resources straight back home, without any messy towing over vast distances, and so the Astro-Pod was born. The down side to these old vessels is the amount of energy required to open the jump gate to transport the specimen. When the warp gate is activated, and an object enters the distortion field, the energy displacement created by tearing a hole in local space feeds back into the Astro-Pod itself causing it to explode. A problematic side effect, but most asteroids contain enough resources to easily compensate for this disposable craft. Again this vessel is extremely low on shields and has no firepower to speak of, making it an extremely viable target for most ships.