Mynock 1: A Lego Star Wars Moc
This was not my idea. A while back one of my subscribers by the name of Cade contacted me, and asked me to help them create a Moc based on a combination of 5 different ships. This was just shy of 6 months ago. He wanted to combine an x-wing, a speeder bike (or more precisely, the x-wing jumpspeeder bike’s front end), yoda’s starfighter winglets, the arrowheads engines (from the freemaker adventures, freemakers), and have it all done in the color scheme of Jek-14’s starfighter, mostly just a black with red accents. Thankfully, he sent a quickly collaged look of what he wanted the ship to look like, and so, of course, here you go! At first, I really struggled with it. So many of my ships lately have been for mass-production, tie fighters, speeder bikes, walkers, all meant to be built by huge militaries with efficiency in mind, that I couldn’t find a good role for this fighter to fit into. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the heavily modified Z-105 Strike fighter known as Mynock-1! Pilot Cade Orum was made the Leader of mynock Squadron during the rebellion era of Star Wars, sometime between the first and second death star. Records were a little spotty during that time. Mynock squadron was made up of 6 modified Z-95 and Z-105 starfighters. These modifications tended to cause issues with the wiring and power couplings on the ships, requiring maintenance crews to always keep a few on hand for replacements after missions. Due to this tendency, the squad was nicknamed “the mynocks” by rebel mechanics, and the name eventually stuck. Cade Orum’s ship, Mynock 1, was a heavily modified Z-105 starfighter. The Z-105 was an advanced model of the z-95 headhunter, and was most easily recognized by its reversion to the clone-wars era design of 2 large engines instead of the usual 4, similar to the x-wings engines. Starting from the front: Vanes: on top of stripping the panels of the nose, two heavy speeder deflector vanes were added to the front to help direct the craft through close maneuvers around obstacles (asteroids, ships, etc), in addition, some light Ion cannons were also added to the front end to amplify its damage output through shields. Panels: Panels in star wars are a fun topic to discuss. There are several reasons why a pilot or maintenance worker would leave panels off, but in this case it served 2 purposes. The first was weight. Most panels, while relatively light compared to what we have, were still dead weight. With Mynock squadron being a traditional hit-and-run rebel group, speed was of the essence. In addition, the lack of these panels blocking the sensor equipment helped either lower their energy consumption, or increase your range, depending on how you wanted to tune them for a particular mission. The main body is pretty simple with very few surprises, but as soon as we get passed the Astromech, things start to get really interesting. Additional deflector vanes on the wingtips assist with very similar purpose to the forward deflector vanes, allowing the pilot greater margins of error when performing close fly-by maneuvers. As a somewhat intentional by product, the magnetic fields generated by these vanes also helps direct and focus the Laser cannons on the wintgtips, allowing for more precise targeting. While z-95’s had to be retrofitted for hyperdrives, the Z-105’s did come with a standard class 2 hyperdrive. But of course, Cade Orum didn’t want to be left behind, so he tuned and modified the drive until it could keep up with pretty much any class 1, and then some. But the really unique part of Mynock 1, was the giant booster engine mounted to the middle of the craft. This was an on-demand engine that could be used for extra speed, or shut off to conserve fuel. Many of the mechanics on his team told Cade there was no way to put that big of an engine on his little ship, but in the end, it totally worked, and not long after, they couldn’t keep any engines in stock as every pilot in the rebel fleet wanted to know how they could get such a boost in speed. The Last major modification was the landing gear. It doesn’t have any. In the star wars universe, Apparently it is very easy to get a vehicle any kind to hover using repulsorlift technology. This technology not only creates a frictionless connection to the ground, but also is apparently crazy efficient, allowing landspeeders to just sit wherever they get parked for insane amounts of time, without using up all the fuel! And yet when I leave the light on in my car it’s dead the next day. No fair. So, Mynock 1 has no landing gear, and relies on repulsors to keep it afloat, ready to go at a moments notice. But just for emergency’s, the hull is designed so that if the repulsors fail, it can rest gently on the ground without damaging the ships components.
This was not my idea. A while back one of my subscribers by the name of Cade contacted me, and asked me to help them create a Moc based on a combination of 5 different ships. This was just shy of 6 months ago. He wanted to combine an x-wing, a speeder bike (or more precisely, the x-wing jumpspeeder bike’s front end), yoda’s starfighter winglets, the arrowheads engines (from the freemaker adventures, freemakers), and have it all done in the color scheme of Jek-14’s starfighter, mostly just a black with red accents. Thankfully, he sent a quickly collaged look of what he wanted the ship to look like, and so, of course, here you go! At first, I really struggled with it. So many of my ships lately have been for mass-production, tie fighters, speeder bikes, walkers, all meant to be built by huge militaries with efficiency in mind, that I couldn’t find a good role for this fighter to fit into. And now, ladies and gentlemen, I give you the heavily modified Z-105 Strike fighter known as Mynock-1! Pilot Cade Orum was made the Leader of mynock Squadron during the rebellion era of Star Wars, sometime between the first and second death star. Records were a little spotty during that time. Mynock squadron was made up of 6 modified Z-95 and Z-105 starfighters. These modifications tended to cause issues with the wiring and power couplings on the ships, requiring maintenance crews to always keep a few on hand for replacements after missions. Due to this tendency, the squad was nicknamed “the mynocks” by rebel mechanics, and the name eventually stuck. Cade Orum’s ship, Mynock 1, was a heavily modified Z-105 starfighter. The Z-105 was an advanced model of the z-95 headhunter, and was most easily recognized by its reversion to the clone-wars era design of 2 large engines instead of the usual 4, similar to the x-wings engines. Starting from the front: Vanes: on top of stripping the panels of the nose, two heavy speeder deflector vanes were added to the front to help direct the craft through close maneuvers around obstacles (asteroids, ships, etc), in addition, some light Ion cannons were also added to the front end to amplify its damage output through shields. Panels: Panels in star wars are a fun topic to discuss. There are several reasons why a pilot or maintenance worker would leave panels off, but in this case it served 2 purposes. The first was weight. Most panels, while relatively light compared to what we have, were still dead weight. With Mynock squadron being a traditional hit-and-run rebel group, speed was of the essence. In addition, the lack of these panels blocking the sensor equipment helped either lower their energy consumption, or increase your range, depending on how you wanted to tune them for a particular mission. The main body is pretty simple with very few surprises, but as soon as we get passed the Astromech, things start to get really interesting. Additional deflector vanes on the wingtips assist with very similar purpose to the forward deflector vanes, allowing the pilot greater margins of error when performing close fly-by maneuvers. As a somewhat intentional by product, the magnetic fields generated by these vanes also helps direct and focus the Laser cannons on the wintgtips, allowing for more precise targeting. While z-95’s had to be retrofitted for hyperdrives, the Z-105’s did come with a standard class 2 hyperdrive. But of course, Cade Orum didn’t want to be left behind, so he tuned and modified the drive until it could keep up with pretty much any class 1, and then some. But the really unique part of Mynock 1, was the giant booster engine mounted to the middle of the craft. This was an on-demand engine that could be used for extra speed, or shut off to conserve fuel. Many of the mechanics on his team told Cade there was no way to put that big of an engine on his little ship, but in the end, it totally worked, and not long after, they couldn’t keep any engines in stock as every pilot in the rebel fleet wanted to know how they could get such a boost in speed. The Last major modification was the landing gear. It doesn’t have any. In the star wars universe, Apparently it is very easy to get a vehicle any kind to hover using repulsorlift technology. This technology not only creates a frictionless connection to the ground, but also is apparently crazy efficient, allowing landspeeders to just sit wherever they get parked for insane amounts of time, without using up all the fuel! And yet when I leave the light on in my car it’s dead the next day. No fair. So, Mynock 1 has no landing gear, and relies on repulsors to keep it afloat, ready to go at a moments notice. But just for emergency’s, the hull is designed so that if the repulsors fail, it can rest gently on the ground without damaging the ships components.