Vesta Overkill Stock Module Custom Ship Win

That's actually a very respectable delta v, especially, for such a specialized, defensively oriented design. Why not full cone on the front?

Anyway, I'll post my own core module design that has proven quite successful and can quite comfortably solo Vesta just siting there and waiting for intercepts, without launching anything of its own (although not without some micromanagement):


It actually has a bit of a turbulent history, as it first started off as heavily modified laser frigate (back in the previous version) to beat Main Belt Extraction (which became my quick and dirty test scenario), which quickly got modified to carry a redundant array of diminuitive coilguns (core 60MW sandcasters, about 15 at first) on the nose, use partial armour and MethLOx RCS, then, with newest patch, got full armour back again, pentagonal armour, failed to beat Vesta, (which I beat using another one of my ships mixed into half of the default fleet - doing poorly, and only making it through zombieship trick, as I ended up with my gutted custom ship and mobility killed missile schooner IIRC left), got extensive weapon and engine overhaul, roll thrusters, NTR based RCS and recently conversion to hexagonal armour (at which point it could already beat Vesta without substantial effort).

I have then created re-corified version of that by replacing everything with core components while keeping everything I learned - while much less effective it turns out to still be able to sit out Vesta by itself although if doing particularly badly (read: losing too many point defences and getting a couple of Devastators blow in its face point-blank) it may end up looking a lot worse for the wear. If doing well, it should survive without penetrations or damaged internal components, with only some damaged radiators and turrets.

Some notes:

• Ship is built for nose forward configuration, but also agility - in some situations it may pay off to switch to broadside or use scatter for a few seconds and then back to nose forward.
  
• If using anything but nose forward it needs to conserve RCS propellant by manually toggling RCS - without RCS it will drop to around Gunship's performance.
  
• The armour is relatively thin, but the ship can easily tank some fire in nose forward orientation without taking damage. Alternatively it can sidestep things like incoming drone barrages (at the expense of oxidizer reserves).
• The RCS system consists of pairs of rings on the aft and nose that can apply the same amount of torque in opposite directions. On the nose, where there was no room for two rings at the same offset along axis four rings were used with middle two rotating in one direction and external two in the opposite one. Main engines are still gimballed so RCS is not required for manoeuvres, it merely allows much faster ones.
  
• RCS system also includes 18 MethLOx "afterburners" augmenting forward acceleration.
• Small decoy launcher may look like a complete misunderstanding on something with such heat signature, but the ship comes with auxiliary power RTGs that can keep the crew cans and the complement of 60mm CIWS powered, so the reactors (all 5 of them) can be shut down and their radiators folded for massive reduction in signature.
• Flak coilguns are mostly manifestation of my longing for some proper, heavy calibre cannons, but not wanting to mount slow, heavy, expensive, inaccurate and easily destroyed (read: useless) 32mm coilguns. They can still be used as laser baits or for triggering incoming nukes and in a situation when they actually get to hit something, they will pack some punch.
• I am not sure of if missile blast launchers are worth keeping TBH, but at least they don't cause reorientations into vulnerable positions.
• The ship is built with variety of armament and flexibility in mind, it may need some micro and can't fire everything it has at once.
• OTOH it can fire a lot of stuff and can benefit from aggressive intercepts (but not around Vesta as it may leave some missile fleets unable to catch up in orbit)
  
• The crew requirements are hideously large due to large amount of equipment.
• The crew compartments are mounted close to centre of mass, while the reactors are split into two groups one near the nose and one on the aft - ship can survive some nasty spins (like after getting slapped by devastators).
• Ship is built to fit into Main Belt Extraction budgets and to have serviceable delta-v (better than Gunship) - non-core variants have MPDs to extend their range, stronger NTRs and NTR rather than MethLOx RCS, but I had to strip this all out when corifying the ship.

Vesta, decent outcome:

Edit:
Can handle Vesta with hard campaign mod as well.

Interesting ship design. I'm also on my first playthrough of the campaign and I'm trying to get through Vesta Overkill as well. Iv'e learned so far from the campaign that missles and drones are the best option to destroy enemy ships, but thats just me. I like having all of my ships untouched at the end of a mission. For me, beating this mission is about surviving the enemy's own missle volleys and then destroying them with my own. However this has proved harder in practice than on paper. To combat their missles and drones, I've been designing a anti-drone/missle ship using only the stock parts and lasers. I would show my cureent design but sadly I'm on mobile. I really like the idea of using a large radiation shield to protect radiators because radiator placement has been a pain in the ass for me lol. If I was designing a brute force ship I'd make sure to atleast have more firepower and especially range than the enemy. Getting that first volley off and striking them first can really tip the battle into your hands. Since its been about a month, have you won Vesta Overkill yet?