This article is considered accurate for the current version (1.58) of the game.
“
The Bluefin storage ship is a massive, all-purpose mobile naval yard capable of storing crates of resources, packed vehicles, and ammunition for long-distance travel and beach-to-beach equipment ferrying. The Bassett Motor Society is proud to deliver such a cutting-edge, versatile blue water asset to various countries across Raka, Katoma, and the Alliant Union.
„
— In-game description
The BMS - Bluefin (also known as a Storage Ship) is a deployable combat naval vehicle specially designed to serve as a mobile Storage Depot to store large amounts of vehicles and crates. It can deploy in the water, or on a beach, where vehicles can be offload via crane, or down its ramp.
Deploys/undeploys the crane (ship must be anchored) - press F
Access the storage stockpile - press E
Engineer
Not an actual seat
Switches each of the two ship engines below deck between "Forward" and "Reverse" mode using a Wrench while crouching
The entrance for each seat is marked on the floor by white paint.
Additional soldiers can be on the ship's decks for various purposes (transport, bail water in bottom deck, fix leaks, etc...). The ship can have a total of 30 players onboard, any more and it cannot cross region borders.
Armament
2x 12.7mm Machine Gun
Mounted at the front of the ship (65 degree firing arc)
The ship also has one AI Naval Turret on its deck that is only active when anchored. They rapidly shoot Mortar Shells at smaller ships (anything that's not a Large Ship) and amphibious vehicles on water that are between 75 and 200 meters from the turret, except if the targets are within 35m of a region border.
Inventory
At the front of the bottom deck, the ship has a 15 slot inventory and a stockpile that can hold crates of items, shippable structures, vehicles, and crates of shippable structrues or vehicles, identical to a Storage Depot stockpile.
At the center of the bottom deck, there's also a single slot inventory and an item stockpile. The interaction area is delimited by a white square on the floor. However the item stockpile can only hold a few select item types:
Retrieving items from the Storage Ship's stockpiles is three times faster than at a Storage Depot.
Each armament on board also has its own separate inventory with just a single dedicated ammo slot for the relevant ammo types: 40 magazines for the 12.7mm Machine Guns.
Can ram and instantly destroy ice on frozen bodies of water during Snow Storms
Cannot move while anchored.
Health & Armor
The BMS - Bluefin has 57750 HP. It has "Large Ship" armor resistance: it can soak small arms fire, shrapnel, 12.7mm machine guns, and it is immune to Flamethrowers. It's also fairly resistant to anti-tank weaponry. High explosive shells are very effective against it. It has Tank Armor. With it, in best case scenario, penetrating projectiles only have a 10% chance of penetrating and doing damage. That chance goes up quickly if the armor is worn or if it is shot from up close or with ammo that has penetration bonuses. As a Large Ship, its health, Tank Armor, and subsystems can only be repaired at a Dry Dock, costs 10 Naval Shell Plating, and takes some time.
Sinking Mechanic:
With their massive health, large ships are hard to kill the normal way, but they can also be sunk.
Interactions
Friendly soldiers in the water can instantly climb aboard the ship with E while next to its rear half (front half makes you interact with stockpile).
You can drop items on the ship decks.
The ship has 4 Gangway ramps that can be toggled with E. The anchor must be lowered and there must be solid flat ground for the gangway to deploy (Shipyard, Beach, docks, Dry Dock, Navy Pier, etc...).
The ship's bottom deck contains 2 rooms separated by bulkhead doors which can be toggled with E. Closing a room's bulkheads prevent water from leaks from spreading to the adjacent rooms.
Water in the ship rooms can be bailed using a Water Bucket (reloading) and thrown overboard.
When the ship is anchored, its large front ramp can be deployed/undeployed using a lever in the loading bay. It can deploy in the water, on any dock, beach, or Navy Pier.
Shippable structures and vehicles can be submitted to the ship's stockpile using its crane.
The ship can be reserved for a Squad (via a button in the menu) to prevent any non members from toggling the ship's anchor or changing the engine settings and to allow members to eject any player from the driver seat with the "Eject Driver" button in the menu . The reservation doesn't prevent other friendly players from using the ship's seats, toggling the ramp, or accessing the ship's stockpiles however.
Anchor
The anchor interaction area is marked by an arrow at the rear of the ship on the Port side (left). On top of the standard requirements, the anchor cannot be raised if the ship's crane is deployed or holding something, or if the cargo area isn't clear, or if the main ramp is open.
When anchored the ship gains the following functionalities:
Becomes visible on the map to all friendlies with the map icon . Putting your cursor on the map icon displays the content of its main stockpile
Automatically gathers Map Intelligence within 150 meter radius every few seconds and transmits it
The crane can be deployed and used
Respawn
The Storage Ship does not act as a "Forward" Spawn Point and players can't deploy on it from the Home Region.
Region Borders
The ship can cross a region border with up to 30 players on board, provided the destination would not exceed its population capacity; otherwise the ship must wait in queue. While preparing to cross the border, the ship must be idle for 60 seconds. Moving, firing any ship weapons or interacting with its stockpile resets this timer.
Unlike other Basset Motor Society products, the Storage Ship includes a Naval Turret and two player-served machine guns. Along with the Longhook, the Bluefin is one of the first BMS vehicles to include weapons of any kind.
Gallery
A BMS - Bluefin in transit
A BMS - Bluefin deployed at sea, with its ramp lowered and its crane lowering a Shipping Container into the loading area