"Herald of En-zu" - Deep-Space Exploration Ship

The Church of Clang had massively indebted itself over the recent years, unfavourable miscalculations on part of its tactical computers let to the church involving itself and, yes, even starting some costly interstellar wars, that, to top it all off, lost.
With the economy in shambles, large swaths of Saint-Ganymede and the capital city of Novo-Babylon in ruins, severe economic sanctions from other interstellar powers further pressuring the already beaten nation, it couldn’t have been at a worse time when several deep-space observatories reported something very unusual, SEVEN RED SIGNALS appeared to appear simultaneously in the galaxy, anomalies like these could only mean that time travel and some unfathomably advanced technology was involved.
Aware of that, and that the Churches rivals were most likely aware of this too, the College of Cardinals debated on launching an expedition to determine the nature of these signals, but ultimately dropped the idea. With most of the fleet seized and reconstruction efforts underway the Church simply couldn’t divert any resources to organize an expedition and build a starship up to the task, despite that the knowledge gained could potentially advance the church’s technology by decades, maybe even centuries.
That’s not the end of the story though. The incredibly obstinate people of Jupiterograd’s Institute of Xeno-Technology and Archaeology, unhappy with the College’s decision, decided to mount an expedition of their own, for this they needed a ship, and Clang-o-nautics was to build it. Of course, the Institute’s, rather meagre funds couldn’t pay for an entire starship, let alone something that was supposed to ferry a bunch of scientist and crew across the galaxy. Even after the Institue called upon its various “friends” and benefactors for financial aid and called in all the favours, it still wasn’t enough, whilst even the Cardinals supported their endeavour, it was more symbolic than anything of real substance (minus the genuine Martian-Mahogany “super-3d-holo-blackjack” table gifted by Cardinal Nyabenda), and CoN, themselves severely affected by the economic crisis, were unwilling to further indebt themselves by selling a ship for less than its value.
That is when “Maschinenbau” approached them. The Gestalt-Consciousness and Mega-Corporation Maschinenbau had been toiling away for decades on adapting the widely used gravity generator-technology, into essentially anti-gravity generators for its Bi-pedal Clangatrons. An essential piece of tech to turn these machines into something more than just fancy looking paper-weights. So far their prototypes could only take a few lethargic steps before the leg joints locked up and the Clangatron collapsed in on itself from its weight. Even a weak A-gravity field that could reduce the mass of a Clangatron by a tenth or less would go a long way in achieving their goals. But their efforts were mostly fruitless so far. All they managed to develop was a very limited gravity drive that could propel an object at a relatively decent acceleration rate. It was most effective in zero-g when exposed to a natural gravity field it’s output would start dropping until it reaches zero at 0.5g of natural gravity. M’s collective consciousness concluded that with this tech they were at the cusp of unlocking the secret to the total mastery of gravity and all they needed was data gathered from this gravity drive of theirs, to finally achieve that goal. However, that’s when they reached an impasse. How to gather this data, and who was to gather it? Just letting it sit in a lab and run simulation was not an option, even a fast intellect such as theirs couldn’t account for every variable, and the data would be incomplete at best, building a test craft wouldn’t be an option, they were under close observation by the current galactic powers after their war machines mistakenly slaughtered civilians by the thousands in the name of the church, and their automatic dreadnoughts violently depopulated entire planets due to false sensor readings in the last war. If they were to build an experimental ship like that, then it would certainly raise some eyebrows, more likely though it would simply be seized and all their work and expenses would be for nought. No, Maschinenbau had to search for a different solution, luckily this solution presented itself when Jupiterograd’s XTA-Insitute announced its plans to launch an expedition to determine the nature of the mysterious signals. M. couldn’t believe their luck, if they were to jump in as a benefactor, offer some financial aid and their new drive-tech, they would be both celebrated as heroes and get the data, they so much thirst after, or so they thought. They assumed that it’s “gift” of a “revolutionary” and certainly not highly experimental and potentially deadly propulsion system would be welcomed. But things were not that quite as easy, and after intense negotiation, a compromise was agreed upon. M. ended up caring over 25% of the expedition’s costs and was to provide one of its advanced deep-space probes to the valorous explorers in addition to their already “generous gift” of the drive. The Institutes ship had to be partially redesigned to accommodate the new drive as well, the hangar bay had to go, to make room for the bulky drive core, and more radiation shielding had to be added around the crew areas, for that thing spewed massive amounts of lethal radiation left and right.
Finally, two short years later the “Herald of En-zu” was ready to leave its orbital drydock, and head out into the deep dark unknown. It had all the features of the large space mapping vessels of old in a surprisingly small and compact frame of only 3999 blocks, and just like these ancient vessels it to was a merchant-ship/explorer hybrid, sporting various exterior docking ports for trading and refuelling + all the essential trading computers, a micro-refinery, smelters and various mini-factories, one airtight-sealed docking port for direct ship to ship docking, comfortable living space for up to 24 crewmembers, recreation areas, easily accessed life support-, gyroscopic-, propulsion and power systems, a special impenetrable shield that would protect the ship when stationary (safe-zone generator), some basic weaponry for defence, advanced sensor and communication suits and most importantly a long jump-range to quickly ferry the crew and all their equipment to their destination. With a ship like that, what could possibly go wrong?

13x Interior Turrets

Dimensions:

Length: 125.5m
Height: 8.4m
Width: 9m-13m

Number of Blocks: 3999
PCU: 36128

This ship is my entry to the “Deep-Space-Explorer” design contest.
Special Features Include a large grid probe, and a gravity drive for power and fuel efficient cruising.

Blarg's Aggressive Airlocks by Blargmode
Gravity Drive Manager by Major Jon