Mesoforte

The Mesoforte is a Neptune-class ironclad owned by Admiral Human12542 and built and armed by himself. She has seen extensive use in combat with the Valmar Confederacy, however is tricky to use properly and requires near-constant escort.

General
The Mesoforte was constructed in early April of 2018, after TrveMetalhead had voiced concerns for the small amount of ironclads in the Valmar fleet. In an effort to increase the amount of ironclads, Human12542 went to work on building a Neptune - keeping his work secret to the rest of Valmar, and unveiling it as a surprise to the rest of the Council. The Mesoforte has seen use by Valmar in a number of skirmishes and battles, which have allowed them to gather intel on effective ironclad warfare strategies and realize both the advantages and weaknesses of a Neptune.

Construction History
After TrveMetalhead voiced her concerns to Valmar about the weakness of a fleet lacking ironclads, Human12542 took it upon himself to initiate a project to build himself a Neptune. It was an ambitious project; constructing an ironclad on his own quickly proved to be a difficult task that would take a long time to complete. The iron and oak was easy to obtain due to Human12542's obsessive mining at the time, which could last for hours on end. However, earning the doubloons was far more difficult.

It took Human12542 well a few days to obtain a tenth of the doubloons for the Mesoforte through trading alone. Eventually, he began to sell materials and weapons, of which he had plenty - this is what lead into the founding of his first weapons company, Human's Hand-Made Harming Implements. After another few days, approximately a miraculous 250,000 doubloons had been raised. It was only after the Admiral ran across a member who was leaving and giving away free glowie weapons that he was able to earn the last portion of the funds, as he was able to resell them and quickly became able to raise the million doubloons.

The Mesoforte was quickly built once the doubloons had been raised. Little time was wasted outfitting her with a decal of the Valmar flag and a green Neptune upgrade. Her first armament was four size 6 carronades, two size 6 long guns and a Neptune Howitzer; the broadside was eventually changed to include six size 6 long guns, which was more combat effective.

Combat Career
The Mesoforte has seen extensive use by the Valmar Confederacy. This is partially due to the application of theoretical strategies involving Neptunes that required testing to further refine them, and also due to the extensive love of her by crewmen. In combat, crewmen would often request that the Mesoforte be used. With time, this fondness has died down, however she is still commonly seen in skirmishes and most early Valmar members know her by memory when they see her.

The Mesoforte was present for the First Spark at Perth, a skirmish between a Nova Balreskan Poseidon and the Valmar Mesoforte around the island of Perth. She was capable of winning the fight, however had sustained heavy damage. The Spark was the first military engagement in the Valmar's war for independence and was seen as a great victory for the Rebellion.

She was also present at the First Battle of Nova Balreska. This was the first official engagement of the war, and the Mesoforte was used multiple times, repairing damage when not at sea. Most notably, the Mesoforte would bombard Nova Balreska's port when FlippyyyJr called the combat off, claiming Nova Balreska had won. When Rhonor (the Chancellor at the time) was contacted regarding this with evidence that combat was still active, he called the engagement a stalemate and demoted FlippyyyJr for falsely calling off a battle.

Trivia

 * "Mesoforte" is a purposeful misspelling of "mezzoforte," which is a music term meaning "slightly loud."
 * The Mesoforte makes a good training target due to her fairly low stature in the water, slow speed, and high health.
 * Being the first ironclad built specifically for Valmar purposes, the Mesoforte launched the spark that drove the "modernization" of the Valmar fleet, encouraging all members who were capable to build ironclads.