This is the thread where I will post pictures and descriptions of ships I have finished recently.
I plan to forgo any RP introductions to the ships, or biographical information relating to them.
My design philosophy is to place appearance of being a ship first, and gameplay second. Many of these vessels will be inefficiently designed, but their purpose is not to "win the game" but rather to appear to be starships, and function like them.
This is the thread where I will post pictures and descriptions of ships I have finished recently.
I plan to forgo any RP introductions to the ships, or biographical information relating to them.
My design philosophy is to place appearance of being a ship first, and gameplay second. Many of these vessels will be inefficiently designed, but their purpose is not to "win the game" but rather to appear to be starships, and function like them.
The Following is the (rather extensive) lore introduction to the Terran Hegemony "Vengeance" class Cruiser.
This ship is not usable in combat until AI ramming for warheads is included in the game.
At the close of the 22nd century, Humanity was spreading far and wide across the galaxy. Relatively cheap fusion power and cryonic technology enabled colonization of first dozens, then hundreds of worlds. Despite the lack of a substantial external threat, humanity remained united through the carrot and stick of central Earth Authority. The benefits were extensive, primarily defense from smaller powers such as pirates or aliens, and the alternative was of course removal.
The Vengeance class cruisers were one arm of that might. These ships were rarely seen outside of Terran military outposts, and almost never seen doing their jobs. Their role, rarely spoken of openly, was to remove potential threats to the Terran Hegemony, quietly and thoroughly. To accomplish this, they carried the most powerful stealth suite seen on any ship before or since. The combination of passive-only sensors, no shields, minimal power signature, and carbon fiber hull made this cruiser completely undetectable by even nearby active sensor sweeps.
Their primary weapons were 48 antimatter torpedoes, each of which was capable (at maximum yield) of completely destroying a planet. Usually only some of the weapons were of that level, with others carrying air-burst chemical or biological agents, or simply smaller warheads for destruction of cities or space facilities. The Hegemony military discovered quite quickly that a long drawn-out war with a rebellious colony was not worth the effort, and simply writing off a few planets paid off in the long run.
Such a level of firepower was deemed necessary as potential threats may have created defenses or even entire fleets to challenge the Central Authority. Only weapons capable of destroying all threat in a system, combined with a platform which could deploy them with maximum reliability would suffice to keep wayward planets reminded of their duty.
The Vengance class's engines were not the most powerful, in fact the class were considered sluggish even for the time they were created, but they were amazingly quiet and efficient for all of that. While fusion engines typically create a signature visible for several sectors in every direction, these were embedded deeply within the structure of the ship and covered...
In a unique intercooler system which reduced the ship's IR signature to just above that of the background.
While the carbon fiber hull offered next to nothing in terms of protection, the ship was somewhat defended by the thick layer of thermal and shock absorbing foam which backed key areas of the ship. This served to reduce the ship's footprint even further, and absorb some damage to vital areas should the worst occur.
Rather than risk the increased profile of exposed weapons installations, the Vengeance class's secondary armament are mounted on extendable mounts and have AI target acquisition through visible light passive sensors only. These secondary railguns packed quite a punch when first included, but were surpassed centuries ago by other systems and never upgraded as they were so rarely used. Even so, firing from ambush the Vengeance class is still able to destroy lighter opponents outright, or disable key systems on larger targets. Other secondary weapons also include quad rapid firing missile tubes, designed to home on enemy sensor systems; hopefully blinding them to enable the cruiser to escape if detected.
One defensive option the Vengeance class does support are point defense turrets. These quad autocannon mounts are considered effective even by today's standards, and at the time were considered gross overkill. Still, when operated under direct control, they can prove to be a threat not only to incoming missiles, but also to enemy fighters or shuttles. Again, these turrets are mounted in extensible "plunger" style mountings to preserve the cruiser's stealth profile.
Another rarely used feature of the ships were the two cargo shuttles the carried. They could theoretically enable the crew to land on a planet or station without endangering the ship, but since the Vengeance class's typical mission profile typically involved firing a single missile from the outside edge of a system under deepest stealth and leaving, leaving the ship was not something which the crew did except in unusual circumstances. Again, the shuttle bay is covered with a carbon-fiber baffle and the stealth plating did an excellent job of keeping this system, as well as many others, hidden.
The designers were so conscious of preserving the cruiser's stealth profile that even the primary air locks were usually covered in a protective baffle. This system, although often temperamental, served to not only preserve the ship from detection, but also to prevent unwanted ingress or docking should the ship be detected.
The ship has a compliment of 50, with the entire crew (as was usual during this time of Humanity's space exploration) spending most of their time in cryostasis. Even during most engagements, only 10-20 members of the crew would be awakened, with the full crew brought up only to repair damage. Still, the Vengeance class does have facilities to permit the crew to live comfortably for short periods while awake, and even a months-long cruise was not deemed to be too unpleasant.
As Hegemony navy officers and enlisted were paid, not for total time in service, but time spent active, enlistment was considered to separate a navy man not only from his family, but his entire world. Hundreds or even thousands of years might pass until his "four year" term expired. While great efforts were made to re-integrate any sailors who chose to leave the service, the majority realized that there was no going back, and that the only people who could ever really understand their life would be other sailors. This disconnect between the navy crews and the populations of planet-bound civilians made the Hegemony navy both monolithic and willing to carry out the government's dirty work.
It is estimated by those who survived the fall of the Hegemony that there were over 100 Vengeance class cruisers or equivalents created, or which only about 30 are accounted for. As all missions were sub-light, it usually took decades for each ship to reach even nearby stars, and so navy ships were all launched with a "kill list", usually between 20 and 40 systems deemed by the latest intelligence to be either rebellious, alien, or in some way a threat to the hegemony. This led to an average mission time of 500 years, of which an average of one year was spent actually awake. Losses doubtless occurred, as attrition was high for all space travel during this period, but doubtless many are still at large.
Even today, after having not heard from Terra for thousands of years, the Hegemony navy still hangs over human worlds like a sword of Damocles. As one habitable planet or another completely vanishes or ceases to support life, many try to blame the occurrence on a terraforming accident or alien raid, but the unspoken thought remains: maybe that planet was on some ancient kill list, and one of the Hegemony's assassin ships finally reached them.
The Terran Hegemony "Assassin" class Hunter/Killer
Towards the latter half of the Hegemony era, the central authority of Earth had grown corrupt. More and more systems were deemed to be rebelling against their rule, and the relatively tiny offensive fleet of under 100 cruisers was becoming taxed. Rather than authorize the construction of more of the ruinously expensive "Vengeance" class ships or equivalents, the government authorized a lighter ship class, designed to do more with less.
Designed for a crew of 12, the Assassin class Hunter/Killers were supposed to fill every role of the larger and older cruisers, while able to get to their targets faster and deliver their payload more reliably. The result of this cost-cutting however was a ship that was only nearly undetectable, while carrying less in the way of defensive armament to defend itself.
The Assassin class carried one light railgun on a swivel mount (ventral) and one light coilgun on a similar mount on the ventral side. The railgun was ostensibly for defensive purposes, while the coilgun had a longer range for attacking enemy ships. In real operations, both had much too low of a rate of fire to be useful defensively, and insufficient offensive punch to even inconvenience ships designed around armor and shields rather than stealth. Both of these weapons were mounted on innovative retractable turrets, which at least did nothing to reduce the stealth of the parent ship, but that measure was too little and too late.
(The turret deployment system)
The Assasin class had two major failings as a stealth ship. The first was that, in order to launch the missiles, she had to extend one of the launch racks. While these extending launch racks did mean that the ship's profile was smaller when not firing, the ship's overall observability rating skyrocketed from an estimated 0.01% all the way to 3% with one of these racks extended. Even without this flaw, smart captains made all attack runs with engines cold because the Assassin class's fusion engines lack the sophisticated inter-coolers of her larger sisters. Since the engines required at least 2 hours warm-up time, many captains were struck by ballistic weapons from extreme range shortly after launching on targets.
The weaknesses of the assassin class do not end there however. The smaller crew of 12 members clearly required a smaller crew space, and this was found by everyone to serve aboard her to be cramped. The fusion reactor, which was both well insulated and complex, was very difficult to access and service meaning that underway repairs were difficult and time-consuming. Finally, the ship lacked much in the way of cargo space or spare parts, meaning that keeping her running often required both creativity and luck, while more frequent required supply stops left the H/K more vulnerable to attack at "Friendly" ports.
The one bright spot were the MK3a torpedoes. Having learned a great deal in the thousands of years service of the Vengeance class, the latest generation of torpedoes were larger, but carried key features such as minimum arming distance, cleaner launch systems, and better stealth suites. While there were very few instances of planets detecting and shooting down incoming torpedoes, moving as they did at near fractions of C, These weapons were harder to detect, and safer to launch and carry.
The Terran Hegemony military did not make extensive use of starfighters. Since the primary method of attack involved extreme range, stealth, and brutality, lesser force was deemed by the admiralty to be wasteful at best and dangerous at worst. Still, certain of the core worlds which had extensive local space infrastructure used small Light Attack Craft such as this one to keep the population in line. It was admitted that losing a core world in case of rebellion might be an embarrassment, however heavy a hand the navy might take on the frontier. Thus, local system patrol fleets were included to nip potential threats in the bud.
Paid for by the local system government of the Greenphase system, the F-8 Starfighter was fairly typical of the breed. At nearly 20 meters long, it carried airfoils for reasonable in-atmosphere maneuverability but its principal implementation was in-system display of force. The local customs cutters were unarmed, and while most trading ships were dependent on the resources of each system they stopped in to resupply and refuel, it was not unheard of for a ship to attempt to fight their way in or out of a system.
This was still the era when defensive technology was still playing catch-up to the new developments in weaponry. Since a typical railgun was expected to penetrate several meters of steel, most defensive efforts were directed toward evasion and jamming, and the F-8 was no different. Capable of high speed, the engine could also be tuned to produce nearly no signature at all. Combine this with ECM capability, powerful jamming, and even an all-up cloak ability and you have a fighter that can, in theory, succeed in combat against any ship without the capability to localize it.
The real world was not quite so kind to the little ships. Light attack craft were widely thought to be flying deathtraps for any pilot foolish enough to fly one, and the lack of FTL limited their utility to defensive or carrier-born operations. While this model of fighter was indeed carried aboard one of the Hegemony's few carriers, the idea of small strike craft was generally rejected. The Fusion engines produced a signature that was far too large to hide completely, and the reactors which could be thoroughly insulated on larger ships had only a few inches of metal guarding them on a fighter scale ship. When you combine this with a cost which was alarmingly high for so little combat power, and it is little wonder that the admiralty moved more toward larger ships.
In terms of crew comfort, the F-8 was typical for a fighter, that is, terrible. There is a high-G couch and harness, shock absorbing landing gear, and a fairly standard but primitive computer system. The primary control systems were mounted directly behind the headrest, and integrated with the pilot's helmet to give him direct control over engines, reactor, and weapons.
For all that the F-8 and other Light Attack Craft were not widely used by the hegemony, the idea has gained momentum rather than losing it in the centuries since the war. Advanced in materials science have given starfighters armor plating which can survive more than a single hit. Deflector shields add further defensive capability, so modern fighters rarely depend on stealth any longer. Weapons are more powerful as well, meaning that a single fighter can drop an antimatter warhead large enough to prove a threat even to some capital ships. Finally, cheap and easy FTL transportation means that a fighter can deploy itself to other systems in hours, not decades. Still, the old F-8 may find a home, post refit, in a modern navy. Certainly the hull styling have been borrowed by certain military corporations...
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