Here's a copy of all the potential actual hulls I could find in the last few pages, for ease of reference and argument.
Ships
"Firmament" Destroyer WarsphereThe Firmament is the Gaian Regime's first attempt at right up designing a ship built and meant for war from the first blueprint, not merely adapting an ancient ship to become an armed merchantman like the Trade Orders of old. It was designed as a sphere to maximize the available armor while minimizing the available surface, and is built around a powerful set of spinal mounted nuclear engines that make up the Warsphere's core. This allows the Warsphere to go very fast forwards or backwards, but it needs to use its set of eight maneuvering jet arrays, arranged in what would be a cube if you drew lines between where they were mounted on the hull, to point the engines in the right direction before firing them off. Meanwhile, wrapped around the ship in a vertical ring (compared to the alignment of the engine), lie all the medium turret mounts that the designers could fit on a Destroyer, with lesser small hardpoints scattered evenly across the hull to serve as supplementary firepower. Lastly, one of the new Eco-Bore drives is mounted somewhere within the sphere to allow the Firmament to operate without escorts.
"Firmament" Destroyer Warsphere - Gravity Engine VariantThe Firmament is the Gaian Regime's first attempt at right up designing a ship built and meant for war from the first blueprint, not merely adapting an ancient ship to become an armed merchantman like the Trade Orders of old. It was designed as a sphere to maximize the available armor while minimizing the available surface, and is built around a parallel array of one gravity engine, one Bore Shield and one of the new eco-bore drives built into the inner core of the vessel, as well as the trio of generators needed to power them. This allows the Warsphere to maneuver in any direction with a surprising degree of stealth (unless someone invents gravity sensors), as well as transit between systems under its own power, while being decently defended at the same time. The Warsphere also possesses a set of eight maneuvering jet arrays, arranged in what would be a cube if you drew lines between where they were mounted on the hull. These are for more precise maneuverings that don't need the ships main drive and to maintain the ability to spin around to point its weapons at people even at full thrust to somewhere else. Meanwhile, wrapped around the ship in a vertical ring, lie all the medium turret mounts that the designers could fit on a Destroyer. Lesser small hardpoints are scattered evenly across the hull to serve as supplementary firepower as the designers could fit them find space for them.
Messenger Tri-Hull Light Carrier - Gravity Engine Variant (Cruiser Sized)The Messenger is a
Trimaran style design, built with a single main hull and two secondary hulls. The main hull is, well, a fairly standard main hull. It has a bridge, buried deep within its core, a built in Bore Drive, facilities for the deployment, rearmament, maintenance, and storage of parasite combat drones, a pair of light turret arrays on the top and bottom for defensive weapons, and a single medium sized hard point mounted in the nose for worst case scenarios when enemy ships get close enough to be shot at.
Meanwhile, the Sub-Hulls run on independent (if still linked to the main hull) power systems, which support a Gravity Drive mounted in each of the secondary hulls, at least a pair of light hardpoints for self defense purposes, and all the drone hardpoints that could be fitted into them. This separation of hulls allows for the rest of the ship to keep fighting even when one hull gets pulverized, and hopefully escape to another day. Or just blow up whatever impudent attacker, well, attacked the ship.
Messenger Tri-Hull Light Carrier (Cruiser Sized)The Messenger is a
Trimaran style design, built with a single main hull and two secondary hulls. The main hull is, well, a fairly standard main hull. It has a bridge, buried deep within its core, a set of rear mounted antimatter pulse drives, facilities for the deployment, rearmament, maintenance, and storage of parasite combat drones, a pair of light turret arrays on the top and bottom for defensive weapons, and a single medium sized hard point mounted in the nose for worst case scenarios when enemy ships get close enough to be shot at.
Meanwhile, each of the subhulls mount their own independent Bore Drive, able to transport either the Host itself or send/receive it's compliment of combat parasites, advanced computer arrays to support the use of the Bore Drives, twin primary long ranged sensor and communciation arrays to control their drones at long range... and a last pair of light hardpoints for defense purposes.
Omen Catamaran Destroyer - Gravity Engine VariantThe Omen is a
Catamaran hulled Destroyer adapted from an archived high speed racer design from an ancient association of space racers. While the original twin hulled was highly maneuverable and very fast, the addition of armor and weapons have decreased those two stats... but it's probably still faster then the average destroyer. Each of the two hulls are about the size of a single heavy frigate, and each has been specialized independently in the redesign that converted it from racing craft to combat craft. One hull, the 'Command Hull', is where the bridge, main computer core, living quarters, and so on are, with the back of the hull holding the Gravity Drive that replace it's original high performance fission pulse engines. The secondary maneuvering thrusters that once gave it its high maneuverability were carefully preserved in the combat retrofit, granting the ship a very high maneuverability rating. (Combined with tricks about how the Omen's center of gravity isn't actually in either of the hulls at least.) A single nose mounted medium hardpoint and a few small hardpoints for point defense rounds out the rest of the Command Hull.
The other hull, the 'Gun Hull' keeps the replacement Gravity Drive and the maneuvering thrusters, but everything besides those two things (and room for armor) has been replaced with a large spinal hardpoint, making the hull in question something of a flying gun. Really, that's usually enough. Big guns make nicely big booms after all.
Omen Catamaran DestroyerThe Omen is a
Catamaran hulled Destroyer adapted from an archived high speed racer design from an ancient association of space racers. While the original twin hulled was highly maneuverable and very fast, the addition of armor and weapons have decreased those two stats... but it's probably still faster then the average destroyer. Each of the two hulls are about the size of a single heavy frigate, and each has been specialized independently in the redesign that converted it from racing craft to combat craft. One hull, the 'Command Hull', is where the bridge, main computer core, living quarters, and so on are, with the back of the hull made up by a modernized fission pulse engine array descended from the powerful racing engine that once made the chassis a winner's favorite, with the secondary maneuvering thrusters that once gave it its high maneuverability carefully preserved in the combat retrofit. (combined with tricks about how the Omen's center of gravity isn't actually in either of the hulls at least.) A single nose mounted medium hardpoint and a few small hardpoints for point defense rounds out the rest of the Command Hull.
The other hull, the 'Gun Hull' keeps the large engine array and the maneuvering thrusters, but everything besides those two things (and room for armor) has been replaced with a large spinal hardpoint, making the hull something of a flying gun. Really, that's usually enough.
Dagger Class Drone CorvetteThe Dagger Class is effectively the smallest possible hull that can still hold a Bore Drive and remain combat capable, and it manages that by having exactly no capabilities to actually have living people on board. Visually, the Dagger looks like three pods that were stacked together, with the back pod being an old fashioned but cheap Fission Pulse Engine, the middle pod being where the command computer rests as well as the Bore Drive, and the front pod being the combat module where the three light hardpoints are mounted. There's not really much to the Dagger, but then, there doesn't really need to be.
Fighters
Mk Ib Parasite Drone "Hornet"10m long, 15m wide and 2m tall in the body, this chevron shaped combat drone presents a very small front and rear profile when in combat. The central section contains all critical systems, such as comms equipment, processors and the miniaturised gravity drive. In the front center is a weapons hardpoint, allowing for a single fighter-sized shattergun, a pod of eight anti-fighter missiles or a single anti-cap torpedo. Beyond the central body, the chassis thins out to no more than 30cm tall, leading to a set of omni-directional manoeuvring thrusters at the points, to mach those at the front. Placing the manoeuvring thrusters so far from the center of mass allows for much greater control of the craft. Despite its shape, it is not atmosphere capable.
Hornet Drones are intended to be deployed in large swarms to overwhelm defences. Their thin cross-section and AI allows them to be stored in huge racks allowing vast numbers to be deployed at a moments notice. Thanks to the gravity drive and manoeuvring thrusters, the Hornet can rotate and move independently, allowing it focus fire on a single point as part of a boom-and-zoom run, or to turn around a shoot a following fighter.
Mk Ic Parasite Drone "Hornet"10m long, 15m wide and 2m tall in the body, this chevron shaped combat drone presents a very small front and rear profile when in combat. The central section contains all critical systems, such as comms equipment, processors and the miniaturised gravity drive. There are three weapon hardpoints, one at the front center and one on either side where the wings meet the body, each allowing for a single fighter-sized shattergun, a pod of eight anti-fighter missiles or a single anti-cap torpedo Beyond the central body, the chassis thins out to no more than 30cm tall, leading to a set of omni-directional manoeuvring thrusters at the points, to mach those at the front. Placing the manoeuvring thrusters so far from the center of mass allows for much greater control of the craft. Despite its shape, it is not atmosphere capable.
Hornet Drones are intended to be deployed in large swarms to overwhelm defences. Their thin cross-section and AI allows them to be stored in huge racks allowing vast numbers to be deployed at a moments notice. Thanks to the gravity drive and manoeuvring thrusters, the Hornet can rotate and move independently, allowing it focus fire on a single point as part of a boom-and-zoom run, or to turn around a shoot a following fighter.
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Topic: The Gaian Regime Empire Thread | Terrans | GalactiRace (Read 46475 times)