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Fighter Class
Corvette Class
Frigate Class
Super-Capital Class
Non-Combat & Resource Classes
Frigate Class
Frigate Class Description
Frigates are part of the first generation of large crew vessels. While not as powerful as their super-capital ship brethren, frigates are nontheless formidable ships. These vessels are the backbone of any fleet and are often seen escorted by lighter craft, making runs at enemy resource operations and strongholds.
Taiidan Assault Frigate - "Kudaark"
The Kudaark Class of assault frigates are the workhorses of the Taiidani fleet. Its four heavy turrets give excellent coverage, while dual forward-facing plasma bomb launchers give it the ability to devastate any capital ship in its path. Directly behind the massive engine housing is the only arc where the Kudaark is incapable of directing any sort of firepower. This, and the relatively slow tracking of the turret guns, means that despite its heavy offensive punch and deep armor plating, the Kudarrk should not be deployed without an escort of fighters or multi-gun corvettes.
The Kudaark is named after a large burrower from the northern forests of Taiidan. In addition to its immense claws and surly disposition, the creature also has an array of spines along its snout which it can expel in a painful barbed cloud. Since the array of heavy turrets on the Taiidan assault frigate is arranged around the nose section, it made for a logical comparison, as approaching the creature or the frigate head-on is a definite tactical error, which one only makes once. The forward weapon placement was intended to give the Assault Frigate maximum firepower when attempting to punch through enemy formations. The standard maneuver is for three Kudaarks to blast their way past an enemy fleet, and then wheel around quickly to bring their heavy firepower to bear from the opposite quarter, while keeping their vulnerable rear arc away from hostile guns.
The assault Frigate carries a double-size crew and substantial quarters, allowing it to conduct long-range strike operations for weeks at a time, while still remaining at full combat efficiency.
Kushan Support Frigate - "Matriarch"
The Mercy corvette was a highly successful tender design, but even as it was employed in small unit actions, it became obvious that a larger version would be required to service multiple strike craft quickly while still in the thick of battle. Kushan engineers went to work on a standard frigate and basically removed everything between the cockpit and the drives in order to make room for fighter docking pads, mounting five on either side of the ship's open spine--which serves as an access tube and power conduit. Four heavily reinforced docking arms were also added to allow for multiple dockings of corvette class ships. Each pad and arm is packed with automatic repair equipment and plasma ducts for refueling. The Matriarch's crew module, normally spacious in a standard frigate, has been crowded in order to make room for a full engineering station, an emergency medical station, and rudimentary quarters for six spare pilots. These extra crew-members spend the entire combat mission prepped and suited up, ready to evac and replace wounded pilots who have managed to return their craft to the Matriarch. The Matriarch also carries the same kind of nose-mounted modified PDA that the Mercy class does, in order to repair frigates and capitol ships.
The Matriarch is heavily armored and packs a medium rail-gun turret. While utterly inadequate for offensive work--unless there is a desperate need for every last gun--Matriarchs are well enough protected to hang in the middle of intense fleet actions, repairing and refitting strike craft of all kinds. Standard deployment requires a single Matriarch and several Mercy class repair corvettes to work as a Support Wing for a set quadrant of space. As a battle grows in size, other support wings are vectored in to cover new quadrants.
Kushan Drone Frigate - "Puppeteer"
Early on in the fleet design debates, a faction within the Kushan military was pushing to develop a series of autonomous or tele-operated strike craft that would render on-board pilots obsolete. Unfortunately, AI systems never could match the adaptability or reliability of living pilots, and even communications delays of a fraction of a light second rendered remote-controlled drones useless in combat. Several promising designs of cheap, powerful drone were abandoned simply because there was no way to operate them effectively at range.
Kushan engineers have a unspoken belief that anything can be put to use, even the dead, and so it wasn't long before a research team trying to develop an effective anti-fighter capital ship turned the drone problem around so that it became a solution. The answer lay in not asking more from a drone than it was capable of doing. Instead of expecting a drone to behave like a fighter, researchers developed a sophisticated tracking and targeting system that could control 24 drones as if they were remote turrets. Deployed in a perfect sphere around a modified heavy frigate chassis, these drones can project firepower in any direction against multiple fast moving targets.
The resulting Puppeteer Class Drone Frigate lacks the raw firepower of other Frigates, as each drone can only carry a single rapid fire rail gun, but the tactical coverage is unsurpassed, making the most effective anti-strike craft platform yet seen. Puppeteers can break up massed fighter attacks in less than a minute, and can even direct substantial fire against single targets like heavy corvettes or other enemy frigates. Two Puppeteers used in conjunction with a Trapper class Gravwell generator can completely destroy an enemy fleet that has concentrated on strike craft instead of capital ships.
Taiidan Field Frigate - "Tiifal"
With the success of the Koshiir Ra Defense fighter, it was natural for Taiidani engineers to try and incorporate defense field technology into a larger platform that could offer more coverage in large-scale battles. The Tiifal uses a frigate hull and uses the increased size and power plant to support a full array of microwave emitters that cover a complete sphere around the ship. While the power drain of supporting this many emitters leaves little left for maneuvering, the maximum coverage means that the Tiifal has no vulnerable facing to take advantage of.
While the microwave emitters can vaporize incoming projectiles no matter their velocity, the system has no effect on energy-based weapons such as Ion Beams and Mines. Enemy missiles with their advanced ECM equipment can also spoof the tracking system, so Tiifals must avoid Missile Destroyers and beam-equipped capitol ships at all costs.
To compensate for their vulnerability, Tiifal crews train to approach larger ships from the flanks in order to shut down enemy turret fire and avoid forward-mounted beams and missiles. Offensively, Tiifals are often used to lead the final assaults against enemy carriers and motherships, where their anti-munitions field can utterly shut down the target's point-defense guns, allowing friendly fighters to strafe and bomb with impunity.
Kushan Ion Cannon Frigate - "Firelance"
The Firelance class of frigate is one of the deadliest special-purpose combat vessels ever made. When Kushan scientists finally made a breakthrough in directed particle beam technology, it was clear that it was just too large to mount effectively on the current class of capital ship hulls. Unwilling to wait for the evolution of larger hulls, combat engineers went to work wrapping a frigate class hull around the huge ion cannon itself. The result was the Firelance class of frigate, whose only real combat function is to deliver the incredible damage potential of the Ion Cannon to the battle. There are few sights more terrifying to the enemy than one of their ships caught in a web of perfect ruby cutting beams.
Unfortunately, this power does not come without a price, and the spinal mounting of the Cannon makes the Firelance one of the least adaptable ships in the fleet. In order to aim the beam, the entire ship must be moved and the massive power requirements needed to generate the accelerated ion stream means there is nothing left to power point defense turrets or even redundant life support systems. So while the Firelance has a reputation as a giant-killer, it is very vulnerable to small strike craft, which can easily dodge the ion cannon while delivering fire to the vulnerable sides and rear of the frigate. Traditionally, the first sign that a battle is going badly for a Kushan fleet is when the Firelances turn away and begin to retreat, before the line collapses and they are beset from all sides.
Taiidan Ion Cannon Frigate - "Sajuuk Cor"
The Ion Beam is the single most powerful weapon technology developed by Taiidani science. The frigate hull can barely support the entire length of the particle acceleration unit, but it offers the quickest and most economical way to put this devastating weapon into battle.
The design sequence was so rapid that the frigate entered frontline service still under its project name, 'Weapon X,' but within days of its first combat trials, crews had renamed the frigate 'Sajuuk Cor'--an ancient phrase that translates roughly into "God's Wrath." Given the power of the weapon system, Sajuuk Cor crews were drawn only from veteran personnel, and quickly became some of the most driven members of the Fleet. Where the obvious vulnerabilities of a ship with only one forward firing weapon would dictate cautious deployment, Beam frigate crews operate as hunter/killers and will often plow their frigates through formations of enemy fighters in order to pin a capital ship in a web of deadly blue-white cutting beams. While this tactic can be devastatingly effective, it drastically lowers the survivability of the beam frigates and, despite numerous disciplinary charges against zealous captains, there seems to be no increase in caution amongst Sajuuk Cor crews. Attempts to mix in greener or more cautious personnel has either had no effect, or produced an unacceptable drop in combat efficiency.
As a result, fleet commanders have no choice but to assign escort vessels like Diirvass corvettes and Tiifal defense frigates to cover the Sajuuk Cors as they dive into the thick of things, hunting the largest enemy vessels on the scope.
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