Nycto-dread
The Kittanii, fascinated by living creatures and having a thing for
near-organic, heavily mechanized designs - like the Serpent PA,
or the Dragon Dreadnoughts - were inspired by Earth's (?) dinosaurs.
Nyctosaurus (meaning "night lizard") with its large crest was a
perfect candidate for the Kittanii aesthetic, and when a dedicated
hit&run vessel (in the destroyer leader/light cruiser) category
was needed, the Nycto-Dread was born.
The ship, as a technological vessel is not really impressive,
thought have a few whopping parameters (its stealth), but
few beings were not touched by its appearence.
Most Splugorth intelligences keep themselves to the ancient
"divide et impera" motto, besides High Lords were just as
inspired by the giant mechanised beast, so no Nycto-dreads
were allowed to roam without a High Lord command staff,
and a few definitely Splugorth touches.
The vessels' appearance is - surprise
- very close to a
Nyctosaurus, with giant folding wings (but instead of leather
they have very fine and thin mesh, serving as microwave
sails), a large crest or the head (the actual body of the ship)
a relatively small body and - where the anatomical paralell
ends - four legs, each capable of grasping.
The "head" houses most engineering equipment (engines,
life support, sensors, weaponry, quarters and some storage
space, mainly for the stuff of the commanding High Lords),
the wings are the backup/stealth microwave sail "drive", and
the body houses the rather large fighter and small craft
wing, as well as the main storage place for slaves and loot.
The vessels own "mundane" capabilities are a bit underdesigned
for its size but still formidable. The main gun in the "beak" is
plasma ejector, with a long range pulse mode (thought still
shorter than most cruiser main guns) and a close combat
"dragonbreath" mode, used against larger vessels or missile
swarms.
The most used weaponry are however the four rapid-firing
LRM launchers, delivering the dreaded Yazhing "capture" drones,
but also having a healthy payload of conventional missiles.
The last cruiser/frigate-class item is a precision pulse laser battery
in the long prehensive tail.
The secondary weapon array consists eight CG railgun batteries,
four on the head, and one in each arm/leg, these are comparable
to the ones on the Hunter class destroyers.
For point defense the vessel carries 20 K-2000 Twin Scorpion
drones, as well as 30 K-1000 Spider gun-drones.
As a last measure, a tipical Kittanii touch was added ie.
energised claws/stingers on the appendages.
This is while impressive, is still under the capabilities of most
cruisers, but the vessels are also equipped by an array of Eye
of Eylor "bumps", each projecting a defense field (Armor of Ithan)
serving as point defense (call lightning) and finally adding to the
vessels stealth capabilities (Shadow meld and Invisibility superior).
Type: Nycto-dread
Class: Scout Cruiser
Crew: 64 Kittanii for crewing the ship and guns, skeleton crew
is about 12 (before system failures begin to crop up). A
command staff of 7 High Lords is standard, plus the crew
for the fighter wing - tipically two Stellantula Slaver barges,
with about a dozen Altaran Warrior Women, and 24 Kittanii
pilots for the fighters - usually Transformable Robo-fighters
or Serpent PA's with Caltrop pods. On a surface raid mission
the compliment is 12 fighters (Caltrop or Robo) and 36 Serpent or
Manling PA's.
In a straight out war, where slave-hunting is not a priority,
the vessel can pack up to 48 fighters OR 144 PA's.
Under "normal" conditions, the slave pens can accomodate
up to 4000 human sized beings, placed in suspended animation
in the slime-filled chambers (like canned sardines).
MDC/Armor by Location:
Main Body (Head) 20000
Bridge (Crest) 10000
Neck (shielded, -4 to hit) 8000
Wings(2) 10000 each
"Body"(fighter and cargo bay): 25000
Legs (4) 12500 each
Beak (plasma cannon) 12500
Tail (laser canon) 5000
Missile launchers (on head, 4) 600 each
CG emplacements (3 on head, 1 on the body) 400 each
Eyes of Eylor (21, small targets -4 to hit) 600 Each
Forcefield 6*3000 variable
Armor of Ithan 5000, 3 times per day
Height:150 ft (50m)
Width:60 ft(20 m) w/o wing, wingspan is 600 feet (200m)
Length: 120 ft(40 m) plus tail for a further 150 feet (50 meter), so
it can stab targets even directly before the craft.
Weight: 40000 tons empty, 55000 fully loaded
Cargo: see above
Powerplant: fusion with 10 ears life. However it can
scoop interstellar dust (or hydrogen from gas giants or even
from water) for fuel, so the only limitation is the reactor's shielding
which have to be changed in every 3 to 5 decades.
Also have the EoE array, capable of storing 8000 PPE, regenerating
400 per hour.
Speed:
(Atmosphere) Hover to Mach 4; transatmospheric.
(Sublight) Mach 10
(FTL) CG 3 lys/h
Microwave sail 200 c (about 0,5 ly/day)
(Underwater) Mach 2, depth tolerance is about a mile
Bonuses: +3 to Dodge flying, but only against targets 10+ km away, +3 to Strike with long range direct firing weapons, +2 to strike with claws or beak, +4 to strike with tail in melee, +3 to parry, +3 Initiative, +10% to Dogfighting manuvers against frigates and bigger.
Market Cost: 1,3 billion credits plus magic and biowizardry - not aviable.
Systems of Note:
Standard Cruiser systems
Microwave sail stealth drive
Magic systems
Slime tanks for slaves
...to be continued
Adios
KLM
But still, one of the most basic rules for survival on any planet is never to upset someone wearing black leather - This is why protesters against the wearing of animal skins by humans unaccountably fail to throw their paint over Hell's Angels.
- Terry Prachett
Small font: use ctrl+c and copy it, so you can read. But since it is in small fonts, it is not important. I am not a NE salesperson.