![]() ![]() It’s also slow and fragile – a fact that is somewhat made up for by its frontal shields. It’s armed with a torpedo (yes indeed, a torpedo bomber carries a torpedo) and a point defense laser. To see just how useful this is, let’s take a look at the high tech, Dagger-class torpedo bomber. They are – carriers can repair, re-arm, and replace destroyed fighters mid-battle, if at least one fighter from a wing makes it back from a sortie to land on a carrier’s flight deck. “Where does that leave carriers? Carriers are cool, and I want them to be special!” Some high-tech fighters are equipped with hyperdrive and don’t take up hangar space. Inter-system task forces need more ships to stow the fighters. Since fighters are cheap and effective, system patrols use a lot of them (no need to provide hangar capacity, since they don’t travel between systems). Most ships contribute some hangar capacity to the fleet. The only restriction on fighters is that a fleet must have enough hangar capacity to stow the fighters for travel between systems. Early in development, fighters were launched from carriers (being weapons, in a sense), but it became clear this limited fighters to being used only in battles that directly involved carriers, and that just wouldn’t do. Fighter wings are first-class citizens – they’re members of your fleet, like all your other ships. Fighters, on the other hand, could be produced cheaply using a coded blueprint at an automated factory. With the decline in industrial capacity, producing a capable military ship was a significant undertaking. In the years after the great war, fighters became commonly used throughout the sector. Of course, there are many other ways to outfit this hull, depending on the role it has to play in battle. There we have it – a balanced Onslaught loadout, ready to go. Three Hephaestus assault guns (large, ballistic) can hammer the opposition into subatomic particles at medium range, and the placement of those slots on the outer edges of the hull ensures we get the most range out of ‘em.Ī pair of Gauss cannons (large, ballistic) fitted into the hardpoints round the design out nicely, though they place a far too great demand on the ship’s reactor for continuous use. Unfortunately, the LRMs aren’t so great up close, and can run out pretty quickly, so we’ll need something to fall back on. Four Pilum LRM (Long Range Missile, medium missile) launchers should do nicely – with those, we’ll be able to engage the enemy at well beyond visual range. ![]() Pretty much anything will outrun us, so it’s important to get some long-range capability. Now, on to the core function of the ship – offense. It’s not a fully reliable defense, but hey, that’s what the 5-meter-thick titanium armor plating is for. A couple of Dual Flak cannons (medium ballistic) and Vulcan cannons (small ballistic) should do the trick. Well, we’re certainly not going to be dodging any missiles (or even the slower torpedoes), and we’d be foolish to even try, so some point defense is in order. The question is, how shall we outfit the hull to take full advantage? The Onslaught is really, really slow, so whatever weapons we decide to mount should address that shortcoming. To put it in perspective, a frigate might only have 5-7 small weapon slots.
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