Starships

Starships  are spacecraft capable of traveling between star systems using thrusters and FTL drives.

Frigates
Frigates are light escort and scouting vessels. They often have extensive GARDIAN systems to provide anti-fighter screening for capital ships, and carry a squad of marines for security and groundside duty. Unlike larger vessels, frigates are able to land on planets.

The most important role filled by frigates is reconnaissance. Sensors, unlike ships and communications employing the mass effect, are limited to the speed of light. Subsequently, a stationary observer can only detect a vessel one light-year away when its light arrives at the observer's location, one year after leaving said vessel.

Because faster-than-light attackers always arrive before defenders can detect them with luminal sensors, attackers can always surprise defenders. For defense, fleets surround themselves with spheres of scouting frigates scanning for enemy ships and transmitting warnings to the main body.

Frigates achieve high FTL cruise speeds because of their high-performance drives. They also have proportionally larger thrusters and lighter design mass, allowing them greater maneuverability. In combat, speed and maneuverability make frigates immune to long-range fire of larger vessels.

In fleet combat, frigates are organized into "wolf pack" flotillas of four to six. Wolf packs speed through enemy formations, hunting enemy vessels whose kinetic barriers have been taken down by fighter-launched disruptor torpedoes. The wolf pack circle-strafes vulnerable targets, using their superior speed and maneuverability to evade return fire.

Destroyers
Destroyers are fast, maneuverable long-endurance warships intended to escort larger vessels in a fleet, convoy, or battle group, and defend them against smaller powerful short-range attackers like frigates. Federation destroyers are also geared towards artillery supports and providing limited transport capability for planetary assaults.

Before the Second Bug War, destroyers were light vessels with little endurance for long range operations; typically a number of destroyers and a single destroyer tender operated together. After the war, the advent of laser technology and micro missiles allowed destroyers to take on the artillery support roles for planetary landings previously filled by corvettes and cruisers. This resulted in smaller miniaturized Alesia class destroyers with more powerful offensive capabilities for independent operation.

Following the aftermath of the Petolemaiac War, destroyers become the standard space escort vessels of the Federation, with only the Petolemaiac and the Alliance being the other two operators of similar vessels of the type as most Citadel races rely on Frigates and Cruisers for these roles. These vessels have been augmented with extra payload capabilities oriented towards planetary assaults and fleet escort roles.

Cruisers
Cruisers are middle-weight combatants, faster than dreadnoughts, and more heavily-armed than frigates.

Cruisers are the standard patrol unit, and often lead frigate flotillas. Cruisers cannot land on medium or high-gravity worlds, but do possess the ability to land on low-gravity planets.

Cruiser-weight starships are the standard combat unit encountered away from large naval bases, the "poor bloody infantry" of most fleets. Nimble scouting frigates have neither the punch nor the stamina to stand up to serious combat, and the mighty dreadnoughts are a strategic resource, carefully hoarded and committed to the most critical battles.

Cruisers perform routine independent "show the flag" patrols in settled systems and lead flotillas of frigates in small engagements, such as pirate suppression campaigns. In major fleet engagements, cruiser squadrons support the dreadnought battle line by screening their flanks against enemies attempting to maneuver for a main gun "bow shot" from their vulnerable broadsides.

Battlecruisers, despite their name, is actually a dreadnough-sized vessel which favored on speed and firepowers and were typically designed to hunting down smaller cruiser types while avoiding direct confrontation with larger and better armored dreadnoughts.

Dreadnoughts
Dreadnoughts are kilometer-long capital ships mounting heavy, long-range firepower. They are only deployed for the most vital missions. A dreadnought's power lies in the length of its main gun. Dreadnoughts range from 800 meters to one kilometer long, with a main gun of commensurate length. An 800-meter mass accelerator is capable of accelerating one twenty-kilogram slug to a velocity of 4025 km/s (1.3% the speed of light) every two seconds. Each slug has the kinetic energy of about 38 kilotons of TNT, about two and a half times the energy released by the fission weapon that destroyed Hiroshima.

Unlike the Citadel's dreadnought power lying in the length of its main gun, Federal Dreadnoughts have a huge number of laser turrets, missile silos, and railguns. Federation Dreadnoughts were often noted for their powerful array of laser cannons, capable of matching the ranges of the best Citadel manufactured mass accelerators on warships and could potentially have devastating firepower up to 100 megatons, the estimated destructive power of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear bomb ever built by a pre-disorder power.

The Treaty of Farixen stipulates the amount of dreadnoughts a navy may own, with the turian peacekeeping fleet being allowed the most. As of 2665 GS, the turians had 48 fast battleships and 12 super dreadnoughts, the asari had 22 dreadnoughts and 9 super dreadnoughts, the salarians had 26 stealth dreadnoughts, and the terrans, being a non-signatory member had 560 battlecruisers with a super dreadnought undergoing trials while three more under construction. The Volus also have completed a dreadnought of their own, the Kwunu class Dreadnought, with 4 more under constructions.

The Geth, unbound by the treaty, possess almost as many dreadnoughts as the turians. In preparation for the retaking of their homeworld, the quarians fitted their Liveships with dreadnought cannons, effectively making them dreadnought-class vessels though with much weaker armor. The batarians are stated to possess dreadnoughts, but the exact number is unknown.

Battlecruisers
A term coined by humans from the Federation and the Systems Alliance, battlecruiser is a capital ship with similarities in size, cost, and armament to a standard dreadnought, but they generally carried less armour in order to obtain faster speeds. Also known as "Dreadnought Cruiser" (Turian classification) or "Cruiser Battleships" (Salarian classification).

The first battlecruisers of John A Warden class were designed for the Federation in the early stage of the Second Bug Wars as a replacement of the obsolete Athena class armoured cruiser, while Citadel dreadnought design become the norms for large sized long range artillery capital ships of the fleet. These ships were designed to be Line-Breaker with heavy protection and powerful array of lasers capable of bearing the brunt of frontline assault in a fleet battle.

Terran High Command could not agreed upon a unified doctrines of the Dreadnought type vessels, hence the Federation Dreadnought designs tend to fal into two battlecruiser categories: Swift, well armed but lightly armored Battlecruisers designed to chase smaller wolf-packs or Line breaker type Battlecruisers which rely on heavy armor and speed to compensate their inferior armaments to Citadel Super-Dreadnought types.

In addition, the Federation also have two Geneva-class Battlecruisers currently out of service, these vessels are the larger competing design with the John A Warden class in Federation Navy modernization programs, although the latter eventually won the contract due to being cheaper and easier for modular reconfigurations, two completed prototype vessels of the Geneva class were still commissioned in service. The leadship of the class, the TFS Geneva has been recently refurbished and sold to the Quarian Migrant Fleet at a bargain price while the TFS Singapore is currently in storage at Luna Base and was severely damaged by a Pseudo-Arachnid bombardment on the dockyard.

By the end of the Petolemaiac war, warship design had evolved with dreadnoughts becoming faster and battlecruisers becoming more heavily protected, blurring the distinction between a battlecruiser and a dreadnought.

The Quarian Dreadnought-sized Liveships also commonly referred as battlecruisers by Federation and Alliance strategists, these ships have been augmented with multiple large caliber mass accelerators for their militarization plans in order to retake their homeworld, however, their protections and speed are inferior compared to the better armored Federation John A Warden class Dreadnought-cruisers and many other Citadel Dreadnought equivalents.

Fast Battleship
A fast battleship was a dreadnought-type vessel which emphasised speed without compromising of either protection or armament. Most of the Citadel dreadnought battleships were typically built with low design speeds, so the term "fast battleship" is applied to a design which is considerably faster. The extra speed of a fast battleship was normally required to allow the vessel to carry out additional roles besides taking part in the line of battle, such as escorting aircraft carriers.

The Petolemaiac Hegemony, most specifically the Republic of Hamon, were known to use these vessels as flagships during the Petolemaiac War. Also known as Hegemony Dreadnought, these battleships largely distinguished from both battlecruisers and coventional dreadnought designs in their roles as they were expected to goes toe to toe with a dreadnought on equal terms and capable of chasing smaller vessels without compromise in armors and armaments.

The Hegemony Dreadnought fast battleships however required more high quality materials and complex technology to build, thus limiting the numbers of Fast Battleships they can build compared to the Federation and Citadel races.

Super Dreadnought
Besides the standard Dreadnought design, Citadel races also possessed larger and more powerful "super-dreadnoughts" vessels. The first and oldest super-dreadnoughts designs are generally considered to be the Asari Destiny Ascension class.

What made them 'super' was the unprecedented 1,600m long in length, the introduction of the heavier 45cm mass accelerators, and the placement of all the main armament on the streamlined bow (hence with all forward firing cannons).

The Turian is the second race known to have built Super Dreadnought types, with the 1.4km long Vulture-class Super Dreadnought become flagships of the Hierarchy Fleet. Five years after first contact with the Federation, both the Destiny Ascention and Vulture had been augmented heavily with more powerful medium ranged laser arrays and emergency Magnetic Drives for deep space travels without Mass Relay networks.As of 2665 GS, the Vulture class have been succeeded by the larger 1.6km long Diatryma class Super Dreadnought.

The Terran Federation also had their own Super Dreadnought design, the 1km long Ryuho class Laser Destroyer. designed to be a proper full fledged Dreadnought in terms of protection and firepower. The vessel utilized a powerful laser batteries as its primary armaments with numerous missile silos and point-defence lasers as broadside weapons. As of 2359 AD, the Federation had 1 Super Dreadnought undergoing shakedown run, with 3 more under constructions at their dockyards.

The Systems Alliance, being a newcomer to the galactic stage also had a kilometer-long Super Dreadnought of Everest class completed and currently undergoing trials. The Alliance Navy also intend to construct 2 more vessels, but due to the overrun costs, two of the Everest class incompleted hulls were mothballed for a while and would eventually converted to become the first examples of that set the standards for Fleet Carriers.

Fleet Carriers
Fleet Carriers are dreadnought-sized vessels that carry a large number of fighters. All races provide their fleets with organic fighter support. Cruisers fit a handful in the space between the interior pressure hulls and exterior armor. Dreadnoughts have a hangar deck within the hull. The Systems Alliance Navy who had only recently formed their own Aerospace Force– were the first to build dreadnought-type ships wielding fighters as their main armaments.

In fleet combat, carriers stay clear of battle, launching fighters bearing disruptor torpedoes. Fighters are the primary striking power of the ship; if a carrier enters mass accelerator range of the enemy, things have gone very wrong.

It is possible to recover and rearm fighters during combat, though most carriers seal the flight deck and try to stay out of the way. The flight deck is essentially a corridor through the armor and into the heart of the vessel. A single well-placed torpedo is enough to gut a carrier.

Escort Carriers
Escort Carriers are a type of vessel dedicated to transport, and maintaining fighters as their primary offensive armament in similar vein to Fleet Carriers. However these ships tend to be equipped with ski-jumps and vertical launch tubes for a faster launching proceedure for V/STOL spacecrafts with a separate hangar deck for emergency landings and recovery.

They were typically half the length and a third the displacement of larger fleet carriers. While they were slower, carried fewer support crafts and were less well armed and armored, escort carriers were cheaper and could be built quickly, which was their principal advantage.

Escort carriers could be completed in greater numbers as a stop-gap when fleet carriers were scarce. However, the lack of protection made escort carriers particularly vulnerable and required protections from faster escort vessels.

The Terran Federation converted Rodger Young class corvettes of the Second Bug Wars can be considered as the first example and precursor of escort carrier vessels, designed to carry a limited numbers of fighters and dropships to support planetary landing operations.

Combat Support Craft
Smaller vessels are exclusively used in a support role to the warships during combat:
 * Fighters are one-man craft used to perform close-range attacks on enemy ships. They represent a "jack of all trades" doctrines, being capable of performing both air superiority and ground attack roles.
 * Interceptors are one-man craft optimized for destroying opposing fighters and bombers, these spacecraft relied on their speed and firepower as their advantages in dogfight.
 * Bombers are large spacecraft with more than two-men crew designed mainly for anti-shipping roles and provide close air supports during planetary landings and fleet battles.

Shuttles
Shuttles facilitate personnel transfer between large ships without the need to dock, or between a starship and the ground. Some models like the UT-47 Kodiak series are capable of independent FTL travel, and the UT-47A is equipped with both mass accelerator cannons and prototype stealth systems.

Dropship
A dropship is a small type of ship that can drop and pickup troopers on planets. They are equipped with guns at the cockpit. Depending on type and size, each ship carries either one squad, one platoon or one company that is hot dropped onto a surface of a planet, either in infantry combat gear or using drop suits.

Starship Attributes
See full articles here:Starship Technology