Drinaxi Wyvern

[locarno24]

Okay...

Based on some discussions in the Pirates of Drinax thread (see above) and some thoughts I've had, been mulling over what to do with the Wyvern - the heavier Drinaxi/Sindalian Star Guard ship.

Mytholder's description:

It's probably a good bit bigger than a Harrier, while still being an Adventurer-type hull (<2000 tons) - the Sindalian Empire was formed as a coalition to beat up raiders, and you don't need giant capital ships for that).

Other thoughts essentially come from the name and comparisons with the Harrier - and what the Harrier can and can't do for a navy using one.

The first thought is that, as noted above, it's not going to be an especially big ship. The Trojan Reach is the territory of raiders and gunships. Equally, the territoriy of the Empire(s) is not especially far-reaching; unlike the Third Imperium's navy, you don't need battle squadrons capable of bouncing halfway across a sector in a month.

As a result, the Harrier-class commerce raider is a nice little ship. It's small enough to be flexible, has a big enough capacity for crew and cargo to act as a courier if it needs to, it's handy enough in a dead run or a scrap against a corsair or armed trader.

What it can't do - at least not very well - is fight a heavier opponent. Something like a Gazelle close escort or a Cutlass-class corsair can pack enough armour and heavy enough guns to either fend off a marauding Harrier or to bull straight through an escort screen with minor damage and gut a convoy. These are very powerful ships for a pirate group or vest-pocket navy to operate, but it's not unheard of, and stopping them will require much bigger guns. Equally, the missile racks used by a Harrier against lightly armoured, distant targets won't do much to a ship with the same armour it has.

Secondly, the basic Harrier doesn't carry any point defence. Now with armour 4, civilian missiles aren't too much of a threat - even a hit only has a 1/3 chance of hurting you - but a nuke fired by a star navy, Imperial ship or over-enthusiastic Ihataei is far more dangerous.

Thirdly, the Star Guard needs the capacity to deploy troops (in small but meaningful quantities) and orbital strikes. That means an expanded troop capacity and an ortillery railgun.

Lastly, the Harrier remains the 'default' ship. If the Wyvern was more than - say - twice the size, you'd have expected admirals and military squadrons to be using them as a primary force. Equally, if it had any command fittings, it would be the main squadron flagship, whilst Star Guard squadrons built entirely out of Harriers were not unheard of.

As a result, I'm thinking of using the Wyvern as essentially a double-sized Harrier at 400 dTons.

Manouvre/5, Jump/2 is presumably the 'fleet mobility' standard for the star guard (or at least we've no evidence to the contrary), so that stays.


Weapons - Both offensive turrets become particle beams, but upgunned to barbette calibre.
A single point defence turret with some beam lasers, and an ortillery railgun bay give a nice combination of weapons capabilities. Fire Control/2 allows for some more effective use of the main guns.

Of course, if you really wanted to prove a point, you could make the bay mount modular - allowing you to fit a missile bay or heavy missile bay (using your decent cargo space to turn you into quite the bomb truck) or a particle beam bay (giving you one of the biggest guns you're likely to see in the reach.

Troops - the crew requirements don't increase massively, but adding 6 more marines allows the Wyvern to drop a squad rather than just a fire team - enough to take a ship that doesn't want to be taken, or to be an actual threatening presence on a planet rather than just a security detail.

Cago - with a bit of fettling, you can give a wyvern the exact same cargo space and cargo scoop. That makes sense, because it would mean standard loading/unloading procedures, standard cargo containers and lashing interfaces.



Will try and mosh together some stats (advice welcome), and may well (if he's interested) give middenface a poke to try and come up with some deckplans for it.

 

[DickTurpin]

I had much the same idea as you but made the ship both bigger and tougher. It is a true military ship on a tiny scale. I see its mission as primarily anti-ship with the ability to destroy or capture nearly anything it was likely to come across. The planetary bombardment role was delegated to an even bigger ship, the Dragon class.

The Wyvern can operate alone, or act as flagship for a squadron of Harriers. It has the ablity to easily detect and engage targets out to very long range as well as the ability to rapidly intercept and board most types of starships. It has a limited self defensive capability, relying primarily on distance and armor for protection.

Wyvern TL 15 design
Hull: 800 tons (TL15) Hull 22, Structure 22, Streamlined, Self Sealing
Armor: Bonded Superdense, 6 points
Jump Drive: H Jump 2
Maneuver drive: V Thrust 6
Power Plant: V
Computer: Model 6/fib
Electronics: Military Countermeasures Suite, Enhanced Signal Processing
Weapons:
Hardpoint #1-4: Barbette Particle Beam (Long Range, Very High Yield)
Hardpoint #5-6: Triple Turret Missile Launcher x3
Hardpoint #7-8: Triple Turret Sandcaster, Beam Laser x2 (Variable Range)
Missile storage: 240 Standard Missiles, 120 Nuclear Missiles
Sandcaster Storage : 40 Barrels
Fuel: 220 tons - 1 jump 2 and 4 weeks of operation
Cargo: 82 tons
Staterooms: 20
Low Berths: 20
Barracks: 40 Marines
Extras: Fuel Scoops, Fuel Processor x11, Medical Bay (Five patient), Repair Drones, Armoury x5, Breaching Tube x2

Software: Maneuver /0, Jump Control /2, Evade /1, Fire Control /2, Auto Repair /1, Library

Maintenance Costs: 56,821
Life Support: 72,000
Total Tonnage/Cost : 800/MCr. 681.850

 

[locarno24]

Nice ship, although a bit larger than I was planning.

I figure that you can't be that much larger than a Harrier or it starts to become wierd that the Star Guard's premiere fleet commander wouldn't be operating from one. I wanted the orbital fire to be integral to 'normal' ships - Sindal apparently tended to use it almost as a matter of course, and it's not like they could have operated THAT many ships, so it'd be nice for every Star Guard wing to have one or two ships capable of it.

Also, was looking to mirror the Harrier's tech base and fleet manouvrability. Clearly Sindal/Drinax can do better - they have access to TL15 - but they chose not to use it universally; which makes sense; if the drives are all TL15 then no-one can build them but your 'core worlds', but if the armour and secondary systems are slightly lower tech you can do routine maintenance and repair more easily across your empire.

Last comments: if the Wyvern is much more of a ship-killer, missiles aren't much use. I admit the nukes help, and by the time a ship reaches 800 dTons I'd look at giving it some gigs, cutters or other interface craft.

The version I'd come up with last night:

Drinaxi Wyvern-class Escort Destroyer

Hull - TL15 Streamlined Class 4, 11 Hull, 11 Structure

Armour - Double Crystaliron (8)

Jump Drive - TL15 Jump-D, Rating 2

Manouvre Drive - TL15 Manouvre-K, Rating 5

Power Plant - TL15 Fusion-K, Rating 5

Fuel - 1 Jump-2, 4 Weeks of Operation (120 dTons total)

Fuel Processors - 3 Days Refuel

Bridge - Standard

Computer - Model/3, Rating 15

Software - Manouvre/0, Library , Jump Control/2, Fire Control/2

Electronics - Advanced, DM+1

Weapons
Hardpoint #1 - Accurate, High Yield Particle Barbette
Hardpoint #2 - Accurate, High Yield Particle Barbette
Hardpoint #3 - Double Turret, 2 x Accurate Beam Laser
Hardpoint #4 - Ortillery Railgun Bay

Ammunition - 10 Ortillery Railgun Rounds (Integral to Bay)

Crew Capacity - 12 Staterooms - 8 Low Berths

Cargo Scoop

Cargo 43.75 dTons (as per the Harrier)

Cost: 438.46 MCr

Crew: A fully crewed Wyvern carries twenty-two personnel, ten more than a Harrier, mostly due to its expanded troop complement - the captain,two pilots, a navigator/sensor operator, two engineers, four gunners, a medic and ten marines.

The idea is a ship which broadly resembles the Harrier, with an extra middle deck. Certainly the same lower deck at the back end - the same cargo volume in the same space allows for common loading/unloading schedules, tiedown points, and containers, which makes life easier for everyone.

The bay probably goes under the prow for a nice centreline 'big' weapon ('fire-breathing'), with the flak turret at the 'tail' - I see there being a bit more of a boom to the tail, hence giving the impression of 'dragon' instead of 'bird of prey'. If you wanted an up-gunned version, dropping out the railgun bay for a Sindalian style (accurate/high yield) particle beam bay gives you some proper 'what the hell' gunpower that can drop even the biggest pirate warship in a couple of hits.

 

[Captain Jonah]

The Harrier being the premium class ship flown by admirals could make sense given the Star Guards naval traditions and ideals.

The Harriers are very ornate, aggressive craft. A lot of work has clearly been put into them. They are the naval equivalent of a fencing blade. Swift, manoeuvrable and deadly.
The Sindalians were described as Barbarian raiders. They crowned themselves kings and claimed a large number of worlds. This would suggest to me that the early Kings and Lords were captains of fast moving raiders and these ships became the early Star Guard.

As time passed the needs of the Star Empire demanded larger ships with other capabilities but the Traditions remained that the nobles commanded the fast lethal raider ships and the lumbering and unglamorous heavy ships, troop transports and other such ships were relegated to those out of favour or to non noble professional military officers.

No noble would want to be seen commanding a troop transport. Oh the ignominy, the loss of status, the ladies at court laughing as he walked past. The muttered comments, look there goes Sir Roger, did you hear, he now captains a transport ship. I hear it can manage 1G if it’s empty......

So the nobles continue to fly the tradition ships. These ships are even given traditional names and classifications after all the Empire had no need for commerce raiders and yet the Harrier class is called just that. It is described as extremely ornate, a great waste of time and money on a normal ship and yet exactly what you would expect to see on a ship that by tradition is flown by the nobles.

By the same token the Harrier is following a Traditional design concept rather than anything approaching the needs of a multi subsector navy. Large cargo holds on a principle warship make no sense. However if the Harrier was not the principle warship but was rather the ship of the nobles to continue the long tradition of their raider ancestors then it makes more sense.

The Harriers are less warships and more a militant yacht for Traditional nobles seeking to emulate the ancestors.

If the star empire has proper, slow, ugly but very effective warships then the inability of the Harriers to fight off anything even close to an escort does not leave them helpless.

Now the Star Empire fragments and the Kingdom of Drinax takes over. A small regional power, lots of nobles with raider class yachts which gives them a small starting fleet. Other ships to fill all of the many roles needed by the navy. We know that the Star Empire had 50,000Dton warships but the regional capitals probably did not have any yards capable of handling anything larger than 2,000Dtons. The old Emperors were the descendants of raiders; they knew all about jealous rivals seeking the throne and probably kept the big ships firmly under imperial control

Local ship production and maintenance certainly able to handle the 200Dton ships and keep them to the standards the nobles demanded but possibly only a few yards able to handle anything bigger, but i would think that the fleet yards were all in the core worlds of the old Star Empire.

They lasted 2,000 years so they were no slouches when it came to holding power. This means they needed the might to put inside that velvet glove they used to rule.

I would think that they had transports, some sort of large line warship and either a variant used for planetary bombardment or a special ship class for just that purpose.

They had to deal with other powers in the area, raiders, Imperial or Aslan corsairs and the like plus have the power to demand those tolls and taxes that got them in trouble. A harrier or three would get laughed at by any moderate sized convoy escort so there must have been something a lot bigger and more powerful.

Myself I would put the Wyvern in the 800 to 1,200 Dton range. Plenty big enough to deal with any normal corsair and raider but not enough to stand up to the Aslan.

I would think that if the Kingdom had a limited number of these ships due to a lack of big yards they would be designed to do as much as possible. This would come at the expense of speed. Jump 2 and 2G at best. Decent armour, a bay weapon (particle or rail gun for the bombardment class), sub craft, marines etc.

Fleet operations would be a block of these with fast wings of raiders sweeping round the flanks like the cavalry of old, the harriers brightly marked with the livery of the noble captains.

Basically a big, lumbering, multi purpose warship that does the job without glamour or gloss. The sort of slow ugly ship no Noble raised on traditions of ancestral glory at the helm of a fast raider would ever touch.

The Star Guard Admirals ride the fast, glorious Harriers. The professional captains do the work form the bridge of the other ships.

 

[SSWarlock]

The armor rating of 8 is great but might I recommend the addition of armored bulkheads around the Wyvern's critical areas? They made all the difference for me in a couple of "discussions" with a Kinunir.

 

[Mytholder]

I must say, I'm loving this thread.

By the way, I wouldn't take Peras' use of a Harrier as being necessary indicative of their command structure. She was a bit of a maverick, and anyway, by that time, they were in the closing years of a pretty nasty civil war and it's possible that a lot of the big ships were already gone.

 

[crazy_cat]

I've been thinking of, and vaguely doodling, a Wyvern (or Harrier plus as I thought of it before it had an official name) of 1400 - 1800 Dtons, which had Orbital bombardment capability, decent point defence, good armour, some decent attack capacity (P Barbettes at least), 4-5 Thrust, 2-3 Jump, 2 Cutters or similar, and troop and cargo capacity.

I was thinkng where Harriers did threat and small ship kills/enforcement, Wyverns did 'we demand tribute' via O-bombardment and then landing troops if necessary, and by the sheer threat of their presence.

Arrive. Announce arrival. Either receive tribute (send Cutter to collect), or start threats/retribution from orbit until tribute paid. If need be land troops and encourage tribute face to face.

 

[locarno24]

As time passed the needs of the Star Empire demanded larger ships with other capabilities but the Traditions remained that the nobles commanded the fast lethal raider ships and the lumbering and unglamorous heavy ships, troop transports and other such ships were relegated to those out of favour or to non noble professional military officers.

Fleet operations would be a block of these with fast wings of raiders sweeping round the flanks like the cavalry of old, the harriers brightly marked with the livery of the noble captains.

Ah. Now that I can see as an observation. I remember a bit of background about the Centauri in Babylon 5 - the fleet chose to concentrate on Vorchan gunships rather than the arguably more-effective-tonne-for-tonne Primus battlecruiser because more ships meant more captains meant more command slots for someone's noble born relative who thinks he's the Great Maker's gift to naval tactics.

It also perhaps helps answer why a star nation founded on the principle of protection from pirates uses a ship called a 'commerce raider' as one of its two primary warship classes....

We know that the Star Empire had 50,000Dton warships

Do we? This is me asking from ignorance - I hadn't registered reading that. Is there some more information on the Empire somewhere?

Regardless, I'd agree that the local yards would probably be very small by comparison, for the reason you suggest. More to the point, the Duke of Drinax/Subsequent King had even less regional responsibility and probably wouldn't have wanted heavy ships anyway - they pointedly avoided bombing the snot out of people

(although I would imagine quite often mentioned something along the lines of "yes, these are old Star Guard designs; you know they used to flatten cities from orbit with them to settle disputes, don't you? Now, about that trade negotiation, I'm sure we can come to a reasonable deal for both sides, aren't you?")

The reason I was suggesting not having a dedicated ortillery ship is that as I understood it, their predecessors in the Sindalian fleet would resort to orbital gunfire at pretty much the first opportunity (certainly in preference to invasions) - if it's standard practice, then you'd expect most ships capable of mounting mass drivers to do so as part of their standard armament. After all, a single ortillery railgun bay only takes up 50 dTons and is a far more effective way for a small(ish) ship to enforce Imperial/Ducal decisions on a world with a population of millions than a pinnace hangar and two staterooms for marines - which in turn means you only need enough marines for a security detachment, not an invasion force.

With regards to cargo capacity/small craft - depends on whether you have dedicated military transports. The fact that the Harrier - which is a general purpose warship - has quite the cargo deck suggests that ships were expected to carry stuff themselves, which is good if you don't want to be wedded to a logistics chain, and also allows your ships to carry tribute payments. Obviously the question of aerodynamic hulls and landing vs small craft depends on the size of the ship.

If the star empire has proper, slow, ugly but very effective warships then the inability of the Harriers to fight off anything even close to an escort does not leave them helpless.

No-one says a proper warship has to be slow and ugly. If you've got a nobility-centric culture, even the heavy warship captains are going to be noble-born, and compared to the cost of a warship to start with, gold bath taps and busts of previous kings in the cargo bay are pretty minor details. The Wyvern captains might just be the less...flamboyant?..types who aren't trying to make a name for themselves.

Also, re speed, note that few 'proper' fleet warships are actually slow. Most imperial navy ships we know of, even the battlewagons, pull 4G+. You'd need a ship capable of mounting barbettes and bay(s) but that doesn't mean it has to be any less manouvrable than a Harrier.

Equally, if your military traditions are evolved from raiders and pirate hunters, I can see 'fast and handy' being a priority the navy would mandate by default.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Adventure 5. Page 9. Thebus:

3rd Paragraph:
Long, long ago, in the Thebus system, two mighty fleets clashed. Both wore the emblem of the Star Dragon of Sindal

5th Paragraph:
Other, smaller wrecks have escaped scavengers until recently. A giant 50,000 ton warship made a much more tempting target for a scavenger than the remains.........

So Star empire 50,000Dton ships :lol:


Anyway your example of the Centari is perfect. Thousands of Nobles wanting to wear the shiny captains hat. I am looking at rationalising why the players are finding Harriers and why they featured so prominently when anyone with a brain would have been building bigger more capable ships.

I see the Harriers as more a military Yacht than a true warship. That cargo is for all the extras the Noble needs rather than to carry supplies for others. That is what freighters are for.

I could see a Noble graciously allowing his ship to carry a cargo of vital medicine because he can then add “saviour of such and such world” to his personal glory. On the other hand asking a Noble would he mind hauling 40Dtons of spare parts and mail to some mining outpost because the regular freighter is late would likely trigger a duel.

I see the bigger ships as being far more plebeian and sedate. Somewhere for the older, less aggressive Nobles to end up. Those from the minor families that need to hold a job. The younger flashy Nobles who have income from the family would tend to return to the court after a while and the ships would either join the defence fleet of the Nobles world or perhaps be gifted to a new up and coming youngster.

Perhaps a rite of passage, having come of age the young lord attended a ceremony where his father placed the captain’s hat upon his head and declared him captain of the family Harrier.

In terms of the Admiral using harriers and Wyverns. The rebellion was in full swing. She used Harriers and Wyverns to hit rebel supplies and fuel rather than to engage the rebel fleets head on.

Perhaps a raid with a combined squadron would consist of them jumping into a rebel system. The Wyverns form up and head for the world, broadcasting a message to abandon the orbital supply hangers and docks while the Harriers sweep the system hunting down the ships there.

I could see an older captain calmly ordering the Wyverns to open fire and destroy orbital platforms while the comm channels are busy with young Nobles whooping and cheering as they hunt down lumbering freighters.

She would not need to be on those ships, as an Admiral she would be commanding action across the whole rebelion and would be ordering what remained of the loyal fleet.

However as a High Noble she would also perhaps have had her personal ship and squadron, the three Harriers that belonged to herself and her closest family. The ships and crews that would have been available and loyal enough to her to undertake that last mission with her.

Another though. The Harriers are all Tech 15 built for the Nobles at the main world shipyards. Most of the Star Empire worlds were tech 13 or lower. Perhaps the Wyverns were also a more "provincial" ship, designed to be built and maintained at the local yards away from the Core worlds.

 

[coldwar]

Been reading this for some time, watching it over the passing days.

Something kept nagging me. Now I finally found out why after another short bout of research.

Both the Harrier and Wyvern class's were considered "Light" classed ships. Both of them used by the Admiral to attack supply lines and fuel depots.
After reading the last post as well, my mind really clicked on what the Wyvern is in my opinion. Where the Harrier is the highly developed little commerce raider, the Wyvern is the more common, lower tech version. At most 400Dtons in size. But still a capable commerce raider. Good defence, Possible one Particle Beam Barbette or a Particle Beam 50Ton Bay as it's primary offensive weaponry.

Neither would really be considered back then as the primary fleet ships, but once civil war started, battles taking place quickly, more and more of the larger vessels were being destroyed and simply neither side were able to build them fast enough, so smaller ships become more important. So, neither the Harrier or the Wyvern would have been originally designed for ortillery usage. As that job was assigned to the more mainstay fleet designs at the time. Obviously, afterwards, it was likely that most of the Harriers and Wyverns were re-equiped to carrier missile racks, so in a pinch they could fire nuclear missiles to ground targets. Not great, but better then nothing and still flexible.

 

[middenface]

Will try and mosh together some stats (advice welcome), and may well (if he's interested) give middenface a poke to try and come up with some deckplans for it.

It's possible... though I have a few paying projects to sort..THough I like the idea alot, you should get it published.

 

[Putraack]

Anyway your example of the Centari is perfect. Thousands of Nobles wanting to wear the shiny captains hat. I am looking at rationalising why the players are finding Harriers and why they featured so prominently when anyone with a brain would have been building bigger more capable ships.

I see the Harriers as more a military Yacht than a true warship. That cargo is for all the extras the Noble needs rather than to carry supplies for others. That is what freighters are for.

I could see a Noble graciously allowing his ship to carry a cargo of vital medicine because he can then add “saviour of such and such world” to his personal glory. On the other hand asking a Noble would he mind hauling 40Dtons of spare parts and mail to some mining outpost because the regular freighter is late would likely trigger a duel.

...
Perhaps a rite of passage, having come of age the young lord attended a ceremony where his father placed the captain’s hat upon his head and declared him captain of the family Harrier.

Just something that popped in my head just now: more high-tech, and secure, than a captain's hat, might be the cybernetic keys to the ship. The pilot can fly the ship, but a captain with a neural jack can fly it better?

 

[locarno24]

It's possible... though I have a few paying projects to sort..THough I like the idea alot, you should get it published.

I'm not inherently opposed to flinging pennies at you for it. Happy to discuss once you have time on your mittens.

Another though. The Harriers are all Tech 15 built for the Nobles at the main world shipyards. Most of the Star Empire worlds were tech 13 or lower. Perhaps the Wyverns were also a more "provincial" ship, designed to be built and maintained at the local yards away from the Core worlds.

I'd have guessed not - just because the whole orbital bombardment thing was Sindal's way of trying to deal with how to control other worlds.

Very few empires do it with 'boots on the ground'. The number of soldiers you need to meaningfully occupy a recalcitrant planet verges on the ridiculous.

The 3rd Imperium avoids the problem by essentially ignoring anything planetside and/or low orbit, encouraging worlds to maintain their own SDBs and by-and-large messing with them as little as possible, pointedly not siezing control of worlds that don't want to join. Interplanetary space, however, is held solidly and anyone trying to hoon in on the Imperial sponsored/sponsoring megacorps shipping lines will be swiftly persuaded not to.

Sindal, by comparison, did it by bombing worlds from orbit with very little provocation, implying far more involvement with planetary government decisions. This means that allowing its vassal worlds access to locally-built warships, even if they're lower tech than the Guard fleet, is a bad idea as sooner or later they'll be sat between you and bombardment altitude. Building a merchant fleet, fine, but warships would be a no-no.

 

[middenface]

It's possible... though I have a few paying projects to sort..THough I like the idea alot, you should get it published.

I'm not inherently opposed to flinging pennies at you for it. Happy to discuss once you have time on your mittens.

Ok, know could be a good time. I suspect stuff on the horizon coming and making me busy...
Well I can make a start if you are not in a rush... :O)

 

[tanksoldier]

Sindal apparently tended to use it almost as a matter of course, and it's not like they could have operated THAT many ships, so it'd be nice for every Star Guard wing to have one or two ships capable of it.

Quibble on that point. The most recent adventure clearly indicates that the orbital bombardment nukes and bioweapons were closely held by the emperor.

I would envision a single "Star Dragon" class imperial flagship... three or four times as big as the typical Star Guard vessel, with 2-3 Wyverns refitted for escort duty... all manned by personnel personally loyal to the Emperor.

Harriers and Wyverns would be 200 and 400 dt respectively. The Harrier makes as good a pirate hunter as it does a commerce raider. I would see it in peacetime lying doggo in likely systems waiting for pirates to appear... perhaps even with some bait.

Any space navy needs standard patrol vessels. That's how I see the Wyvern. It needs to be able to threaten a ship above it's weight. Even if it can't win it needs to be able to hurt the larger vessel enough to slow or stop it... or make it think twice about fighting at all. The modular bay is a good idea. Particle beam bay, missile bay, rail gun bay, troop barracks... or a flag bridge and CIC, and point defense turret, for the Fleet Admiral or squadron commander.

They also should have SDBs. Whether maintained by individual worlds or the Empire, a few 400dt SDBs built at TL 13 are going to give almost anything in the region pause... while still not allowing worlds to resist the Star Dragon or a TL 15 Star Guard squadron.

The reason the Fleet Admiral doesn't fly her lights on a Star Dragon is that it is as much a hedge against the fleet's rebellion as it is a tool for planetary extortion.

So, one Star Dragon controlled by the Emperor directly, and squadrons of Wyverns and Harriers to patrol, raid and snoop. Locally maintained SDBs for customs, safety of navigation and local defense. Commercial hulls commissioned as auxiliaries for major troop movements.

 

[Captain Jonah]

Some confusion about the Glorious Star Empire of Sindal.

The Star Empire ruled much of the sector, spreading across 9 of the 16 subsectors. It was extremely power, rich and populous. Its early years were focused on Defence and expansion as it drone the raiders out. Given that the raider bands were noted as fielding an average ship size if 500Dtons (up to 100 ships, 50,000Dtons in fleet total) this would suggest to me that they had a range of ships from 100Dtons to 1,000Dtons. The Star Empire drove them off and built the defences it needed to ensure they did not come back.

This suggests to me a proper Empire style navy with escorts, frigates and at least destroyers which over the centuries led to cruiser sized ships.

For example: Albe is one of the surviving worlds of the Star Empire. During the height of the
Empire it supported a population of 100 billion people. With the fall of the Empire it found itself cut off from outside supplies and half the population died while much of the rest turned to cannibalism to survive.

This is not a world that was supplied by a bunch of 200Dton merchants, this world would be getting daily visits from mega freighters in the 100,000Dton plus range. They would not have been escorted by 200Dton Harriers. The Empire is or more correctly was a powerful sector wide power. It would not have been limited to tiny sub 1,000Dton ships.

At the end of the Empire it fell to rebellion and the use of bio weapons by the rebels against the Imperial capital. The report on Thedus where one of the great rebellion battles took place notes 50,000Dton wrecks so they were using ships of that size in the final battles.
Admiral Peras was commander of the fleet in those last days and she was ordering those 50,000Dton warships into action.

We know that she jumped in to the capital at the end with a squadron of five ships. Three of these may have been Harriers. Two of which were stripped for spares to keep the third flying. The other two ships are unknown and no report of their fate has been made. Or she may have been leading a squadron of warships and transferred to three harriers for the secret mission, we don’t know.

In terms of the size and use of the Wyvern. We cannot assume that because the Harrier is the only ship we know about that the Wyvern is also a tiny raider class. It could just as easily have been a five thousand Dton frigate sized ship that jump tendered a few Harriers with it for long range raids.

My thinking is that the Harrier is a Nobles ship and not an indication of the size and strength of the Sindal fleet so it being 200Dtons is not any indication of the size of any other Empire remnant designs or ships.

 

[coldwar]

Both the Harrier and Wyvern class's were considered "Light" classed ships. Both of them used by the Admiral to attack supply lines and fuel depots.

As said before, I found the above in the latest adventure. saying that both are considered "Light".

So, that itself would give an indication on the ships purpose. Raiding, small. Then take in to account what the Harrier cannot do, take down larger prey, it would be easy to say that the Wyvern is larger in design, more potential damage as well. But still small, light and capable of raiding.

 

[JMISBEST]

Those designs look very good indeed. But can you convert them into 2nd edition. Sorry its the only thing in 2nd edition that I've always found very hard if not impossible