Nike Class Battlecruiser

All depends on the stats really;
I'd call the Quasar a next generation update of the Nova, obviously enough, maybe speed 8 with a purely laser armament, range 12-15, some dedicated antifighter, and depending on the AD of it maybe Battle level.
The Boreas I'd call EA's nearest approach to a Warbird copy, simply armed with light turreted antifighter and a heavy keel gun, maybe spinal heavy railgun, losing fire arc to get extra AD. Skirmish.
Harpy, iffy- decent fore and aft, poorer port and starboard fire, it would be nice if as an assault ship it could actually bombard and strafe, but it's got no fighter bay and a lot of engine- Raid, maybe, speed 12, something like a true successor to the Hyperion with decent all round pulse and a hevy boresight beam.
The Pegasus is another turtle-back similar to the Chronos, maybe that hull would suit a tactical successor to the Olympus Gunship? Doesn't square with the turrets, I know, but the EA doesn't need another medium- small all round firing gunboat.
The Python and the Atlas are both shown in old- school EA colours, and they do look it in simple shape; I'd call both of them contemporaries of the Nova and Orestes, and if those red blocks really are missile batteries, then the Python is probably Battle level, an attempt to replace the Orestes as a fleet unit, speed 6 or 7, all round pulse or LPA similar to the Nova and a heavy missile broadside on top of that, with some anti- fighter but limited fighters.
The Atlas looks more like fleet command- impressive superstructure, brige tower- War level, probably abortive, begun at the same time as the Corumai for prestige reasons and almost as far over budget, with a mass, maybe even 8AD setup of the same medium lasers as the Orestes, some but not great- on par with the Omega- all round fire, and lots of fighters.
 
The other thing is to write the Nike-class Battlecruiser in as a War level choice. Similar in scope to the SFoS Warlock, but with slightly different weapons (i.e. no missiles).

But two will be arriving in Scotland :D . Now all I need is a Crusade Era EA fleet ot go with them.
 
I did post experimental stats for these ships earlier in this topic.

I 'm looking to create stats for the Nike Class cruiser, but what pl lvl should it be, Battle or War?

Cya
 
Hrmm yer, War lvl is iffy in Crusade era EA.

Theyr supposed to be topheavy, yet the secondmost topone is practically empty, unless someone wants to go for fighterheavy, which is rather rare with EA. Unless the Marathon is fighterless....

@silvereye
I kinda have the same problem ^^. The ship was too cool not to get, but there is no fleet.
 
I am 3rd age earth with my fledling fleet but still had to have one. My friends will let me use it in the warlock role, regardless of whether I use marathon stats or something completely new.

As an odd side project I am actually looking at the mini's and trying to determine what is a weapon from that and looking at the show. Do a true 'show/mini' based list for scenario games. Most ships seem to have a lot more weapons than the mini's except earth.

Ripple
 
Quick update - with any luck the first batch will be picked up on Friday. Bases are on order and should be in next week...will post info as it becomes available.
 
Perused the EFNI.org site for background on the Nike to see what potential stats it could have. These bullets are paraphrased from the site:

"the main antiship weapons are a couple of Mk VI Heavy Particles cannons"
- 30" range, SAP, DD, 6AD, Boresighted, Beam

"and a battery of 32 heavy antiship missiles with 8 launching tubes with autoloaders."
- 30" range, SAP, Precise, 4AD, F, ignores Slow-loading until crippled

"The antiship firepower is furtherly enhanced by the installation of six General Electric GAD 16-U Q-Spoiling lasers: these weapons, while limitated in terms of the damage they can inflict with a single shot, have an excellent piercing power and a very high rate of fire: a Nike, with all its Q-laser firing, can hit the target with more than 70 shots each second, and so in a few moments the cumulative damage of hundreds of perforations through the hull can easily cripple or destroy a target."
- 12" range, SAP, 6 AD, P, S, F, A, Mini-beam

"For the short range combat, are available four M111 heavy pulse twin turrets and two Railgun turrets."
- heavy pulse twin turrets: 6AD, TL, F,A,P,S, 10"
- two railgun turrets: 6AD, T, AP, DD, 12"

"A well distributed battery of antifighter/interceptor light pulse systems completes the combat suite."
- Particle Beams: 4AD, T, 5", AF

"Powerful weapons and heavy protection, matched with high speed and manoeuverability make this ship well able to hold the line and to go against every other known warship of the younger races.

The Nike is powered by three gravitic enhanced fusion reactors of new design (Power output classified), has a flight line of 24 thunderbolts, and a sensor suite that is said to be the most advanced and effective ever embarked on an Earth Alliance ship."

War level PL
Hull: 6
Speed: 8
Turns: 2/45
Damage: 70/18
Crew: 65/16
Troops: 2
Craft: 4 T-bolts
Special Rules: AJP, Flight Computer, Interceptors 4, Self-repair 1D6, HEL Tracking system

First attempt at creating stats...too powerful? Not enough?
 
I think , these stats are good except one thing :
for the warlock we see on the efni site "Fighters: 48*Lockheed Thunderbolt Starfury " and the warlock can only carry 4 squadron , so 12 fighters per squadron . So the nike should only have 2 squadron of t-bolts
except this , I think these stats are balanced.
 
10" range pulse turrets should be Medium pulse cannons, not heavy pulse cannons. In almost every case, heavy = 12", medium, = 10", light =8" with regard to pulse weapons. That being said, I think they should be 12" heavy pulse cannons and not 10" medium pulse cannons; this is a war PL ship after all! :lol:
also for flavor, maybe make the railguns 4AD and pulse turrets 8AD after all it says 4 turrets and 2 turrets.
MInbari Minibeams usually have 18" range IIRC, and I forget what range the shadow omega had. but it classifies these weapons as anti ship and the rest as short range, so maybe upping the range of the minbeams is OK.
I'm ok with the 4 flights of thunderbolts. seems a standard for EA capital ships.
I was expecting a Laser pulse array but minbeams are good too! good for flavor as well.
maybe a couple more troops...don't know how damage/crew stacks up but seems familiar to warlock...so fine by me I suppose.

my 2 cents.

Chern
 
Hmmm...

The Particle Cannon has more range and more dice than the SFoS Warlock, but is DD vs TD.

Missles are 2 AD less but do not have slow loading giving an effective upgrade in firepower.

The Q-Lasers with mini-beam/SAP seem to be one of two systems replacing the Laser/Pulse Arrays. While both systems are shorter range within their range they seem superior. They do not have the F arc additional AD, but the combined systems have twice the firepower.

Heavy Pulse turrets seem to take the place of the Laser/Pulse arrays on the Warlock but have significantly shorter range.

Railguns are shorter range but have better arc and +2AD (or -2 AD total on the ship but with the wider arc, eh.

Particle Beams have fewer dice, -2 AD

Aux Craft is the same.

Traits it gains a Flight Computer, HEL Track, and Self Repair, but loses Command +1

Stat block
This ship is more manueverable than the Warlock, but otherwise begins to suffer in comparisson. The damage/crew scores are less than the equivalents and the proportion hampers effective use of Self Repair. It also loses Troops.

I went through that mainly to see if my comparisson was correct statwise. I did use the SFoS Warlock. Oddly I saw this ship as a sniper but it is better as a short range brawler than the warlock. The flight computer is a real coin toss but given the high threshold in Crew, invaluable. Overall better than a Command +1 I would think.

My biggest concern is the extra turn. Boresights with one turn are difficult but with two turns they become significantly easier. This ship at least has he potential to be much more destructive than Warlock or the Shadow Omega at extreme range or at ranges under 12". So while it is a War level ship it may have a few to many dice or too much manuever to fill that slot withing the Earth Alliance balance.

Unless Armegeddon is upping the range of the Heavy Partical Cannon, maybe make the beam only 20 to 25 inch or drop the extra turn. This gives the missles more role on the ship too. The mini-beams I would think would only be AP, like the Shadow Omega and Minbari. Consider dropping the 'heavy pulse turrets' to the shorter range of 8 inch if you want to keep the manuever.

The ship would have to work a bit for its shortest range AD and need at least one extra turn of play to get the most out of its beam/missle combo.

As a side note I was wondering why the missles are Fore instead of Turret given you do not have the forward facing pods on this ship. Seems to me these are like sub launched weapons, they fly out, orient on the target and then hit the big acceleration push. Given the brawling nature of the ship I could see that, but that is not the way missles are generally defined in this game.

Ripple
 
@Chern: After some tinkering I settled on making the pulse turrets 'medium'. I also adjusted the rail pulse turret AD to 4. With the missiles getting considerable improvements I thought it fair to scale these back a touch.

@Ripple: The fluff indicates the Nike "is a more specialized, less flexible unit than the Warlock, extremely fast and powerful, with a strong emphasis on fleet operations and ship to ship engagements." With that in mind I tried to make stats that had long range punch yet short range bite. To my mind the Q-lasers would be Minbari mini-beam-esque with more emphasis on punch than range since (stealth is not a consideration here), hence SAP. The shorter range was to offset the increase in AP power. Perhaps a slight decrease in AD from 6 to 5?

I also thought of having the missiles turreted but it seemed too strong. However with the missile bays oriented the way they are I'm inclined to agree. Missiles now T.

Therefore:

Heavy Particles cannons: 25" range (agreed on putting emphasis on the missiles), SAP, DD, 6AD, Boresighted, Beam

heavy antiship missiles: 30" range, SAP, Precise, 4AD, T, ignores Slow-loading unless crippled

Q-lasers: 12" range, SAP, 5 AD, P, S, F, A, Mini-beam

Medium pulse twin turrets: heavy pulse twin turrets: 6AD, TL, F,A,P,S, 10"

two Railgun turrets: 4AD, T, AP, DD, 12"

Particle Beams: 4AD, T, 5", AF

The fluff goes on to say, "she has a reduced crew complement in respect to the old EA ships standards thanks to a high degree of automation." Because of this I decreased the amount of troops, given the ship's focus is ship-to-ship engagement and not assault. With all of the automation on this ship I also reduced the crew but maybe too much. How does 70/18 sound? Looks kind of odd having both crew and damage the same but I want to have the crew less than what you'd normally see on an EA ship.

War level PL
Hull: 6
Speed: 8
Turns: 2/45
Damage: 70/18
Crew: 70/18
Troops: 2
Craft: 4 T-bolts
Special Rules: AJP, Flight Computer, Interceptors 4, Self-repair 1D6, HEL Tracking system
 
a reduced crew shouldn't always mean a reduced crew score. its not like there's a 1 to 1 ratio. it could mean less protection for the crew.

Chern
 
If I can make a suggestion, I agree with an earlier comment about this being a short range brawler. So heres my 2 cents on this

H. Part Cannons drop range to 20, drop beam, change to F arc and increase by 2AD. Still hits nasty and can CAF after turning, unlike boresite

Missles. Increase to 6AD Going to be the only weapons that can hit out from 20, needs to be nastier

Q-lasers. Would suggest AP and TL instead of SAP. Seems more like a gatling system so re-rolling misses is more logical

Pulse turrets Increase the range to 12 and give it DD
Railguns. Bang on

Decrease the Speed to 6. With AJP, you should be able to jump straight into wherever you need to go. WIth speed 8, you'll most likely quickly cruise out range and that extra inch and half speed can make a difference in something being in range or not

With this setup, You can come out of hyperspace and unload a severe amount of AD into whatever is in front of you. The short range on the Particle cannons wont make a dif in that case and shootin pulse cannon or railguns will take care of interceptors. The missle can be shot at support ships that are farther away while all the close in stuff take care of your surroundings. Either they die, or break and run.

If in the open, the missle can be shot at the largest threat will the 2 turns and APTE will quickly get you into thier lines
 
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