Cerberus-class Attack Cruiser
Name/Type: Cerberus-class Attack Cruiser
Designer/Manufacturer: Inferno Fleet
Designation: Light Cruiser
Crew: 550 + 65 Gunners
Length: 450 Meters
Speed: 36 MGLT, 850 Kph
Hyperdrive: x1
Shield Rating: 2040 SBD
Hull Rating: 1120 RU
Weapons: 12 Heavy Disruptor Batteries, 8 Ion Cannons, 20 Plas-Blast Missile Tubes, 2 Tractor Beam Projectors.
Fighter Complement: 24 Medium Starfighters or other equivalent.
Troops: 350 Inferno Marines.
Support Craft: 4 Light Transports.
Other: 1 Inferno Fleet Module
Description:
The Cerberus-class Attack Cruiser is Inferno Fleet’s warship built from the ground up and a triumph of interspecies engineering between Bothans, Humans, and Effel on Inferno. Influences from all species have made this heavily armed light cruiser a threat to any similarly sized opponent. As its name suggests, its primary mission profile is to attack enemy units in quick, lightning raids, preferably convoys or lone enemy vessels. A task made easy by its high output engines and moderate armament. It is, however, unsuited to long-running or full-scale fleet engagements because of its low shielding.
The recently freed Effel engineers were primarily responsible for designing the ship’s structure and basic systems. Originally, the Effel initially designed the ship as an armed version of their organic, flowing merchant ships which formerly plied the trade lanes of the Trax Sector. However, because of the relatively simple equipment available to them, both designing and constructing, combined with a relatively unskilled labour force, the design was simplified into a more boxy, and easily constructable, hull which provides a large amount of volume for its size. Like Effel merchant vessels, the Cerberus incorporates a compartmentalization system to maximize crew survival. If one section of the Cerberus is seriously damaged, the bulkheads automatically seal off the affected areas, allowing the ship to continue normal operations. To complement this concept, each area of the ship is equipped with its own life support system. This means under a heavy attack which pierces through the Cerberus’ shields, most crewmembers of the ship will survive nearly unharmed. Given that Inferno’s primary ore is Tydirium and its product, phrik, the Effel had most of the ship armored in overlapping plates of a Durasteel-Tydirium-Phrik alloy, which affords the ship excellent protection while keeping the starship’s mass down for higher speeds and better maneuverability.
Bothans are masters of computer technology, thus it should be no surprise that Inferno’s Bothan tech specialists were in charge of the ship’s electronics and computer systems; a task at which they excelled at. Manpower has always been an issue for Inferno Fleet because of its colony worlds’ relatively low populations. This has been somewhat offset by the nearly pure dedication and military nature of the populations, but to maximize the amount of available crews, the Bothans designed basic automation to lower the number of individuals per crew. Most of this automation is exceptionally basic, such as the employment of cleaning drones instead of janitors or integrated chefbots instead of a live kitchen staff. Those systems that continue to be operated by sentient creatures of can be partially augmented by basic AIs and computer programs to cut down the workload per crewmember, if the crewmember so desires. Another problem Inferno Fleet faces is security, both physical and electronic. To this end, all of the automated systems of the ship, whether it be a targeting computer or a cleaning drone, also automatically record actions and send them to the ship’s central security computer. Because of this reliance on computer systems, the Bothans devised an entirely new programming language, called Angtheras, which is exclusively applied to the Cerberus-class and all subsequent Inferno ships. This makes it next to impossible for enemy programs or hackers to infiltrate the ship’s systems because the language itself is incomprehensible.
Humans designed one of the Cerberus’ most essential systems: the engines and weapons. Speed is of the essence for a raiding ship. Thus, it comes as little surprise that the Cerberus’s basic propulsion design is based on the Corellian Gunship, perhaps the most effective raiding ship yet devised. CEC-style engines occupy slightly over a third of the ship’s volume, giving the Cerberus a relatively high mass-to-power ratio, and making it an exceptionally fast ship. The weapons are primarily geared for quickly overwhelming smaller warships and merchant ships for boarding action. It does, however, carry a small number of quad laser cannons to deter enemy starfighter attacks.
Intended Role and Deployment: An exclusive ship to Inferno Fleet, the Cerberus is designed to as the main front line assault ship for fleet actions. Its moderate armament and high speed make it an effective attack ship, but the relatively low powered shields make it ill-suited for long-range combat.
Technical Descriptions:
Cost: Average
Cost: Figuring out the exact cost of a vessel made by volunteer workers and available materials is somewhat difficult to calculate, but those same two factors also make the production of the cruiser cheaper than most. However, the advanced weaponry and the redundant life-support systems would likely negate those price advantages. Thus, the cost of the cruiser is average.
Speed: Above Average
Engines: Reasonably good speed is considered to be a necessity for the ship given its design philosophy of as a hit-and-run warship. Thus, the Cerberus is slightly faster than most light cruisers because of its large engine block, which accounts for roughly a third of the ship’s internal volume. It is this speed that is expected to account for the ship’s survival, as its defences are otherwise somewhat weak.
Shield Rating: Below Average
Shields: Just compared between several sets of light cruisers, the Cerberus-class has a slightly lower shield rating compared to most. But since it is also larger than most light cruisers, the coverage ratio of shields to hull is even significantly lower than most light cruisers. This makes the ship not very well-suited to standing engagements or “slugging matches,” but given the ship’s design philosophy, it is not considered by Inferno Fleet higher-ups to be a significant weakness.
Armor: Above Average
Armor: Like other Inferno warships, the Cerberus enjoys better armor than most other warships because of extensive Tydirium plating and other strong metals from the mining world of Dresscol III. Its superior armor often makes up for its weaker shields in short engagements, although it is of lesser use in longer engagements, as unlike shields, armor doesn’t regenerate.
Weapons: Above Average
Weapons: The Cerberus carries an extensive arsenal of powerful, but short-ranged, weapons. Its heavy disruptor batteries each pack nearly 2.5 times of energy as a typical heavy turbolaser battery, albeit at half of heavy turbolaser’s range and twice its recharge rate. Its plas-bast missiles are little more than red-hot, volatile plasma harvested from Inferno’s core and bottled up in magnetically sealed containers. When the projectile is launched from its tube, some of the plasma is released as a drive propellant while the rest is used as a warhead, which has the effects of the New Republic’s T-33. While the missile is nearly twice as fast as most conventional warheads, it is also unguided and has half the range. Thus, it is typically fired at point-blank ranges to quicky down shields.
Complements: Below Average
Complements: The Cerberus, with all of its weaponry and high-powered engines, does not have the internal volume to devote to large amounts of starfighters, troops, and support craft. Most ships of similar size carry more than a Cerberus can. What the Cerberus does have is a decently-sized starfighter complement and a small contigent of troops for boarding defences and small boarding actions.
Test Thread: Fanning the Coals