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ILJackson — Cerberus Platform WIP
Published: 2009-11-24 20:47:33 +0000 UTC; Views: 1601; Favourites: 17; Downloads: 84
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Work In Progress -- Cerberus Defense PlatformA mobile space station and fighter launch platform, these gun-laden structures are designed to defend Protectorate stronghold worlds.
Probably one of my more ambitious designs. I don't think I'm through detailing it yet. I'm envisioning it as a cross between a space station and a battlecruiser. It can cruise around a planet and even go FTL, but lacks a lot of the things necessary to be a truly independent ship. But it needs to be mobile in order to truly protect a planet, so enemy ships don't just go around it.
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Comments: 12
Sounds like B5's Orestes class Monitor. Big, solid, older Earthforce design that is really only in transit between worlds it's guarding.
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What episode was that in? I don't remember it, but I have almost the whole series on DVD.
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Don't think it was in any episodes, came from the wargames based on B5 fleets where they expanded the fleet list for each race to make them a lot more worthwhile.
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Excellent, superbly detailed and powerful looking.
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So, just enough supplies for a protracted battle rather than a lengthy cruise?
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Right. Regularly supplied from the planet below and usually deployed around more traditional stationary space assets.
They take on extra supplies or travel with supply ships when transfering from one world to the next. Most only ever use their FTL system one time: From the shipyard to their post.
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Cool. Nice job fleshing out orbital defense, I can't recall seeing that done to this extent.
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I just think that's where all the action would be. I agree with Braden Campbell on that one. I think you'd want to defend your worlds with powerful (and cheaper) vessels, and free up your long-range vessels to do nothing but go on offense.
Part of it comes from my disdain for the ball-munchingly awful Star Trek writing that had them summoning the fleet from across the galaxy every time the Borg made an end-run at Earth, which still didn't have a defense system in place after V'Ger, the whale probe, and after seeing other planets get obliterated by giant space amoebas and monster star sausages...and that's only what the Enterprise encountered...
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I was also thinking even Roboth's ARMD space platforms weren't as suitable as what you seem to be going for here. Though the ARMDs were primitive by RT standards. I've also got some old FASA Star Trek ship recognition manuals with orbital battle-stations, but those lack the mobility or maneuverability of yours.
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Yeah, in sci-fi where they are used, they just sit them there and they rely mostly on fighters for force projection and coverage, but planets are really, really big. I think people forget how big a planet is. The odds of one or two space stations in stationary orbit launching fighters and them getting to an enemy before it can slip past, land troops or just nuke something you'd rather not have nuked from orbit would be slim. And it's rather expensive to create a net of stations that could cover an entire planet from all directions (though the Babylon 5 missile and particle beam satellite system over earth didn't seem like a bad idea). Instead, just a few mobile battlestations with lots of fighters and let them run defense...imagine them like giant, armored, gun-toting versions of the paddles from the game Pong.
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I can see an orbital defense net of satellites augmenting the more mobile (and the more static) stations too.
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