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Description
Artist notes:
I started this and shelved her in march of 08, and after reading a fic, felt the need to almost completely revise my original design.

--

brief:

designed for use with ships up to mercury class, the admiralty felt having more than a dozen or so of the large shipyards to be cost ineffective, and commissioned the cradle platform at about the same time as the first mercuries were laid down in their births.

her support arms are collapsible, designed to adjust to fit the ship, in the short time the first units were in service, they proved their worth.

one notable platform, 1 CMSSDS A SD-01, called in after battlestar concordia's commander foolishly took on an asteroid storm(and lost) was able to take the badly battered mercury, and restore her from a critical rating(44% capable) and bring her to 85% capability while 4 months from home.

a frame that by all rights, was a writeoff, restored to operational status.

the CMSSDS is of course ftl capable, thus making underway repairs of damaged ships possible.

fitted with production facilities for a myriad number of things, this platform is capable of even producing her own vipers and raptors!

--

while most of this mighty ship's resources are the senior commanders to do with what he/she will, the gladius heavy transports she carries, however, are the sole domain of the cradle's CO.

the cradle's only effective means of anti fighter self defense, the CO of the Cradle has the authority to tell the senior commanding officer to go get stuffed with regards to any order that might take away this massive ship's only effective defense.

to that end, this ship is still completely dependant on other ships for defense.

though, she also has the use of whatever armament that remains operational on any ship currently being serviced.

a unique system allows this mobile shipyard to offload and store a ship's fuels as she's being serviced, this is to prevent accidents.

in an emergency, the fuel pods, referred to here as slugs, are fired up and away from the Cradle, the direction of ejection having been chosen in the design phase as a means of preventing additional damage to a docked ship.

Description
Artist notes:
I started this and shelved her in march of 08, and after reading a fic, felt the need to almost completely revise my original design.

--

brief:

designed for use with ships up to mercury class, the admiralty felt having more than a dozen or so of the large shipyards to be cost ineffective, and commissioned the cradle platform at about the same time as the first mercuries were laid down in their births.

her support arms are collapsible, designed to adjust to fit the ship, in the short time the first units were in service, they proved their worth.

one notable platform, 1 CMSSDS A SD-01, called in after battlestar concordia's commander foolishly took on an asteroid storm(and lost) was able to take the badly battered mercury, and restore her from a critical rating(44% capable) and bring her to 85% capability while 4 months from home.

a frame that by all rights, was a writeoff, restored to operational status.

the CMSSDS is of course ftl capable, thus making underway repairs of damaged ships possible.

fitted with production facilities for a myriad number of things, this platform is capable of even producing her own vipers and raptors!

--

while most of this mighty ship's resources are the senior commanders to do with what he/she will, the gladius heavy transports she carries, however, are the sole domain of the cradle's CO.

the cradle's only effective means of anti fighter self defense, the CO of the Cradle has the authority to tell the senior commanding officer to go get stuffed with regards to any order that might take away this massive ship's only effective defense.

to that end, this ship is still completely dependant on other ships for defense.

though, she also has the use of whatever armament that remains operational on any ship currently being serviced.

a unique system allows this mobile shipyard to offload and store a ship's fuels as she's being serviced, this is to prevent accidents.

in an emergency, the fuel pods, referred to here as slugs, are fired up and away from the Cradle, the direction of ejection having been chosen in the design phase as a means of preventing additional damage to a docked ship.