While initially appearing to be space stations, Legion ships actually run on a concept much similar to the traditional broadsiders used by various other nations. Each ship has six "limbs" with their main weapons generally mounted on turrets on the top, which can target in any direction on and above the horizontal plane. What this means is that for a Legion ship to maximize its firepower, it only needs to tilt slightly towards the target in order to bring all its guns to bare. This also means that the ships do not need redundant secondary guns facing in the opposite direction of the enemy. The engine block is generally mounted on the bottom of the ship, directly under the core, and as such is generally invisible from a top-view except on small patrol craft. Due to the of-center position of the engines during combat, they benefit from being shielded by the rest of the ship, but give poorer movement output. Naturally, there are disadvantages to the design as well, besides the reduced engine output during combat. Unlike traditional broadside battleships, Legion ships are unable to reduce their target profile via facing directly towards the enemy, and the fact the majority of their weapons are mounted on one side of the ship make them more vulnerable to flankers. On the upside, Legion ships are less prone to critical failure due to the loss of the entire front or back of the ship; instead it's only a loss of one-sixth of the ship. They may also turn the ship to bring a fresh limb to soak up incoming firepower if another becomes too damaged.
There are several types of guns which are most common among The Legion. The basics are:
> Drfiter Light Cannon/GattlingCannon: Generic weaponry for smaller ships due to its low power consumption. Fires a barrage of fast-moving shots, but with medium accuracy and low damage. They generally fire 3-12 shots, depending on the amount of power available.
> Missiles: Standard long-range weaponry. Come in the fast but weak variety, or the slower but strong variety, and can sometimes be armored for PD resistance. Even so, missiles are generally ineffective against most larger ships and serve mainly as pest repellent.
> Gazer Beams: Medium laser weapons with short range. Has mostly been phased out of service, but can still be seen on older ships such as the Symptom and Solemn Voice.
> Drones: Small long-range attack craft which The Legion uses rather then fighters. Come in Assault and Bombardment varieties, with Assault-types firing faster, and Bombardment types hitting harder and from further away.
> Tachyons: The most advanced weapons The Legion uses. Tachyon cannons are generally used to bypass enemy shields and deliver internal damage. They also require a higher energy output then drones, limiting the types of ships they can be mounted on.
One of the greatest disadvantages of The Legion's fleets is their reliance on projectile-type weaponry which can be hosed with a proper defense set-up. They have not been able to keep up with laser technology, shown by the general lack of heavy laser weapons within the fleet. On the other hand, their greatest advantage is their drone technology, which usually takes longer to produce a significant effect in battle, but can deliver devastating results.
- - - - - THE SHIPS - - - - -
Visionary Curse, Long-Range Interceptor: The Legion uses no fighters, as they're generally ineffective in the current age of huge ships and instead relies on Drones. The smallest class of ship is the Patrol Craft, starting with the Visionary Curse. The ship is specialized for hunting down other small ships using rapid missile strikes. It can strike from very far away, but the space it needs to store all the missile systems limits its engine power, so it's not particularly fast for a patrol ship.
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Opalescence, Anti-Beam Unit: Facing the ever-growing possibility of having to deal with the superior beam technology of other nations, The Legion had to develop methods to ensure they wouldn't be at a disadvantage. One such method is the Opalescence Patrol Boat, a small and quick ship armed with an advanced anti-beam system. The Opalescence can move in behind heavier ships and support them by producing a field that beam weapons have trouble piercing through, and it doesn't require as much of an investment as building a battleship or dreadnought specifically for warding off beams.
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Fate Breaker, Recon Unit: Knowing the enemy and your battlefield is a critical step towards a successful campaign, and such The Legion employs small scout ships called Fate Breaker. Sporting minimal weaponry but equipped with powerful engines, its job is to perform short range scans of higher detail then what the Naive Rave class can discern from a distance. Their speed allows them to participate in the front line as well, providing detailed information on enemy ships with the ability to also work as a decoy.
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Symptom, Assault Cruiser: While quite outdated, the Symptom Class Cruiser remains in common use with Legion fleets. It's armed with a trio of Gazer Beams, which strike the target with a continuous blanket of laser fire. The Symptom is mainly effective at combating similarly sized or smaller ships, lacking the heavy firepower to take on larger ships. Its greatest weakness is its lack of Deflectors, and currently Legion engineers have been trying to design a ship which can have similar offensive abilities while also using shielding.
Malignant, Bombardment Cruiser: Due to the Symptom's ineffectiveness versus larger ships, a refit was designed which used heavier siege weapons. The new version, the Malignant, is better suited for fighting slower moving targets, but performs poorly against faster ships due to the slower nature of its weapons. Being built on the same frame as the Symptom, it lacks shields and also suffers from lower engine output, so the Malignant must rely on other ships to cover it while it bombards the target. Despite the weaknesses, the Malignant's weapons pack a punch versus targets that can't keep them off.
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Fatal Quickening, X-Assault Cruiser: The Fatal Quickening project was designed to produce a replacement to the dated Symptom destroyer. Each of the ships was built on the same frame as the Symptom, but used the powerful new core technology as their energy source. This allowed for an increase in engine and weapon output, which resulted in three different versions:
-Type A: The core is able to produce a powerful beam of energy, but which has an extremely short duration and lengthy reload. The resulting blast makes an excellent opening punch against similarly sized or smaller ships, but has trouble piercing the armor of larger ships. The version also has an advanced point-defense system which matches the "burst damage" principle of the beamer. However, it lacks shielding, leaving it still exposed to enemy laser weapons.
-Type B: This version is able to produce burst of defensive energy to shield itself. In general, its shielding ability makes it the most well-rounded upgrade of the Symptom, given that was one of the Symptom's major shortfalls. Even so though, the Symptom frame is not well designed for efficient shielding, making it tough to properly apply the shields. To compensate for this, the shields "flash"; they turn on, last only seconds, but also recharge quickly. This allows the Fatal Quickening to quickly switch shield targets to compensate for the poor shielding surfaces.
-Type C: The Type C is nothing horribly impressive. It uses the same Counter Core that the Nonsense Codon employs. This type still requires further testing.
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Hopeless Resolution, Bombardment Cruiser: Impressed by the performance of the Fallen Shadows and its Omen Torpedoes, top Legion generals proposed a new design that would pose an immense threat to traditional fleets. The Fallen Shadows could bring unmatched firepower to the field, but it had to be kept near the center of a fleet and thus was using the same firing path as the rest of the ships. The solution was the Hopeless Resolution cruiser, a new ship being brought into service as the replacement to the old and clumsy Malignant class.
The Hopeless Resolution is built on a light frame, and basically consists of three things: Generators, engines, and the Omen Torpedo Launcher. Due to the high power requirement of both the engines and main gun, there was no room for secondary weapons, and even the launcher can't fire as fast as the Fallen Shadows' can. But the ship fills its purpose perfectly. Its high speed allows it to quickly perform flanking maneuvers on distracted enemy units, and its powerful main gun allows it to deal critical blows from far outside engagement range. Its effectiveness during testing has earned it the nickname of several demons, along with "Titan Slayer".
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Synthesis, Maintenance Unit: The Synthesis light cruiser provides support for long-term fleet operations. Like any mobile repair unit, it's incapable of replacing lost parts, but it has a powerful repair system to make sure what remains stays in one piece. The ship lacks any conventional weapons, but it does have a defensive system designed to create a field of energy to dissuade enemy light ships from remaining in the area around it.
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Beyond, Freighter: The generic, mass-produced cargo ship used by The Legion. Nothing about the design really stands out given that they're built with a minimum, but it does have its engines mounted on the ends of pylons to give it better maneuverability for operating in loading docks. Like most cargo ships, it's poorly armed and must rely on escorts to move through hostile space.
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Sublimation, Anti-Mine Barge: While space mines generally aren't a huge threat due to the maneuvering room offered in space, they can still be used to limit fleet movements or direct them towards better-defended areas. To make sure this doesn't become a huge issue, The Legion refitted Beyond Freighters with powerful generators that allow them to operate defense systems suitable for clearing mines, along with additional armoring. None of the ships have seen any use outside of testing though, so their effectiveness is unknown.
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Phosphorescence, Tactical Simulations: The Phosphorescence class is a limited production ship with no real combat use. Instead, the ship serves as the next step up from computer training simulations, allowing training missions with simulated ships in any region of space. There's something about actually being at the location that brings out more in the trainees then doing computer simulations back at home base. The topic has been debated a lot, and foreigners have often shot at it for being a romantic waste of resources.
Despite the purpose, the Phosphorescence is an impressive projector ship; just two can simulate a mid-sized fleet battle. The possibility of using one in an actual battle has come up, but usually dismissed, as the ship lacks any proper armoring.
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Enigmatic Crisis, Front-Line Cruiser: It's not always realistic to be deploying heavy ships such as battleships and dreadnoughts to a battle, so a smaller ship was designed in order to provide a "tanking" role versus ships many times its size. As such, the ship is minimally armed, instead focusing on defensive systems, including a trio of advanced devices capable of repelling enemy projectiles. An opening made by the Enigmatic Crisis must be used quickly though, as the ship can easily be overpowered once its shields burn out.
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Quantum Corridor, Deployment Cruiser: The Quantum Corridor serves a simple purpose: deploying ground-based units. While not fast, it is fairly well armored for its size, and has a powerful EMP cannon mounted at the center for crippling defense platforms. It is not designed for front-line combat, but equips several cannon weapons to provide supporting fire for either ships or ground units. For the daring, the ship is also equipped with heavy docking ports in order to be able to raid another target in space. Such a maneuver is quite risky and hasn't been used yet, but the possibility of raiding an EMPed defense platform is entirely possible.
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Naive Rave, Mobile ECM Unit: The Naive Rave class is dedicated entirely to ECM and ECCM equipment, so much that it only has enough spare power to operate 3 low-yield Tachyon Cannons. The class is, however, one of The Legion's greatest assets due to the shear power of its ECM systems. The Naive Rave can "cloak" an area of space around it from probing sensors, allowing The Legion to move groups of ships undetected until they're nearly on top of enemy ships. They are rarely ever used on the front-lines though, not only because of their poor combat ability, but also for the fact that allowing the enemy to get their hands on a single Naive Rave could bring an end to The Legion's ECM advantage. In order to guarantee the ships do not have a chance of falling into enemy hands, they are armed with an advanced self-destruct system and key systems will erase themselves if left unattended for too long. The few times they were used on front-lines, were to no surprise during civil wars, due to their ability to confuse and disable enemy drones.
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Fallen Shadows, Bombardment Unit: One of the best methods to defeat an opponent is to simply never let them take a shot. The Fallen Shadows is an experimental bombardment unit, featuring three "Omen" Torpedo Launchers which have extraordinary range and power. Targets can simply be smashed from far outside their engagement range with these weapons. This is not without downsides though: The torpedoes have a charge time, then take a long time to travel to their target. An enemy who is smart enough to "sidestep" can dodge the incoming torpedoes. Advanced defensive equipment such as a Flux Project can also stop the torpedoes in their tracks. Even so, a sitting target such as a station or planet is an easy picking, along with sluggish dreadnoughts.
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Stranger Aeons, Carrier: The backbone of any Legion fleet, the Stranger Aeons delivers a powerful swarm of drone fighters to the battlefield which are capable of crushing nearly any ship, should they be given enough time. Even larger Legion ships such as the Solemn Voice can barely withstand the pressure of the Stranger Aeon's drones. As such, this ship is commonly seen in Legion fleets, if those fleets were commonly seen in the first place.
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Solemn Voice, Assault Battleship: This hulking block of a ship is The Legion's front-line battleship, designed to get up close and pound even the strongest of enemy ships until they're nothing but a cloud of debris. The Solemn Voice is armed with an assortment of heavy weapons, some of which have the ability to pierce enemy shielding. Probably its greatest weakness is its limited ability at long-range; it's pretty much just a huge and much slower version of the Visionary Curse, as it shoots out swarms of missiles but nothing else. The class is beginning to feel its age though, and various issues have arisen due to the complicated linking of the ships numerous different weapons systems. A push is being made for a more "streamlined" battleship to eventually replace the Solemn Voice Class.
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Massive Strokes, Dreadnought: This massive ship serves as the mobile command center for Legion fleets and as a powerful carrier. Like the Stranger Aeons, the Massive Strokes focuses on missile and drone weaponry, packing enough that it can easily overwhelm an opponent's defenses. In addition, the ship also packs three medium cannons for short-range defense, and three high-yield warhead launchers for engaging heavily armored targets. There's not much the Massive Strokes can't take on, leaving it the solid choice when the Legion turns to choosing dreadnoughts.
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Nonsense Codon, Dreadnought: The newest ship to be produced by The Legion, combining the strengths of the Stranger Aeons and the Solemn Voice, along with the addition of a new core-based system. The Nonsense Codon has six powerful cores built into it, which serve as both the ship's power systems and as weapons. The origin of this new core system is unknown, but it boost's the ship's abilities over that of the comparably sized Massive Strokes Class Dreadnoughts used before it. Without beam weapons though, the ship still falls short compared to dreadnoughts used by other nations and questions have come up as to why it was even built instead of furthering research to make Legion beam weapons more competitive.
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Hopefully an improvement over the old Legion ships I'd posted months ago, heh. I still need to redesign and rebuild the Massive Strokes, so it doesn't really exist yet.
