Off topic: Spacefarers (a sci-fi RPG)

[Arcalane]

MHD muttered at the conference. "One moment please, I have an incoming hail..." His screen flicked off as he accepted the hail from Commander Tal-Ket's ship.

"MHD-072947c, Chief of Security for the D.S.S.V Asimov. Identify yourselves immediately."

The towering 10'ft-ish mech did not look pleased, despite a complete lack of facial expressions.

--Elsewhere on the Asimov--

"Multiple incoming contacts, range less than a dozen AU."
"Lovely. Analysis?"
"They appear to be on an attack vector and are travelling at full interception speed. They underestimate the forces assembled here."
"As tends to be the way of such hostile races. Turn the guns to face them."
"Understood."

--Outside--

Observers would note the Asimov's turrets rotate in the direction of the oncoming Xargon vessels, operators almost -itching- to push the buttons, though the guns had a range of only an AU or so due to the focusing mechanisms having calibration errors.

[Captain Trek]

OOC: I've decided I'm going to wait for for Himura.Kenshin's post before I make my next post... I'd like to get a better idea of what I'm facing before I post my ship's reactions to it, otherwise my post is going to be pretty short and boring, like Arcalane's post just now...

[Anarki]

Tal-Ket seemed surprised that the Chief of Security of the Asimov was a machine. Usually, all the aliens he has met had organic creatures controlling their ships - and simply used machines to do labour. However, Tal-Ket noticed that the machine did not seem surprised at all that Tal-Ket was also mechanical - it saddened him - this machine must have been automated to simply furfill it's duty.

"This is Commander Tal-Ket of the Spirit of Flame. We have noticed that several ships have responded to the charging of our weapons - and that we apologize for causing such alarm."

A technician beckoned Tal-Ket, and he briefly looked at the screen the technician was motioning towards - there were several ships, and they obviously had hostile intent. Tal-Ket looked back at the machine he was talking to.

"We wish to tell everyone here that we mean no harm; however. Why are there ships on attack routes to our location?"

[Himura.Kenshin]

OOC:

The Xargon were a race of mechanically enhanced butterflies, malevolent and evil to the extreme.

Oh god.

Hopefully, the kind souled Mjollnir lets me use his kick-ass designs as the type of design for the Xargon: Mjollnir's kick-ass designs that I'm using for the design of the Xargon.

The Xargon are a race of mechanically enhanced butterflies. Almost four times larger than "normal" butterflies, the Xargon are quite nasty in hand-to-hand combat: they possess much of the same fighting strategies as of bats (i.e., swarm, tear, rip, slash). They are extremely Xenophobic, and wish to destroy all other forms of life that they encounter. Like the Vargon, they use Gravity and GravMetrics for much of their advanced technology.

Their ships were designed to strike fear into the hearts of their enemies. They are armed with advanced Excited Anti-Matter Gravitronic Beams (I have absolutely no clue what that means in the slightest, but it sounds cool). Basically, they fire extremely hyper, extremely volatile matter. The only thing that stops them from instantly exploding upon excitation (is that even a word?!?!) is advanced gravity fields. After firing, the gravity field slowly dissipatets until it explodes agaist enemy fields with a huge BANG! Their defenses are comprised of enhanced gravity field generators, capable of creating black holes. Not gonna lie, its basically a mechanical version of the technology found here: I am so not breaking copyright rules D=

^^ This is where I admit I have absolutely no fricking clue about high-level or sci-fi sciences.

IC:

Into view came the mighty display of the fourty-fifth Xargon fleet. The mere sight of the jet black armada moving into position could strike absolute terror into even the most battle hardened of any warrior.

Zurox 'Xor, the fleet commander, turned to his dorm'hal, Vorxa 'Zan, the Xargon counterpart of a Vargon communications officer. He spoke in an extremely mechanicalized screeching noise. "Hijack all long range communications and display my message across all active waves."

Vorxa 'Zan entered his commands into the keyboard though a series of data transmissions. "You are on view now."

A roughly translated mechanical voice boomed across all air waves, and every active communications screen was replaced with the terrifying visage of the Xargon fleet commander "I am Zurox 'Xor. Your destruction is imminent. Resistence is futile."

With that, the Xargon fleet sprung into action, aiming on a vector that would surround the haphazard "enemy" fleet.

OOC:

Hows THAT for size =D

[Anarki]

Tal-Ket looked at the Chief of Security of the Asimov, and then his screen suddenly turned off. Tal-Ket turned to his bridge, obviously wanting answers.

"Commander, the Core Lair on our ship reported of a hacking attempt on our communications systems. The Core Lair disabled all communications systems to circumnavigate it, and have successfully built a firewall against further attacks. The hackers appear to be the hostile alien armarda - and they left a visual message."

"Lets see it then."

"I am Zurox 'Xor. Your destruction is imminent. Resistence is futile."

"So they have hostile intent."

"Commander, the Core Lair is requesting permission for a counterhack attempt, to disable all their life support systems."

"Grant it. Also, send a message to our guests."

"Affirmative. You are on screen now."

"Firstly, I would like to comment on how pathetic you look. Secondly, how pathetic that message was. Thirdly, how pathetic your defensive systems will be against the wrath of the Kira!"

Tal-Ket beckoned to his technician to turn it off.

"Fire all long-range weapons."

-------------------------

The Anthem Cannons of the Spirit of Battle turned towards the hostile armarda, and began to fire small shells, with an antimatter payload, at an incredible speed, towards the hostile fleet. The Pyroclasm Missile launchers began to launch streams of missiles - all armed with antimatter payloads - towards the hostile ships.

[Captain Trek]

"A couple of the nearby ships are heading for the nebula fragment, sir," Kevin reported as they waited for more responses to their conference call. "Seems like the fragment's calmed down significantly since it was transported here, they're not in any danger..."

Henry simply nodded. He was about to say something to the other captains when a console sounded a perimeter alert and Kevin spoke up again.

"There's a ship jumping into the area!" he shouted. "Directly astern!"

"Incoming transmission, sir..." Albert reported. "Looks like a priority signal... on speakers..."

"This is Captain Hiron Mislow, Vargon Empire. We have strong reason to believe that many powerful hostile ships may appear here shortly. In fact, I'm very surprised they haven't appeared yet. They are called Xargons, and they are evil."

"Can you confirm that?" Henry questioned.

"I've got a large number of contacts appearing close by, sir," Kevin replied. "Closing in fast..."

"Put them on screen..." Henry ordered

The ships were imposing to say the least. The ships were almost jet black in appearance, with harsh, jagged exterior hulls and thin, pointy wings that seemingly served no purpose other than to look menacing, a far cry from the graceful contours of a Federation ship. Henry felt some trepidation, somehow knowing that this wouldn't end well...

"Transmission from the ship I just tried to hail to the Asimov, sir," Albert reported, breaking into his thoughts. "I'll patch it through..."

"This is Commander Tal-Ket of the Spirit of Flame. We have noticed that several ships have responded to the charging of our weapons - and that we apologize for causing such alarm."

At least they won't stab us in the back, Henry though. Maybe...

"We wish to tell everyone here that we mean no harm; however. Why are there ships on attack routes to our location?"

As if on cue, the transmissions abruptly died, the images of the other captains in the conference disappearing from the screen.

"What's going on?" Henry insisted.

"Something's hacking into our com channels!" Albert replied "It's forcing a transmission onto the main viewer... I can't stop it!"

The visage of an oddly terrifying mechanical butterfly... at least, that's what it looked like, was made all the worse by its screeching, badly translated voice...

"I am Zurox 'Xor. Your destruction is imminent. Resistence is futile."

"They're charging weapons!" Kevin shouted

"Red alert! All hands to battle stations!"

Henry's response had been automatic and instinctive. He was shocked, anger and even rage stabbing through him as his mind immediately turned to his father and the Borg, the emotional pain from that experience, seeing the hulk of his father's ship being towed away to be scrapped, threatening to take control of him. With great effort, he forced it all down so as to only be 'out of it' for a few seconds. When he came to, he heard a report coming across from Kevin Wilcox...

"The ship that just communicated with the Asimov's firing missiles at the approaching fleet!" he reported. "The fleet's spreading out, they're trying to surround us!"

Ordinarily, a Federation vessel would never fire first. These 'butterfly' creatures, however, had made their intentions perfectly clear. Henry knew he was outnumbered, but he also knew he couldn't just leave the Asimov, the Ragnarok and the other nearby ships to perish...

"Let's give them a hand..." he said, sounding almost eager as he channeled his pent up anger into his posture on his chair and the tone of his voice. "Lock quantum torpedoes on the lead vessels and fire at will!"

The Adelaide, in addition to its standard matter/anti-matter photon torpedoes, also carried a small supply of the deadly zero-point energy devices known as quantum torpedoes. They were significantly more powerful than the photons, but were expensive and difficult to produce, so only a few classes of ship ever got the carry them...

The Adelaide began to move, Dante Keating maneuvering the vessel to give Tabatha Siege as clean and straight a line-of-fire as possible. Visually, the only thing that betrayed the hidden power of the sleek, yet graceful and well lit vessel were a line of small apertures in the 'pod' on the rear of the vessel and just above the purple defector dish, which began to glow a dim, yet menacing red or blue.

With just a couple of button presses from Tabatha's console, explosions of blue light seemed to burst fourth from the apertures in the pod. Glowing balls of blue light with long 'streamer's sailed fourth at great speed through the blackness of space. The glowing balls were actually the over-powered shields of the torpedoes, which made the deadly coffin sized cases extremely difficult to shoot down with flak weapons. Lock-on with more powerful weapons was made practically impossible by a sophisticated ECM system and just the great speed of the torpedoes themselves, which outraced the Spirit of Flame's missiles by many times.

They streaked towards their targets, hoping to proximity burst against the shields of the lead enemy ships, hopefully also taking out a few smaller vessels and escorts in the process...

[Temujin]

" Detecting primitive grav torpedoes heading towards one of the Xargon ships.", someone shouted over the din of the combat alarm.

" Follow them in. Prep Grav Cannons for Black Hole mode."

" Aye sir."

The Astari leaped forward, following in the wake of the bluish torpedoes. As one of the Xargon defensive devices moved to intercept the torpedoes, Hiron yelled now over the bridge, as a black hole appeared next to the shield, allowing the torpedoes to get through. Most were swalloed by other shields, but a few impacted, blasting off hull and armor.

" Maintain fire. I want the Grav Cannons to punch through there defensive net. Bring us closer, maximum speed.", Hiron ordered. The Astari accelerated, dodging through the fields of fire going on, as the Fleet of the Xargon, met the small group of races.

" Fire Plasma Missiles, 20.", Hiron said.

20 missiles accelerated away from the Astari, to impact on the hull of the already damaged Xargon cruiser. The Astari stopped moving, and jumped away, back into the croud of apparently friendly ships, as the Xargon cruisers hull rippled with there power, and then the ship vanished in a ball of blue and white flame.

Now there was just the rest of the fleet to worry about.

[Arcalane]

MHD would have rolled his eyes, if he had eyes, and could have rolled them. Instead, he just settled for a menacing chuckle.

"Hrhrhr... they do not have a prayer..."

He switched the comms to the fighter and bomber crews.

"They seem to lack significant point defense mechanisms. Code Sixteen Beta Seven."

MHD's command was met with an assortment of confirmations and acknowledgements, the Asimov's fighters and bombers smoothly sliding into formation as they flew towards the Xargon fleet, gracefully sliding between weapons fire and explosions in an elegant, yet extremely deadly dance. One false move and you were dead.

The fighters mostly concentrated on distracting point defenses and tearing into any enemy fighters or bombers with a level of skill even military ace pilots would be hard pressed to match, tiny gun drones zipping around and orbiting their parent fighters, using pulse lasers to shoot down incoming missiles or large projectiles.

Each fighter was a two-man "Broadsword" class heavy fighter. Two high velocity 15mm autocannons provided the main armament, backed up by 8 missiles and 36 rockets, as well as their four "sidekick" class drones. The pilot controlled the main weapons - the HV-ACs, missiles and rockets - whilst the co-pilot (or co-ordinator) controlled and monitored the Sidekick drones, co-ordinating their defense efforts.

In the meantime, the bombers were able to begin unleashing their payloads, the high-powered EMP bombs were more than capable of cracking open capital shields in only one or two runs, and after that, the only defense was armour - something the Typhoon's "HiEx" bombs excelled at destroying.

The Typoon was a heavy, three-man bomber capable of inflicting considerable damage to capital ships. Whilst it lacked speed and provided a large target, it had two things over other bombers; it was extremely deadly to approach, as both it's roof and belly mounted turrets were twin-linked 25mm HV-ACs, capable of tearing fighters into scrap in a matter of seconds. The Typhoon's bow-mounted 30mm HV-AC was mostly used for light anti-subsystem work or taking out overconfident fighters. It carried a payload of at least 20 bombs, sometimes more, and split half and half between EMP and HE.

At that point, the Asimov fired it's main guns, the two ion turrets. Each turret let forth their twinned ion streams, the constant streams either steadily sapping shield power or cutting into armour. Whilst the damage was negligable at first, the slow and constant drain couldn't be ignored.

[Deathguard]

Incoming commspike attempt. Rerouting communique to secondary buffer.

...


Commspike neutralised. Relaying message - Siphontext only



As gash of curved, flowing symbols flickered up onto the holodisplay in front of him, his hand was already sliding across to the appropriate console to further direct the system's treatment of the message
Heiros read the communique from the hostile ships with a single glance, lazily tracing a hand down to the communications control drone and ejecting the message from every database, the hovering construct flickering a pale blue light to signify a flawless command.
All his drone/consoles did this, their heavily customised systems working at the peak output, every electronic chip or superconductive trail rigourously maintained.


Energy spike detect-

Weapon discharge imminent

Reading weapons fire

Damage estimated 13% on enemy ship
Allied craft Asimov launching manned craft


Reaguin cut the computer off smoothly, knowing it would not take offence at the interruption in such a complex situation, launching into speech without seeming to pause between words -

'Activate missile dragstreams. Load magazines 1 through eight, priority system override Alpha-2459-ComSet'

Select Combat Setting mode cycle sys-

'Custom OneDashFourDashOne'

System priority and power distribution settings in effect.

With a whining hum, the shift of power nodes in the vessle was audiable, pulsing blue lines dissecting the floor changing tone - some dimming only slightly, some plunged into blackness, others flaring into brilliant light.

Heiros took control of the weapon and thrust systems directly, a slim visor, like a flatterened prism, sliding from the console in front of him and drawing closer to his eyes.
'Stop.'
The lens hung in the air a few inches from his eyes, twin bands extending from small nodules at it's sides to fix it around his head - though the bands did not touch, simply hanging in the minute electronic field generated by his body.
Small panels slipped form recesses in the chair - sliding up and under his fingers, then extending a curved panel to encase his hands.

It's wings folding back into their upright position, the craft powered up it's weapon systems, ready for war.

Engaging a thruster to pivot the vessel 45 degrees to the right, the small craft drifted away from teh Adeleide before accelerating forwards, coming to a halt around two thousand kilometers from one of the flanking Xargon vessels. A breif blue light could be seen on the wings, around halfway down each - sophisticated weaponry systems projecting missiles from the barrels at a speed that outstripped even the quantum torpedoes of the Adeleide, 6 missiles from each Singing Spear projector flashing off into the void, scything towards the engine block of the flanking ship.

The shipjoined turned his attention from the missiles, diverting power to the buffers of the prow Lance armaments, a steady whine rising as they charged.

'Tsudalei. Send a communique to all allied ships - The smaller craft shoudl engage those ships attempting to flank, whilst the capital class ships should attend the main enemy force.'

[Himura.Kenshin]

OOC:

Yes, now I can see that my ship descriptions weren't quite complete enough. I actually meant that the ships had no shielding: Just ramped up nanomatrix equipped armor (I was saving the nanomatrix part as a surprise) along with extremely advanced gravity generators. These generators would open up a black hole where-ever needed, whether it is to redirect the path of incoming projectiles or just compress them into nothingness. They could also be used offensively, to tug at enemy fighter shields and attempt to rip them apart (although it isn't too easy to hit a light, maneuverable ship that is trying to dodge them). Seeing as they aren't explicitly defensive like shields, their usage is widespread and only limited to the creativity of those who command them. Also, I've noticed that in my tiredness I neglected to accurately express the size of the incoming fleet.

Now, I can see two paths that we can choose to take. The first, more I-just-want-to-start-blowing-things-up path, assumes that these ships infact do have shields. The entire no-shields thing is forgotten, and we can just skip over the mishap and continue forwards. The second, the one I would more happily follow, is to halt play for now. Every player in the game would have to write up a complete, detailed summary of their ship's offensive and defensive capabilities. A bonus would be to add how their weapons work: like mine, I only had a small idea what I was talking about, but it atleast gives us a base to work off of. Then, we can start again with the Xargon transmission and we can have a true battle :twisted: .

[Temujin]

OOC:I was assuming they didn't have shields the whole time. Its just that I couldn't think of a better name. And a black hole does counter a black hole. Personally I vote that should just be a scout fleet(What empire would send a military fleet into hostile territory without some information.). Our group of ships destroys it. Whoever, several ships jump away, and an actual Xargon military fleet returns later. This way we get the best of both options.

[Captain Trek]

OOC: Well Himura.Kenshin, I don't see much point in rerwriting my post, because wether the Xargon ships have shields or not, the purpose of the Adelaide's initial volley of torpedoes would remain the same (proximity detonation to hopefully cause some damage to multiple ships whilst they were clustered together). I will happily reference the lack of shields in my next post though...

I, for one, would prefer not to halt play unless we all agree to. I will, none the less, post up the basic abilities of my ship (since I didn't plan to make my next post untill you made your next one anyway)...

Offenses:

Phasers:

The Adelaide's primary weapon is the phaser (PHASed Energy Rectification), which creates a burst of nadion particles by passing energy through a specail crystal. This burst, which is concentrated into a beam, moves at less than the speed of light, but is more powerful and easier to use than a EM spectrum based weapon like a laser (it doesn't require the complex mirroring systems).

The phaser emitters on the Adelaide are arranged in 'arrays' along the ship's external hull, each array consisting of dozens if not hundereds of individual emitters. The energy from each emitter can be concentrated over the course of a few seconds into any one single emitter, in a single burst with the combined power of any number of the emitters in the array, ranging from just a few, to the entire array. This allows the arrays to perform many different functions, ranging from 'flak' spreads of weaker beams to a single powerful beam in a 1-on-1 duel senario.

The Adelaide has six arrays. On the Akira class pictured here, you can see a blue/black strip running about three quaters of the way around the primary hull ('saucer section'). This is actually two arrays, which intersect in the middle... The are two similar arrays on the underseide...

http://techspecs.acalltoduty.com/images ... akira2.jpg

The last two arrays are a debatable matter in terms of their position, however. Thinking about it, I decided that the best place for them would be on the pod, one on the top of the pod and one on the bottom, which would cover most of the Adelaide's rear firing arcs.

Photon torpedoes:

The Adeliade's main secondary weapon is the photon torpedo. These are essentially shielded tracking missiles with matter/anti-matter warheads. If launched by a ship at impulse, they cannot achieve warp speeds, but their impulse engine allows for a powerful (albiet brief) 'burn', which will send the torpedo towards its target at very high sublight speed.

Note: Everything about photons in the followng paragraph (as well as my comment about the torps having engines) is purely speculation on my part, based partly on what I've seen torpedoes doing in the show and partly on non-canon material from the Starfleet Battles tabletop game (i.e. this stuff isn't even listed on non-canon technical manuals on the Internet)...

Photon torpedoes are protected not only by powerful shielding, but also by a sophisticated ECM system, which makes them almost impossible to target and shoot down*. They can be set to either direct their energy into the target as a 'shaped charge'** or explode omnidirectionally, for when targets are clustered together, for example***. Torpedoes can also be set to proximity detonate*** when targeting is made difficult by range or countermeasures.

*I've never seen anyone firing at incoming torps in Star Trek'

**Notice the distinct lack of a visible explosion when torpedoes hit their targets in Star Trek.

***Proximity photons are from the tabletop game Starfleet Battles, the rules for which confirm that, at least under proxy conditions, the torpedoes explode omnidirectionally.

Quantum torpedoes:

The Adelaide also carries a small supply of quantum torpedoes, which were meant to replace photon torpedoes, but have proven to be too expensive and difficult to produce to universally replace photons as yet*. They utilize zero-point energy, which allows them to be significantly more powerful than photon torpedoes. Their effects are also harder for shielding systems (or armour, for that matter) to disperse.

Quantum torpedoes have generally similar effects and abilities to photon torpedoes.

*More speculation on my part based on the fact that all of the ships in the First Contact except for the Enterprise are apparantly armed with photons.

Launchers:

The Adelaide carries launchers for its torpedos, which can fire multiple torpedoes at once in a volley or spread, as well as other patterns. The first is above the ship's navigational defelctor (the purple disk on the underside of the ship), the second is in the front of the pod and the third is in the rear of the pod.

The Adelaide's quantum torpedoes are generally fired only from the launchers pod, whilst its photons are generally fired from any of the three launchers.

Defences:

Deflector shields:

The Adeliade's main line of defence are its deflector shields. These work by generating a powerful energetic distortion around the object to be protected. This distortion contains a high concentraion of gravitons, making the shield, in significant part, a gravity distortion effect. Incoming energetic and particulate forms of attack are deflected or dispersed harmlessly, though this weakens the shield, which takes time to raise back to full strength. A weakened shield can also 'leak', allowing some (though generally only a small amount) of an enemy's attack to get through, even if the shield itself has yet to fail entirely.

The Adeliade generally projects its shield in a 'bubble' around itself, though 'skin tight' and other forms of shielding are possible. The shields are projected from a number of emitters mounted in the Adelaide's hull, making it almost impossible to 'knock out the shield generator'. A shield can also be projected from the main navigational deflector, which is always projecting a weak shield around (or at least to the front) of the ship, for deflecting incoming space dust and the like.

Polarised hull plating:

Once it shields are gone, a modern starship is generally considered to be in serious trouble. Some ships are equipped with 'ablative hull armour', which is deliberately designed to boil away, dispersing incoming fire, but the Adelaide is not one of these. It can, however, polarise its hull plating, which was the main defence of 22nd century starships.

Polarising works by apllying electromagnetic power to a ship's hull, causing the hull to effectively 'harden' against an oncoming attack. On a modern starship, this is not normally enough to prevent an attack from getting through, but may save the internal hull from the worse of a given blow, or prevent the ship's warp core from being tore open...

Shout if you want more... 8)

[Anarki]

The Spirit of Battle

MK5 40mm Twin Antimatter Projectile Railguns - Twin Anthem Cannons.
Fires small shells with a superconductive heat resistant uranium alloy, a frozen antihydrogen payload, and a tip containing hexogen and advanced detonation fuse and sensors, through a magnetic railgun. Projectile is easy to detect due to heat signature, but difficult to intercept due to massive muzzle velocity of the railgun. Twin versions have two railguns directly next to each other, but use the same ammo supply. Anthem Cannons are capable of a rapid rate of fire, and can quickly be charged and primed to fire. Most Anthem Cannons on the Spirit of Flame are ambidirectional.

MK21 Plasma Projectile Gun - Pulverizer Turret
Rapid-fire turret able to turn 360 degrees, to face enemy drones, and fires blasts of plasma in rapid succession. Moderately slow projectile speed - most effective against larger targets or used in large groups. Plasma projectiles are easy to intercept due to their heat signatures. Short range - usually only employed against fighters or ships on collision courses - but very destructive. All Pulverizer Turrets are ambidirectional.

Quad Pyroclasm Missile Rack - Pyroclasm Missile Launcher
Missile rack which fires four guided missiles at long distances, carrying a heavy payload of antimatter with a hexogen advanced detonation fuse and sensor. Secondary system is usually an antimatter afterburner, which can be activated remotely, using a small amount of the charge to increase the speed of the projectile greatly, often confusing enemy point defence systems. Possible replacement missiles include sensor drones, EMP missiles, and biological payloads. All Pyroclasm Missile Launchers are ambidirectional.

MK12 Plasma Pulse Beam - Heavy Plasma Beamer
Basic plasma beam, which fires a concentrated continuous beam of superheated gas at a target, pulsing every few seconds to burn through armour and overwhelm shields. Effective against fighters, very short range. Possible modification is to increase power supply dramatically to the beamer, allowing it to fire at much longer ranges. All of the Heavy Plasma Beamers are ambidirectional.

Dedicated Plasma Beam Interceptor - Plasma Beam Defensive Module [PBDM]
Dedicated interceptor device, which fires a plasma beam at incoming projectiles for an instantaneous moment, normally destroying the projectile outright. Also effective against small drones, and can even be used to disable fighters. Controlled by the Core Lair armed on the ship, allowing for virtually perfect shots when sensors are acting normally.

Shield Generators
Essentially a different name for the common deflector technology that most ships use - however, the Kira have perfected deflector technology, which causes the shield generated to absorb all incoming damage, and allows the shield to absorb a lot of damage - however, the downside is that the shield takes a very long time to recharge once down - unless all power from virtually all systems are rerouted to the Shield Generator. A further weakness is that the Shield Generator is a single module - hidden in some ablative hull - which makes it possible to knock out the Spirit of Battle's shielding capability.

Sentinel Defence Drone
Small drone able to deploy a secondary deflector shield around a target ship, which is virtually indestructible, unless the drones themselves are targeted, which have weaker shielding. Shield does not last long when deployed around foreign ships - as the Sentinel Defence Drone must come back to recharge. However, when deployed around a Kira ship, the Kira ship feeds energy directly into the Sentinel Defence Drone. Sentinel Defence Drones are also armed with a single PBDM.

Servitor Support Drone
Utility drone, armed with a single Light Plasma Beamer, and fusion cutters and welders, as well as a gravity beam.

Shieldbreaker Assault Space Mech
Space combat mech used to overload enemy shields with powerful energy bombs, and cut through hulls with fusion cutters. Can also be deployed against fighters - and quite a fearsome sight, when a mech lands on a fighter and tears it in half.

Devastator Shuttle
Shuttle used to transport troops - armed with a single Light Plasma Beamer, a PBDM, an extension arm with a fusion cutter, and cloaking capabilities. Shuttle can also be armed with antimatter payloads.[/b]

[Himura.Kenshin]

OOC:

Oh ok, you just kind of used shields as a abbreviation for the black holes. So then I guess I'll just follow your suggestion of it being a scout fleet. However, it'd still be great if everybody posts a rundown of both their offensive and defensive weapons, I guess of their FTL travels, and anything else pertaining to what we would need to know for a battle. I'll start with me:

Fourty Fifth Scout Fleet Composition:

Notable ships:

Razor's Singe - Flag Ship of the Fleet. Light Cruiser.
Carnage - Medium-Heavy Destroyer. Second biggest of the fleet.
Death's Rose - Medium Destroyer. Slightly smaller than the Carnage.

In the main attack force, we have the Razor's Singe, coupled with two Light Destroyers, and three Heavy Corvettes.

The Carnage is accompanied by three Heavy Corvettes.

The Death's Rose is accompanied by one Light Destroyers and 2 Medium Corvettes.

All ships are equipped with Excited Anti-Matter Gravity Cannons, which are in scaling terms the "equivalent" of Heavy Turbolasers (note, not power terms). The batteries generate a large amount of excited Anti-Matter before discharging it out of the barrel. They are kept together and on course by a temporary "gravity tube". This works somewhat like the barrel of a rifle: the very beginning of the barrel is what makes up the turbolaser. The rest of the muzzel is the gravity generated in a cylinder extending beyond the turbolaser. As an experimental fleet, these are the only technically "offensive" weapons deployed. However, these weapons do differ in size and power, requiring more energy for the more powerful cannons (and therefore the larger ships will have more powerful batteries).

Their only technically "defensive" measures are networks of Nanobots that work to keep the damage from effecting other areas of the ship. By temporarily repairing outer structures, the structural integrity of the ship is boosted in a matter that only a extremely precisely placed bomb could capitalize on the damaged section enough to destroy the ship. Other than that, hulls thicker and stronger than most round out the defenses.

However, the Xargon do have one trick up their sleeve: they rely heavily on Gravitronic technology. These gravity generators can perform a multitude of actions, from increasing the range and accuracy of their cannons to creating black holes. This is where most of their defensive prowess lies: the black holes created by the generators can be used to either redirect the path of incoming projectiles or just compress them into nothingness (There are two major ways of overcoming these defenses, and one more unorthodox one. I'm sure there are others I haven't thought of, too =D). Other than that, the black holes can be used offensively. They can be used to tug at enemy shields (from starfighters to capitol ships) and to rip at the structural integrity of the ships. Due to the physics of such technology, it is impossible to generate any black holes in space that other matter occupies. However, mass gravity shadows (usually used to prevent FTL travel, although I really don't have a clue how it would work with the various ways of FTL in this new bizarre universe of ours) and other non-black hole gravity effects can be generated anywhere within energy boundaries.

All capitol ships Destroyer-Class and upwards come with a compliment of starfighters. The Razor's Singe comes with eight cortexs of starfighters (7 each), while the Light Destroyers only come with one. The starfighters are equipped with less powerful versions of the gravity generators as well as light "Lancer" cannon beams. These basically shoot tight antimatter projectiles that aren't hindered by armor. They just scramble the molecular makeup (usually resulting in a molten glob) and continue on their path. However, they are slower to fire and have noticeably shorter range than most starfighter weapons (although quite accurate).

After reading over the posts, I more or less realized that Temujin was the only one to mention shields, and with a bit of ignoring the fact that he called the gravity black holes shields then the story line still works =O. So, let the RPing continue!

*Giant breather*

IC:

Zurox 'Xor watched the proceedings of the battle with a light grin.

"Their methods of combat are... Unorthodox."

If he could be surprised, he would have beens surprised. However, a lifetime worth of conflict against the Vargon's unorthodox fighting style prepared him for almost any eventuality.

As it was, the Gravity Generators were having trouble keeping up with the sheer amount of incoming projectiles.

"Give code Quo-Kal'Xon to all Xargon ships. Open up all main batteries. Launch starfighters at each battlegroup's own discrecion."

The order was transmitted in a matter of nanoseconds after Zurox uttered the last sillabyl. Usually, the Xargon combat style was to speed into the range that the antimatter cannons would not be too affected by their slightly unfocased nature. This order would redirect most power from the sublight engines to the gravity generators, allowing them to both tighten the focus of the cannons as well as increase the strength of the black holes. The effect was prominent: where as before the number of projectiles were overwhelming the defenses, now results varied across the board. The more powerful missiles were swallowed hole by more powerful black holes, with only little damage sustained by the overspill. The less powerful en masse missiles were simply redirected away from the Xargon ships.

Then, the entire Razor's Singe shuddered with the first volley of the antimatter cannons. These in particular were aimed at the Asimov and the Astari, the ship in the foremost of the enemy fleet. The bolts exploded on the enemy's shield, shockwaves rippling outwards. Meanwhile, the Carnage opened up it's cannons on the Adelaide, while the Death's Rose fired upon the Spirit of Flame.

"Now, we test the true might of these ships. I wonder how long they can sustain the fire of the mighty Xargon."

OOC: Wait, who controls the Indominable? I couldn't find it in the Topic Review, and I'm too tired to go looking for it D=[/i]


EDIT:

Holy crap, long ass rundowns. Now you guys make me wish I could remake the entire race into what I believe is the greatest universal enemy D=

[Anarki]

"Commander, the smallest alien destroyer is firing on us. Also, our Pyroclasm missiles are being redirected by some kind of gravitic module, and our Anthem Cannons are having limited success against this gravity shield as well."

"Affirmative. Would moving closer allow our weapons to inflict more damage?"

"I would assume so, Commander. Their defences will not be able to react in time if we fired our Anthem Cannons at a shorter range."

"Alright. Plot a collision course - force the alien ship back. Get the SDD's to form a spear formation around our front, and and rearrange power from Pyroclasm missiles to Plasma Beamers. Send a message to the Shipbreakers on board - tell them to prepare to launch on an assault on the enemy hull."

"Affirmative, Commander. May I make a suggestion, Commander Tal-Ket?"

"Yes, go ahead."

"The Servitors are armed with gravbeams - they would be much more effective at point defence - as the enemy appear to be firing antimatter encased in a temporary gravity bubble of some kind. The Servitors would be able to disrupt the bubble, causing the antimatter to disperse before it can reach us."

"So you are suggesting that we deploy them near the SDD's?"

"Yes, Commander."

"Do it. Make sure they aren't destroyed - we might need to repair our SDD's later."

"Affirmative. Redirecting power, maximum impulse, ordering SDD's to keep in formation..."