Two civilizations, from two different parts of galaxy, and their ships work in a way so resembling each other. This is just not going to happen! That’s ridiculous! What I want to do, is giving their ships personality. Even with a same name of the ship, there should be a variety of different weapons, different designs and different roles. Hence it becomes more playable:
Taiidan Empire has been ruling galaxy for quite a long time. So their ship designs generally focus on highly powered weapon system, in assume to come into direct confront with any ferocious firepower from any other race’s fleet, which attempts to challenge the dominance of the Empire. For this reason, some important Taiidan warships have actually very dedicated roles but overwhelming firepower, and they are always supposed to stick with other units. This is both advantage and weakness of Taiidan fleet.
Kushan hasn’t risen for long, they still don’t have some technologies that Taiidan has and also less experience in space combat including highly developed supply chain. Wherefore Kushan especially think much of the extensibility of their ship designs. Most of their battleships are multi-role, capable of dealing with unexpected encounter and complex situation. One of their ships may be able to fight against everything, but it could be dangerous if it meets something specifically designed to fight against it.
Only significantly modified ships will be listed below:
Fighter
Defender
Heavily armed, pour heavy barrage of bullets on enemies, with decent range. When gathered in large group, they can easily take out capital ships, including frigates and even destroyers! Best used as defensive fire net against groups of enemy. However even a large group of defenders are weak against a single fast moving target, because their bullets travel really slowly! So if you use defenders as an aggressive force, be sure to keep them away from enemy anti-fighter weapons.
Scout
Speed is life. Fast movement makes it almost impossible to be shot down by most weapons. Weak in single, but a group of scouts can play a formidable harassment, often lasting longer than any other kind of strike group can do. Sometime it is this tactics that decide the result of a skirmish.
Interceptor
Not as fast as scout, but still maneuverable enough, good against other fighters. Kushan interceptor has two gatling cannons which can shoot continuously without a break, best for very close dogfight, while Taiidan interceptor is equipped with a long range anti-fighter sniper cannon on the right side, and built-in cannon is just for self-defense. Here we can see the different designs between the two races with different background and in need for different tactics.
Defense Fighter
Taiidan-only unit, extremely agile and maneuverable, specialized in intercepting incoming bullets, but hopeless against missile, mine and ion beam. Using defense fighters to escort capital ships can significantly prolong their lifetime.
Cloak Fighter
Kushan-only unit, invisible any time except firing. It’s not only another good choice for harassing tactics, but also a combat effectiveness strong enough to kill. A short burst of gatling cannon can easily bury enemy fighters before they know what happened.
Attack Bomber
Kushan attack bomber launches a shower of plasma bombs, while thrusting directly toward its target at super high speed. When a group of them attack, none of any capital ships can bear this bombardment for a few rounds. Disappointingly Kushan attack bomber is just a bomber, not good against small targets at all. And tragically, they often crash into enemy ships because the pilot himself is the bombardier -- no man can do two things at once!
Taiidan attack bomber is just like something out of science fiction, a small fighter
with two ion cannons! Like Kushan bomber, Taiidan bomber also thrusts toward its enemy at super high speed, but the two ion beams cut through everything in the way ahead. When gathered in group, they tear up capital ships as easily as fighters. However, they also tear up friendlies as easily as enemies, since the ion accelerator cannot cut off for a while once it is triggered.
Corvette
Light Corvette
For Kushan engineer, light corvette really does mean light! A mini ion accelerator is integrated with the fuselage, and an electromagnetic barrel within a turret can designate the ion beam to targets from much direction. Although it’s still quite hard for the gunner to lock ion beam continuously on moving fighters, it’s good enough to make frigates and other capital ships worn-out.
By contrast, Taiidan light corvette is mounted with two tiny plasma shotguns in the front. These tiny plasma bombs are accelerated to such a high speed, that they are actually good against fast moving fighters rather than big bricks.
Salvage Corvette
Salvage corvette is just some crazy stuff, try it and you’ll agree with me! XD
Frigate
Assault Frigate
Kushan assault frigate can set a rainy death of plasma bombs to enemy capital ships like their bombers do; the only difference is there are two plasma launchers on the frigate. Its four turrets also burst a barrage when they fire, although the bullets don’t travel very fast, they are decent to cope with most corvette and fighters.
Taiidan assault frigate does not burst a mess of plasma bombs or bullets like its Kushan counterpart does, and shows less promise in a dogfight between capital ships. But this doesn’t mean it won’t play a good role as a member of any assault force, in fact it does really well. Experienced gunners of its four anti-fighter turrets are always willing to surprise any fighters moving by, with super high speed shells. It is designed to provide important fire cover for Taiidan strike force.
Ion Cannon Frigate
They are fearsome assassin in the galaxy, with one single super long range ion beam based on massive ion accelerator; they can penetrate any alien armor from such a great distance, that their prey could be left in pieces without even contact. Although a squadron of ion cannon frigate can annihilate a capital ship with ease, it would be still dangerous when they are surrounded by numbers, because the high powered linear accelerator mounted within the entire chassis determined it can shoot nowhere but ahead. It is highly recommended to use them as remote assassination task force, and never let them involved in chaotic battlefront, or they’ll be dead meat
for both aces and noobs.
Defense Field Frigate
Defense Field Frigate is a Taiidan patent technology, Kushan says, that’s hack! Bullets get bounced within its force field which is always active. Like defense fighter, missile, mine and ion beam will go right through the defense field, and blow it up.
Drone Frigate
Drone Frigate is a Kushan ingenious product, Taiidan says, that’s cheat! 24 unmanned drones protect this frigate class remote controller, making it a butcher in dogfight. However, the shortage of weapon range always makes this frigate buried by long range attack, together with its cute drones.
Destroyer
Missile Destroyer
Kushan missile destroyer is extremely effective against fighters and corvettes, its missiles can reach the top speed as soon as they leave the launchers owing to the tube shape design of the launchers. But this doesn’t allow it to reload very quickly, so meeting some capital ships is seldom a pleasant experience for a captain of Kushan missile destroyer.
Taiidan missile destroyer is also extremely good against small ships, but different from its Kushan counterpart, its vertical missile launchers fail to learn a good manner -- They cannot help releasing a frenzied missile storm! Although it can waste a lot of missiles sometime, this certainly gives it a chance to beat something larger than fighters and corvettes before it ran out of missile. Due to the vertical launcher design, missiles leaving the launchers are not very fast, but soon they’ll accelerate to the top speed.
Destroyer
Kushan destroyer is a master piece of versatility; while two aggressive ion turrets on the bottom are looking for capital ships to burn holes on, while on the top two fast tracking turrets in large version operated by the most qualified gunners are so accurate that they can head-hunt enemy fighter pilots one by one by launching a brief but fatal burst. With a graceful balance between firepower, coverage, range and speed, Kushan destroyer can be used in any way, no matter in group or alone, because it is almost a perfect design to cope with anything.
Taiidan destroyer is a nightmare for capital ships. Two plasma turrets on the top, each has two barrels, can feed enemies with incessant plasma candies until they explode. The most insane weapon is two plasma torpedoes which can only fire ahead, anything hit by them will instantaneously turn into part of the spectacular firework. However the weakness of Taiidan destroyer is significant, it’s almost impossible for it to destroy a squadron of moving corvettes, let alone fighters. So Taiidan destroyer is more likely a siege weapon with poor coverage and always supposed to be escorted,
if it doesn’t destroy, then it can be destroyed.
Heavy Cruiser
Kushan heavy cruiser is another multi-role bastard, and there’s almost no shortcut to exterminate it without casualties. It has four ion beams based on two turrets in the front, enough to take care of any other capital ships face to face; the rest 6 turrets are actually super heavy fast tracking turrets, like those on Kushan destroyer, but not only can they blow off the heads of enemy fighter pilots, but also punch through the toughest armor of any ship after a frenetic bombarding burst. Every captain of Kushan heavy cruiser knows there is a lot of fun to attend a dogfight, watching waves after waves of fighters and corvettes being mopped up, while enjoying a cup of tea!
Taiidan heavy cruiser is the ultimate war machine ready to tell any galactic redneck that there is only one Emperor. Its weapon is 10 blinding ion beams fired from 8 turrets with full coverage, deadly against all kinds of capital ships, no wonder an entire cruiser chassis is required to carry a monstrous particle accelerator. All captains of Taiidan heavy cruisers have unimaginably abundant experience in real combat, and they’re very loyal to the Empire; they face countless enemies with no fear and kill them with no mercy, they will fight to the last moment. Pathetically the Taiidan heavy cruiser really needs cover all the time for its highly concentrated firepower and lack of anti-fighter effectiveness.
