Anaxander

    • Overview / history/ motivation:
    • The Anaxander is old, and even with retrofits is aging significantly. The most fundamental aspects of its design can trace their roots back over 50 years to the spike in Aeran fleet buildup coinciding with the initial border negotiations with the Uln, Humans, and Rlaan. Designed in the absence of actual experience in a full-scale interstellar conflict, there is an academic air to its conception. 16 years ago, at the beginning of the Rlaan-Aera conflict, the Anaxander and its variants were the primary Aeran cruisers in service, having been produced in some number. As newer designs (some already in the pipeline) were phased in, the Anaxander moved to less prestigious roles. While still a vessel of noteworthy offensive potential, it now almost universally finds itself attached to task forces rather than leading them. The most important feature of the Anaxander is how it serves as a clear starting point for all later Aeran cruisers and battle cruisers.
    • ship size:
    • Overall ship's length estimate ~ 2.1km
    • basic shape & rhythm:
      • A tube with length:diameter ~ 6:1 very slightly squashed in the vertical dimension (shorter than it is wide)
      • Center mounted thruster arrays at both ends of the cylinder
      • Narrowed vertically somewhat at front to attach to hammerhead-style frontal region
      • Hammerhead has teardrop shaped cross section viewed from the side
      • Point of teardrop faces backwards
      • At the rear of the ship there are two similar projections, flanking the primary forward thrusters, but with the teardrop point facing forward
      • Vertical thickness of front teardrop, at its thickest point, ~1/2 diameter. Length (base to point) ~1 diameter
      • Rear teardrops are somewhat larger
      • Width of hammerhead – artist's discretion + field of fire for PD + anti-small craft turrets mounted on the teardrops (that's what they're for)
      • At bottom rear of vessel, forward slightly of exhaust region is an underslung pinnace/shuttle docking bay, with an opening at the rear, facing back and slightly downwards.
    • There are six additional major projections extending radially from the ship, three rear, and three front. The three rear are in a top, bottom-left, bottom-right radial symmetry, and the front three are shifted 60 degrees to a bottom, top-right, top-left radial symmetry. The rear projections begin just after the engine region and are narrow at the back, wider at the front, have a gradual slope on the rear side, a flat top, and a very steep returning slope (something vaguely like a rose thorn that has been pruned of the pointy part). The front side of these rear projections serve as the beginning points for spinal gun emplacements that sit on top of the hull, each gun emplacement housing three long, large weapons. Attached to the flat top of each projection is a triple-mouthed torpedo launcher. The three fore projections are longer, less stout, and have maneuvering engines through their middles, rather than spinal mounts They are faced oppositely (flatter region back-facing, pointy region forward-facing) and are topped with gun turrets.
      • Additional gun emplacements are present on top of the engine sections and on the bottom of the docking bay. The longer projections are (in height) ~30% of the ship's length, the shorter rear ones ~20%. On the exterior facing flattened sides of the hammerheads (both front and rear) are "sensor stuff".
    • textures & paneling:
    • Armor will frequently be tiled, with metal between tiles, but the metal will be painted, and seams will be covered with resins and epoxies.
    • Hull structure beneath armor (revealed if damaged) is often strut-based and skeletal, with thin films of synthetics providing a skin within which cables and conduits can be constrained.
    • materials:
    • Armored regions like ceramic on metal constructions.
    • Moving parts more clearly metallic with occasional plastics (seals on hatches and such).
    • Weapons and engines even more clearly metallic.
    • The sensor equipment look like delicate masses of naked metal and plastics.
    • colors & factions:
    • Browns, tans, mustard colors for primary hull coloration (where colored at all). Purple accents, cyan lighting. Only the Aeran Ascendancy fleet uses this craft, and it will proclaim its origins proudly.
    • modular pieces:
    • The point defense turrets are clearly of standardized size, and also clearly newer than the ship design itself. Similarly, there is a modular feel to the torpedo launchers and other turret emplacements - these weapons were standardized for the size of this craft's emplacements (dictating future craft design) but are newer than craft itself, being part of the retrofits that have been done to the Anaxanders that continue to serve in the Aeran fleet.
    • weapons and armor:
    • The 3 trios of spinal mounted weapons are, along with engines and reactors, the least modular parts of the design. They are mass-driver based. Turreted weapons are laser and energy based (for sustained engagement potential). Anti-capital missile loadout is torpedo based, with deep ordinance reserves, no Capital Missiles. Mass-driver ordinance slightly under provisioned compared to later designs, even with retrofit magazine sizes. Point defenses are laser based.
    • Armor is relatively thin compared to other capital vessels. This allows for comparable acceleration and maneuver characteristics to more modern craft despite the age of the engines and reactors, but the ship is somewhat comparably fragile.
    • propulsion:
    • Massive engine clusters at front and rear. Maneuvering engines on 3 front mounted projects (front-wheel drive steering ;-) )
    • mobility:
    • Decent linear thrust for a capital vessel, and comparable maneuverability to more modern designs. Spinal weaponry is overly forward facing, and maneuver about own axis is reasonably fast, but actual direction change can be slow.
    • power/ reactors:
    • 7 primary reactors of differing sizes - large for each of front and rear engines, moderate for each of 3 manuevering engines, primary and redundant reactors (one at each end of ship ) for main power supply.
    • functionality/ role:
    • Lacking the facilities for more modern Aeran armaments and armoring, and designed before certain combat lessons were learned, the Anaxander is fragile by current standards, and mounts few weapons that are individually devastating. However, despite these shortcomings, it is still festooned with a fair number of weaker weapons with good range, and they are put to good use when focused on the escort craft of an enemy fleet.
    • utilities, arms grabbers, etc:
    • Loading cranes inside shuttle docking bay.
    • lighting, how well lit is the ship:
    • Frequent, small, cyan lighting strips.
    • command center:
    • Buried just forward of the middle of the ship.
    • crew size:
    • A few hundred Aera.
    • cargo space:
    • Very limited container transport capability. Primarily mission storage based - supplies for crew and munitions for weapons. Stored mostly in uninhabitable portions of the vessel, automated rail systems move crates into/ out of crewed regions.
    • range capability:
    • Can operate independently for a couple of months without resupply, barring combat engagements requiring more ammunition. Ammunition more limiting than crew supplies.
    • sensors:
    • Older, but everywhere.
    • docking/ interactions:
    • Primary resupply and docking interactions via shuttle bay/pinnace.
    • common maneuvers/tactics:
    • Engages enemy sub-capital and escort capitals en-masse at long range.
    • civilian or military:
    • Strictly military. This is a capital vessel.
    • significant technologies description:
    • The age of the vessel, even with retrofits, is becoming apparent. While still of mostly modern construction, it is becoming, by Aerans standards, dated, due to its design pre-dating lessons learned in actual combat with the Humans or Rlaan.
    • Redundancy:
    • Fully redundant primary reactor for power, spinal mounts as triplets of smaller weapons rather than single bigger weapons.