Stormhammer Assault Dreadnaught

The Stormhammer Assault Dreadnaught is a heavy warship based on a partial reverse engineering of a Rendili StarDrive Dreadnaught-class cruiser. Working with a disabled Dreadnaught taken from a local pirate group, Omega Shipyard engineers were able to replicate the general design of the Dreadnaught, but could not produce an armed, functioning replica. The Stormhammer is an extensive modification and modernization of the Dreadnaught, making use of more modern technology (though modern automation is still lacking, giving the Stormhammer a large crew complement).

The Stormhammer’s main hull is similar to that of a standard Dreadnaught, but is stretched 100 meters to accommodate a larger reactor. The enlarged reactor also cuts the sizes of both the barracks and the cargo hold in half, in comparison to a standard Dreadnaught.

Immediately distinguishing the Stormhammer from a standard Dreadnaught are six cube-shaped sections, each 215 meters wide, positioned three on each side of the ship, connected to the main hull by broad stub wings. These cubes each have six PAX launchers on the outer face; the vast internal volume of each cube is devoted entirely to ammunition storage for the launchers.

The PAX module is the only successful weapons design produced by the Omega Shipyard Weapons Lab during the period that the shipyard had sufficient capital to fund the lab’s operation. Pursue And eXterminate modules are omnidirectional projectiles, vaguely resembling homing mines, but designed to simply attack a target at a distance upon launch. Each module consists of a minimally shielded, unstable central reactor, feeding an outer shell of thrusters and containing a heavy-duty inertial neutralizer and a warhead to supplement the explosive force of the reactor’s detonation upon impact. The modules and their launchers are equivalent in size to heavy rockets and their launchers, though the sensitive thruster shell of the PAX Modules means that they cannot be placed as close to one another as heavy rockets can. As a result, a heavy rocket launcher can be supplied with more ammo in a given amount of space than a PAX launcher can. For the same reason, PAX modules are not suitable for use on very light or poorly armored ships. They can, however, be launched in very rapid succession; PAX launchers are based more on a mine-dropping principle than a launching principle, except without the stabilization used for creating enduring minefields.

PAX modules are shorter-middle-range weapons, possessing slightly less range than turbolasers or heavy rockets do, but still capable of engaging at normal distances of capital ship engagement; the are also fairly fast, attaining their maximum range in considerably less time than heavy rockets take. As omnidirectional weapons, PAX modules are capable of engaging a target in any direction, regardless of the vector upon which they are launched. Importantly, PAX modules, despite being capital scale weapons, with a warhead yield slightly less than that of a heavy rocket, are agile enough to be used against starfighters. The electronics of PAX modules, however, are singly devoted to guiding the modules to their targets and avoiding other solid objects; evasion of energy-weapon point defense fire lucky enough to hit the fast-moving modules, and the targeting of specific areas on a target are both beyond the capability of the modules. Furthermore, the modules are not streamlined for use in an atmosphere, and suffer an effectiveness penalty when used for planetary bombardment.

With 36 PAX Launchers in total, and an enormous amount of ammunition for every one of them, the Stormhammer is capable of putting up a great concentration of warheads. The Stormhammer’s launchers, chosen because they did not use the power from the ship’s reactor (most of the additional power produced by the enlarged reactor was fed to the ship’s shields), are supplemented by energy armament mounted along the top and bottom of the central hull. The armament is vaguely similar to that of the Dreadnaught, though the Dreadnaught’s single and quad turbolasers have been sacrificed in favor of heavy turbolaser batteries, which offer less versatility and use more power (a requirement offset by updating the ship’s reactor to modern technology), but require less surface area and (more importantly) represent an increase in sheer firepower. 10 quad laser cannons were also added provide a modicum of energy-based defense from lighter craft.

The main downside of the Stormhammer class is its performance, or rather, its lack thereof. The Dreadnaught that served as the basis for the Stormhammer was not a very fast craft, and rather than sacrificing other attributes in order to attain acceptable performance, the Stormhammer’s designers decided to solve the performance problem by working around it, sacrificing any trace of speed or maneuverability in exchange for greater durability and armament. The ship’s PAX launchers and the associated ammunition bays add a lot of mass to the ship, but they also provide it with an omnidirectional attack capability to be used against any smaller ship that attempts to mount a flanking attack. The ship’s hull is also armored heavily, allowing it to absorb a considerable amount of damage. In an assault situation involving Stormhammers, the defenders may have considerable time to attack the Stormhammers, but in doing so, they will be forced to use a great deal of their firepower, allowing the other ships in the attacking fleet to attack with far less resistance. Alternatively, the enemy could ignore the Stormhammers, which will force them to engage durable, heavily armed ships later in the battle, by which point their speed disadvantage would have become a moot point. In order that the ship have some movement capacity in battle, though, the designers added four pods to the back of the ship, a pair on top of the hull, and a pair on the bottom of it; each pod contains a thruster and an independent power source to run it.