Melkor Unchained
29-07-2004, 23:59
I figured I should probably post something like this for posterity, but I could never be arsed to do it until just yesterday. Bear with me on some of the weapon stats: I'll freely admit I have no idea what I'm doing when I try to come up with reasonable armaments. Also, this document has been through a number of edits, and there may be some inconsistencies. If you spot one, please point it out. I'll be using this as a general reference, provided it's accepted by the lot of you crazies. Enjoy.
I have a total of 11 Battlefleets. Each fleet has:
20 missile frigates
12 AA frigates
8 Battleships
2 Heavy Carriers
3 Air Destroyers*
5 Cruisers
1 Sky Furnace, or Dreadnought
Although they're not officially classified as being a part of the fleet, per se, a fleet will generally travel with anywhere from 6-10 supply ships.
*I switched the traditional designation on my "Air Destroyers" and "Cruisers." The Air Destroyer, barring the Sky Furnace, SuperFurnace and of course the Dreadnought classes, is my largest class of capital gravship. The cruisers, then, are fairly smaller in fact. Air Destroyers, Cruisers, and Battleships also contain small fighter escorts [18 per Destroyer [3 squadrons], and 12 each for the Cruisers and Battleships. Heavy Carriers carry roughly 90 assorted fightercraft: the Raven class escort remains my mainstay, though we carry anywhere from 6-10 bomber squadrons with us as needed. Usually, standard escort is 10 fighter squadrons [60 craft] and 6 gunship squadrons per fleet [18 craft].
The fleets also travel under gunship escort. An Imperial gunship is a fairly large craft [a little bit bigger, but similarly proportioned to a city bus], with a wide array of weapons at its disposal. When not in use, these weapons racks, or 'pylons' are stored inside the ship. When the commanding AI orders it to, these racks can shift and come out with a new array of weapons. Weapons availible to my gunships include:
.50 caliber autocannon [fixed to chassis]
2 medium gauss rifles [side mounted],
3 short range AAMRAM batteries [6 missiles per volley, 18 total: rack mounted]
1 depth charge [rack mounted]
4 torpedos [only one tube. chassis mounted]
2 Long Range Missile racks [3 missiles per volley, the ship carries enough for two volleys]
and
1 EMP battery [rack mounted]
The ships have Point Defense, but they're mounted on seperate racks and must be deployed. A gunship has three availible rack mounts for swapping out, which means I usually have any two of these weapons out at once, as the aftide rack is generally used exclusively for Point Defense. Also, the craft are unmanned.
Missile Frigates:
A missile frigate is roughly 300m long [its AA counterpart is slightly smaller, at 250m], and packs as its main weapon a heavy fusion missile launcher. These warheads are generally fairly slow, but if one connects, it does a good deal of damage. I'm not good with yields so I'll spare myself the embarrasment of an estimate. But as a rule of thumb, if one such fusion missile were to connect with one of *my* missile frigates, it would reduce it to roughly 70% combat effectiveness. For most capships, I'd estimate each strike would take roughly a 5% chunk out of this figure, give or take. Depends on what I aim it at.
The missile frigate generally engages enemy frigates and capships, and unless stated otherwise, are generally situated on the inside of my formations, with an envelope of AA frigates and fighters around them. They usually travel tightly with the capships for better support. Of the two frigate classes, the Heavy Missile Frigates [occasionally referred to ICly as 'MisFrigs'] has the strongest Point Defense. Occasionally, missile Firagates have been known to fire EMP warheads, but as a rule of thumb, the fusion missiles are a mainstay. A Frigate generally launches a missile every 45-55 seconds, and any tandem fleet salvo will include two such launches from each ship.
Other weapons systems on the missile frigate include:
3 ventral medium gauss batteries
2 dorsal AA cannons
AA Frigates:
AA frigates employ flak cannons to disperse and destroy enemy fighters and other light craft. Like their aerospace equivalents, the AA frigate packs two 'Concussion' class missile tubes. Concussion missiles are smaller and much faster than their heavy fusion counterparts, and are employed regularly to provide at least nominal ship-to-ship defenses. The AA frigate is easily the fastest non-fighter, non-gunship craft to be found in the Imperial Fleets. Though it's PD system is weaker than their missile firgate counterparts, AA frigates are generally maneuverable enough to evade and engage any number of other, more archaic forms of missile defense as needed. The AA frigates are the only craft known in my Air Force to carry chaffs and flares, save for some of the older Raven models, and light bombers.
When computing damage for concussion missile launchers, assume a base 10-15% reduction in the ship's overall operational capacity for frigates and similar craft. Capships for the most part can shrug off concussion missile strikes, as they only account for a 1% loss of operational capacity in the best case.
Each ship has two main flak drivers, one on the top and one on the bottom. If the target is distant enough [say, 200m or more] it can be engaged by both turrets.
Other weapons systems employed by the AA frigate include:
3 ventral heavy gauss batteries
2 Dorsal EMP cannons
Air Destroyers:
Air Destroyers have been the de facto capship escorts for my Sky Furnaces in almost every observable case so far. There are three per fleet, and they're armed to the teeth. Of all my ships, the Air Destroyers pack the most raw, ship-to-ship firepower. Unlike the rest of my ships, they do not look like freakishly large city busses. The Air Destroyer could be compared loosely in shape with an Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars, and it's roughly 1500 meters long. It's chassis is dominated by four very large, rounded turrets, all topside. These serve as the ship's main anti-firgate/anti-capship weapon, and each turret is capable of delivering two tons of screaming metal death onto its target. The guns can fire once about every 4-6 minutes, and are expected generally to account for roughly a 50-60% decline in a frigate's operational capacity. Capships of comparable size have been observed to suffer anywhere from a 15-25% loss, depending on where the round is aimed.
Each turret has a PD arc on top of and around it, and for this reason the turret assemblies are very large. They're shaped like half circles: think of a zit maybe with a huge friggin rail gun sticking out of one side. The turrets are capable of movement, but due to their immense size cannot maneuver more than 30 or so degrees in any direction. Two face forward and two face aft.
Other weapons systems employed by the Air Destroyer include:
6 Ventral Heavy Gauss batteries
3 Ventral Medium Gauss batteries
4 side mounted turret rail drivers
4 dorsal AA batteries
2 EMP batteries [one ventral, one dorsal]
3 ventral AA batteries
10 Wolverine class Missile tubes [ultra heavy missiles]
15 Heavy Fusion missile tubes
Battleships:
The Battleship is the smallest class of Imperial capship, and as such is roughly 750 meters long. Battleships are generally used as frigate support, and are strongest against enemy frigates. Of all Imperial gravitic battlecraft, the Battleships have the most extensive EMP weaponry, and they use it a lot. The battleships have undergone many refits and upgrades since their inception, and to date remain the most widely changed class of ship that I have. Designed primarily as a mainstay against EOTED type weaponry, the Battleship acheived its first major refit after the EOTED invasion, which is where most of the EMP batteries came from. It's main weapon is a large EMP cannon, which stands on the top of the ship, about a third of the way towards the front side. This is an area EMP weapon, which means ot blankets the target zone with EMP as opposed to firing smaller shots at certain targets. For this reason, Battleships tend to travel towards the outside of my formations, unless stated otherwise. Frequently the area EMP is used as a defensive weapon, to suppliment the PD systems already found on other ships.
Other weapons employed by the Battleship include:
3 Ventral Heavy Gauss batteries
5 dorsal rail drivers [three of these are mounted on the ventral face of the ship: with one at the nose and two near the PD arcs by the engines. The other two are situated on the port and aft sides of the ship, near the top and smack dap in the middle of the ship.]
2 Fusion Missile launcher tubes
4 Wolverine Heavy Missile launchers
2 ventral AA batteries
2 dorsal AA batteries
4 Heavy Missile tubes
Cruisers:
When I rip into ground foritifications using artillery, a good deal of the fire is coming from my cuisers. These ships generally act as ground suppression, and travel closest to the ground of any capships, unless stated otherwise. A cruiser is about 900m long, and is only slightly less armed than the Air Destroyer. Cruisers are also my primary vessels for dispatching surface fleets, and of all classes of gravship are the best equpiied for underwater warfare. The cruiser doesn't have any one defining weapon, unlike most of the other classes.
A cruiser packs:
12 heavy missile launcher tubes
18 medium missile tubes
6 Wolverine heavy missile launchers
1 Topside EMP battery
5 topside AA batteries
3 ventral AA batteries
6 Heavy Rail drivers [3 each port and starboard sides]
5 ventral heavy gauss batteries
8 ventral medium gauss batteries
2 dorsal heavy gauss batteries
Carriers:
An Imperial Gravitic carrier is 600 meters long and has hangar space for 90 Raven-sized fighter craft.
Weapons:
10 dorsal AA batteries
7 ventral AA batteries
6 side-mounted medium Gauss batteries, 3 each on port and starboard sides.
6 Heavy Missile tubes
10 concussion tubes
Sky Furnaces:
Perhaps the most infamous class of Imperial gravship, the Sky Furnace was designed by Lord Melkor for one purpose and one purpose alone: burning lots of stuff. Each ship is 2000m long, and they're the heaviest class of gravship I have [save the SuperFurnace, see below]. I currently employ six Furnaces: the Dor Daedoloth, the Hithlum, the Gorgoroth, the Glaurung, the Orodruin, and the Anfauglith. The weapons array of a Sky Furnace is of course dominated by the six massive plasma flamethrowers that adorn the ventral face. As one might expect, these furnaces are fairly large, and as such the mechanisms occupy an inordinately large amount of space inside the ship. Picture six gigantic coffee mugs [sans handles of course], one on top of each of those rings. That's a blast furnace. Because of the space they take up, a Furnace has a little less room for weapons and such that one might expect. Most of its defenses are centered around anti-fighter countermeasures. Not once in the course of known history has a Furnace dispatched another gravship , as they're not much for capship-vs-capship action.
Traditionally, a Sky Furnace will travel to it's destination with a thick blast shield over the rings, so as to reduce the threat of enemy fire destroying one of the furnaces, and hence, likely the ship as well. A blast cover generally isn't retracted until the Furnaces are a few minutes away from purging, also to minimize the risk. When I post that the doors are coming open, or mention that the bottom of the Furnace is glowing orange, I'm likely to purge in my next post.
Some of the Furnaces, however, have another special weapon in addition to the Furnaces for which they're named. The [i]Dor Daedoloth, as some of you may know, boasts three massive rail driver turrets, much like those found on the Air Destroyer. The Hithlum has no such weapon, but has instead upgraded armor and superior engines/drive systems--this is the Furnace I use for chasing down and destroying [usually fleeing] ground forces in most cases. The Glaurung, it would appear, has a Heavy Ion cannon battery--an experimental weapon more or less. It's got these two pods on the sides that pop out from the side, revealing three cannons. The commander can then deploy the second set of cannons, which folds out from underneath the turret and rests itself on top of the larger, previous one. It's got three heavy cannons per side and two light ones on the second array. The cannons are fixed forward-facing and cannot be moved. Yes, it's experimental, and no we're not known for subtlety. The others I haven't really assigned special weapons--if I ever come up with them I'll probably wander back here for an edit.
A Sky Furnace has disturbingly heavy armor, obviously to protect the Furnaces inside. As such, it's also definately the slowest ship I've got. Generally, ballistic assaults aimed at any face save possibly the ventral or aft faces will prove ineffectual.
In addition to the huge honkin' plasma flamethrowers, a Sky Furnace typically packs:
15 concussion missile launchers
12 topside AA batteries
2 ventral AA batteries [not much room on that side ;)]
6 medium rail drivers, 3 each port and starboard side.
The SuperFurnace:
To date, the Five Kingdoms has built one SuperFurnace--the [i]Gothmog. Named after the famous Imperial Aircraft carrier that dominated the All Elves and One Ring conflicts, the Gothmog is right up there with the Dor Daedoloth as the pride of Imperial production. A SuperFurnace differs from the 'vanilla' Sky Furnaces in several ways. First, it's much larger. The Gothmog is my largest ship, and it's 3km long. Staffed by a crew of close to thirty-five thousand, it's also more heavily manned than any other warship I have save possibly the command carrier Ali'Staan.
The Gothmog also has a second set of furnaces, arrayed on the sides of the ship. As such, it's shape is slightly different. Take the usual city bus template, make it 3km long, and stick a big rectangular protrusion on the port and starboard sides, near the bottom of the craft of course. If you can follow that description, you should have a pretty good idea what it looks like. Now if only I could render...
ANYway, the Gothmog's auxilary furnaces are also equpiied with blast doors, but they're only roughly 2/3 the size of the Gothmog''s main furnaces, which makes them still slightly larger than a normal blast furnace. There are three auxilary Furnaces per side, and nine main furnaces as opposed to the typical six.
In addition to all of this, the Gothmog boasts:
20 Wolverine Class missile launchers
6 heavy missile launchers
15 topside AA batteries
4 ventral AA batteries
15 heavy rail drivers
...and that's about it. Oh, just as an afterthought, a heavy gauss battery has six guns, a medium one has nine. None of my ships have yet been observed to carry a 'light' gauss cannon array, but where they may eventually exist there will be 14. An AA battery contains 6 mid-sized Flak cannons on a single turret.
I'm definately looking for input on this, as my weapons suites could be ridiculousl overpowered for all I know. I just kind of picked some numbers at random in most cases. This dissertation covers what most nations I encounter are likely to ICly be aware of right off the bat, at least based on how they've been observed in past [and present] conflicts. Stuff like ship speed is omitted because I have no idea what's reasonable for ships of those size, but for posting purposes I generally assume they can reach most theaters in hours, usually 3-5 posts.
Discuss!
I have a total of 11 Battlefleets. Each fleet has:
20 missile frigates
12 AA frigates
8 Battleships
2 Heavy Carriers
3 Air Destroyers*
5 Cruisers
1 Sky Furnace, or Dreadnought
Although they're not officially classified as being a part of the fleet, per se, a fleet will generally travel with anywhere from 6-10 supply ships.
*I switched the traditional designation on my "Air Destroyers" and "Cruisers." The Air Destroyer, barring the Sky Furnace, SuperFurnace and of course the Dreadnought classes, is my largest class of capital gravship. The cruisers, then, are fairly smaller in fact. Air Destroyers, Cruisers, and Battleships also contain small fighter escorts [18 per Destroyer [3 squadrons], and 12 each for the Cruisers and Battleships. Heavy Carriers carry roughly 90 assorted fightercraft: the Raven class escort remains my mainstay, though we carry anywhere from 6-10 bomber squadrons with us as needed. Usually, standard escort is 10 fighter squadrons [60 craft] and 6 gunship squadrons per fleet [18 craft].
The fleets also travel under gunship escort. An Imperial gunship is a fairly large craft [a little bit bigger, but similarly proportioned to a city bus], with a wide array of weapons at its disposal. When not in use, these weapons racks, or 'pylons' are stored inside the ship. When the commanding AI orders it to, these racks can shift and come out with a new array of weapons. Weapons availible to my gunships include:
.50 caliber autocannon [fixed to chassis]
2 medium gauss rifles [side mounted],
3 short range AAMRAM batteries [6 missiles per volley, 18 total: rack mounted]
1 depth charge [rack mounted]
4 torpedos [only one tube. chassis mounted]
2 Long Range Missile racks [3 missiles per volley, the ship carries enough for two volleys]
and
1 EMP battery [rack mounted]
The ships have Point Defense, but they're mounted on seperate racks and must be deployed. A gunship has three availible rack mounts for swapping out, which means I usually have any two of these weapons out at once, as the aftide rack is generally used exclusively for Point Defense. Also, the craft are unmanned.
Missile Frigates:
A missile frigate is roughly 300m long [its AA counterpart is slightly smaller, at 250m], and packs as its main weapon a heavy fusion missile launcher. These warheads are generally fairly slow, but if one connects, it does a good deal of damage. I'm not good with yields so I'll spare myself the embarrasment of an estimate. But as a rule of thumb, if one such fusion missile were to connect with one of *my* missile frigates, it would reduce it to roughly 70% combat effectiveness. For most capships, I'd estimate each strike would take roughly a 5% chunk out of this figure, give or take. Depends on what I aim it at.
The missile frigate generally engages enemy frigates and capships, and unless stated otherwise, are generally situated on the inside of my formations, with an envelope of AA frigates and fighters around them. They usually travel tightly with the capships for better support. Of the two frigate classes, the Heavy Missile Frigates [occasionally referred to ICly as 'MisFrigs'] has the strongest Point Defense. Occasionally, missile Firagates have been known to fire EMP warheads, but as a rule of thumb, the fusion missiles are a mainstay. A Frigate generally launches a missile every 45-55 seconds, and any tandem fleet salvo will include two such launches from each ship.
Other weapons systems on the missile frigate include:
3 ventral medium gauss batteries
2 dorsal AA cannons
AA Frigates:
AA frigates employ flak cannons to disperse and destroy enemy fighters and other light craft. Like their aerospace equivalents, the AA frigate packs two 'Concussion' class missile tubes. Concussion missiles are smaller and much faster than their heavy fusion counterparts, and are employed regularly to provide at least nominal ship-to-ship defenses. The AA frigate is easily the fastest non-fighter, non-gunship craft to be found in the Imperial Fleets. Though it's PD system is weaker than their missile firgate counterparts, AA frigates are generally maneuverable enough to evade and engage any number of other, more archaic forms of missile defense as needed. The AA frigates are the only craft known in my Air Force to carry chaffs and flares, save for some of the older Raven models, and light bombers.
When computing damage for concussion missile launchers, assume a base 10-15% reduction in the ship's overall operational capacity for frigates and similar craft. Capships for the most part can shrug off concussion missile strikes, as they only account for a 1% loss of operational capacity in the best case.
Each ship has two main flak drivers, one on the top and one on the bottom. If the target is distant enough [say, 200m or more] it can be engaged by both turrets.
Other weapons systems employed by the AA frigate include:
3 ventral heavy gauss batteries
2 Dorsal EMP cannons
Air Destroyers:
Air Destroyers have been the de facto capship escorts for my Sky Furnaces in almost every observable case so far. There are three per fleet, and they're armed to the teeth. Of all my ships, the Air Destroyers pack the most raw, ship-to-ship firepower. Unlike the rest of my ships, they do not look like freakishly large city busses. The Air Destroyer could be compared loosely in shape with an Imperial Star Destroyer from Star Wars, and it's roughly 1500 meters long. It's chassis is dominated by four very large, rounded turrets, all topside. These serve as the ship's main anti-firgate/anti-capship weapon, and each turret is capable of delivering two tons of screaming metal death onto its target. The guns can fire once about every 4-6 minutes, and are expected generally to account for roughly a 50-60% decline in a frigate's operational capacity. Capships of comparable size have been observed to suffer anywhere from a 15-25% loss, depending on where the round is aimed.
Each turret has a PD arc on top of and around it, and for this reason the turret assemblies are very large. They're shaped like half circles: think of a zit maybe with a huge friggin rail gun sticking out of one side. The turrets are capable of movement, but due to their immense size cannot maneuver more than 30 or so degrees in any direction. Two face forward and two face aft.
Other weapons systems employed by the Air Destroyer include:
6 Ventral Heavy Gauss batteries
3 Ventral Medium Gauss batteries
4 side mounted turret rail drivers
4 dorsal AA batteries
2 EMP batteries [one ventral, one dorsal]
3 ventral AA batteries
10 Wolverine class Missile tubes [ultra heavy missiles]
15 Heavy Fusion missile tubes
Battleships:
The Battleship is the smallest class of Imperial capship, and as such is roughly 750 meters long. Battleships are generally used as frigate support, and are strongest against enemy frigates. Of all Imperial gravitic battlecraft, the Battleships have the most extensive EMP weaponry, and they use it a lot. The battleships have undergone many refits and upgrades since their inception, and to date remain the most widely changed class of ship that I have. Designed primarily as a mainstay against EOTED type weaponry, the Battleship acheived its first major refit after the EOTED invasion, which is where most of the EMP batteries came from. It's main weapon is a large EMP cannon, which stands on the top of the ship, about a third of the way towards the front side. This is an area EMP weapon, which means ot blankets the target zone with EMP as opposed to firing smaller shots at certain targets. For this reason, Battleships tend to travel towards the outside of my formations, unless stated otherwise. Frequently the area EMP is used as a defensive weapon, to suppliment the PD systems already found on other ships.
Other weapons employed by the Battleship include:
3 Ventral Heavy Gauss batteries
5 dorsal rail drivers [three of these are mounted on the ventral face of the ship: with one at the nose and two near the PD arcs by the engines. The other two are situated on the port and aft sides of the ship, near the top and smack dap in the middle of the ship.]
2 Fusion Missile launcher tubes
4 Wolverine Heavy Missile launchers
2 ventral AA batteries
2 dorsal AA batteries
4 Heavy Missile tubes
Cruisers:
When I rip into ground foritifications using artillery, a good deal of the fire is coming from my cuisers. These ships generally act as ground suppression, and travel closest to the ground of any capships, unless stated otherwise. A cruiser is about 900m long, and is only slightly less armed than the Air Destroyer. Cruisers are also my primary vessels for dispatching surface fleets, and of all classes of gravship are the best equpiied for underwater warfare. The cruiser doesn't have any one defining weapon, unlike most of the other classes.
A cruiser packs:
12 heavy missile launcher tubes
18 medium missile tubes
6 Wolverine heavy missile launchers
1 Topside EMP battery
5 topside AA batteries
3 ventral AA batteries
6 Heavy Rail drivers [3 each port and starboard sides]
5 ventral heavy gauss batteries
8 ventral medium gauss batteries
2 dorsal heavy gauss batteries
Carriers:
An Imperial Gravitic carrier is 600 meters long and has hangar space for 90 Raven-sized fighter craft.
Weapons:
10 dorsal AA batteries
7 ventral AA batteries
6 side-mounted medium Gauss batteries, 3 each on port and starboard sides.
6 Heavy Missile tubes
10 concussion tubes
Sky Furnaces:
Perhaps the most infamous class of Imperial gravship, the Sky Furnace was designed by Lord Melkor for one purpose and one purpose alone: burning lots of stuff. Each ship is 2000m long, and they're the heaviest class of gravship I have [save the SuperFurnace, see below]. I currently employ six Furnaces: the Dor Daedoloth, the Hithlum, the Gorgoroth, the Glaurung, the Orodruin, and the Anfauglith. The weapons array of a Sky Furnace is of course dominated by the six massive plasma flamethrowers that adorn the ventral face. As one might expect, these furnaces are fairly large, and as such the mechanisms occupy an inordinately large amount of space inside the ship. Picture six gigantic coffee mugs [sans handles of course], one on top of each of those rings. That's a blast furnace. Because of the space they take up, a Furnace has a little less room for weapons and such that one might expect. Most of its defenses are centered around anti-fighter countermeasures. Not once in the course of known history has a Furnace dispatched another gravship , as they're not much for capship-vs-capship action.
Traditionally, a Sky Furnace will travel to it's destination with a thick blast shield over the rings, so as to reduce the threat of enemy fire destroying one of the furnaces, and hence, likely the ship as well. A blast cover generally isn't retracted until the Furnaces are a few minutes away from purging, also to minimize the risk. When I post that the doors are coming open, or mention that the bottom of the Furnace is glowing orange, I'm likely to purge in my next post.
Some of the Furnaces, however, have another special weapon in addition to the Furnaces for which they're named. The [i]Dor Daedoloth, as some of you may know, boasts three massive rail driver turrets, much like those found on the Air Destroyer. The Hithlum has no such weapon, but has instead upgraded armor and superior engines/drive systems--this is the Furnace I use for chasing down and destroying [usually fleeing] ground forces in most cases. The Glaurung, it would appear, has a Heavy Ion cannon battery--an experimental weapon more or less. It's got these two pods on the sides that pop out from the side, revealing three cannons. The commander can then deploy the second set of cannons, which folds out from underneath the turret and rests itself on top of the larger, previous one. It's got three heavy cannons per side and two light ones on the second array. The cannons are fixed forward-facing and cannot be moved. Yes, it's experimental, and no we're not known for subtlety. The others I haven't really assigned special weapons--if I ever come up with them I'll probably wander back here for an edit.
A Sky Furnace has disturbingly heavy armor, obviously to protect the Furnaces inside. As such, it's also definately the slowest ship I've got. Generally, ballistic assaults aimed at any face save possibly the ventral or aft faces will prove ineffectual.
In addition to the huge honkin' plasma flamethrowers, a Sky Furnace typically packs:
15 concussion missile launchers
12 topside AA batteries
2 ventral AA batteries [not much room on that side ;)]
6 medium rail drivers, 3 each port and starboard side.
The SuperFurnace:
To date, the Five Kingdoms has built one SuperFurnace--the [i]Gothmog. Named after the famous Imperial Aircraft carrier that dominated the All Elves and One Ring conflicts, the Gothmog is right up there with the Dor Daedoloth as the pride of Imperial production. A SuperFurnace differs from the 'vanilla' Sky Furnaces in several ways. First, it's much larger. The Gothmog is my largest ship, and it's 3km long. Staffed by a crew of close to thirty-five thousand, it's also more heavily manned than any other warship I have save possibly the command carrier Ali'Staan.
The Gothmog also has a second set of furnaces, arrayed on the sides of the ship. As such, it's shape is slightly different. Take the usual city bus template, make it 3km long, and stick a big rectangular protrusion on the port and starboard sides, near the bottom of the craft of course. If you can follow that description, you should have a pretty good idea what it looks like. Now if only I could render...
ANYway, the Gothmog's auxilary furnaces are also equpiied with blast doors, but they're only roughly 2/3 the size of the Gothmog''s main furnaces, which makes them still slightly larger than a normal blast furnace. There are three auxilary Furnaces per side, and nine main furnaces as opposed to the typical six.
In addition to all of this, the Gothmog boasts:
20 Wolverine Class missile launchers
6 heavy missile launchers
15 topside AA batteries
4 ventral AA batteries
15 heavy rail drivers
...and that's about it. Oh, just as an afterthought, a heavy gauss battery has six guns, a medium one has nine. None of my ships have yet been observed to carry a 'light' gauss cannon array, but where they may eventually exist there will be 14. An AA battery contains 6 mid-sized Flak cannons on a single turret.
I'm definately looking for input on this, as my weapons suites could be ridiculousl overpowered for all I know. I just kind of picked some numbers at random in most cases. This dissertation covers what most nations I encounter are likely to ICly be aware of right off the bat, at least based on how they've been observed in past [and present] conflicts. Stuff like ship speed is omitted because I have no idea what's reasonable for ships of those size, but for posting purposes I generally assume they can reach most theaters in hours, usually 3-5 posts.
Discuss!