Aotrs Shipyards May 2024 Release: Grand Terran Sovereign Republic Wave One
This month, just in time for their full debut at Partizan at the weekend, here’s the first wave (of four) ships for the Grand Terran Sovereign Republic. Since they kicked over the galaxy’s sandhill (and especially all the other human powers), the GTSR has been moving into producing its own bespoke ships, instead of maintaining the disparate fleets of the former human powers it absorbed.
Today, we have several of the first ships spotted: The Varanus Heavy Cruiser, Gerrhonotus Destroyer and Abronia Corvette – all of which have subvariants, the rest of which will be coming in the subsequent waves.
And rounding out the line-up (in and truth because I’d already half-uploaded it) the Xenodens “Baby Dragon” Army Transport, my (failed..!) entry to the UK Games Expo next weekend.
(Sadly, I am away and there was no chance of us making it this year, but maybe another year.)
Abronia Aurita Corvette
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When the Grand Terran Sovereign Republic took over, it was presented with a problem. Its new fleet consists of a wide range of vessels from the powers it had absorbed, across disparate technology bases, not of all of which it could sustain. In the short term, it implemented a policy of keeping fleets to their own former compositions, but moving them away from their home territories. This served the purpose of underlining the new unity of purpose and conveniently ensuring that no fleet would be facing off against former comrades. It was not a move without risk, as it substantially increased the supply lines for parts and spares particularly. But the abrupt and surprise nature of the transition of power cut off the former power’s peripheries from their own supply bases, which were largely more centralised. This more-or-less ensured there little punitive military action could be taken in the first few years.
Nevertheless, from the outset, it was clear that the GTSR would need its own fleet, one standardised to its own new vessels. Almost immediately, all new hull construction for vessels of the absorbed powers was cancelled, and only replacements for the current standing fleets were maintained.
That is it has only been three years between the GTSR’s emergence and the deployment of its first new vessels suggests that at least part of the design work was undertaken before the emergence itself.
The GTSR appears to be taking a semi-modular approach to its ship design, building hulls and variants for different roles. This makes sense in light of the move to standardisation and unification of its forces and will allow fewer base hull designs to cover a wider range of roles. In general, this approach has some cost in generalisation over specialisation and is more often seen employed by powers with a more limited budget. But for a navy as potentially large as the GTSR’s, on many levels, quantity can somewhat substitute for quality, and moreover, the speed at which the various roles can be broadly covered is more important. We could thus expect to see more specialised designs some years or decades down the line.
The Abronia is fairly large corvette and over three hundred meters, though perhaps a third of its length is the distinctive “tail-fluke.” The flukes appear modelled on those seem in fossil marine reptiles. Their function is obvious when looked at outside the visual spectrum: heat sinks, not unlike those used made by the various elenthnar powers, in a case of technological convergence.
The GTSR fleet appears to be created from the sustainable elements of the composite technology base. Mating these somewhat disparate technologies to work together is no mean feat, though considerably easier with them all stemming from human technology, rather than alien. We can infer from the presence of these heat sinks that GTSR technology is probably being factory-overclocked to compensate for the conflicts, retaining performance at the cost a significant amount of waste heat and radiation. There is a further evidence that the “tail-flukes” also serve as communication masts, somewhat extending the range of GTSR communications systems.
The Abronia has been seen in two variants – the Abronia Aurita and Abronia Graminea. Both are largely identical except for weapon load out.
The Aurita is armed entirely with particle beams. Analysis of the weapons blister size, power emissions and substantiated by intercepted transmissions indicates that the primary weapons blisters (the dorsal blister and forward side blisters) consist of Soviet Remnant particle beams, which would suggest the battery has an output of 312TXq, and an estimated accuracy envelope of around 300 000km. The secondary weapons blisters appear to contain British Stellar Empire light particle beams, which indicates that these are still being produced by the GTSR. These grant a combined output of around 480Txq over an engagement sphere of 0.9Ym³.
Gerrhonotus Rhombifer Escort Destroyer
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The third hull of the new GTSR fleet to be spotted, only a single configuration of the Gerrhonotus destroyer, the Rhombifer, was initially identified in the first encounter. The Gerrhonotus Rhombifer (named after the isthman alligator lizard) is a dedicated escort vessel.
What is most remarkable about it is its speed. The Gerrhonotus Rhombifer uses two Rolls-Royce Derwent FD12000 engines, the same as found on the Varanus Heavy Cruiser. On the much smaller destroyer, they propel the vessel to an acceleration of an exceptional 23.4mc. Combined with manoeuvrability rated at 265 MEUs, this acceleration makes the Gerrhonotus Rhombifer a hard target to hit and allows it to keep up with much smaller vessels like the Abronia with ease. If anything, the Gerrhonotus seems over-engined for purely escort duty. The fact that its name is a specific epithet component indicates there is at least one other variant hull planned or in production. Assuming the variant has the same drives, it would suggest a platform for either extremely short-ranged weapons (so as to close the distances) or extremely long range (to be able to “kite” or manoeuvre to keep out of range of enemy vessels with short-ranged weapons) – or perhaps both. However, even a version with standard particle beams would be a significant threat.
Even when a hit lands, the Gerrhonotus is well-protected. The hull is armoured with composite multilayer armour of German League manufacture, giving it an Armour Integrity Capacity of 434TXq. Surrounding this is a 410TXq-rated shield array.
The Gerrhonotus Rhombifer is armed with twenty-four weapons blisters, each mounting a Herosine Arms LZI-2400 lazer point defence battery – cutting edge lazer weapons used on the most recent Herosine Empire designs. These are almost certainly procured via import or produced under license, since the Herosine Arm factories that produce them remain solidly under Herosine Empire control. These weapons produce a combined output of 3880TXq. This sheer volume of firepower, combined with the Gerrhonotus’ speed mean that it cannot be discounted as a threat to other capital ships. Though they have only been seen functioning in an escort role, it is considered highly possible that the Gerrhonotus Rhombifer, deployed in numbers, would be a significant threat in their own right. It would be difficult to prevent them reaching their weapon’s 0.9Ym³ engagement sphere. While lacking any penetrating power, in concert, the firepower from two or three Gerrhonotus would be able to eat away at the shielding of a typical heavy cruiser, even without the support of standard capital ship weaponry. It then has the firepower and accuracy put enough holes in the armour to wreck an enemy vessel.
Varanus Griseus Heavy Cruiser
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The first indication that the GTSR was ahead of the projected deployment of new vessels came in mid-2349, when a pair of Varanus Cruisers were first spotted. The Varanus, like so many other heavy cruisers the galaxy over, looks to be shaping up to be the workhorse of the GTSR navy.
The naming convention of the new GTSR ships is based on the binomial nomenclature – that is, the scientific name – used to classify species. The given reason from the GTSR’s public releases is that such scientific names are in a neutral language by design, and so use of them is a further unifying symbolism. However, that the naming schemes chosen have tended towards the decidedly reptilian has not gone unnoticed. The binomial nomenclature is a particularly interesting choice, as the species name (the second part) is used to differentiate between different variants. (The first, or genus name, is otherwise the name most commonly used when talking about extinct species for instance, with a few notable exceptions.)
The Varanus is named for the monitor lizards. In the first recorded encounter again the Japanese Empire, two variants were spotted; the Varanus Griseus and Varanus Flavescens, named for the desert and gold monitor respectively. A further three variants have been observed operating with GTSR fleets; the Varanus Varius, Panoptes and Komodoensis. All the variants are very similar, and use many of the same hull components, but differ more substantially than the Abronia corvettes. All five share the forward module of the three in common. The Griseus, Varius and Komodoensis appear to share the same middle and rear hull modules which are roughly equal in length, whereas the Flavescens and the Panoptes use modules of longer and short lengths.
Curiously, all configurations but the Varanus Komodoensis have only a single fire control suite, where as a typical heavy cruiser would carry at least two. For the Panoptes and Varius, armed with only anti-fighter/anti-missile weapons, where each system must perforce carry its own smaller suite, this is not surprising – but it is unusual to see vessels on the Varanus’ size have only one fire control suite to handle both primary and secondary anti-starship weapons.
The Varanus very clearly shows the matching of the best (sustainable) elements of the GTSRs constituent powers. The hull technology itself appears to have been manufactured to using the more advanced techniques used by the Saturn Syndicate Ascendancy, the Eternal Reich and the French and Israeli states. The sensor profile indicates technology incorporated from the Japanese Empire and communications systems from the British Stellar Empire.
The Varanus’ armour is a multilayer composite, made originally for the Eternal Reich, and it particularly mass-efficient. Using an estimated half the mass of the armour of a typical heavy cruiser of is size (such as the ubiquitous Delta Heavy Cruiser), the Varanus boasts armour with 20% more strength, rating as an Armour Integrity Capacity of 1230TXq. The saving in mass allows the Varanus to mount additional shield generators, giving it shields rated to 1400TXq.
Two Rolls-Royce Derwent FD12000 engines are supplemented by two smaller Safran SF-M2340 drives. The Derwents provide much of the motive power and thrust-vectoring manoeuvring, while the SF-M2340s provide supplementary acceleration. In concert, they give the Varanus a typically-average drive profile, with an agility rated at 118 MEUs and an acceleration of 10.6mc. Notably, however, both types of engine have above-average fuel-to-power ratios, making them maximally efficient for long-term operations.
The Varanus Griseus was the first variant to be identified. It is armed entirely with energy weapons. The primary battery is spinally mounted, on the underside of the hull; four Soviet Remnant-produced particle beam cannons, with a combined output of 966TXq and an accuracy envelope of 400 000km. These weapons appear to be the same design as those used on the Xinglong Heavy Cruiser, though in slightly different housings.
The remaining weapons are mounted in weapons blisters. Interestingly, all the weapons blisters are of Herosine Arms design. Found across many General Designs Hulls designs – the Delta hull especially – the standard weapon mounts are easy to configure for the smaller end users to mount locally-sourced weapons. It is unusual to see a larger power using them, and they typically produce their own purpose-built mounts for their weapon systems. This may be a simple accommodation for speed of production – it means less design work to simply “plug-in” the Herosine blisters, which are designed for exactly that. It may also be a concession to standardisation, since using the existing and commercially available blisters means a large standing supply of spares.
The secondary anti-starship batteries are mounted in four larger blister in the middle hull module. These are outfitted with Soviet Remnant particle beam cannons rated to a combined output of 624TXq and with an accuracy envelope of 300 000km.
However, the two Varanus Griseus were seen using different weapons in the point-defence blisters.
The Varanus Griseus mounts fourteen point-defence blisters; ten smaller blisters covering the forward and beam arcs, and four larger blisters covering the rear arcs specifically. On both Griseus spotted, these four rear blisters were fitted with Herosine-manufacture LZ-3300 heavy lazer cannons, with an output of 240TXq each. The LZ-3300 is a larger weapon, intended for sustained fire, but has slightly less tracking capability. Their placement as the rear turrets, however, is an intelligent move. As the LZ-3300s are only intended to work in a narrow field of fire, their lower tracking is less important, as the beams have to travel less distances to catch targets. The higher power output compensates for the fact that the rear facing could not mount as many standard blisters to cover it. The ventral pair of blisters are also capable of engaging targets in the lower hemisphere, but purely as a final backstop to catch anything the smaller blisters could not hit (again, as the final system to engage, it gives them maximum time to adjust to intercept.) This means that overall, the Varanus’ ability to project PD fire as roughly equal all aspects.
But the smaller point-defence blisters held different weapons on the two different Varanus Griseus cruisers. One had mounted all ten blisters with particle beams (believed to be of BSE manufacture) rated at a combined output of 1600TXq and an engagement sphere of 0.9Ym³. The other appeared to be mounting six stock Herosine Arms LS-914B laser batteries with a combined output of 900TXq and the front four blisters instead carried unidentified disintegrator cannons with a combined output of 670TXq, but a smaller engagement sphere of 0.85Ym³. The disintegrators are tentatively guessed to be of Herosine manufacture, but this is highly unclear.
What the significance of these apparently unlabelled subvariants is unknown, but they were using different colour schemes. Different branches of the GTSR perhaps? At time of writing, the reason remains pure speculation.
Varanus Flavescens Heavy Cruiser
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The Varanus Flavescens has a notably different hull to the Griseus. While the Griseus is divided three roughly equal structures, the Flavescens instead has the same front structure but its middle module twice the length of it rearmost one. The missile structure mounts a number of missile racks in paddle-like mounts, giving the vessel a profile faintly reminiscent of a four-flippered marine reptile. (This resemblance is also shown to an extent in the Gerrhonotus and even the Pterodactylus and is unlikely to be entirely accidental.) It is estimated that the Flavescens carries 192 missiles. These are thought to most likely to be either BSE ASM-256 Starlance missiles or Soviet Remnant K-5512 Liúxīng (Meteor) missiles, both of which have comparable 200TXq yields and engagement envelopes of 600 000km, as both BSE and Soviet Remnant vessels use these munitions in large numbers and would be the most logical to use from stockpiles.
The Flavescens retains the same secondary particle beams and rear heavy lazer cannons as on the Griseus, but the point-defence blisters are different again, a mix of four particle beam blisters (with a net output of 640TXq) and six lazer cannon blisters (with an net output of 944TXq). Notably, the lazer blisters are the older LZ-2200 batteries and not the more modern (and expensive) mounts on the Gerrhonotus Rhombifer.
Xenodens “Baby Dragon” Army Transport
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The Xenodens “Baby Dragon” Army Transport represents a divergence in design philosophy. Rather than a convention transport spacecraft supported by orbital landing vessels, the Xenodens itself is intended to land on the planet’s surface.
The vessel was named for a small Mosasaur, but acquired its nickname quite early in development. Reputedly, it was first coined by a spouse of the lead designer, who on seeing an image of the vessel’s plans for the first time on a work-screen remarked that it looked “like a baby dragon” and nickname stuck.
The physical features which gave rise to this sobriquet are all present in other Grand Terran Sovereign Republic spacecraft. Whereas there, the features combine to give an impression of a stylised mosasaur or pliosaur, in the Xenodens, these features make the Xenodens seem more draconic. But in practice, this is simply due to the modifications made to suit the Xenoden’s purpose.
The front module – the “head” of the “dragon” appears oversized in proportion to the rest of the hull. This unintentionally plays on the common perception of a juvenile creature having larger heads. It is this that gave rise to the “baby” portion of its nickname. In actuality, this is simply because the forward module houses the Xenoden’s troop compliment. A single Xenodens is capable of quartering an estimated twelve companies; which, for instance, would allow it to carry an entire armoured regiment all by itself.
The reason the forward module was chosen for this and not further along in the main hull is likely combination of two factors. Firstly, by concentrating the mission-module in one section, it allows the remainder of the hull to be fitted in a more standardised fashion, which for the modular-based design of the GTSR fleet would be a valuable benefit. It would mean that a new design would only have to modify this forward module. Secondarily, it likely assists with air resistance. While a starship of this size in atmosphere is always a case of brute for over aerodynamics, there is still something to be said for some level of streamlining. The larger “head” will thus deflect some of the flowing air over the far-less streamlined hull structures. At bare minimum, it allows the shields to be slightly tighter to the hull when used as atmospheric baffles.
The forward module further enhances the head comparison by the deployment ramp, which drops very much like a jaw. The top of the ramp is seven metres above the ground on a level surface, and is 76 metres long. Reinforced with starship armour, the ramp is bulky: 47.2 metres wide at the base, tapering to 26 metres wide at the tip and six metres thick. A 20m-wide groove runs down the centre, lowering the thickness to a mere four metres. When deployed, a smaller, lighter ramp can be unfolded from the tip to cover these last four metres to the ground.
The channel provides cover to infantry and even to armoured vehicles – but this is somewhat incidental. The ramp’s thickness is partially mandated by being part of the external hull and not being a weak point. But the sheer mass makes the ramp a near-80m bludgeon, which crushes terrain and buildings beneath it which might otherwise prevent the ramp from dropping. Further, it allows the ramp to solidly imbed into the terrain beneath, and thus reduce the height from the ground the front edge of the channel is, and thus shorten the distance the secondary ramp had to extend. In ideal conditions the ramp can easily hammer in to its full four-metre thickness, meaning the secondary ramp isn’t required at all.
Even with the taper to somewhat reduce the mass, it still requires the three huge engines to power the ramp’s deployment. These engines can work both ways, and so can actually supplement the weight of the ramp if necessary to further enhance the impact when mere gravity would not be enough.
To compensate for moving the vessel in atmosphere, the Xenoden’s two General Electric FD5162 engines grant the vessel an atypically higher amount of power for a transport vessel, providing 16.2mc acceleration. The vessel’s agility is rated at 172 MEUs, which is good for a cruiser, let alone a military transport. The engines are mounted higher on the hull than typical for GTSR vessels, to reduce the amount of distance that ramp would have to fall to reach the ground. The two rear landing pads are mounted sturdily on the base of the engines.
The four claw-like landing pads are the only feature of the Xenodens not typically found on other GTSR ships, for obvious reasons. While it would have been possible to make them fully retractable, as noted, streamlining a large vessel only goes so far and the extra volume this would have required would not have been worth it for that benefit alone.
By the time the landing pads were being designed were added, the Baby Dragon observation had already been made. However, even here, the landing pads were not solely designed to fit the emergent aesthetic, though that is likely to have been a minor factor. The pads are articulated like claws, with three forward “toes” and one rear “toe” to allow landing on terrain which may not always be as conveniently level as a spaceport. Furthermore, the outside “toes” are capable of swinging up to 90° from centreline. This provides the Xenodens with sufficient stability to allow it withstand the loss of at least one landing pad and be able to maintain balance. If the deployment ramp is functioning as a fifth point of balance, the Baby Dragon could even withstand the loss of two landing pads, provided they were not adjacent.
The radiator tail-fluke of the GTSR fleet would have posed some significant problems on the Xenodens. In atmosphere, it would have provided additional drag in manoeuvring, and would have been detrimental to the stability of the vessel when landed. Instead, the radiators were split and made into wings. This has only a minor effect in lift – they are strictly not big enough to act as lift on their own under standard atmospheric pressure. But by moving the weight to a position more central to the landing pads, it meant that the vessel was more stable, especially in a landing-pad failure situation. This is what ultimately lead to the more draconic shape; the “stump” of the tail further reinforcing the impression of a hatchling.
The Baby Dragon also shares akin to the protection of its namesake’s hide. Despite its smaller size, the Xenodens mounts armour comparable to the Varanus, with an Armour Integrity Capacity of 1190TXq. It is also heavily shielded, rated to the same as a typical heavy cruiser at 1240TXq.
The armament is somewhat lighter, however. The Xenodens only mounts point-defence weapons systems. Sixteen emplacements ensure that at all aspects of approach are covered. Six are mounted on the forward module. Four of these are mounted on the underside of the hull, where they can provide support to the ground troops debussing. Covering the area where these cannot, four more emplacements are positioned around the engines at the rear. Each wing mounts a pair of emplacements, and the final pair of these are mounted on towers either side of the head. These last somewhat give the impression of ears or perhaps horns. This is a convergence of purpose and aesthetics, since this position gives them unrestricted arcs of fire over a wider area of the hull, since the top of the head is the highest point aside from the bridge-tower.
Interestingly, all these emplacements appear to be given over to light ion cannons, with a combined output of an estimated 1760TXq. This seems an unusual choice, though it makes the Xenodens capable of running down and boarding smaller craft. The lack of ability to strip shields would make this problematic. However, there is more than sufficient space inside the Xenodens to replace the troop quarters with a hangar – presumably deploying through the ramp as easily as a standard hanger bay. This would make the Xenodens a quite capable pocket carrier. No carrier versions have yet been spotted thus far, but given the GTSR’s penchant for modular designs, the evidence that it only a matter of time is mounting.
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𝗢𝗻𝗹𝘆-𝗚𝗮𝗺𝗲𝘀 𝗦𝘁𝗼𝗿𝗲 𝗦𝘁𝗮𝘁𝘂𝘀
Current Ko-fi Total: £112 => Only-Games Subscription costs met until 19th July 2024 (£100).
New Goal: £24/£50 towards next goal => Costs for until 19th September 2024 (potentially, see above).
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Photos of Prusa version, as always.
So, this release was supposed to go out yesterday and it (at time of typing) might not even go out today… Turns out, trying to upload 26 models to three websites takes an enormous amount of time. I ended up having to give up and just sort out the miscellaneous stuff and then do the five GTSR ships for today’s release. Firefox and Outlook Express have chosen to fight me the whole time, so it has been slow and frustrating going, as I also kept finding thinsg that needed to be fixed and it was halfway through the day before I even GOT to start uploading the GTSR.
And, coming to to time, *just* as I had committed to releasing tonight, Shapeways threw one of its screaming wobblies and kept privating the Varanus Griseus AND the Gerrhonotus Rhombifer. I wasn’t going to let them screw me over, so I made a new model page (three times in the first case) until I just put no fluff on it and got it public, because [frack] ’em, I’m not waiting on their timescale for unnecessary nonsense checks.
I might as well report that, in the background, Dad has suddenly developed angina, like with the last few weeks, which has curtailed his mobility. He’s being sen properly tomorrow, but it is, again, just an extra level of stress.
What did I say last time about a “less harassed” release…?
The next three GTSR waves will be coming over the next few months – plus there’s another few miscellaneous ships which might take us all the way up to Other Partizan (and after that I genuinely have no idea at the moment). Between convention prep, commissions and stuff generally sucking, I have not had any chance to work on the fluff book (save for the entries for the GTSR fleet itself), much less my proposed fleet stat books. No idea even when the GTSR stuff can up on the Spacebattles thread.