Nakrozar Class Battlecruiser
The Nakrozar Battlecruiser is a mid-sized line combat vessel. With the typical above-average agility possessed by Phystyulon capital ships, it also has strong armour and tough shields.
Its primary offense consists of four Class 75 spinal-mount lazer cannons, supplemented by two Class 60s. It uses a dozen of the larger Class 60 lazer pylons provided it with better all-round fire. I can thus support a lighter line of vessels from slightly further away.
No less than around eighty point-defence lazer turrets are scattered around the hull, making attacking a Nakrozar at close range a dangerous proposition if they are not busy defending against missiles.
Phystyukor Class Heavy Cruiser
The Phystyukor – which translates to (ironically) “Fist of Physt” is the archetypal Phystyulon cruiser. It has average mobility for a cruiser, but the compactness of Phystyulon drive an FTL technology means that it has almost twice the shielding of the average vessel of its size.
Primary weapons are provided in the case of heavy, spinal-mount fixed beam emplacements – two Class 75 lazer cannons and four Class 45 providing a powerful mid-to-long range punch. With an effective target envelope range of 1.67 lightseconds, the Class 75 cannons significantly out-range most galactic standard competitors.
From the upper and lower armour belt, all-round weapons fire is provided by the distinctive lazer pylons with the three-sided pyramid-tipped emission arrays have been synonymous with the Phystyulons for centuries. The Phystyukor’s pylons are twelve Class 45 arrays.
As typical for Phystyulon vessels, point-defence is provided by numerous small independent turrets scattered throughout the hull and armour plate – and some of which channel through the main pylon emitters. Most are less than five metres in size, but are armed with lazer beam cannons with powerful long-range capability. The Phystyukor has approximately forty of these weapons. However, not all the turrets have independent targeting as the systems are designed to fire for effect as a group. As a result, they are extremely capable of dealing with missile salvo or fighter group, but can be more easily overwhelmed by repeated salvo attacks in a short period of time. However, this system shines especially in the secondary anti-ship role, allowing each array of turrets to co-ordinate attacks to literally slice and melt chunks of an enemy vessel right off.
Ortukat Electronics Warfare Cruiser
The Ortukat (“sentry”) Electronics Warfare Cruiser places the most advanced electronics systems at the disposal of the Phystyulon Star Navy. The expansive sensor and communications arrays are located in two large pyramids either side of the main superstructure. The vessel also possesses a secondary communications array for when the primary devices are in use to create jamming fields in concert with one of the two ECM installations located in front of the superstructure.
Two Class 75 lazer beam cannons run down the spine of the vessel, providing it with a not-insignificant anti-ship strike of its own.
In addition to providing ECM protection to its squadron, the Ortukat also provides more aggressive defence I the form of eighty lazer turrets and four point-defence missile racks.
Hrastyukar Class Escort Cruiser
The Hrastyukar (“Revenge of Hrast”) Escort Cruiser provided additional point-defence to the Phystyulon fleet, most typically one working with a pair of Phystyukors.
Unlike many such escort cruisers, the Hrastyukar has no long-range point-defence, instead relying on the already impressive range of the standard Phystyulon lazer turrets. It boasts nearly a hundred and twenty such emplacements.
The Hrastyukar also has considerable anti-ship punch, with two Class 60 and two Class 45 spinal lazer cannons and lazer pylons with another six Class 45 lazers to cover all angles. While it only has average manoeuvrability, it has slightly more armour and only 10% less shields than the Phystyukor.
Hrastyukar-Za Class Escort Cruiser
The Hrastyukar-Za is a variant of the Hrastyukar. It removes the spinal-mount Class 45 lazers in favour of increasing the shield strength by 30%. Hrastyukar-Zas are used more defensively than the regular Hrastyukar, having greater longevity. They are typically fielded when dealing with missile-heavy enemies, for whom the escort ships are often a priority. The extra shielding allows the cruiser to stand a much greater amount of punishment.
Hazarak Class Light Cruiser
The Hazarak (roughly analogously translated to “missile cavalry”) is designed as a raider or harassing unit. They typically operate in threes, often without dedicated escort support.
The Hazarak has above-average manoeuvrability for a light cruiser, more than the fleet average for the Phystyulons. It has a good turn of speed which lets it flank more easily. Armed with three Class 60 spinal mount lazer cannons and six Class 45 lazer cannons on pylons, it is capable of dealing significant damage, especially in numbers. It has strong shields, though only light armour.
Forty point-defence lazer turrets provide adequate protection against missile fire and add some short-range power. The Hazarak’s main defence against missiles is typically not being a priority target, or rushing the missile ships themselves to try and destroy them before they fire.
Kablak Class Destroyer
The Kablak Destroyer (whose name translates to a curved melee sword equivalent to a sabre) is one of the major workhorses of the Phystyulon fleet. With good manoeuvrability and defences for a vessel of its size, the Kablak possesses a massive offensive punch that exceeds vessels of twice its size. The vessel is centred around two huge Class 75 lazer beam cannons, which allow it to out-range almost all other comparable vessels. A trio of class 45 lazer pylons round out its other weapons. Forty point-defence lazer systems provide further defence and a nasty sting at close range.
Sylor Class Barrage Destroyer
The Sylor Barrage Destroyer is the Phystyulon Star Navy’s primary railgun vessel. Taking advantage of the compact nature of Phystyulon technology, it crams a great deal of firepower into a light and inexpensive hull.
Slightly smaller than the Kablak – with which it shares a great deal of internal systems – it has improved armour and equivalent speed and agility.
Instead of the Kablak’s lazer cannons, however, it mounts four Phazra (a roughly analogue translation would be something like “viper”) triple railgun emplacements. Phazra systems have a long and storied history in the Phystyulons, and the current generation are no exception, Trading less mass for volume, the highly reliable Phazra system have a distinctive triangular housing 36.4 metres across the widest point and 85 metres long. However, most of the space inside is taken up with a light-weight solid-state biopolymer which provides the magnetic acceleration to the railguns.
With few moving parts, the Phazras are very tolerant to damage and need virtually no maintenance. In fact, they are so reliable that they are only replaced simply when a newer, better version is available. The Phystyulons have a massive stockpile of older Phazra systems which have a projected life of several centuries in atmosphere and almost indefinitely in space. Old Phazra systems usually find new homes in planetary defence installations and orbital arrays.
Arkaz Torpedo Frigate
The Arkaz is one of the few dedicated torpedo vessels in the Phystyulon Star Navy. As Phystyulon torpedoes are short ranged and comparatively low tech, they are supplementary weapons most often used for some limited anti-cluster effect, rather than the more typical long-range anti-ship operations that most powers that have torpedoes use.
The Arkaz is as such, a light, agile vessel with surprisingly good shielding and armour for its size, to best close to the optimum weapons range. It mounts four double-fire torpedo tubes – two forward and four rear, though power consumption typically prevents it from using both forward and rear and once.
The Arkaz has two score of light lazer cannon turrets for close defence, which also means that it can be quite dangerous to engage at close range.
Syrotukan Class Escort Frigate
The Syrotukan’s role is defence, typically of smaller groups of escort or larger capital ships. It has good shields, speed and armour for its size – like many Phystyulon escort vessels; it expects to get disproportionate fire.
Like the Vistrixon, it mounts a single pylon configured for point-defence lazer emission rather than capital ship fire and sixteen other lazer turrets on the lower hull.
The Syrotukan also boasts four vertical launch point-defence missile tubes to provide long-range protection to multiple flight groups or capital ships.
Vistrixon Class Strike Corvette
The Vistrixon comes from a very long line of missile-armed light combat vehicles running right back to the missile cycles of the First Phystyulon War. The upper-hull mounted missile pods even homage the classic design structure of those ground vehicles, the modern equivalents which serve at all levels of the Phystyulon’s ground and space forces. The Vistrixon is the largest current vessel to have such a paradigm, though in the past (and likely future) larger vessels have filled such a role; one of the earliest Lokutar prototypes was such a vessel, though the more conventional design was the final result.
With minimal shields and virtually no appreciable armour, the Vistrixon relies on speed and agility as its main defence, rivalling many order-of-magnitudes smaller bombers in proportional manoeuvrability.
The Vistrixon’s primary weapons are the missile pods, typically filled low-tech semi-guided rockets for a maximum salvo spread. Deployed in groups of three, usually with a Pylonaz Cutter for additional defence, they make a charge towards a vulnerable point in the enemy line.
While the range of the rockets means they can fight from medium ranges, the Vistrixions are most dangerous closer in, where their lighter weapon can cause severe damage. They have two light lazer cannon spinal mounts. The armour belt only mounts eight lighter point-defence laser turrets for coverage of the lower hull, but these are still capable of dealing an alarming amount of highly accurate damage. The Vistrixon mounts a single pylon. However, rather than be used for a capital-scale laser cannon, this pylon is configured for maximum short-range intensity bursts. While many of the larger vessels can supplementary PD lazer systems which use the pylon emitters right alongside the main lazers, the Vistrixon is one of the few to have a pylon dedicated to that purpose alone, giving it further punch to anti-ship or anti-fighter operations.
Pylonaz Class Cutter
The Pylonaz Cutter is a light vessel whose primary role is providing light point defence protection. Deployed singly to support a Vistrixon flight group, pairs are used interchangeably with a Syrotukan Escort Corvette.
With light shields and even a little armour, the Pylonaz is very fast and agile, relying on this its main defence. Offensively, it carries a wide range of nearly forty point-defence lazer arrays. While mostly used to protect its fellows from missile-fire, the Pylonaz is capable of inflicting serious damage on an unshielded and armour-stripped vessel, able to easily capitalise on the rents in armour to devastate a ship’s internal structure.
Of note, like the Vistrixon, the Pylonaz’s Nazograk Cores had to be angled off the centreline due the vessel’s small size relative to the core. While this slightly reduces their efficiency, the saving in volume space is considerable.
