Y192
With the steady destruction of the entire Landing Pad network, the Hivers were almost stressed to the breaking point with fighting a four-front war against the Alunda, Vari, Worb, and Andromedans. Their frigates were no longer able to quickly shift from border to border, so a new command ship was needed that could also support a fleet enough to keep it alive through an entire offensive. Extremely powerful Jammers, an extensive bridge, and room to store spare parts for multiple ships made the Survey Dreadnought the lynchpin of any fleet it served in. They proved especially valuable when the Andromedans killed a Hive Queen in Y193. Only 5% of a Hive would normally survive such a catastrophe, but the DNS proved able to overwhelm rogue Hiver ships with intense jamming frequencies and often could incorporate them into their existing fleets. Unfortunately, adding all these systems severly cut down on the offensive firepower of the DNS and it truly was the lynchpin of its fleet - if the DNS was destroyed, the entire fleet would fall apart.

Take a standard Hiver Dreadnought and:
- remove six Wide Phaser-1s
- add one Wide Phaser-3
- add four Jammers (L, LF, RF, and R)
- convert the ten APR to ten JPR
- add a Mental Node as standard equipment
- remove one Tractor Beam
- remove two Shuttle boxes
- remove ten Center Hull boxes
- add one Transporter
- add one Bridge box
- add four Repair boxes
- add four Cargo boxes
- add four Lab boxes
- change the "standard" fighter layout to Barb-As

Tentative BPV 160/130

It was tempting to have six Jammers to cover all six shield facings but Hivers are generally an FA-arc race and squeezing six special sensors onto a cruiser hull is likely even beyond the Hivers "miniturization" abilities.

I'm also tempted to place this ship in the Y180s for the Second Great War since jammer technology had already been around for quite some time at that point but the Hivers don't appear (IMO) to have been under enough duress at that time to radically change the way their fleets are commanded.

This has been playtested a few times in duels and small fleets but not yet in a large fleet setting.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Thursday, May 13, 2004 - 09:04 pm: Edit

I'm confused by the name. I was expecting something designed for exploration operations, not an "all in one" fleet support ship.

Given its mission, I'm not sure that removing hull (aka cruising endurance) is going to work here. In general hull removal either requires a crew reduction or an endurance reduction.

By Daniel Riegler (Futonrevolution) on Friday, May 14, 2004 - 05:03 am: Edit

The name is a working title for now and is definitely subject to change as the ship's wrinkles get ironed out. I figured "survey" would be a rather diplomatic way to say "recon-in-force." In any case, it's still something designed for exploration purposes - after all, it's the only Hiver ship with labs so it'd be almost necessary for exploration considering how that section of Omegan space holds more space monsters than anywhere else in the Sector.

The hull wasn't really taken away, per se (as I see it). The general systems like NCO Clubs, firing ranges, duty-free shops, volleyball courts, masses of honeycomb, or whatever else the Hivers would use there were redesigned and focused towards labs and repair facilities.

Nonetheless, the number of crew will likely be reduced - I just haven't arrived at a suitable number yet... which leads to...

Of course, a weakness has to be built in (Even with this ship, the Hivers were so badly beaten during the Invasions that they couldn't even participate in Operation Concentrated Strike.). The DNS is not only weaker offensively than the cheaper Hiver Dreadnoughts, but it's also more susceptible to the dark matter weapons and Black Shards of the Souldra.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Friday, May 14, 2004 - 07:03 pm: Edit

Given all the extra systems you've added to the ships, I'm not sure why you would expect the crew to decrease. They will need bodies to work the various systems (and more than for just hull which is mostly empty during combat anyways).

By Daniel Riegler (Futonrevolution) on Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 01:41 am: Edit

1) Less room for off-duty personnel with fewer hull spaces.

2) The design requires less swarms of low-skill Hiver workers and focuses instead of highly skilled scientists, engineers, and communications.

3) Increases the ship's vulnerability to Souldra attack which is the ship's intended weakness.

By David Kass (Dkass) on Saturday, May 15, 2004 - 02:02 am: Edit

I'm sorry, but I'm not following your arguments.

Why is 1) relevant to the size of the crew? The size of the crew is determined by the number needed to run the ship at combat plus fulfill the necessary non-combat jobs that cannot overlap with a combat job (note that cooks and the like are often part of the damage control system).

In 2), how do the changes (on a change by change basis) justify this assumption?

3) may be a desired goal, but it cannot control the crew size. The crew size will be defined by what is necessary to run the ship.
Note that the longer the mission a ship is designed for, the more hull it tends to have.