United Karlot Yards Viper-class Cutter.

The cuter was developed early in the war as a close range anti-cruiser weapon. The cutter utilizes its small size, speed, and agility to get in close to a large cruiser, such as the AGA's Goliaths and Magnetizers and evade fire. The Cutter is lightly armed, allowing more energy to be directed to the vital engine system. It brandishes one medium ball turret on the underbelly, a quad gun on the bridge and one underneath the tail ridge, two anti-starfighter batteries midway down the nose, and two warhead racks.

The cutter utilizes the 9 lances on the nose to ram the hulls of cruisers. Each lance is armed with an explosive near the tip that is detonated once the lance has penetrated through the hull, causing devastating damage to the target and weakening it for the more heavily armed Battleships and Assault Cruisers. Once sufficient pressure is placed on the lance, pushing toward the bridge, it detaches from the hull. These lances can be refit at most Unity space stations.

On the underside are 7 blades used to slice into and/or weaken the hulls of heavy cruisers. Once at full speed, a cutter will swoop over the hull of the enemy vessel and the bladed will tear into the hull, depressurizing the cabins directly underneath. Strategically targetting certain areas can prevent crews inside from reaching or controlling systems vital to the fight. The blades can be individually ejected if the cutter loses momentum an becomes stuck.

And without further ado:










Here's the sketch:



Here's the old cutter model from 2003 for comparison:

Pointy?

Again - what purpose do spikes serve in space combat?

If you thrust the heads of your opponents on them then it could be a scare or intimidation tactic, but that seems a bit extreme..

Take off every single spiky object and that ship would look awesome.

Ramming, obviously.

seems like that turret could easily get in the way of the blade-cutting... as in, you'll tear the forward bottom turret off before you'll get close enough to cut.

From his other thread.

You'd think the GIANT GUNS on the front of the ship would have more of a psychological effect. If I saw that coming at me, I wouldn't think 'omg, spikey death!' I would think 'wtf? Spikes and wings in space?'. A star destroyer, however... clean, classical lines; I would think 'effecient killing machine'.

it still looks effing scary

Didja even read his post?

-They ram into the ships, and then they explode.

Besides: They're SPIKE-CORE!

The first time, maybe. Then it would ram you. And if you were lucky enough to escape, the psycological effect would be complete.

Naw; I'd crush them. Space combat is easy. Just go up. Noone ever expects that.

Not everyone lives in the Star Trek universe...

Yeh, I didn't notice how low the ball turret actually hangs. I need to find a new location for that, or further lighten the armament by switching it to a quad gun.

As has been mentioned before, the spines serve mostly psychological and asthetic purposes. Spiny structures are prevalent through the Karlot culture, and it's reflected in their ships. Primarily, though, it is a deterent from getting too close to the vessel. While novice pilots might think 'wtf spiky?!', any pilot with enough experience around the Karlot vessels should know that some spines are explosive tipped and can do serious harm to their ships. The cutter has it's lances that can cause devastating damage to large cruisers that aren't fast or maneuverable enough to evade them. The Assault Cruiser is lined with spines around many vital areas to ward off enemy snubfighters and smaller starships - some of the spines are dead, some of them are explosive tipped that detonate through the hull, and some are proximity triggered (useful against starfighters). Some battleships might also be fit with similar spines. The mixed bag of kinds of spines makes it difficult to know what's what, especially since they can be replaced with any variety, and so any veteran pilot knows better than to wander too close to one of the cap ships. And of course if a ship gets closeon a broadside, the spines can do some damage.

I hope I've thoroughly put forth my argument for the spines. They're staying :). I'm surprised nobody noticed the other weapon placement issue that I need to correct. The missile tube is directly in line with the front wing - so if a missile was dumbfired out, it would explode on the wing. I'm going to be moving it up a bit higher.

I think I see what you mean with the missle tube... eh. I didn't know what that was, and the ship's profile isn't exactly easy to figure out anyway.

First: The model looks crazy sweet. CRAZY. sweet.

And I know this won't change your mind, but I too am unsure about the spikes. I can't really see melee combat occuring in space.. Unless the lances are fired into the other ship from close range, I would think ramming the other ship (even with just the lances making contact) would create huge stresses on the ship and crew, and lots of damage to the Cutter itself. I like the idea of the proxy-lances keeping starfighters away, and I think as a last resort the ramming-with-spikes would be great, but I just have trouble visualizing it as a main tactic.

I should mention that the lances and blades are tipped/edged with an incredibly hard material in this universe, kind of akin to a diamond tipped drill bit. As for stress on the hull, yes, there's bound to be some, but the blades are heavily braced to try to spread the pressure, and it can only sufficiently cut if it has gotten up to near full speed. The lances break away as soon as sufficient pressure is placed against them, as mentioned in the original post.

I may reconsider the spines lining the wings. That I'll have to mull over. But the cutter's blades and lances remain - it's the whole purpose of the ship. If you have any ideas to make the blades or lances seem easier on the strain of the ship, I'd like to hear them - I might be able to put them to use.

It has a "Reaver" feel to it. I like it. A lot.

I was about to say that!

But yeah, that looks like one mean spaceship- good work.