Praetor (starship)

## History

The Praetor, despite its heavy use by the AISN, was originally designed as a superheavy escort for the civilian market, specifically to escort convoys of Dominators (and other similar small multi-role ships mainly used for trading and not designed for heavy combat use) and provide much needed missile support, as even with the Dominator's impressive number of missile pylons, Dominator convoy pilots reported being swarmed by massive numbers of UEO fighters, too many for them to counter with their missiles. The Praetor was basically a Dominator hull with two 12-pylon missile nacelles added, one on each lateral hull plane of the ship. Each of these missile nacelles could launch two missiles at a time, starting sequentially from the front (the 12 missiles in the nacelle were arranged in six rows of two). Missile nacelles were a piece of equipment often used on capital ships, but many pilots of subcapital ships had also modified their ships or built custom ships with missile nacelles before. Still, a ship equipped with missile nacelles was a big novelty on the mainstream civilian starship market. The Praetor was slightly slower and less maneuverable than the Dominator, but had the same cargo capacity and better armor and shields, as well as 10 AU more range. The Praetor also had more weapons emplacements than the Dominator, increasing its combat capability, although its intended use was as an anti-fighter missile boat, and it was too sluggish to match most fighters in dogfighting, although it could outturn many UEO ships, as they were often badly designed and constructed and had low impulse speeds and equally sluggish handling and turnrates. The end result was that the Praetor was almost supremely effective in its intended role, and despite its high price, had quite a high popularity on the civilian market, with 75,000 units sold in its first 50 years there, mostly to escort pilots. The AISN also used the Praetor as a missile support ship, ordering 25,000 units in 4003; it was also ordered by the LABS Navy, which purchased 200 units in 4005. The Protectorate Navy ordered 40 units for testing in 4006, but declined to purchase any more afterwards.

## Overview

The Praetor is a powerful anti-fighter missile boat. Its chief weaknesses are its poor handling and its lack of effective anti-capital weaponry. It also has poor range compared to other missile boats. The weapons layout is not very good, but allows some multi-vector attack capability despite its lack of turrets. The Praetor is basically a modified Dominator hull with a 12-pylon missile nacelle attached to each side. It has fairly good defensive capabilities. The Praetor has many useful stock equipments, and can be used as an ECM support ship. It can also be used for trading, as it has the same cargo capacity as a Dominator.

### Weapons Emplacements

4 ultra MPs fwd, 4 ultra MPs aft, 2 ultra MPs lateral, 2 ultra MPs oblique fwd, 32 light pylons

Stock DPS Rating: 8,000

 Afterburner 2
 Afterburner 3

Date of Release: 4003

## Equipment Defaults

ISFTL Drive

Shields

STL Drive System

Reactor 14

Advanced Sensor Array

Comm Relay

Bounty Informer

Stealth Package

ECM 3

Repair System 3

Type-2 Cloaking Device

Regenerative Armor Plating

ECM Power Doubler

UCP/Asteroid Scanner

TBA UCP Collector

TBA Escape Pod Collector

Plasma Collector/Recycler

Fuel Scoops

Comm Jammer

Electronics Shielding

Heat Shielding

Atmospheric Drive

Tactical Combat AI Computer

Seldar Industries Rapidfire Missile Salvo Launch System

1x Consolation-class Escape Pod

Squadron Telemetry Datalink

Dual-Layer Shield Array

### Equipped Weapons

16x Brock Industries Ultra Disruptor Cannon (4 fwd, 4 aft, 2 port, 2 stbd, 2 oblique fwd port, 2 oblique fwd stbd)

32x Seldar Industries Foxhound missile