Kathuran System

The **Kathuran System** was the space doctrine developed by Ketor Kathura Optimus for the Imperial Navy of the Pomarian Empire. Kathuran System squadrons and fleets were task-organized, which means that their squadrons served as modular building blocks for a specially-tailored fleet designed to fulfill a particular task, as opposed to Third War-era fleets which used pattern squadrons as fixed and largely inflexible units.

## Concepts

### Ship types

The Kathuran System divides the fleet into five broad ship types:

* **Flagships:** These are titan vessels which can lead the fleet and survive a lot of punishment. Orbitritans placed their admirals inside titans to ensure that they would be able to lead from the front, knowing that they would become the focus of enemy fire.
* **Super Heavy Battleships:** Super Heavy Battleships were armor-enhanced titans and the most powerful ships in an imperial fleet. They were slow and cumbersome to move around the campaign map, but unbeatable in close quarters.
* **Battleships:** Battleships were the mainstay of the imperial fleet, specialized for close-in engagements against other ships.
* **Artillery Ships:** Armored artillery ships employing SMASH systems provided imperial fleets with often overwhelming ranged firepower, capable of picking off key ships at great distances.
* **Skirmish Ships:** Skirmish ships, usually small light ships with missiles, provided a skirmish screen and a highly mobile attack force capable of responding quickly to enemy action and pouncing on enemy weaknesses.

Each ship type gets its own homogenous squadrons in order to allow for ease of control in the middle of battle.

### Squadrons

The Kathuran system employs flexible squadrons with recommended sizes which serve as the building blocks of a fleet:

 Super Heavy Battleships
 Battleships
 Artillery Ships
 Skirmish Ships

### Sample Battle Fleet

The Kathuran System employs numbered battle fleets, i.e. First Fleet, Second Fleet, etc.

### Sample Light Element

Light Elements consist their own service branch which is of lesser status than the battle fleet. Large numbers of skirmish ships are grouped into elements, which are deployed on their own or grouped into skirmish fleets, which are numbered, i.e. First Skirmish Fleet, Second Skirmish Fleet, etc.

## Ship designs

### Koloss Maximus

The *Koloss Maximus* is a powerful titan battleship designed to serve as a fleet flagship. Orbitritans placed their admirals inside titans to ensure that they would be able to lead from the front, knowing that they would become the focus of enemy fire.

### Koloss II Leto

The *Koloss II Leto* is a powerful super heavy battleship designed to utterly dominate close-quarters engagements against other battleships.

### Spetum I

The *Spetum I* is a well-rounded battleship design first fielded by the Ascendancy of the Broken Ring during the First Concourse War. It employs a mix of heavy and medium batteries to give it the ability to do well against both large ships (titans, battleships) and small ships with evasion (gunboats, light frigates) at the cost of having a slightly less powerful broadside against larger vessels (titans, battleships).

Like all Orbitritan ships, the *Spetum I* design boasts a full point-defense armament to defend against strike craft and missiles. The *Spetum I* excels in close combat against armored ships. However, it has no ability to engage ships at a long range, and so must rely on other Orbitritan ships to cover that weakness.

### Batista

The *Batista* is an artillery frigate built around a single advanced spine-mounted particle cannon, firing an incandescent beam at targets at long and short range. It is shaped vaguely like a crossbow. Orbitritans mass artillery ships like this into batteries which they use to pick off ships at long range, often disabling them with a single barrage. *Batista*-classes dominate at long range and can continue to fight when the enemy closes to short range, but its slow rate of fire puts it at a disadvantage against close-quarters ships like the *Spetum I*.

### Fulmen

The *Fulmen* is a family of light skirmishing corvettes which Orbitritan commanders use to bring large numbers of missiles against weakened enemy formations. Missiles can only hit their targets if the enemy does not have enough point defense to shoot them down, so *Fulmen* corvettes are most useful when leveraging their mobility to pick off ships in isolated formations, to deny space to the enemy, and to chase down retreating ships. They can run away from most threats, but cannot defend themselves in close range if an enemy somehow manages to close with them.