Reaper-Class Cruiser

The *Reaper*-Class Cruiser is a state of the art Martian Design. It's fast, nimble and despite it being five hundred meters long it requires an incredibly small crew to operate. A new design made simply to get the drop on *Devastators* the *Reaper-*Class Cruiser is an excellent design for away missions.

## Ship Specifications

### Crew & Passengers

The *Reaper-*class needs a very small crew of four. A Pilot (typically high ranking and the commanding officer), navigation officer, engineering and weapons officer. The bridge is placed at the rear of the ship can can retract into the hull in a combat situation to protect the inhabitants, with the windows being replaced with screens and overlays to allow the crew to still work as effectively as possible. That said while the *Reaper*-class can work with a small crew for long term operations a crew of twenty would be much more realistic. To allow for repairs and maintenance on both ship systems and the robotic units that usually took control of the menial labor on board.

In terms of passengers the *Reaper*-class is designed to be capable of carrying one hundred passengers comfortably (More if it doesn't have the full crew of twenty). Equipped with an armory, bunk room and supplies for the passengers with a large cargo bay that can either be retrofit to allow room for more crew, supplies or even a laboratory. The Genesis Arks typically leave this as a cargo bay unless requested otherwise by the Admiral in charge of the Ark.

### Weapon Systems

#### Main Battery

The main offensive system of the *Reaper-*class is the X-27 Plasma Weapon systems towards the bow of the ship. There is one cannon to port, and one to starboard capable of inflicting incredible damage if the shot is lined up correctly. However the main challenge is that the shot does need to be lined up as the cannons can only fire straight ahead. The main battery is complimented by a series of ten missile silos on the port and starboard sides capable of launching anti-fighter or anti-capital ship ordnance.

#### Point Defense Systems

While the *Reaper-*Class has missiles capable of taking out fighters it also boasts a number of point defense systems specifically designed to take out enemy fighters. This defense consists of one hundred and twenty well spaced out 77 Legacy turrets across the hull. These turrets use rapid fire rails in order to project a vast number of projectiles in mere seconds. Capable of shooting down both fighters and missiles with a devastating rate of fire.

### Defensive Systems

#### Shields

Shields are highly complicated systems, using a number of relays to project an electromagnetic field around the ship. This dampens and neglects the effect of energy weapons (in theory) and the magnetic field
is specially tuned to repel most projectile weapons. However sustained fire on such an energy taxing system can cause relays to short out and fail which would then cause the entire shield to fail.

#### Stealth Tech

While the *Reaper-*Class has shields it also boasts retro-reflective panels and some of the Martians most recent stealth technologies allowing a *Reaper-*Class to get close to other ships before it is detected, or at least ships with the same scanning technologies as humans. The retro-reflective panels work by bending the light around the ship rendering it nigh invisible to the naked eye. This is coupled with specially designed supplement thrusters that use compressed air so that the main engines aren't needed for maneuvering when cloaked. While heat sinks work to keep the ships thermal signature from showing up on scans.

This type of stealth technology is still relatively new and cannot be run for long periods of time due to the intense power requirements. The longest safe run for the cloak being one hour. At the same time if the cloak is active the shield cannot be due to the interference it causes with the cloaking field and the power requirements. When the cloak is deactivated the ship needs a minimum of ten minutes before powering up the shield or there is a chance of burning out the reactor.

### Propulsion

The *Reaper-*Class has four main engines on the wings capable of propelling it at speeds that rival smaller gunships. These engines are on slight swivel mounts causing, and with over two hundred maneuvering thrusters spread throughout the hull this is what causes the *Reaper-*Class to be as maneuverable as possible.

### FTL Capabilities

Like most human ships the these cruisers are only capable of utilizing what is called a *Jump Drive* (plainly speaking). Once charged a jump drive allows a ship to disappear from one location and re-appear almost instantly in another. The issue with these drives is that unlike Hyperspace Engines which
require a constant amount of power Jump Drives require more power the longer the distance, and cause considerable strain on the hull of a ship.More importantly the Jump Drive takes time to charge, again the
longer the jump the longer the charge time. There is also the side effect that once a Jump Drive is charging a jump must be made or you risk the drive exploding destroying the entire ship, alternatively if you wait too long to jump the jump calculations can be inaccurate and there is no telling where a ship could end up.

### Compliment

The *Reaper*-Class has two bays. A ground vehicle bay that holds two R207-Beast Command Vehicles.

It also has a hangar and cargo bay on the lower level of the ship. it contains:

* 2x AG-64 Destrier Gunships
* 8x T-22 Space Superiority Fighter
* 2x T-47 Scout Fighter