Improved War Stations

Achilles Fortresses tend to get all the credit and glory when it comes to system defenses, but star systems are large places, and one can't just build Achilles everywhere. War Stations are a concept older by far than the Imperium, a smaller station designed to supplement a Ramillies in void warfare with smaller stations meant to cover more space, but the Imperium's version is decidedly lacking in combat performance. An improved variant, built from the ground up with Golden Age technology and computers, is needed to continue fleshing out orbital defenses. Specialized variants will also be developed to better capitalize on certain tactical options.

The problem with designing and eventually building a space station dedicated to war is a variant on the square cube law. As a War Station undergoes a proportional increase in size, its new surface area is proportional to the square of the multiplier, and its new volume is proportional to the cube of the multiplier. Thus, as the station’s size grows, its internal volume to house what is needed to make it as lethal as its size says it should be does not scale. Eventually, merely scaling up a War Station is not as efficient as building more specialized designs.

Thus, the research team split into three groups, each with supercomputer access, a common pool of technology and systems/infrastructure, and opt-supercomp access. By the end of the period, each team had focused on a general category, enhancing its abilities to do said job with less other features.

## Longbow

The Longbow-class War Station focuses exclusively on long-range armaments to inflict damage from range as much and as fast as possible. Massive antiship lascannons and particle lances, spinal railguns, and massed missile pods provided a variety of methods to reach out across light-seconds of space and touch the enemy where it hurts the most. The station has augmented databanks and calculation capacity to crunch calculations all the easier, as well as reduced crew needs from all of the excessive automation. While the station is immensely powerful it has many weaknesses, including a vulnerability to swarms of small agile targets, and a weakness if ships get close enough in large enough numbers.

## Shield

Shield-class War Stations are meant to deal with hordes of small, agile foes, such as the fighters used by almost all major spacefaring civilizations, as well as the hordes of offal thrown out by Tyranid fleets. Massed plasma cannons are arrayed to blast targets at medium to short range, supplemented by more point defense systems than one could throw an orbiting satellite at. Space is saturated with weaker but far more numerous weapons emissions, shredding hordes in their tracks. However, they share a weakness against intelligent forces who can close the envelope of both systems and be unpredictable.

## Legion

Legion-class War Stations Are an odd station design. Hollow, festooned with numerous hangar bays and launch tubes, their sole purpose is to be non-mobile carriers, essentially. Capable of throwing dozens of squadrons into the void within minutes, Legions are meant to supplement both other stations, dealing with the unexpected natures of humanity (or the xeno, or the daemon) and bringing the fight to them. Of course, being a series of hollow compartments in essence, the Legion is not that durable...

Each station supplements and compliments the others, and it in this cooperation that future construction is to be directed.