Hel Scaith

You know what, be afraid.

1. > Query closest mat5##6sf...
2. > .
3. > ..
4. > ...
5. > ....
6. > \_do\_not\_be\_afraid\_

The **Hel Scaith** is a heavily modified and automated version of the Dun Scaith-class dreadnaught added by Tahlan Shipworks. It's currently the largest, most dangerous and rarest Daemon fielded in the Persean Sector.

## Overview

In contrast to the typical mobile, hard hitting yet relatively fragile Daemons, the Hel Scaith is slow and ponderous yet sturdy, designed to serve as a fleet anchor for the smaller Daemons. The ship takes the Dun Scaith's already impressive array of weapons and turned it up to 11, all of the large ballistic mounts have been exchanged for hybrid mounts, also swapping the 2 bow mounted medium missile mounts for large missile mounts. A massive Hel Razer antimatter cannon has been installed where the hangar once was on the Dun Scaith, while smaller, more compact drone hangars are mounted on port and starboard, two of which housed built-in Miasma Drones. The two medium missile turrets in front of the bridge where removed, however.

In combat, the Hel Scaith is fairly challenging to bring down. Not only does it possess exceptional hull durability and strong armor, the built-in Hel Carapace hullmod allows it to pull back and regenerate damaged armor, and then recommit into the engagement, forcing its opponent to carve out a weak spot once again. The tiny 60 degree front shield on the Dun Scaith has been replaced by a 270 degree front shield, which greatly mitigated the original's vulnerability to flanking attacks by missiles. The Brawler autofit of the Hel Scaith tends to come with a 360 degree shield thanks to to Extended Shields and forced on Shield Conversion - Front hullmod. The multitude of large ballistics and large missile mounts allows the Hel Scaith to easily pressure even the most well defended of ships once it gets into range. Its built in Hel Razer in particular is strong enough to one-shot even the less durable capital ships with a direct hit to the hull, it also poses a considerable threat to large unshielded ships due to the additional HE damage it inflicts on impact.

Hel Scaiths are typically officered by Daemon or Archdaemon Cores, which grants them a 20% damage increase at the cost of a 20% defense decrease, but the latter is mitigated by the built in Hel Altar hullmod, which grants the ship and any other Daemon within its effective radius increased defense as well as increased point defense weapon effectiveness.

Another nasty surprise the Hel Scaith has up its figurative sleeves is the ability to access the backdoors present in the OS of all hostile Daemons within a 1000su radius and converted them back to Legio service. Therefore it's strongly advised not to field any Daemons of your own when fighting an opponent possessing a Hel Scaith, either deploy the Daemons after all hostile Hel Scaiths are disabled or make sure they keep their distance from the Hel Scaiths. As of version 1.2.5, it's possible to prevent Hel Scaith's hacking by using the ECM Package hullmod.

Despite its multitude of strengths, the Hel Scaith is still an Onslaught at its core, which means that it inherited the Onslaught's poor speed and maneuverability, as well as the atrocious flux dissipation rate. Good staying power and consistent damage output is strongly recommended when battling a Hel Scaith, allowing one to drive up its flux and force it to drop its shields, and consistent damage is necessary to pressure the Hel Scaith and preventing its Hel Carapace from regenerating.

Hel Scaiths are a relatively rare sight, provided that Tahlan Shipwork's default settings are applied. They typically appear in Legio Infernalis special task groups, large scale invasion fleets or vengeance fleets. They can also appear in Exiled Space when the location chip's faction is set to the Daemonic Horde. However, activating the Hard Mode settings in the mod will cause the Hel Scaith to spawn in vast quantities in the aforementioned fleets.

## Trivia

* The Hel Scaith is the only Daemon based off a ship that is already in service within the ranks of the Legio Infernalis, in this case the Dun Scaith.
* The Hel Scaith is capable of hacking a Daemon piloted directly by the player via Neural Link or Digital Soul, while the player will still retain control of the ship, the player's HUD will turn red and all allies will now treat the player as hostile.