Texas Battleship
That's right folks, we're finally seeing another WarShip of the Week(We are in a week, right? Some week, somewhere?), this time looking at one of the big boys, the Texas-class battleship. Coming from the same folks who brought us the excellent(if specialized) Kimagure cruiser, the Texas-class was built to address a weakness in the Star League battleship fleet. The Monsoons were long obsolete, and while text depicting the foreign Atreus as outperforming the Farragut-class , see it more more as the Farragut not proving as flexible as SL doctrine likes in their BBs. The Texas closed this 'BB gap' readily, returning clear supremacy to League fleets.
Weighing in at just over 1.5 megatons, the Texas is inarguably a heavyweight ship. A 3/5 acceleration curve provides all-purpose speed and maneuverability, neither sucking up vast amount of engine tonnage, nor letting enemies leave the ship in the dust. The shallow fuel bunkerage is a bit worrisome, but not all that much given the vast cargo storage available. Interestingly, the Texas also lacks the Lithium-Fusion battery that was already standard procedure on most League heavy cruisers, limiting its role as a first-responder. Instead, these ships likely make their home as fleet command ship, or as the core power of a line combat squadron. (Clan refits would add this system later, increasing the flexibility their vastly depleted navies require.) This isn't the guy that jumps in first and kicks the door open, he's the one that follows right behind and makes the bad guy regret leaving a door there in the first place.
Why will he regret it? Well firstly, because making a Texas go away is a long and arduous process. Carrying almost eighteen hundred tons of the finest armor yet devised for spacecraft, this is easily the toughest ship built by the Star League. Even in modern eras, it is only exceeded by the Mjolnir and Leviathan II classes. A Texas can shrug off multiple non-penetrating nuclear hits, and the threshold are high enough that many guns carried by smaller ships(or bracketing bays from larger ones) simply have no chance at all of scoring crits before the entire armor facing has ablated. Even the mighty Mckenna will have to sacrifice accuracy for extra power, as those legendary PPC bays will not threshold any facing of a Texas when fully bracketed.
Of course, all the armor in the world matters little to a battleship if you can't dish out what you receive. While not at the top of the class for raw firepower, Texases(Texii? Texae? Just Texas?) do not disappoint. Much like the dreadnoughts of old(the wet-navy ones, not the TA-built ones), the vast majority of the damage curve from from large, concentrated capital bays. Quad PPC turrets in all quarters are your main firepower, seconded by mind-boggling twelve-gun naval laser bays in the broadsides and aft sides. AR-10 and Killer Whale missile tubes scattered across the flanks provide additional long-range firepower. Finally, the weapons suite is rounded out by a pair of massive NAC-40s, for those situations when you want to kill people and fill their viewports at the same time. This may seem subpar for a battleship at first glance, until you notice; aside from the NACs, EVERYTHING is fully capable of engaging targets at extreme range accurately, if not farther. All energy bays can exploit bracketing fire to its fullest, and of course, the missiles have all of the fancy tricks they always do, allowing you to put surprisingly heavy salvos outbound, often from beyond the range of an effective response. This is pretty clearly a long-range vessel, meant to engage at ranges where enemies may find it impossible to even bring weapons to bear. Best of all, this vessel is perfectly heat neutral. Being surrounded just means more opportunities to fire more guns. }:)
Like most Star League WarShips, the Texas-class does not mount any conventional-scale weaponry. Don't confuse this for weakness though, as the aforementioned missiles and lasers still provide a powerful defense against smaller craft. On top of that, there's the onboard air wing, described below.
Like most Star League capital ships, a Texas is well-equipped to carry smaller craft. Between six docking collars, forty fighter cubicles, and sixteen shuttle bays, this battleship is more than capable of carrying along enough comrades to function as a one-ship task force if needed. Given the large hangar, I doubt carrier DropShips were needed on a regular basis. Assault vessels such as the Achilles or Pentagon are probably common to act as picket ships or to supplement the fighter wing, though you can easily carry enough transports to bring an independent regiment along for the ride and respond to ground-bound situations. Transport shuttles supplement these, though I'd imagine that at least a few of a Texas' shuttlebays contain heavy gunships, again to back up the fighter wing, or help escort the mother ship.
How to use a Texas to best effect? It's quite simple. Keep to long or extreme range. You've got enough armor to last a long time, so feel free to bracket your guns for all they're worth and pound them to pieces with the resulting scary accurate fire. If someone does close, they're probably already beat up, so use a NAC to finish them off while your energy guns keep up the ranged bombardment. A word of warning: Due to the nature of the Texas's weapons placement, it actually cannot fire any weapons directly for or aft of the ship, save for off-axis missile shots. This is also where your armor is thinnest, so if someone tries to close and dogfight, you can bet that's where they'll try to go. Obviously, playing chicken with anything toting a mass driver is right out.
Beating a Texas? There's those aforementioned fire gaps, though getting there means running the gauntlet of those main guns. My next piece of advice would be to use superior numbers and/or large numbers of capital missiles. All the firepower is concentrated into a rather small number of actual bays, so there are limits to how many targets a Texas can engage at once. Losing any bays to critical hits also robs the Texas of a disproportionate chunk of firepower, so any crit-generating weapon you can throw at one is a good thing. Beyond that, it'll be a long and painful slog. This ship is well-armored, well-armed, and fully capable of bringing everything to bear on you, with no real shortcuts you can use to bypass the losses you'll surely suffer when taking on this behemoth.
