 Kodan Command Ship
Craft: Kodan Empire Fleet Command Ship
Type: Assault command vessel
Scale: Capital
Dimensions:
-Length: 250m
-Wingspan: 500m
Skill: Capital ship piloting
Crew: 700, gunners: , skeleton: 10/+20
Crew Skill: Astrogation 4D, capital ship piloting 4D, capital ship gunnery 5D+1, capital ship shields 3D+2, sensors 4D
Passengers: 1,000 (troops)
Cargo Capacity: 5,000 metric tons
Consumables: 2 years
Cost: Not available for sale
Hyperdrive: x1 (Backup: x15)
Nav Computer: Yes
Maneuverability: 0D
Speed:
-Space: 4
Hull: 3D
Defenses:
-Shields: 2D
Sensors:
Passive: 40/0D
Scan: 75/1D
Search: 150/2D
Focus: 4/4D+1
EXTRA VEHICLES:
-24 Kodan Fighters (possibly more)
WEAPONS:
Meteor Gun
Location: Mounted on the upper front hull
Fire Arc: Front
Crew: 9
Skill: Capital ship gunnery
Scale: Capital
Fire Control: 4D
Space Range: 3-15/35/50 (See below)
Atmosphere Range: (See below)
Damage: 10D
Ammo: 20 (various asteroids)
Rate of Fire: 1
12 Laser Cannons
Location: Scattered about the hull
Fire Arc: Partial turrets; 4 right/front/left, 3 rear/right/front, 3 rear/left/front, 2 right/rear/left
Crew: 1 (12)
Skill: Starship gunnery
Scale: Starfighter
Space Range: 1-3/12/24
Atmosphere: 50-300/1.2/2.4km
Damage: 6D
Ammo: N/A
Rate of Fire: 1
DESCRIPTION:
-Lord Kril: "Damage report!"
-Kodan Officer: "Guidance system out. Auxiliary steering out."
-Lord Kril: "Divert! Divert!"
-Kodan Officer: "She won't answer the helm! We're locked into the moon's gravitational pull. What do we do?"
[sound of Lord Kril's eyepiece swinging over left eye]
-Lord Kril: "We die."
The Kodan Empire maintains a vast fleet composed of mass production fighters for overbearing numbers against enemies, and the command base ships that carry them into battle, as well as coordinate them into a destructive fighting force.
This capital ship has a similar hull appearance to the kodan fighters, with a central hull where the crew are stationed, the wepons are mounted, and seems to be where all the internal space is for crew and other ships. From the central hull spreads a framework that reaches out at an angle to the sides and forwards, much like the variable geometry wings of the fighters. Unlike the fighters, these do not move and are fixed into position. But they do mount the main engines that propel the craft, and there is a lot of hollow space between the main framework, allowing fighters to easily pass between the frame and the struts that run between the upper and lower frame portions.
The command ship carries enough Kodan fighters for two to four full squadrons, though it may carry more. While the command ship has many weapons of its own for defense and attack, it relies heavily n its fighters to defend from attacks from Star League vessel such as the gunstar. In 'The Last Starfighter', the command ship was only seen using laser cannons and a so-called 'meteor gun' used to assault planets, but it probably has more, especially in the form of anti-capital ship weaponry (just apply laser cannons and photon bolts as capital scale weaponry).
Also, the command ship has a communications turret positioned on its lower ventral hull, closer to the front of the ship. This device allows the command ship to coordinate with their fighters, making them more unified in battle, almost acting as one. While this turret is active, all kodan fighters recieve a +2D to all of their skills, and they also get the Tactics skill at 4D (or whatever dice the kodan commander has the skill at). If the communications turret is ever destroyed, the fighters cannot coordinate, lose the 2D bonus as well as the Tactics skill, and cannot fight as wings or squadrons, but as individual fighters. They will lose their formation when an enemy attacks and scatter all over trying to fight back, even slamming into each other when combat gets thick and heavy.
The crew of the command ship seems to consist of a Kodan officer with a title and many officers to fill out his key command staff. But the majority of the crew seem to be some kind of drones, beings somewhat similar to the Kodan but with more alien features such as lack of a chin and eye stalks protruding from their eye sockets. They speak with an electronic voice, and the only time they do not is when an injured drone makes an animalistic noise and implies they cannot form normal speech on their own. The drones are show walking about in standard red Kodan military uniforms, but they are also seen on the bridge attached to specific stations and seemed unable to leave their posts, even dying as the ship began to take heavy damage. They may be cybernetically attached to these stations to better integrate with the ship.
The drones could be many different things. They could be a subspecies of the Kodan race treated as lesser beings and placed in a subserviant positin to the higher caste. they may be normal kodan altered physically, genetically, cybernetically or any mix of these to fill out roles of servitude for the kodan, specifically in their military. Or, more likely, they could be a slave race serving the Kodan Empire, as it was implied that every race and planet they conquer is made slaves of, as Grig explained them having done so to his family, and perhaps his entire race. Even more sinister, would be if the Kodan take any and all of the species they have conquered and turn them into these drones on purpose, which would put the Kodan species at a whole new level of evil indeed.
The Meteor Gun has a listed range, but this is only when using in ship-to-ship combat. The gun's true purpose is for assaulting planetary surfaces or reinforced bases and bunkers on a planet, or perhaps even asteroids, and doing so at much greater ranges. The crew needs a day to plot the targeting coordinates and ready the trajectory flight paths of the asteroids it fires, which are launched in a similar fashion to a mass driver, propelling solid projectiles at great speeds by very strong electromagnetic fields. Once the coordinates are prepared (taking into account planetary and solar orbits and gravitational pulls, other stellar objects, and perhaps even cosmic drift), the projectiles are launched from the command ship and hurtled to their destination. This makes the gun's range virtually unlimited, though it must still be realistic. For instance, in the movie, the gun's payload was delivered very quickly, within minutes, but this could have been because Rylos is very close to the Frontier itself and the Kodan's entry point, and because of the speeds the projectiles have been accelerated to. This makes the Metero Gun a perfect weapon for assaulting planets from just outside the outer limits of their home star system, then following up with an invasion of a command ship and many fighters to defeat the remaining forces.
In a typical space battle, several command ships would be sued together for overwhelming odds. But during the movie, one ship is used, and is almost successful in conquering Rylos by itself by using a sneak attack. Since no one on Rylos thought the Frontier could be breached, a planetary assault from that direction was never even considered, and the meteor gun's payload entered the atmosphere of Rylos unchallenged. As they drew near the Star League base, their anti-air guns were activated and began blowing the meteors out of the air. But a Xurian spy in the base planted a bomb on the control console for the guns, and when it detonated, the guns went dead, allowing the last of the destructive payload to impact the base, all but destroying it, and killing every Starfighter and navigator present, save Alex, who had returned to Earth, and Grig, who was in the hangar deck working on the gunstar prototype they would use later when Alex returned. By Grig's later dialogue, it is implied that the other gunstar's may have also been destroyed, and that the prototype was in a seperate, individual hangar for its production and testing.
When the time came and the frontier energy barrier was breached, Xur and Lord Kril led the armada through the breach, and with their fighters in tight formation ahead of the command ship, began their advance towards a helpless Rylos. Unbeknownst to them, Alex and Grig were hiding in the shadows of a nearby asteroid with their gunstar powered down to escape detection by the fighters passing overhead. They had taken out Xur's support ships, which were noticed to be missing, but the advance was still put under way.
After the command ship passed by, Grig began a countdown as Alex prepared all of his wepons for a last all-out battle with the Kodan forces, then launched themselves at the command ship. They charged through a hail of fire from its laser cannons, taking hits, but reaching and destroying their communications turret. This would leave the Kodan fighters more vulnerable to assault. As the gunstar flew onwards past the command ship's front arc, it launched a volley of photon bolts, which criss-crossed the gunstar and flew back at the mother ship, slamming into its front hull and causing heavy damage to its systems.
Alex and Grig then engaged the Kodan fighters ahead, finally taking them out with the Death Blossom. But the weapon left the ship powerless and floating dead in space, vulnerable to the approaching command ship. Lord Kril, seeing as they had no weapons, gave the order for ramming speed. As the ship came on, Grig restored power at the last moment, and the ship blasted out of the kodan's flight path, with Alex unleashing a hail of weapons fire upon the Kodan ship before getting away.
With the last wave of damage inflicted by the gunstar, the Kodan command ship lost all control and was pulled into the gravity well of Rylos' moon, giving birth to the quote posted above before the ship crashed into its surface and was utterly destroyed.
But, the Kodan are still out there, with many more command ships and eager crews awaiting to assault Rylos and a now-vulnerable Star League. The battle may be over, but the war is far from won...
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