Damacan Siege Ship
Overview
While the act of capital ship battles in space have often been compared to naval battles, space is a battlefield unlike any other. And the Damacan Siege Ship was designed to take advantage of this unique environment. Measuring almost a kilometer in length, the siege ship is essentially a single giant gun aimed to target and destroy ships a ranges thought to be impossible.
Appearance
The siege ship is in essence a massive space gun. It is a sleek ship with a bulbous rear holding the engines and crew section. With its flat top, rigid angles, and control tower, the back section resembles aircraft carriers on Earth. The remaining 3/4 of a kilometer is reserved for the weapon itself, three prongs that fling projectiles.
Combat Analysis
In space the worry about weapons range is different. Fired projectiles do not arc nor slow down. The Siege ship takes advantage of that using the entire length of the gun to launch projectiles to relativistic velocities. However, accuracy at the extreme distances in space is an issue as even a quarter of a degree of will result in a miss of several kilometers. Add to that the distance, and shots will take several seconds to reach the target and the target will have most likely move in that time. To remedy this, grids of siege ships work together to blanket a region of space with weapons fire.
Range in space for a projectile is technically infinite. A missile can run out of fuel. Energy bolts fizzle out. But a projectile fired will continue forever. The limitation is accuracy.
The ship has two modes: flight and siege. In flight mode, the prongs are closed and the ship can freely maneuver around. In siege mode, the ship's sublight engines are not as powerful and the ship can mostly just rotate. It takes eleven seconds to transform between modes and can fire once every five seconds.
The siege ship fires energy generators. These generators were built studying the Ancient drones weapons and the energy field they can create. The Damacans could not stabalize that field but they are able to create a burst that can penetrate shields and incinerate matter. The siege ship has been observed targeting vessels up to a million kilometers out.
Siege ships are vulnerable targets. Enemy ships can hyper jump toward or away from them. And in close range, the ship's size and slow turn speed makes it vulnerable. To rectify this, siege ships are used in conjunction with subspace disruptors which prevent hyperspace windows from opening. And trimmens patrol near the ships to prevent them from getting close.
Conclusion
Space is a battlefield unlike any other and requires unique weapons to treat it as such. The siege ships takes advantage of space's unique properties with the ability to bombard enemy vessels from outside normal weapons range.
Development
While space battles are often compared to and based on naval battles in fiction, I feel that space battles would and should be its own thing. And while the presence of ships may have some inspiration from the navy, it would ultimately have some unique ships now that it's no longer limited to gravity. While there will be some crossover, I want to try avoiding concepts of naval ships in space or phrases like cruisers or frigates. Not saying there will be none but I want to avoid it.