CYLON HADES CLASS BASESTAR:
Backbone of the Cylon Empire is the infamous "BASESTAR." A Basestar carries significantly greater firepower and tactical strength than it's Colonial counterpart. A fully armed Basestar has three times the fighters, troop and weapons capability of a Colonial Battlestar (Hand of God, Revel Model), making this space born killer the most deadly ship in the known galaxy.
This massive, double saucer vessels measured some 5,800 feet (1768 meters) in diameter and carried a Legion of Cylon troops and 300 Raider type fighter craft (Hand of God, Revel Model). They are armed with over one-hundred defensive Turbo Laser turrets and two, long range, Mega-Pulsar guns (Hand of God). So formidable is a lone Basestar, it is considered to be more than a match for a single Battlestar, or even the defenses of an entire planet.
Cylon technology is several steps ahead of that of the Humans. Their Basestars do not use the primitive Ion engines of the Colonials. They instead use a highly advanced Inertialess gravity drive system. It is believed this Gravitic Drive system employs a system related to "Zero Point Field" energy and manipulates this field for propulsion. This effectively negates the need to constantly refuel their ships, nor worry about storing fuel for an Ion engine. Base-Stars still need fuel for their fighters however, as Raiders still use Ion engines.
Basestars are far superior to a Battlestar in every technical respect. Using an inertialess drive system, the Basestar has a higher acceleration rate and can achieve greater speeds than a Battlestar, of roughly 0.32 C. Her Turbo-Lasers are more powerful and efficient, rated at a low-end output of 100 Gigawatts, to a high of 2,000 Gigawatts per battery.
In addition to the stated advantages, a Base-Star has a distinct advantage in heavy weapons, using her two Mega-Pulsar guns with a power output of 100,000 Terawatts per gun, allowing a Base-Star to take out an enemy capital ship in just a few well placed shots. If that wern't bad enough, Cylon gravimetric technology allows them to enhance the electromagnetic defense shield around their ships. While Battlestars have this same technology, their defense shield system is nowhere near as efficient as the Cylons.
Cylons have always favored overwhelming their opponents with numbers, over subterfuge and tactics. This is the only true advantage the Colonials ever had over the Cylons... the mechanical race's two-dimensional thinking and lack of creativity. This of course was the Cylon's key reason for letting the traitor "Baltar" alive, as they needed his unique "Human" qualities to capture and destroy the last Battlestar, Galactica.
HADES CLASS BASESTAR SPECS:
SCALE: Capital Ship
LENGTH: 1,768 meters
TONNAGE: 50,000,000 metric tons
SPEED: 0.30C sub-light
POWER: 1 Tylium energizer [15,000 Terawatts]
10 fusion reactors [100 Terawatts]
STANDARD CREW: 1005
5 Command Centurions
900 Centurion / Raider Pilots
100 Centurion Crew
PASSENGERS: 2,000 Centurion Soldiers
CARGO CAPACITY: unknown
CONSUMABLE: n/a
MANEUVERABILITY: class B
HULL/ARMOR: 2.8 to 4 meters
SHIELDS: 40% - 60%
SENSORS: Short/Medium range, sub-light, 200,000 m^3/s +
SCANNERS: C at 300,000 kilometers
WEAPONS:
2x Long range Mega-Pulsar guns
100+ Turbolaser batteries
10 Tractor beam emitters
FIGHTERS:
300x Mk. IX Raider Class Fighter
30x Surface Transports
2x Troop Drop Ships
(Click icon for full sized image)
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INERTIALESS DRIVE ENGINES
Unlike the Colonial Battlestars, the Cylons used an Inertialess gravity drive system for sub-light propulsion. As many Cylon ships, including fuel transports and fighters used Ion engines during the show's run, this advance in the mechanics of zero-point energy fields is most likely a recent advance in the design of Cylon capital ships. This gravitic drive system would appear to be accomplished by the use of the aforementioned zero-point energy field.
Esentualy a three dimensional representation of the quantum objects known as 'superstrings', believed to be the key building blocks of both matter and energy in our universe, the zero-point field is essentially a leakage on the quantum scale, of energy in process of being translated into this reality. Normally, this leakage involves the creation and dissipation of energy such that the result is an almost zero increase of energy.
Through their limited use and understanding of the principles of zero-point energy fields, humans and Cylons have been able to exploit this phenomenon in order to create energy fields, artificial gravity and improve weapon range and efficiency. It would appear however, that the Cylons have discovered a way to manipulate zero-point fields on a larger scale, providing their vessels with gravitic propulsion. This form of propulsion is much more efficient, leaves no detectable fuel traces and provides Cylon capital ships with a greater obtainable speed and superior acceleration.
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WEAPONS SYSTEMS:
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MEGA PULSAR GUNS
Capable of destroying another vessel with only a few shots, the Pulsar weapons are an extremely powerful type of fusion gun and only the dreaded Cylon Basestar is armed with them (guns located at the top of the north saucer, and bottom of south saucer).
Essentially the Mega-Pulsar gun is a hybrid Neutron / Particle beam cannon. Neutrons are condensed together as they are accelerated within a magnetic chamber at speeds near that of light. When two masses of neutrons becomes too great to contain, they are allowed to collide together. The massive energy release of this collision is then forced through the weapon's projection matrix creating a beam of pure destructive energy comprised of potons, x-rays and neutron particles.
Mega-Pulsar cannons are the heavy weapon of choice for the Cylon's largest capital ships and planetary defense as the photon/x-ray burst is capable of cutting through any known armor. Electronic countermeasures are equally useless against this weapon as the defensive electromagnetic shields employed by both Cylon and Colonial forces offer no resistance to neutron weapons, as a neutron has a neutral electrical charge.
Given that these weapons must take out enemy capital ships, and the fact that we've never seen these guns in action save the episode "Gun on Ice Planet Zero" where it was stated that the planetary based weapon could destroy the Galactica in a single shot, we must make some guess work as to the effectiveness of these weapons.
The cannon found on Ice Planet Zero was designed for planetary defense against enemy ships. We're guessing that the Mega-Pulsar cannon was capable of bring 3.5 million cubic meters of iron to its vapor point in one second, giving it a power output of 1.1*10^16 joule or 10,920 terajoules. If this is indeed the low-end power output, taking into consideration the strength of Galactica armor, I estimate that the Mega-Pulsar gun found on Ice Planet Zero must have an output of approximately 2.18*10^17 joule or 218,402 Terajoule. Given that the Basestars are not beleived to be capable of destroying a Battlestar in a single shot the Mega Pulsar cannons found on the Cylon Basestars likely have an output no greater than 100,000 Terajoules.
Mega-Pulsar weapon seen in the episode "Gun on Ice-Planet Zero" required a massive ammount of energy to be fired and, while the power reserves of the Basestar are impressive, firing this weapon probably drains the ship of almost all her energy, every time it was fired. This is probably why we never saw it in use during the series' run.
NOTE: The reason why these fusion - fusion/mass-driver weapons are referred to as Pulsar weapons, is due to the massive radio wave and x-ray burst accompanied by firing.
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TURBOLASER BATTERIES
Blaster Turrets are those defensive plasma bolt weapons lineing the hulls of Cylon and Colonial vessels (like the Blaster Turret pictured above). These weapons, although refered to as lasers, were not lasers. Blaster Turrets were infact plasma bolt weapons. This assertion is based on the fact that these so called Turbo-Lasers, fired beams at sub-light speeds, thus clearly demonstrating that they were not lasers as a laser bolt would travel at the speed of light.
Main advantage of these type of weapon over the Laser-Torpedoes found on fighter craft, is that pure plasma weapons have greater range over hybrid plasma bolt weapons and can sustain maximum power for greater distances. Turbo-Laser plasma batteries, like those seen being used by Battlestars and Basestars, are primarily for anti-starfighter defense but can be adjusted for ship-to-ship combat, as well as orbital bombardment.
Turbo-Lasers are powerful enough to destroy fighters, asteroids and their combined power was capable of destroying another vessel. Unfortunately, we were never really given an opportunity to see these guns in all their glory, thus we must make some suppositions as to their tactical capability.
Given what was seen in the TV series, the Turbo-Laser turrets must have had a low-end power rating of 60 Gigawatts (61,386,702,791 watts). This estimate is based on the fact that the Turbo-Lasers most likely brought a cubic meter to its vapor point in one second. If the mass of the effected armor was equivalent to iron, then the total power required to bring said mass to it's boiling point would have been 60 Gigawatts. This would make said weapon very effective against fighter attacks, but if the ship's hull was the approximated 3 to 4 meters in width (as stated in the "Capital Ship" section), it would take several direct hits to punch the hull of another capital scale vessel at this power level.
Armor used in the Galactica universe was not iron. Given estimates that Colonial armor is some 20 times greater than that of iron, the power output of Colonial Turbo-Laser turrets per volley is more likely in the neighborhood of 1.2*10^12 watt or 1.2 Terawatts.
