The Olympia Class Heavy Carrier was the first major ship of the Colonial Fleet, and operated by, what was then, current Colonial Doctrine, which is a bit different from the now.

It was designed as a battlefield taxi, carrying it is Scarab fighters into combat, but not actually entering combat itself. The defence systems of the ship were just enough to soak up enemy fighters that broke through the Carriers fighter screen, but certainly not upto the task of attacking another enemy ship. If a Carrier lost it is Scarabs, then it would supposedly run for home, although there are many tales of Carriers engaging Cylon Baseships in an attempt to buy time for other fleet elements to arrive or depart, or just to try and protect the fighters it carried. Losses of these ships were extremely heavy, and certainly did not keep up with the production rate, and during the desperate times of the Onset of the Thousand Yahren War their captains kept using them as assault ships, usually to disastrous effect.

However these actions did buy enough time for the Fleet and the Colonials to survive, and the lessons learnt were used to design and build the new Battlestars.

The Heavy Carrier was drawn by Steve Wilson. The SSD's were drawn by Steve Stiever

 

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Heavy Carriers have two large shuttle bays, and may conduct transfers via (J1.593). Each bay has a launch tube ([J1.54] which will propel a fighter flight to speed 12 and will launch in direction 5 [Alpha bay] or 2 [Beta bay]) and a standard shuttle hatch (launching and landing from direction 4 for both bays).
The shuttle bays are large enough to accept yachts.
The Heavy Carrier has a hyperspeed multiplier of x1.5.

This is an Early Years ship.

Colonial Olympia Class Heavy Carrier boarding diagram:

A	B,C	D	E	F	G	H,J	K,M	L,N
5 F.Hull 3 Bridge	5 F.Hull 3 Ph.3	5 C.Hull 3 Ph.3	5 C.Hull 3 Ph.3	3 C Hull 2 Aux 3 Battery	2 C.Hull 3 Lab 3 Battery	4 A.Hull 4 APR 2 Ph.3 12 Warp	9 Fighters	4 Cargo 4 Shuttle 3 Ph.3
The Heavy Carrier has only 1 Ph.3 in area J

 

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	GIF file
Olympia Class Heavy Carrier SSD	32k

 

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Master Ship Chart Extract:

Ship	Crew Units	Brdg Parties	BPV	Move Cost	Size Class	Turn Mode	Explos. Str	F&E Cmd	Ftr Flights	Year	Notes
Olympia Class Heavy Carrier	40	6	61	2.00	2	D	25	4	6	6000

Annex #7B: Ships able to land on planets

This ship may not land on a planet.

Annex #7G: Carrier information & Annex #7N: Missile reloads

Ship	Type	Ftrs	Admin	Bays	Store	DC
Olympia Class Heavy Carrier	YCVA	6/0	8	2/0/2	-	26*

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