The early Colonial fleet was an exercise in vast contrast in ship sizes, and nowhere was this more apparent than in the patrol ships. These vessels were tiny when compared to the mammoth heavy carriers and the battleships. And yet, they existed to fulfil an important role - that of scouting, picket duty and anti-piracy and patrol.
In any fleet, it is generally considered a waste of valuable resources to use the larger fighting ships in any role than that for which they were designed. And as such, other craft have to be designed to take up the slack left. Smaller patrol craft are usually such vessels.
These early craft were designed to be fast and handle themselves well against most non-major combat threats, and against pirates and their limited resources, they generally acquitted themselves well, generally able to out fight and out manoeuvre their opponents. Their light armaments also allowed them to engage fighters on almost equal terms too.
Patrol craft come in many variants depending on their role, and these include the following:
The most and standard variant around, the Gun ship was well equipped with forward turbo laser batteries as well as having turreted weapons for all round defence.
A not so common variant, the rocket ship removed some of the turbo laser batteries, and replaced them with some extremely heavy rocket launchers. This ship was a combat variant, and it specialised in hitting large and slow moving targets. Its speed allowed it to get close to a target where the rockets would actually stand some chance of hitting the target.
Another set of combat variants, these craft sacrificed some manoeuvrability to be able to lay and sweep mines. Very useful when the Colonials were attempting to hold back the Cylon horde. Slightly larger than the patrol craft, and considered specialised variants that did not do the routine patrolling that the other craft did, these craft were very important in their own way, especially as they were amongst the only mine laying craft that the Colonials used at this time.
The Patrol ships were designed by Steve Stiever.
Patrolboats follow the normal rules for yachts. Shuttles launch in direction 4. Shuttle bays, obviously, can not hold yachts.
The patrolboats have a hyperspeed multiplier of x2.
This is an Early Years ship.
Early rockets function as normal rockets, but with an endurance of 2 turns. Early mines function exactly like small nuclear mines.
| GIF file | |
|---|---|
| Patrol Ships SSD | 30k |
| Mine Layers SSD | 30k |
| Ship | Crew Units | Brdg Parties | BPV | Move Cost | Size Class | Turn Mode | Explos. Str | F&E Cmd | Ftr Flights | Year | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sagitara Class Patrol Ship Rocket | 2 | 0 | 15 | 0.33 | 5 | A | 5 | 3 | 0 | 6000 | N |
| Caprica Class Patrol Ship Gun | 2 | 0 | 13 | 0.33 | 5 | A | 4 | 3 | 0 | 6000 | N |
| Taura Class Minelayer | 3 | 0 | 16 | 0.33 | 5 | B | 5 | 2 | 0 | 6000 | ML |
| Scorpio Class Minesweeper | 3 | 0 | 15 | 0.33 | 5 | B | 4 | 2 | 0 | 6000 | MS |
These ships may and on a planet.
| Ship | Type | Ftrs | Admin | Bays | Store | DC |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sagitara Class Patrol Ship Rocket | PTR | 0/0 | 1 | 0/0/1 | - | 1* |
| Caprica Class Patrol Ship Gun | PTG | 0/0 | 1 | 0/0/1 | - | 1* |
| Taura Class Minelayer | YML | 0/0 | 1 | 0/0/1 | - | 2* |
| Scorpio Class Minelayer | YMS | 0/0 | 2 | 0/0/1 | - | 2* |