During the middle stages of the Thousand Yahren War, the Colonials were at last defending their space adequately enough that the Cylons had to seriously slow their advance, and then halt it.

During this lull, the Cylons studied the humans, and then attempted to copy their ingenuity. One such attempt was the Asteroid Ship.

The Cylons would find a suitable asteroid, capable of holding a bases worth of equipment and Raiders, and then mine it out, insert drives and weapons and then launch the asteroid towards the Colonial lines. Initially these worked with great success. While the compliment of Raiders and weapons was less than a typical Baseship, if the ship wanted to remain hidden it could, after all, rogue asteroids were everywhere. And if the system already had an asteroid belt, then there was almost no chance of the ship being spotted. The asteroid itself provided a solid chunk of armour that took an awful lot of beating down, and while the gravatic engines provided less power than was needed, resulting in a slow speed for the asteroid, it actually provided the asteroid with manoeuvrability than a comparable baseship, something that was off great benefit as the ships weapons were on a much more limited arc due to the need to keep deception to a maximum.

What stopped the ships from in widespread use though, was that once it was realised that the asteroid ships were not just one off's, ways were determined to spot them. The chief one was actually to scan asteroids for di-ethene. Cylon laser weapons work a different way than Colonial ones, and one of the by-products of Cylon laser usage is artifical gas di-ethene, which is only found as a by-product of Cylon laser usuage. As a result, an asteroid ship that had been in combat was incredibly difficult to hide until it had had a chance to disperse this cloud.

Early Cylon piloting of these vessels was also a dead give away as they manouevred them in ways that no normal asteroid could do. With time and practise though, this soon changed.

Once detection become common place, most asteroid ships were pulled from service or abandoned after being stripped of their equipment. Very limited numbers are still employed, but their usage is mainly restricted to mobile listening posts than strike stations these days, although ironically, the time is ripe for their resurgance as the Colonials have become lax in their asteroid scans these days.

Asteroid ships were in main usuage from about 6400-6700, with their numbers now heavily shrunk to a fraction of what they were. It is this suprise factor that makes them more deadly than their actual weapons these days.

Another 'spook' tactic by the Cylons, was to have an asteroid ship send out patrols of Ghost fighters with no crew. Against new captains, this was very effective.

Variants:

With the ability to blend into most surroundings, the asteroid ship sported a few variants.

Scout

An abvious variant, the scout replaced most of it is heavy weapons for additional sensors. it is role was simply to lie in a concealed position (like an asteroid belt) and scan the Colonial positions, keeping tracks of ship movements, fleet actions and the like. it is role was not to attract attention or engage the enemy itself though, the fighters were intended as a defence measure and to enable the ship to escape trouble.

Supply Transport

Like the scout, the Transport's role was not to engage the enemy at all. Instead it would remain hidden at all costs. Most of the weaponary and fighter bays were ripped out, and instead the ship had huge cargo bays used for storing fuel and other supplies. As such, it was a forward supply base, and whilst not in itself dangerous to the Colonials, was one of the most damaging variants due to the fact that it could supply and rearm other fighting vessels and was difficult to track down. Unlike some other variants, this ship was used all through the Thousand Yahren War.

The Asteroid ships were designed and SSD's drawn by me.

Typical asteroid ships have one large shuttle bay. The bay has two launch tubes [J1.54] which will propel a fighter flight to speed 12 and will launch in directions 2 and 6) and the equivalent of a standard shuttle hatch (launching and landing from any direction).
The shuttle bay is large enough to accept yachts.
The main exception is the ACT which only has the one fighter launch tube.
Asteroid Ships have a hyperspeed multiplier of x1.5.

While the SSD's show the ships to have a compliment of Raiders on board, they were around to carry the Early Raider craft, and may have those instead if playing in the earlly section of the war. BPV will have to be changed to accomodate this.

Cylon Asteroid Ship boarding diagram:

Like all Cylon Baseships, all Bridge boxes on all asteroid ships have 1 guard.
The large Asteroid ship should be represented by the Jindarian Heavy Cruiser Boarding Diagram, using the following:

Small asteroid ships use the Jindarian Light Cruiser Boarding Diagram and the following:

Master Ship Chart Extract:

Annex #7B: Ships able to land on planets

These ships may not land on planets.

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