The Hades Class Baseship is the pinacle of, and principle vessel of the Cylon fleet and follows a different design philosophy than Colonial Doctrine.
While holding a huge amount of Raider fighters (around 300), they are slow and ponderous. However, their role is not limited to just fighter carrying - they are expected to take, hold and attack enemy ground and ships, and as such they are equipped with an offensive of 2 main pulsar lasers and over a hundred defensive laser batteries, making them more than an equal to a Battlestar.

The Hades Class Baseship is a huge ship. Roughly the size of the Colonial Battlestar in diameter, but about twice the height. Like a Battlestar, a Baseship is not just a fighter carrier. As well as these duties, the ship contains command and control facilities to literally make it a base of operations for a fleet, it also has repair facilities for it is Centurions, although it cannot manufacture new Centurions expect in emergencies.

All this though comes at come price, and in this case it is speed. The Cylons seem content to make their ships mobile pill-boxes, and almost every ship in the galaxy can out run one these ships.

The Hades Class Baseship would remain in sevice with the Cylon Empire for many yahrens in the future (until at least 7361). It would be continuously upgraded with improvements to the senors, powerplant and engines (although it would remain ponderously slow when compared with other vessels) and would still be a potent force to be reckoned with even when withdrawn from service. Like Raiders, the sheer number of these craft in service with the Cylons would make their withdrawal a very gradual thing.

While the Cylons call these vessels Baseships, they are sometimes referred to as Basestars by Colonial Commanders.

Variants:

The Cylons used the Standard baseship as their front line ship for many hundreds of yahrens, and never saw a drastic need to replace the ship. However they did find time to modify a few ships for slightly different needs and duties, and these variations on the standard ship are presented below.

The one thing that confused the Colonial forces initially, was that the Cylons seem to make no distinction between the various versions of this ship. To them, they are all Baseships (or Basestars), there are no different classifications like there are for the many Colonial Light Cruiser variants. In fact, like most Cylon ship names, the Hades Class name is used for all variants as well.

Bear in mind though, that all these variants are rare (some being rarer than others). The standard Baseship accounts for some 90+% of all Baseships in existence.

Upgunned Baseship

The Upgunned Baseship is probably the most common variant around, and is also the easiest to produce. It simply replaces the mega-pulsar lasers with heavier models, and provides some extremely heavy hard hitting firepower.

Anti-Ship Baseship

It is believed that the Anti-Ship Baseship was a response to the Colonial Gunstar. Like the Gunstar, it is trade-off of certain systems for more pulsar lasers, although unlike the Gunstar, it is fighter complement remains the same. Instead the ship loses almost half of it is anti-fighter batteries, which means that Colonial Viper pilots prefer to go up against this variant than any other, although their ship captains do not share this view.

The added pulsar lasers are spread around the ship, so while it cannot fire all these weapons at one target, it does mean that you can not sneak up behind the ship.

Scout Baseship

One of the more rarer models, the Scout ship adds more electronics to it is sensor arrays, and usually the ship plays a support role in combat, creating confusion amongst enemy forces by it is ability to generate large amounts of ECM. It is not helpless either, having the normal amount of fighters and weapons.
It is believed that this ships intended role is to seek out other solar systems and scan them for life and threats, and in this position it would be at the fore front of any Cylon fleet.

Minelaying Baseship

What the Cylons do not want to waste resources patrolling, they mine. It was long thought that the heavy Raiders were solely responsible for this duty, but it has since been discovered that the Cylons do indeed have a Baseship variant for this duty. Large pods are added to the centre pylon of the baseship, and these contain the mines that the Cylons use to guard areas of space. Not a common variant, but one that the Colonials like to bring down whenever possible.
Unlike Colonial minelayers, these ships may not buy MSL or MSS shuttles, however they may buy Minelayer Heavy Raiders (which have to replace some standard Raiders).

Planetary Bombardment Baseship

The most rare of the Baseship variants, but also one of the most lethal. By removing the mega pulsar lasers, and adding large missile launchers to the sides of the ship, this version has a devastating potential for inflicting massive amounts of collateral damage on surface targets.
Which is also the reason why this is a rare version, because the standard Raider, while being the Cylon Premier attack fighter, is also the Cylon Premier ground attack ship. However if a target needs to be knocked out completely, then there is no better way of doing it. It is not known whether any of these ships were employed in the destruction of the 2 Colonies.
While being a ground attack ship, the drones that the ship fires can be employed in a limited anti-ship role. While not as damaging as the Colonial Missiles, the ship can fire and control many more than it is Colonial counterpart (the Battlestar Pegasus) still making it a threat to all but the heaviest ships, and with the large amount of Raiders stationed on the ship, enemy Vipers have the choice of attacking the drones or being wiped out by the fighters.

See the new weapons page for how Cylon Missiles work.

Troop Transport Baseship

When one of these vessels is spotted, it means trouble for some ground unit somewhere, for these distinctive vessels can carry upwards of some 1200 Cylon Centurions equipped ready for war. For these vessels are the troop transports of the Cylon fleet, they shift ground forces from one quadrant to another, along with their equipment and Raider support fleet.

They are very easy to spot, for unlike other Baseships, these have no thin centre line, instead it is greatly widened to allow for the barracks of troops along the centre core. The ship does not carry extra shuttles for allow for the rapid deployment of it is troops, but this is balanced by the fact that all Baseships can physically land on planets, and this alone is worth a lot when it comes to breaking the morale of enemy troops.
Equipped with the usual amount of turbo laser batteries, mega pulsars and Raider fighters, like all Baseships it is merely another terrible foe.

Cargo Baseship

The Cylons recognised a need for a powerful ship to carry important cargo when the Colonials started attacking their rear supply lines. Tankers were not really designed for combat, and even though they can carry Raider fighters, against Colonial Vipers, these never stood a chance. So, using normal Cylon ingenuity, they modified some Baseships to act as cargo carriers. Combining powerful weaponry with a vast cargo bay, these ships became very valuable for carrying important supplies and fuel to critical areas.
[In game terms, use the troop transport SSD, but convert all Barracks to cargo. Cargo may be fuel if the scenario calls for it.]

All SSD's created by Greg Ellis and myself, drawn by Sean Driscoll.

Baseships have one large shuttle bay. The bay has two launch tubes ([J1.54] which will propel a fighter flight to speed 12 and can launch in any direction) and the equivalent of a standard shuttle hatch (launching and landing from any direction).
The shuttle bay is large enough to accept yachts.
The Baseship has a hyperspeed multiplier of x1.

The Baseship may rotate under the variant rules.

Cylon Hades Class Baseship boarding diagram:

The Cylon Baseship is handled exactly like a normal vessel, but to account for it is unique shape and internal passageway, it is divided into three levels. Each level is treated just like a normal ship, and transfer through the levels is done via areas A, E and F. It is assumed that there is one passageway between A and E, and E and F. Note also that there is always a guard in area F.
Finally just a word of caution: the boarding diagram does not accurately represent the SSD, but is more faithful to what I have managed to pick up from the series.

Upper Level	Middle	Lower Level

Master Ship Chart Extract:

Annex #7B: Ships able to land on planets

Baseships may land on a planet via a Powered landings (P2.434).

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