Cylon Raiders

The Cylons tend to concentrate on two types of craft - large motherships (like their Basehip) or small fighters, with not much inbetween. However, the Cylons do know that it is wasteful to send large Baseships to do the work that a smaller craft could do, and as a result, they have created larger versions of their Raider Fighter craft. In Colonial terms, these ships occupy the same role as their patrol and gunboats.

Being based on the Raider, all these ships look alike, and it is very hard for Colonial Warbooks to identify what variant fighter might be closing until it is very close. The Warbook will successfully identify the fact that a Heavy Raider is coming into battle though, giving the opposing pilot time to decide whether to hit their turbos and leave, or whether to engage or not.

Being much larger than the standard Raider, these craft can carry a lot more in the way of weaponry and defensive armour. As such, they are harder to kill and can inflict serious damage on Colonial capital ships. However, they share the same features and disadvantages of the Raider - namely they are slow, sluggish craft, but powerful at the same time.

There are three main types of Heavy Raider:

Heavy Raider

The Heavy Raider is the premier anti-ship heavy fighter. Why it was developed is unclear as it is fulfils the same role as typical Raiders, takes the place of several Raiders on a Baseship, and is also a moving target if Colonial fighters are present. Still, against unsuspecting vessels, the additional firepower that these Raiders can put out can be quite lethal.

Minelayer

The Minelayer deals with the rest of the missions devoted to the Raiders. That of minelaying. This is because Cylons tend to mine what they do not want others to get, or what they consider unimportant to patrol.

Scout Raider

The Scout Raider is designed for long range recon deep into enemy territory. The Cylons piloting these are unusually suicidal even compared to normal Cylons. Their job is to get information, and as long as the information is gained and sent back to the rest of the fleet, their lives are unimportant.

Ringlord Class Heavy Raider

The Ringlord is a special type of heavy Raider who's main duty is not to attack, but to defend. The ship does this by containing enough power systems to be able to generate a limited strength and size ambush field. A typical tactic is for the Ringlord to create the ambush field and then for several flights of Raiders to hide within the field. In this way, attacks against Colonial forces can be set up quickly and easily. In some cases, the Ringlord will remain hidden and thus survivors of the ambush can then retreat and hide inside the ambush field.

	GIF file
Heavy Raiders SSD	30k

Master Fighter Chart Extract:

Type	Speed	Weapons	Damage	BPV	DFR	Year	Notes
Heavy Raider *	16	2x P2 - FA 1x P3 - RA	14	7	1§	6400
Minelayer *	15	2x P3 - FA	18	8+	1§	6400	Minelayer & Sweeper (R1.F5 & F6)
Scout Raider *	18	2x P3 - FA 1x P3 - RA	14	6	1§	6400	Scout Sensor
Ringlord Raider *	16	2x P3 - 360^o	12	10	1§	7000

Ringlord Heavy Raider: The Ringlord is able to generate an Ambush field. This is of field strength 1 and has a maximum radius of 1 megahex (7 hexes) centred on the Ringlord itself. The Ringlord contains internal APR to keep this field up indefinitely. If the Ringlord is crippled, then the ability to generate the ambush field is lost.
In addition to being able to generate the ambush field, the Ringlord is treated as a Heavy Scout Raider for purposes of detecting ambush and camouflage fields only.