The Heavy Cruiser was a deadly Super Capital Ship designed to withstand any assault and deal incredible damage against attackers in the Kushan and Taiidan Empire fleets in Homeworld.
Background[]
For the fleet that can afford them, Heavy Cruisers are the stars of a fleet. Four times the size of a Destroyer, the next largest Capital Ship in a fleet, and its strong firepower and armor makes it a fearsome addition to any Carrier group. Only the Kushan Mothership is larger, and by far the Heavy Cruiser is the most powerful.
The weaponry of the cruiser includes six heavy gun turrets, each about half the size of a frigate, which together provide excellent coverage for a capital ship. These turrets allow the heavy cruiser some defense against nimble strike craft, which, against most capital ships, can be a real threat due to their evasiveness. Yet even more fearsome are the two ion cannon turrets, each sporting two individual cannons. These turrets allow the ship to engage multiple enemy capital ships at a time, making the heavy cruiser a true capital ship killer. Against the full power of a Heavy Cruiser, even a Mothership Class vessel can't last long.
Overview[]
The most expensive ship that can be built in a fleet, the investment into this massive combat-focused vessel is worth it. It has the strongest armor out of any ship that can be built, only surpassed by a Mothership, and its firepower is orders of magnitude stronger than any other capital ship that can be constructed. The only thing it lacks is a missile battery, but it makes up for the lack of one by having perfect coverage over all of its blind spots, with the dual ion cannons able to turn towards any enemy and do instant (and mostly catastrophic) damage to an attacker. Its strong armor allows it to withstand a huge amount of damage without needing to be healed instantly by a team of Support Frigates, making it the ideal ship to soak up any attack, while its companions do damage.
Unfortunately, all that firepower and armor makes it the slowest ship, barring the Mothership, being only slightly faster than a Carrier. Placing this ship into a formation will significantly reduce the effectiveness of the formation, so its recommended only to put ships into a guard order with it, and not use formations to try and improve the movement speed.
Strike Craft are ill-suited to try and attack a Heavy Cruiser, as their weapons will do so little damage that it will have recovered the lost health by itself, though feasibly numbers could prevail. Only the Attack Bomber or a significant quantity of combat-based Capital Ships have any hope of dealing with the Heavy Cruiser in battle. Their power and the obvious fact that so few of them show up during the single-player campaign makes them ideal capture targets for Salvage Corvettes, but care must be taken in doing so, as Heavy Cruisers have a tendency to prioritise any nearby salvaging attempt over combat ships. If captured though, they will significantly boost a fleets' firepower, potentially able to turn the tide of the battle in their favour.
Heavy Cruisers remained in active use on all sides during the Beast War, where they were often used to co-ordinate armadas of ships, taking the place of Carriers from time to time in strategic locations. Indeed, the relationship between the Turanic Raiders and the Taiidan Imperialist Faction was such that the former had access to use these ships as ways of co-ordinating groups of raiding parties. Unfortunately, events during the war led the Beast to infect them for knowledge and power: this made them extremely deadly in the wrong hands, as such infected ships gained a infection weapon that could quickly and efficiently take down whole enemy fleets for use by the virus. By the time of the Vaygr War, Heavy Cruisers of the past had stopped being used, having been replaced by even more powerful Battlecruisers which included such weapons like a Trinity Cannon, Fusion Missile Launcher, Ion Cannons and Pulsar Beams, all significantly more powerful, longer in range and superior in every way to the ageing Heavy Cruiser.
Trivia[]
- In the Homeworld: Cataclysm manual, the Kushan ship is codenamed Avatar and the Taiidan ship is codenamed Qwaar-Jet.[1]
- The name "Qwaar-Jet" was used by the Kushan to refer to the "God of Pain and Enslavement", who -- in ancient times -- was feared all across Kharak.[citation needed]
Appearances[]
References[]
- ↑ Homeworld: Cataclysm manual
Notes[]
- ↑ Replaces Mass Drivers and only found in Homeworld: Cataclysm.
- ↑ Only found on Beast-infected versions of the ship in Homeworld: Cataclysm.