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Sentinel
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| Ship Information | |
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Classification
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Purpose
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Fleet Defence
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Ship Type
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Defense Pod/Microship
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RU Cost
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70 RUs
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| Technical Information | |
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Mass
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21 tons
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Length
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(Width: 14.5 metres)
5.6 metres |
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Acceleration
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1000 m/s2
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Speed
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250 m/s
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Armaments
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1 Small Mass Driver
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| Usage | |
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Eras
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Affiliation
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The Sentinel is a Kiith Somtaaw microship, developed and utilized during the events of the Beast War.
Overview[]
The Sentinel was originally envisioned as a remote drone craft for an advanced mobile sensor platform. However, even the most advanced AI could not keep up with what the Somtaaw engineers wanted. When they added a force-field generator and tested it, the Sentinel AI was confused by the distortions created by polarized gravity fields, leading to a Dervish Multibeam Frigate being cut in half with all hands lost.
However, the project was saved by Aart ne Somtaaw, a small member of the engineering team. He installed a cockpit onto a Sentinel, donned a vacc suit and pushed the craft to its limits. This led to the creation of the smallest manned ship in Hiigaran space. Aart was rewarded for his efforts by being chosen to assemble the first Sentinel Squadron: The War Dwarves, short pilots who have the unglamorous and dangerous jobs of standing guard and creating force fields to protect their kiith mates in much larger capital ships.
Gameplay[]
The Sentinel is the first microship made available during the single player campaign, near the end of Mission 5. It is armed with strong Mass Driver weapons (later upgraded to Energy Cannons), sturdy armor relative to its size, and can be upgraded with Advanced Sensors, allowing it to detect Mimicked or Cloaked vessels. Despite being similar to the Kushan or Taiidan Defender in armament and turning ability, Sentinels are almost exclusively used to shield large Capital Ships with their Force Field upgrade. 12 Sentinels are required to completely shield friendly vessels with their force field. Anything smaller than Frigate-class ships are too small and too fast to be effectively shielded by the Sentinel. The force field itself must be researched and existing Sentinels upgraded, before the force field can be used. The force field itself starts at Level 1, and can be upgraded twice, to Level 2 and Level 3.
- Level 1: Protection from Mass Drivers: The starting level for the force field, this Sentinel upgrade effectively absorbs Mass Driver projectiles, but is weak against everything else.
- Level 2: Protection from missiles: The second level allows the Sentinel force field to effectively absorb the damage from standard missile attacks, as well as strengthening the resistance to Mass Drivers. Unfortunately, the Beast's Cruise Missile isn't impeded by this upgrade; its organic tip absorbs the field charge and allows it to slip through the shield unhindered.
- Level 3: Protection from energy-based weapons: The third and final upgrade for Sentinel force field technology. The overall force field's power is greatly increased, as well as providing much greater protection from energy-based weapons, such as Energy Cannons and Ion Cannons.
Although it is stated that Level 1 force field cannot protect from missiles and energy based weapons and Level 2 force field cannot protect from energy based weapons, it is half-true. For example: the Level 1 force field does provide protection from missiles and energy based weapons, although the field's strength will deplete much faster than after upgrading it.
During Beast War[]
Sentinels were actually meant to protect Caal-Shto from damage in Kadiir Nebula. As the events progressed, they became invaluable in protection. It is unknown how Beast acquired this technology, but it used Sentinels very often, mostly to protect their Infected Carriers and Infected Heavy Cruisers. Kiith Somtaaw used the advantage of Sentinels in order to fight back Imperials and Turanic Raiders. Also it was revealed that the Sentinel force field can be shut down by using advanced sensors- the subverted Clee-San was revealed (in the intro cutscene at the start of Mission 16) to have done this while leading an attack on a Hiigaran Scout base. As victims of Beast attacks were often initially unaware of the alien-subverted nature of their assailants and with the Sentinel's failed test as a drone taken into account, it is likely that the Clee-San actively pinged the microships and was registered on their systems as a friendly, causing them to drop their fields in a misguided effort to avoid harming fellow Hiigarans until it was too late.
Trivia[]
- In the Homeworld: Cataclysm manual, it is referred to as a Sentinel-class Defense Pod.[1]
Appearances[]
References[]
- ↑ Homeworld: Cataclysm manual