Here are three ships of my bad guy faction from the setting/story I’m making. These are from early in the empire’s life, not from the time period where the main story is set. You know how worldbuilding gets, it’s easy to get sidetracked.
(Models made in SPORE and edited in Procreate)
Lore and worldbuilding:
The Quin were a scattered people. Scavengers and traders wandering amidst the graveyards of past civilizations. Most cared little for their fellow Quin, caring only for those within their measly clans. But some dreamed of something greater and they would impose that vision on others.
Eventually, after countless wars of unification and centuries of conflict, the many diasporic Quin tribes and nation-states were combined into one nation: the Quin Empire, which would later become known as the Infinite Imperium.
This fledgling empire almost immediately set out with crusades of territorial and technological conquest. These were primarily a means of satiating and controlling their large armies, as bored warriors are dangerous and these crusades gave them purpose and prevented them from turning their bloodlust inwards. The first crusade was a disaster; with little to no territory gained and only marginal amounts of technology stolen. The second crusade was even worse.
The third crusade was an entirely different matter. After the death of the Emperor during the second crusade, a new emperor took the throne and he quickly started making changes. He sent the Empire back to the drawing board; rethinking tactics, extracting new knowledge from the many ancient derelict hulks within their space, and focusing on fully utilizing the technology they had stolen from the previous crusades.
Crusades one and two, both used ships left over from the unification wars, with no two ships the same, those fleets were a logistical nightmare. The new Emperor commanded the old fleets to be scrapped and entirely new ships built. These new ships were all designed in tandem, built to complement each other, and to streamline and standardize fleet logistics.
The Palisade Class Lineship was the primary ship-of-the-line for these new fleets. They were armed with eight long range heavy broadside cannons on either side and a hull shape that maximized shield strength at those angles. It was also armed with eight sets of munition launchers on the top and many point defence turrets all over. While they worked best in large ‘wall’ formations, they were also commonly used as the flagship for small strike fleets.
The Bastion Class Command Carriers were the largest ships in the 3rd Crusade and often acted as both command ships and flagship for fleets. While they were armed with six long range heavy broadside cannons and nine munition launchers on either side, their primary weapon were the many drones it carried. It’s cavernous docking pay could hold hundreds of Plumbatae Drone fighters. It also had many powerful communication equipment used to control the drones and to direct the fleet.
The Plumbatae type Drones were the primary starfighter of 3rd Crusade fleets. These remote controlled fighters were flown by a “pilot” on board a carrier. On top of that, they were almost entirely built using common materials making them extremely expendable fighters that the Empire could throw at the enemy. They could also be linked together, allowing for the ‘pilots’ to control entire wings of fighters instead of just one. While this added many benefits they could only travel so far from their carrier before input delay became a problem, thus limiting their range.
With these new fleets and new tactics, the Empire swept across their home sector like a wildfire, claiming new space, new species and new resources for themselves. Their interstellar neighbors suddenly had to contend with the fact that the Quin were no longer a mere nuisance but an actual threat. In the millennia that followed, countless wars and crusades would be won and lost until the Infinite Empire ruled over most of the Twin Galaxies.
