I was looking at the new Tayra model the other day (which I love) and had a thought. How cool would it be if those side plates came down to revels hidden guns. Then I thought, well we have tech 3 destroyers now that have different combat configurations, why not create a battlecruiser that will allow those of us interested in PvP, but who are against high sec piracy, to bait in gankers and engage them. It’s time high sec gankers had a little risk to their occupation, rather than hiding behind concord’s protection while they prey on targets that can’t fight back. I propose:
The Tech 3 Tactical Battlecruiser, the Patrol Battlecruiser.
The Tech 3 Tactical Battlecruiser is designed to allow those capusleers who wish to help the empires patrol their space and rid it of piracy. Building on the technology presented by the recent destroyer inovations these new battlecruisers make use of their various configuration possibilities to provoke pirates into exposing themselves and meet them with the justice they deserve, a powerful volley of weaponry.
The patrol battlecruiser, much like the tactical destroyers has 3 configurations. The first two configurations, sharpshooter and defense, it shares with its predecessors. However, instead of a third propulsion mode, the Patrol Battlecruiser is able to retract its weaponry and defensive modules inside of its hull where it is shielded from scanners and are thus undetectable. Whilst in this configuration the patrol cruiser is designed to look identical to the relevant empire hauler (in this case the tayra) and to mimic the industrial ship’s movement characteristics, and whilst it’s weaponry may be useless, it continues to benefit from its defensive modules and gains the same defensive bonuses as if it were in defence mode. Furthermore, the vessels are equipped with inbuilt specially designed electronic warfare modules which, whilst in this mode, fool the sensors of other ships into creating false readings about the ship and will appear as an industrial ship (in this case the tayra) on overviews and scans. If a potential agressor attempts to scan the ship’s fitting, these electronic warfare modules give off falsified readings to imitate a predetermined industrial ship configuration which can be reconfigured in port (use the service slot area to have a slot that allows you to drag a relevant [tayra in this case] stored ship fit into the box).
To futher aid the Patrol Cruiser into luring out potential pirates it contains a special cargo area filled with beacons designed to be configured to imitate other items. Dragging items into this cargo bay will not move the items into the cargo bay, but will configure the cargobay’s beacon to create ghosts of the items which will show up on any cargo scan whilst in it’s third mode.
Whilst a patrol cruiser is capable of laying down considerable firepower in sharpshooter mode, its main strength comes from it’s defense mode, which provides bonuses to its defenses and to warp scarmblers and webs, allowing the ship to lock down the pirate agressors and survive long enough for carefully positioned reinforcements to arrive.