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Description

Final Revision 6/22/20 - This image is yuuuge. Don't forget to download!

This is your enemy, the Cylon Raider. It is the principal weapon of the Cylon Empire, a weapon your forefathers have faced in one variation or another for a thousand years. As a Viper pilot, or member of a Raptor or Orca crew, this is the one enemy combat system you are guaranteed to face in every space battle. You will see action against the Raider. This class is here to ensure that the number of combat actions you see against the Raider is greater than one.

It is an offensive weapon, an autonomous combat vehicle driven by a dedicated on board non-sentient machine intelligence that operates through a short range and self repairing network totaling five such craft. This network and its associated formation is known to us as a Pentad. Though the organic Cylons are thought to have been exterminated in the Hasari Reprisal some seven hundred years ago, the machine Cylons continue to operate in a networked structure based on units of five that work like a pack to kill you.

If you want to survive your first combat mission, you must break up and degrade that network at every opportunity. The Machine Intelligence is not particularly cunning, but it can think faster than you even with communications lag between its nodes, and it can brute force tactical option simulations while you're busy flying by the seat of your flight suit. If you let it, it will kill you. That is why this class stresses knocking out at least one Raider per Pentad prior to the Merge. Every kill on a Raider will give you a second, sometimes even two, while the Pentad's survivors re-network and assess. The fewer Raiders left in a Pentad, the slower it will act, and the less it can constrain you into a kill box.

The Raider has a variably configurable weapons loadout. Most Raiders will carry two heavy ion Pulsars and two triple barrel coilguns as direct fire weapons, in addition to a mix of expendable ordnance to include dogfight missiles, antiship torpedoes, and air to ground bombs - typically low yield thermonuclear. Pay attention to the Pulsars. The Toasters use Xenon, which produces a blueish white bolt, whereas the pulsars on Colonial weapons are either the Neon red, or the Argon purple. A Cylon Pulsar is a deadly weapon at close range, but even at extreme ranges, can be effective in disrupting your avionics and sensors. It may not singe the paint, but it will take you out of the fight just the same, so keep that in mind during a head on close to the Merge. The coilguns are approximately on par with ours, both in caliber, muzzle velocity, and projectile mass, but in their triple configuration can put out three times the throw-weight than you. If you get into a Raider's coilgun firing solution, may the Lords of Kobol have mercy on you.

Cylon intercept missiles are very smart, hard to spoof, but not as maneuverable in the clutch. If you execute the Missile Evasion drill properly, you can beat them one to one. You Raptor and Orca pukes will have better luck blinding their sensors with your countermeasure lasers, cause the Lords know your ships wallow like a Tauron gulch hog. You can expect up to eighteen weapons in a Raider configured for small craft interception. Bomber loadouts will see six intercepts in addition to the bomb load. Raiders configured for antiship will carry three megaton-class torpedoes and nothing else. You'll know the torpedo bombers, because their velocity vector relative to the engagement will be very high, and they won't do a lot of jinking prior to release. About fifty percent of the time, a Raider won't carry any expendables at all, just to up their delta-vee and extend their range.

On that note, the Raider has longer legs than you would be Viper drivers. It has to. The Toasters' basestars are glass cannons, and they don't like to get in the fight. That's what the Raiders are for. So they need to cover a lot of space quickly, both to nail down targets, and to sortie against them while retaining enough fuel to get back to their base ship. The Raider has very high efficiency drives, so they can launch, attack the target, and return to their base ships without much risk of a Viper wing following them home to mama. At the same time, since the Cylons already have the next Raider rolling off the factory line the moment you're zapping one, if by some operational circumstance they don't have the fuel to get home, they will absolutely make a suicide run at your battlestar. It's just a machine, and it's very very replaceable. You lot are not. We've spent a fortune training you and equipping you with the best craft we can.

I'm going to run a presentation on the Raider. It's boring as Tartarus but it's data that was paid for in human blood. Pay attention. It isn't just your life on the line out there.

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Modeling notes:

When I heard there was serious consideration for another reboot/reimagining of Battlestar Galactica, I threw up my hands and said "screw it. I'll make my own Battlestar Galactica, with Blackjack and Hookers!" (Pyramid and Socialators?) It has since been stated that the new project will NOT be a reboot, but a new story "within the mythology" of the RDM version of the show. No details are as yet forthcoming. In the meantime, I'm going to do my own thing. Some of you will undoubtedly hate it. Hopefully one or two will love it.

In the Pyramid & Socialators reboot, the Cylons are pure machines again, the creations of a now extinct belligerent alien race. (Just like the OG BSG.) The Raider is an autonomous combat vehicle - no triad of robots piloting it - with a networked intelligence that coordinates with other raiders in a pack hunter style schema. Typically five Raiders coordinate as a Pentad, and Pentads coordinate with other Pentads as though they were a singular entity. The main body of the fighter is a close analogue in size to the OG Raider, with the long sweeping wings being used to remove waste heat and provide a long moment arm for roll-thrusters at the tips. The Raider has no FTL capability, nor can it carry any crew or passengers.

Modeled with Trimble SketchUp. Rendered with Kerkythea.

Description

Final Revision 6/22/20 - This image is yuuuge. Don't forget to download!

This is your enemy, the Cylon Raider. It is the principal weapon of the Cylon Empire, a weapon your forefathers have faced in one variation or another for a thousand years. As a Viper pilot, or member of a Raptor or Orca crew, this is the one enemy combat system you are guaranteed to face in every space battle. You will see action against the Raider. This class is here to ensure that the number of combat actions you see against the Raider is greater than one.

It is an offensive weapon, an autonomous combat vehicle driven by a dedicated on board non-sentient machine intelligence that operates through a short range and self repairing network totaling five such craft. This network and its associated formation is known to us as a Pentad. Though the organic Cylons are thought to have been exterminated in the Hasari Reprisal some seven hundred years ago, the machine Cylons continue to operate in a networked structure based on units of five that work like a pack to kill you.

If you want to survive your first combat mission, you must break up and degrade that network at every opportunity. The Machine Intelligence is not particularly cunning, but it can think faster than you even with communications lag between its nodes, and it can brute force tactical option simulations while you're busy flying by the seat of your flight suit. If you let it, it will kill you. That is why this class stresses knocking out at least one Raider per Pentad prior to the Merge. Every kill on a Raider will give you a second, sometimes even two, while the Pentad's survivors re-network and assess. The fewer Raiders left in a Pentad, the slower it will act, and the less it can constrain you into a kill box.

The Raider has a variably configurable weapons loadout. Most Raiders will carry two heavy ion Pulsars and two triple barrel coilguns as direct fire weapons, in addition to a mix of expendable ordnance to include dogfight missiles, antiship torpedoes, and air to ground bombs - typically low yield thermonuclear. Pay attention to the Pulsars. The Toasters use Xenon, which produces a blueish white bolt, whereas the pulsars on Colonial weapons are either the Neon red, or the Argon purple. A Cylon Pulsar is a deadly weapon at close range, but even at extreme ranges, can be effective in disrupting your avionics and sensors. It may not singe the paint, but it will take you out of the fight just the same, so keep that in mind during a head on close to the Merge. The coilguns are approximately on par with ours, both in caliber, muzzle velocity, and projectile mass, but in their triple configuration can put out three times the throw-weight than you. If you get into a Raider's coilgun firing solution, may the Lords of Kobol have mercy on you.

Cylon intercept missiles are very smart, hard to spoof, but not as maneuverable in the clutch. If you execute the Missile Evasion drill properly, you can beat them one to one. You Raptor and Orca pukes will have better luck blinding their sensors with your countermeasure lasers, cause the Lords know your ships wallow like a Tauron gulch hog. You can expect up to eighteen weapons in a Raider configured for small craft interception. Bomber loadouts will see six intercepts in addition to the bomb load. Raiders configured for antiship will carry three megaton-class torpedoes and nothing else. You'll know the torpedo bombers, because their velocity vector relative to the engagement will be very high, and they won't do a lot of jinking prior to release. About fifty percent of the time, a Raider won't carry any expendables at all, just to up their delta-vee and extend their range.

On that note, the Raider has longer legs than you would be Viper drivers. It has to. The Toasters' basestars are glass cannons, and they don't like to get in the fight. That's what the Raiders are for. So they need to cover a lot of space quickly, both to nail down targets, and to sortie against them while retaining enough fuel to get back to their base ship. The Raider has very high efficiency drives, so they can launch, attack the target, and return to their base ships without much risk of a Viper wing following them home to mama. At the same time, since the Cylons already have the next Raider rolling off the factory line the moment you're zapping one, if by some operational circumstance they don't have the fuel to get home, they will absolutely make a suicide run at your battlestar. It's just a machine, and it's very very replaceable. You lot are not. We've spent a fortune training you and equipping you with the best craft we can.

I'm going to run a presentation on the Raider. It's boring as Tartarus but it's data that was paid for in human blood. Pay attention. It isn't just your life on the line out there.

----------------------------------
Modeling notes:

When I heard there was serious consideration for another reboot/reimagining of Battlestar Galactica, I threw up my hands and said "screw it. I'll make my own Battlestar Galactica, with Blackjack and Hookers!" (Pyramid and Socialators?) It has since been stated that the new project will NOT be a reboot, but a new story "within the mythology" of the RDM version of the show. No details are as yet forthcoming. In the meantime, I'm going to do my own thing. Some of you will undoubtedly hate it. Hopefully one or two will love it.

In the Pyramid & Socialators reboot, the Cylons are pure machines again, the creations of a now extinct belligerent alien race. (Just like the OG BSG.) The Raider is an autonomous combat vehicle - no triad of robots piloting it - with a networked intelligence that coordinates with other raiders in a pack hunter style schema. Typically five Raiders coordinate as a Pentad, and Pentads coordinate with other Pentads as though they were a singular entity. The main body of the fighter is a close analogue in size to the OG Raider, with the long sweeping wings being used to remove waste heat and provide a long moment arm for roll-thrusters at the tips. The Raider has no FTL capability, nor can it carry any crew or passengers.

Modeled with Trimble SketchUp. Rendered with Kerkythea.