Zuktalak - Class Frigate

Small frigates used in very large numbers by the Grand Artanat Empire.

The Zuktalak - class is designed primarily to be small and cheap to swarm an enemy with sheer numbers of these ships. It does mean that they are of a lower quality than the average faction's main multi purpose frigates. It is highly popular with the GAE admiralty but less popular with its crews.

The Zuktalak can serve a wide variety of roles ranging from fire support to escort duties as well as various support roles. With a large spinal weapon mount that is designed to be highly modular, they can mount large weapons to it, or equipment such as thrusters, communications arrays, ewar equipment or even shield generators. The large weapon mount was originally intended as an emplacement for anti heavy ship weapons, which the Zuktalak would use by pointing itself towards the enemy. This doctrine gave them a huge firepower potential with the sheer number of Zuktalak - class frigates that typically engage in a single battle.

The Zuktalak - class also features 2 small fusion reactors at its center for redundancy in case one is lost. The center of the ship is the most well protected place in the entire ship. The fusion reactors receive power via large hydrogen tanks positioned close to them. The powerplants and fuel tanks are all enclosed in their own armoured compartment. There is also a small command center directly to the rear of that which acts as a bridge but with cameras allowing those inside the ship to see out. Its thrusters also rely on powerful fusion reactions to drive the ship, taking hydrogen from separate tanks acting as fuel tanks. Even the Zuktalak's RCS thrusters use fusion thrusters, but they are largely power limited to prevent the ship from maneuvering so fast that it kills the crew in the immense g-forces.

It also has fairly thick armour for its size, but many weak points, particularly from the rear. It is designed to meet the enemy frontally, so few weak points are visible from the front other than its spinal mount and any forward facing fusion thrusters. Its front also has much thicker armour than the rest of the ship and it has an extra disc shield which constantly faces the front. Despite all this, however, the low quality and low power nature of the ship means that it will likely still suffer heavy damage from much larger ships shooting at it, but that would be a round that the enemy ship could have used against a much more valuable target. 

Despite their very widely used nature, they are not used in propaganda much because they sometimes act as bullet tanks to draw enemy fire away from more valuable GAE ships, and end up being destroyed. Instead, they are much more likely to use the Imperator's Fist - Class Star Annihilator as propaganda.