Difference between pages "Vesta Class" and "Hutet Class"

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{{Specifications
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{{icons|card|bfc}}{{Specifications
| image = [[Image:Vestaclass.jpg|275px]]
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| image = [[Image:HutetClass.jpg|275px]]
| name = Vesta
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| name = Hutet
| affiliation = Starfleet
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| affiliation = Cardassian Union
| role = Explorer
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| role = Battleship
| dateEntered = 2388
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| dateEntered = 2375
| expectedLife = 100 Years
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| expectedLife = 50 Years
| expectedRefit = 10 Years
+
| expectedRefit = 5 Years
| timeResupply = 5 Years
+
| timeResupply = 6 Months
| crewComplement = 750
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| crewComplement = 2,500
| emergencyCap = 1,500
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| emergencyCap = 25,000
| length = 672 meters
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| length = 550 meters
| width = 192 meters
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| width = 425  meters
| height = 87 meters
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| height = 205 meters
| decks = 19
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| decks = 45
 
| propulsionSystem = Matter/Antimatter powered warp drive
 
| propulsionSystem = Matter/Antimatter powered warp drive
| cruiseSpeed = Warp 8
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| cruiseSpeed = Warp 6
| maxSpeed = Warp 9
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| maxSpeed = Warp 8.5
| emergencySpeed = Warp 9.985
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| emergencySpeed = Warp 9.1 (12 hours)
| energyWeapons =*8x Type-XII Phaser Arrays
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| energyWeapons =*2 Sextuple-Mounted Heavy Phaser Arrays (Forward)
*2x Type-XII Pulse Phase Cannons
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*14 Heavy Phaser Emitters
| torpLaunchers =*2 forward
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| torpLaunchers =*18 Heavy Torpedo Launchers (Six Forward, Six Starboard, Six Port)
* 1 aft
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| torpPayload =*2000 Photon Torpedoes
| torpPayload =*300 Photon Torpedoes
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*500 Quantum Torpedoes
*200 Quantum Torpedoes
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*160 Heavy Gravimetric Torpedoes
| shields =Multi-Layered Shielding System
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| shields =Regenerative Shielding
| shuttleBays =1
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| shuttleBays =1 (Amidships)
| shuttles =10
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| shuttles =20
| runabouts =2
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| runabouts =6 [[Hideki Class|Hideki-class Patrol Ships]]
}}
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}}The '''''Hutet''-class battleship''' is a rare Dominion War-era Cardassian warship, which saw service only in the closing months of the war. It is a massively scaled-up version of the same technology in use aboard both the [[Galor Class|''Galor''-class]] destroyer and the [[Keldon Class|''Keldon''-class]] cruiser, and is the largest starship ever built by the Cardassian Military. Slow, unwieldy, and expensive to maintain, this class of ship has two purposes: the defense of important Cardassian worlds and the devastation of important enemy worlds.
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== Science and Exploration ==
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With an endurance of only six months without support, the ''Hutet'' is not suited to exploratory missions of any kind. It does have a handful of science labs, but even a ''Galor''-class ship would be a better choice for scientific missions. This class is meant purely for war.
  
== Class Overview ==
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== Diplomacy ==
The ''Vesta''-class is currently the fastest ship in Starfleet, and serves as a bleeding-edge technological testbed for some of the most advanced spaceborne systems ever developed. Rare and extremely prized by their captains, these ships are reserved almost solely for prestigious exploratory missions and are rarely seen in the Federation’s core.
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The ''Hutet'' has luxurious accommodations for very senior officials and visiting dignitaries, but its chief diplomatic utility is its ability to devastate whatever planet it happens to be orbiting. These monstrous vessels are so resource-intensive, that the Cardassian Union would never send one on a diplomatic mission, except perhaps to secure the surrender of a troublesome word.
  
=== Science and Exploration ===
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== Engineering ==
While no vessel can beat a ''Century''-class when it comes to comprehensive scientific capabilities or overall capabilities as an explorer, the ''Vesta'' is built for even longer range missions with a more narrow scope: a ''Century'' surveys a wide area of space, while the ''Vesta'' hits areas of special interest like an arrow, thanks to her incredible top speed. Much more of the space aboard the ''Vesta'' is devoted to navigational and engineering support systems, which limits the number of labs it can have total, but the trade off for this is being able to get to its exploratory zones faster. So, in this sense, a ''Vesta'' might be sent to explore a very specific, far-off star system or nebula and then return samples or intelligence back home, while a ''Century'' would be better able to examine entire sectors of space independently, with the lab space onboard to handle the vast majority of the discoveries it makes. Unlike a ''Galaxy'' or ''Century''-class ship, the majority of the labs aboard a ''Vesta'' are allocated to the primary mission of the day, rather than independent side missions.
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The ''Hutet'' is the largest starship ever built by the Cardassian Union, and it only vaguely resembles its smaller counterparts. While it maintains the standard ankh-shaped horizontal cross-section common to all Cardassian warships, the ship's forward section is nearly as tall as the wings are wide, providing it with an imposing cross-shaped silhouette from head-on. With 45 decks and more internal volume than even a Federation [[Galaxy Class|''Galaxy''-class starship]] or Romulan [[D'Deridex Class|D'Deridex-class warbird]], the ship has six sets of warp coils in the wings, which still manage to only propel it at a very modest maximum speed of Warp 8.5, with an absolute emergency maximum of Warp 9.1. This low speed was deemed acceptable as the ''Hutet'' was not intended to keep up with the battle fleet, it was meant to either remain in defensive positions around Cardassian worlds or to secure planets after the main fleet had done most of the dirty work in space.
  
The ''Vesta''-class has a dedicated runabout pad on the stern of the ship, which supports a complement of scout vessels and runabouts that is significantly greater than other ships of her size. These vessels are used during exploratory missions to speed up scientific surveys, with these auxiliary craft serving as an extremely effective force multiplier.  
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It is slow and ungainly at impulse speeds, using two primary impulse engines in the wings and two secondary ones lower on the main hull. This is usually not an issue, though, as the ship is meant to engage planets, stations, and other similarly ungainly large vessels.
  
Computer systems aboard the ''Vesta'' are the most advanced version of bio-neural circuitry currently in production, making her one of the most effective spaceborne computing platforms in service. In practice, a significant amount of this computing power is devoted to her advanced navigational sensors, which help the ship perform effectively at her extremely high top speeds. Starfleet’s goal with this system, however, has been to eventually solve the computational imitations that have prevented the full development of slipstream technology. These systems are extremely maintenance intensive, both in terms of person-hours spent on calibrations and diagnostics, but also in specialized components that are either energy-intensive to replicate or which must be sourced from production facilities in the Federation’s core, which limits this ship’s endurance significantly.
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The main reactor module on the stern is heavily shielded and armored but must be oversized relative to the rest of the ship to accommodate the massive heat dissipation systems necessary to keep the ship from frying itself at full power. While recent attempts have been made to increase the power and speed of this design, it has not been a high priority given the lack of widespread conflict in the quadrant. However, the Cardassian Union has quietly commissioned not only a Type-2 ''Hutet'' design since the war, but also a Type-3 and Type-4, using more modern equipment. These upgrades remain at the ready to be integrated into the existing ''Hutet''-class ships, should war erupt.
  
=== Diplomacy ===
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The ''Hutet'' has a large hanger bay that runs through the center of the ship, from port to starboard. It carries 30 shuttles, as well as 6 [[Hideki Class|Hideki-class patrol ships]], which serve in a point-defense capacity and as air support during planetary invasions. Fully-loaded, the ''Hutet'' can support 10,000 troops.
Like all explorers, the ''Vesta'' is intended to engage in first contact missions. As such, she has a comfortable suite of diplomatic quarters and facilities, capable of adaptation to any K, L, or M-class environment. With her high top speed, she makes a very effective diplomatic courier, but she is rarely assigned to such duties, given her utility as an explorer. These ships rarely host multiparty talks, but they do have sufficient accommodations to perform approximately as effectively as the tactically-oriented ''Sovereign'' can, lagging behind the ''Galaxy'' and quite far behind the ''Odyssey'' in this regard.
 
  
In many respects, Starfleet would prefer to keep the ''Vesta'' away from most diplomatic situations, to avoid giving potential threat powers further opportunities to examine this very advanced vessel up close, given that close to 80% of her systems are highly classified. On the same token, however, they are often deployed on domestic diplomatic missions during their rare visits home to Federation space, where they serve as an example of just how advanced Federation shipbuilding has become. A visit from one of these vessels is often seen as a sign of great respect from Starfleet and the Federation to even founding members like the Vulcans and Andorians.
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== Tactical ==
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The sheer size of the ''Hutet'' allows her to mount some of the largest space-borne weapons ever developed by the Cardassian Union. The most distinctive feature of this class is two sextuple heavy phaser mounts on the bow, which are interconnected with the twin primary deflectors. The output of these weapons is equivalent to the most advanced weapons used by other Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers, though keeping nimble ships in its firing arcs is a chore for the clumsy battleship. All-around coverage is provided by fourteen heavy phaser emitters, which are over three times as powerful as the smaller ones found aboard lesser ships.
  
=== Engineering ===
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Despite the prominence of the main phasers, the ''Hutet'''s signature weapons are its eighteen heavy torpedo tubes. These tubes were designed to handle munitions of many different sizes, with electromagnetic launching systems that can expand to handle heavy planetary bombardment weapons or mines or contract to handle standard torpedoes. As part of its standard ordnance, the ''Hutet'' carries gravimetric torpedoes, which are designed to devastate planetary ecologies both through the power of their explosions and through the devastation caused to the planet's crust and core by manipulating gravity. These heavy torpedoes are armored to survive atmospheric penetration and are larger than standard torpedoes. ''Hutet'' captains must choose carefully when to load these weapons, though, as it can take up to thirty seconds to reconfigure the launch tubes back to handling standard torpedoes, and that's enough time for a clever enemy to take advantage of the momentary vulnerability.
Nearly everything onboard the ''Vesta'' is still highly experimental by 2399, which means that it’s an extremely maintenance-intensive ship. Engineering crews here are kept busy making sure that the bleeding-edge technology at work here is kept in running order. This is especially true of her advanced Class-10 warp drive system, as she is the first vessel to employ it outside of testbed scenarios. The warp core spans the height of the ship, powering two massive warp nacelles, which gives the ship the highest top speed in the fleet.  
 
  
The ship is quite long at 672 meters long, though comparatively narrow at just 192 meters wide, giving her a very slender appearance, especially on profile. This narrow forward profile is necessary to maintain very high speeds. While it does have distinct primary and secondary hulls, these two structures are joined completely, as with the ''Intrepid''-class. The main and secondary deflector dishes are both oversized compared to peer classes, and the vessel manages to look like it’s going fast even when it’s standing still.  
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Twelve of the torpedo launchers on the ''Hutet'' fire directly port and starboard. This can both be used to launch weapons on firing trajectories that allow them to circle back towards targets directly fore or aft, or to fight opponents on all sides during pitched battles. ''Hutet''-class ships have enormous standard torpedo magazines as well, which allow them to lob weapons from behind screens of smaller ships to assault enemy capital ships, as well as to wear down even the most hardened defenses.
  
=== Tactical ===
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''Hutet''-clas shields are nearly impenetrable, with multiple redundant generators located all around the ship. Combined with all-around weapons coverage forward, starboard, and port, the only chance an enemy would have to damage or destroy such a battleship would be to avoid its main weapons and get behind it to have a chance at hitting the reactor--though on a ''Hutet''-class ship, its rear shields are actually the strongest, for this very reason.
Given that they are often weeks, months, or even ''years'' beyond reinforcements, the ''Vesta'' was defined with the teeth to be able to protect itself from nearly any threat, rivaling the ''Sovereign''-class in this regard. All-around Type-XII phaser coverage is provided, along with two forward and two aft burst-fire torpedo launchers. Rather unusually for a large starship, she is also equipped with two forward-firing pulse phaser cannons, which can be used to great effect against clumsier vessels during combat. Considering that they are often so far from support, a ''Vesta''-class ship must often be prepared not just to wound an enemy and then escape but to inflict sufficient damage to discourage further pursuit, though when she ''does'' manage to escape, there are nearly no threat vessels that could catch her.
 
  
Unlike a ''Sovereign'', a ''Vesta'' is not meant to lead a column of starships into battle; her tactical abilities are geared towards self-defense and long-term sustainability, and so these vessels are rarely deployed in fleet engagements. As such, they have few to no command and control systems, apart from those necessary to control her small fleet of runabouts for exploratory missions. As such, she is still primarily an explorer, rather than a deep space tactical vessel, despite her armaments.
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The most common assignment for ''Hutet''-class battleships is to serve as monitors, heavily armed but slow warships used for planetary defense. They rival many starbases in their sheer firepower and their low endurance makes them suited for little else. They are never found alone, and always have a fleet of at least twelve ''Galor''-class destroyers and six ''Keldon''-class cruisers escorting them, because the only real danger a ''Hutet''-class vessel would be in is if it were swarmed by many smaller ships, wearing down its defenses from all angles.
  
=== Shipboard Life ===
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When used for invasion scenarios, the ''Hutet'' can embark 10,000 troops. It has many large-scale transporters and can take over a planet's capital within hours. Given that it is also always accompanied by other ships, it would be the centerpiece of an invasion of 50,000 or more troops, serving as the command ship for a very senior legate and multiple legions.
Assignment to a ''Vesta''-class ship is something highly sought by ambitious officers, as it is only granted to the absolute best in every area. While their missions might be shorter, these ships are sent to areas which Starfleet is interested in examining quickly and effectively with little external support, so they have to be prepared for anything. As such, this leads to a sense among ''Vesta'' crews that they are elite units, leading to both positive displays of comradeship as well as sometimes exclusionary and cliquish practices which make it difficult for new crewmembers to integrate, especially if a crew has already been deployed in the field.
 
  
Recreational facilities aboard a ''Vesta'' are quite comprehensive, though the ship’s size and shape keep her from having quite the luxury of a ''Galaxy'' or ''Odyssey''-class ship. Holodecks, holosuites, and recreational lounges are plentiful and most crew members have their own quarters.
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== Shipboard Life ==
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As with smaller ships, ''Hutet''-class ships have accommodations segregated by rank. It has an exceptionally large crew of 2,500 to keep all of its weapons operating and to provide security. It is not a particularly comfortable assignment compared to other large vessels of other powers, because of how much of its internal volume is devoted to troop accommodations and weapons. Because they don't generally stray far from home, the trade-off for this is more frequent opportunities for shore leave.  
  
Department head roles aboard this class are often seen as direct stepping stones towards the command track on other explorers, with a tour on one of these ships being enough to catapult many officers up to executive officer positions. On that token, however, these assignments are so popular that crews will often stay together for many years.
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These massive ships have palatial suites for their commanding officers, who enjoy a standard of luxury far beyond that found on other Cardassian ships, given that command of these ships is only ever given to the most senior guls. Most of the existing ''Hutets'' also serve as the flagships for entire Cardassian Orders, and so have an even grander space for their legate.
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Troop accommodations are very spartan, but the ''Hutet'' does not embark ground troops during its defensive missions.
  
 
== Class History ==
 
== Class History ==
The ''Vesta''-class starship development began with the return of the starship ''Voyager'' in 2378, with the goal of using the advances that ship had discovered to create a new, purpose-built explorer that could break all previous speed records. The long-term goal was to develop a vessel capable of implementing the failed slipstream drive project started by Seven of Nine and B’Elanna Torres during ''Voyager''’s journey home, though the engineering requirements for this were still well beyond what Starfleet was capable of in the late 2370s.
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As the Dominion War raged, it was clear that Cardassian shipbuilding lagged far behind that of its neighbors, as the burden for heavy firepower support was put almost entirely on Dominion forces. The Cardassian preference for medium-sized, medium-capability ships was failing to stand up to the Klingon preference for smaller, high-firepower designs, the Romulan preference for larger, highly-advanced designs, and the Federation's relentless ingenuity. As such, the ''Hutet''-class design was rapidly developed as the ultimate Cardassian war machine, which would be the centerpiece of any Cardassian fleet. The Cardassian Military intended to build twelve massive starships to serve as the flagships of all of the individual Orders, vessels that would be able to coordinate massive planetary invasions and serve as impregnable bulwarks over Cardassian worlds.
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The design that was developed was incredibly lopsided in capabilities. Cardassians lacked experience building large ships, even with Dominion assistance, and so the engine technology left the ship with a paltry top speed. They also cost more than thirty ''Galor''-class destroyers to build and had massive crews. Only three vessels were completed by the time of the Battle of Cardassia Prime, being too late to have any impact on the war's ultimate conclusion. In practice, there were also teething problems with her advanced weapons, especially the torpedo launchers, which had a tendency to jam while being reconfigured to handle different munition sizes.
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Following the war, the three existing vessels were used to transport refugees around the Union, their primary purpose gone. The remaining 9 space frames lingered in the shipyards, with six of them broken down within several years after the war to build non-combat vessels and to comply with arms limitations. Eventually, the remaining three were completed during the early 2380s, when it was feared that the Romulan situation would spiral across the quadrant.
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Presently, the six ''Hutet''-class ships are something of an albatross: they are theoretically very capable battleships, but their utility is limited in the absence of all-out war that would threaten either Cardassian worlds or allow the Cardassians to threaten enemy worlds. Still, they are a symbol of Cardassian pride and serve as the flagships of six of the twelve orders, while watching over important Cardassian worlds. It is not expected that more will be built, unless a war were to errupt.
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The ''Hutet'' has been superseded in every way other than pure firepower by the [[Damar Class|''Damar''-class dreadnought]], which is faster, more advanced, and capable of long-duration independent missions that the ''Hutet'' could never dream of.
  
The design process continued apace, though resources were diverted to other projects in the mid-2380s during the Federation’s attempted evacuation of Romulus, so it wasn’t until 2393 that the ''Vesta'' finally left spacedock. Following a year-long shakedown operation close to home, she was sent on her first long-range mission while her sisters were under construction. Performance was rated extremely highly, but the maintenance demands meant that this class could never be built in large numbers, so as of 2399 they remain a rare and highly advanced vessel in Starfleet.
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== ''Hutet''-class In-Play ==
  
== In Play ==
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* This ship is a monster. It's huge. It's also slow and hard to maneuver. Once it gets you in its sights, you're toast. It excels at hitting stationary targets like planets and starbases.
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* You're not going to see one of these unless you're in the core of the Cardassian Union. There are only six of them and they're restricted to defensive duties.
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* This is unlikely to be an exciting assignment because they stay close to home. You might go a whole tour on a ''Hutet'' with the ship never having gone to warp!
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* Think of the ''Hutet'' as essentially a mobile defense platform or planetary bombardment weapon, rather than a tip-of-the-spear fast battleship.
  
* While all of the ‘big three’ explorers (Sovereign, Century, and Odyssey) are very advanced, the Vesta is a whole step out in front of them in terms of the advanced technologies built into her spaceframe. She’s one of the most complicated vessels in Starfleet history, which means she needs a highly trained engineering team, but she makes up for that by being a full third faster than even the Century at all out sprint speeds. She is currently the rarest of the explorer-type vessels, and is only sent on the most urgent and important long-range exploratory missions.
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== Gallery ==
* This is an incredibly desirable command for nearly any captain, especially given how few of these vessels there are currently in service. In 2399, the main way an officer would be assigned to command a ship like this would have been to be in command of a lesser vessel, or executive officer of an explorer for an extended period of time.
 
* Encountering this vessel as an NPC would be extremely unusual; this isn’t a vessel you’d see as a ‘ship of the week’ with any sort of regularity, given that they’re designed to spend years out of contact.
 
  
[[Category:Federation starship classes]]
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[[File:HutetOrtho.png]]
[[Category:Explorers]]
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[[Category:Cardassian Starships]]

Revision as of 16:45, 20 April 2021

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This article is official Bravo Fleet canon.








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HutetClass.jpg
Hutet
Information
Affiliation

Cardassian Union

Role

Battleship

Date Entered Service

2375

Expected Refit Cycle

5 Years

Time Between Resupply

6 Months

Crew Capacity
Standard Complement

2,500

Emergency Capacity

25,000

Dimensions
Length

550 meters

Width

425 meters

Height

205 meters

Decks

45

Propulsion
Propulsion System

Matter/Antimatter powered warp drive

Cruising Speed

Warp 6

Maximum Speed

Warp 8.5

Emergency Speed

Warp 9.1 (12 hours)

Armaments
Energy Weapons
  • 2 Sextuple-Mounted Heavy Phaser Arrays (Forward)
  • 14 Heavy Phaser Emitters
Torpedo Launchers
  • 18 Heavy Torpedo Launchers (Six Forward, Six Starboard, Six Port)
Torpedo Payload
  • 2000 Photon Torpedoes
  • 500 Quantum Torpedoes
  • 160 Heavy Gravimetric Torpedoes
Shields

Regenerative Shielding

Auxiliary Craft
Shuttle Bays

1 (Amidships)

Shuttles

20

Runabouts

6 Hideki-class Patrol Ships

The Hutet-class battleship is a rare Dominion War-era Cardassian warship, which saw service only in the closing months of the war. It is a massively scaled-up version of the same technology in use aboard both the Galor-class destroyer and the Keldon-class cruiser, and is the largest starship ever built by the Cardassian Military. Slow, unwieldy, and expensive to maintain, this class of ship has two purposes: the defense of important Cardassian worlds and the devastation of important enemy worlds.

Science and Exploration

With an endurance of only six months without support, the Hutet is not suited to exploratory missions of any kind. It does have a handful of science labs, but even a Galor-class ship would be a better choice for scientific missions. This class is meant purely for war.

Diplomacy

The Hutet has luxurious accommodations for very senior officials and visiting dignitaries, but its chief diplomatic utility is its ability to devastate whatever planet it happens to be orbiting. These monstrous vessels are so resource-intensive, that the Cardassian Union would never send one on a diplomatic mission, except perhaps to secure the surrender of a troublesome word.

Engineering

The Hutet is the largest starship ever built by the Cardassian Union, and it only vaguely resembles its smaller counterparts. While it maintains the standard ankh-shaped horizontal cross-section common to all Cardassian warships, the ship's forward section is nearly as tall as the wings are wide, providing it with an imposing cross-shaped silhouette from head-on. With 45 decks and more internal volume than even a Federation Galaxy-class starship or Romulan D'Deridex-class warbird, the ship has six sets of warp coils in the wings, which still manage to only propel it at a very modest maximum speed of Warp 8.5, with an absolute emergency maximum of Warp 9.1. This low speed was deemed acceptable as the Hutet was not intended to keep up with the battle fleet, it was meant to either remain in defensive positions around Cardassian worlds or to secure planets after the main fleet had done most of the dirty work in space.

It is slow and ungainly at impulse speeds, using two primary impulse engines in the wings and two secondary ones lower on the main hull. This is usually not an issue, though, as the ship is meant to engage planets, stations, and other similarly ungainly large vessels.

The main reactor module on the stern is heavily shielded and armored but must be oversized relative to the rest of the ship to accommodate the massive heat dissipation systems necessary to keep the ship from frying itself at full power. While recent attempts have been made to increase the power and speed of this design, it has not been a high priority given the lack of widespread conflict in the quadrant. However, the Cardassian Union has quietly commissioned not only a Type-2 Hutet design since the war, but also a Type-3 and Type-4, using more modern equipment. These upgrades remain at the ready to be integrated into the existing Hutet-class ships, should war erupt.

The Hutet has a large hanger bay that runs through the center of the ship, from port to starboard. It carries 30 shuttles, as well as 6 Hideki-class patrol ships, which serve in a point-defense capacity and as air support during planetary invasions. Fully-loaded, the Hutet can support 10,000 troops.

Tactical

The sheer size of the Hutet allows her to mount some of the largest space-borne weapons ever developed by the Cardassian Union. The most distinctive feature of this class is two sextuple heavy phaser mounts on the bow, which are interconnected with the twin primary deflectors. The output of these weapons is equivalent to the most advanced weapons used by other Alpha and Beta Quadrant powers, though keeping nimble ships in its firing arcs is a chore for the clumsy battleship. All-around coverage is provided by fourteen heavy phaser emitters, which are over three times as powerful as the smaller ones found aboard lesser ships.

Despite the prominence of the main phasers, the Hutet's signature weapons are its eighteen heavy torpedo tubes. These tubes were designed to handle munitions of many different sizes, with electromagnetic launching systems that can expand to handle heavy planetary bombardment weapons or mines or contract to handle standard torpedoes. As part of its standard ordnance, the Hutet carries gravimetric torpedoes, which are designed to devastate planetary ecologies both through the power of their explosions and through the devastation caused to the planet's crust and core by manipulating gravity. These heavy torpedoes are armored to survive atmospheric penetration and are larger than standard torpedoes. Hutet captains must choose carefully when to load these weapons, though, as it can take up to thirty seconds to reconfigure the launch tubes back to handling standard torpedoes, and that's enough time for a clever enemy to take advantage of the momentary vulnerability.

Twelve of the torpedo launchers on the Hutet fire directly port and starboard. This can both be used to launch weapons on firing trajectories that allow them to circle back towards targets directly fore or aft, or to fight opponents on all sides during pitched battles. Hutet-class ships have enormous standard torpedo magazines as well, which allow them to lob weapons from behind screens of smaller ships to assault enemy capital ships, as well as to wear down even the most hardened defenses.

Hutet-clas shields are nearly impenetrable, with multiple redundant generators located all around the ship. Combined with all-around weapons coverage forward, starboard, and port, the only chance an enemy would have to damage or destroy such a battleship would be to avoid its main weapons and get behind it to have a chance at hitting the reactor--though on a Hutet-class ship, its rear shields are actually the strongest, for this very reason.

The most common assignment for Hutet-class battleships is to serve as monitors, heavily armed but slow warships used for planetary defense. They rival many starbases in their sheer firepower and their low endurance makes them suited for little else. They are never found alone, and always have a fleet of at least twelve Galor-class destroyers and six Keldon-class cruisers escorting them, because the only real danger a Hutet-class vessel would be in is if it were swarmed by many smaller ships, wearing down its defenses from all angles.

When used for invasion scenarios, the Hutet can embark 10,000 troops. It has many large-scale transporters and can take over a planet's capital within hours. Given that it is also always accompanied by other ships, it would be the centerpiece of an invasion of 50,000 or more troops, serving as the command ship for a very senior legate and multiple legions.

Shipboard Life

As with smaller ships, Hutet-class ships have accommodations segregated by rank. It has an exceptionally large crew of 2,500 to keep all of its weapons operating and to provide security. It is not a particularly comfortable assignment compared to other large vessels of other powers, because of how much of its internal volume is devoted to troop accommodations and weapons. Because they don't generally stray far from home, the trade-off for this is more frequent opportunities for shore leave.

These massive ships have palatial suites for their commanding officers, who enjoy a standard of luxury far beyond that found on other Cardassian ships, given that command of these ships is only ever given to the most senior guls. Most of the existing Hutets also serve as the flagships for entire Cardassian Orders, and so have an even grander space for their legate.

Troop accommodations are very spartan, but the Hutet does not embark ground troops during its defensive missions.

Class History

As the Dominion War raged, it was clear that Cardassian shipbuilding lagged far behind that of its neighbors, as the burden for heavy firepower support was put almost entirely on Dominion forces. The Cardassian preference for medium-sized, medium-capability ships was failing to stand up to the Klingon preference for smaller, high-firepower designs, the Romulan preference for larger, highly-advanced designs, and the Federation's relentless ingenuity. As such, the Hutet-class design was rapidly developed as the ultimate Cardassian war machine, which would be the centerpiece of any Cardassian fleet. The Cardassian Military intended to build twelve massive starships to serve as the flagships of all of the individual Orders, vessels that would be able to coordinate massive planetary invasions and serve as impregnable bulwarks over Cardassian worlds.

The design that was developed was incredibly lopsided in capabilities. Cardassians lacked experience building large ships, even with Dominion assistance, and so the engine technology left the ship with a paltry top speed. They also cost more than thirty Galor-class destroyers to build and had massive crews. Only three vessels were completed by the time of the Battle of Cardassia Prime, being too late to have any impact on the war's ultimate conclusion. In practice, there were also teething problems with her advanced weapons, especially the torpedo launchers, which had a tendency to jam while being reconfigured to handle different munition sizes.

Following the war, the three existing vessels were used to transport refugees around the Union, their primary purpose gone. The remaining 9 space frames lingered in the shipyards, with six of them broken down within several years after the war to build non-combat vessels and to comply with arms limitations. Eventually, the remaining three were completed during the early 2380s, when it was feared that the Romulan situation would spiral across the quadrant.

Presently, the six Hutet-class ships are something of an albatross: they are theoretically very capable battleships, but their utility is limited in the absence of all-out war that would threaten either Cardassian worlds or allow the Cardassians to threaten enemy worlds. Still, they are a symbol of Cardassian pride and serve as the flagships of six of the twelve orders, while watching over important Cardassian worlds. It is not expected that more will be built, unless a war were to errupt.

The Hutet has been superseded in every way other than pure firepower by the Damar-class dreadnought, which is faster, more advanced, and capable of long-duration independent missions that the Hutet could never dream of.

Hutet-class In-Play

  • This ship is a monster. It's huge. It's also slow and hard to maneuver. Once it gets you in its sights, you're toast. It excels at hitting stationary targets like planets and starbases.
  • You're not going to see one of these unless you're in the core of the Cardassian Union. There are only six of them and they're restricted to defensive duties.
  • This is unlikely to be an exciting assignment because they stay close to home. You might go a whole tour on a Hutet with the ship never having gone to warp!
  • Think of the Hutet as essentially a mobile defense platform or planetary bombardment weapon, rather than a tip-of-the-spear fast battleship.

Gallery

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