Class: Frigate
Role: Anti-Capital Ship
Attack: 315
Speed: 150
Hit Points: 16,000
Cost: 700
Weaponry:
1 x Ion Cannon (gimbal-mount)

Description: Anti-Capital Frigate equipped with Ion Beams. Capital Ship killer. 

Strong vs: Frigates, Capital Ships
Weak vs: Bombers, Destroyers

Prerequisites: Frigate Facility and Advanced Research Module.

"This is a fleet of frigates; you have the Ion Beam Frigate, which everyone remembers from Homeworld, and the Assault Frigate, which is your… another workhorse of the frigate family. Working in conjunction, the frigates make very effective anti-frigate and anti-capital ship groups. An Assault Frigate has projectile weapons, yeah… and turrets that move and track incoming targets. It’s effective anti-fighter… while the Ion Frigate is more anti-capital ship. So if you put these two groups together, these two types of ships together, they’re going to have a defense against fighters, and a defense against capital ships." - Dan Irish, Executive Producer

"To keep continuity for the game, there are going to be some returning technologies and ships from Homeworld. As useful as the Ion Frigate and Assault Frigates were, it seems unlikely that they would be thrown in the scrap heap.
 - Dan Adams, IGN PC

"Nebulas include charged particles; you can use them to obscure sensors; you can hide in them.  If you’re hiding in them and they get attacked by a certain type of ship, then the ion beam frigate can actually destroy you while you’re in the nebula because of the way the charged particles work." - Dan Irish, Executive Producer

This is a ship first seen on the Relic ECTS flyer. It has since been identified as a Hiigaran Ion Cannon Frigate.

I am a bit surprised that after 100 years, the Hiigarans can still only fit one ion cannon on a whole frigate. Interesting that the Ion Platform can mount four such weapons.

Although the scale between the ion frigate and the fighters displayed in the last shot at right is rather extreme, in more recent shots the scale has returned to one more familiar to fans of the first game. The range of the ion cannon is quite impressive compared with the first game, however.