CLASS: RESOURCE
HEALTH: 16,000
Weapons:
ENERGY, Medium (4): 40 damage ea.
Special: (none)
RU Cost: 680

Mass: 89000
Firepower: 2500
Armor: 45000
Coverage: 80%
Maneuverability: low
Max. Velocity: 250 m/s
Special Action: None

Next to the Worker resource collector, the Chieftain is one of the most venerable designs in the Somtaaw fleet. As its designation implies, the Chieftain is basically a massive ore processing and refinery unit, designed to take in cargo from workers in deep space and process it. While it is almost as large as a carrier, the Chieftain is mostly composed of vast storage bays and long processing lines. Duty aboard a Chieftain is hard, dirty work, but most of Kiith Somtaaw is more comfortable with the honest work of mining than the killing and dying of war.

The first Chieftains produced were strictly industrial ships; with 4 high-speed transfer docking pads for Workers, they could strip an asteroid pocket bare in days. It was only after a series of attacks from Turanic raiders that the Chieftain was fitted with 4 medium mass driver turrets. As full war broke out, the Chieftain was yet again modified with 4 automated repair beams. Since there are no excess officers to manage these systems, the repair beams are under AI control, and automatically begin to repair any friendly unit in range.

Despite these changes, which have led to the Mark 3 version, the Chieftain is one of the few pre-war ship designs that has never brought aboard combat officers to help with managing ship systems and fleet coordination. Every Chieftain that has ever been launched and every one that has been lost in combat to this date has been crewed by nothing more or less than the ancient soul of Kiith Somtaaw: the Miners.

Given the mining mandate adopted by the Somtaaw, the old resource controller design was put aside and a new ship developed. The result is the Processor, a large ship that can carry at least as many RUs as the old controller, and can accommodate up to four workers at a time with its payload bays.