*Upgradeable
to Energy Cannons (damage 40, fire time 1.0 s).
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.
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