Hydra - Colonial Gunboat

Template:Ship Infobox 2 The Colonial Republic is one of the most prominent ship-building factions in Sirius. Hydra is their current active duty gunboat. This is a powerful gunboat with sole purpose to protect Colonial convoys in dangerous systems around Border Worlds. With the evacuation of Tau-44, the role of this ship becomes even more important.

Handling

• This ship is too large to use docking bays, it must use mooring points.

Review without version number

Review Viewed from the front, side or rear, this gunboat looks very thin. This trait offers significant advantage to it as a capital ship, making it almost impossible to hit from those angles if the pilot manages to increase distance from hostiles above 1k. Viewed from the top or bottom, its a fairly easy target as it has a very wide egg-like shape. The 6 turrets are placed as followed: 3 on the "top" and 3 on the "bottom". Each turret has a 360 degree angle of fire (except the front bottom turret, which fires in a 180 degree arc facing forward), but those placed on the "top" cant shoot down (and the other way around). This makes the "top & bottom" a heavy pair of weak spots as each offers only 50% of fire coverage and exposes the ship as an easy target. Nonetheless, pilots all over Sirius who have mastered covering their weaknesses have found this ship invaluable as it its well capable of staying on max shooting range of a cruiser and slowly grinding it down while receiving no damage in return. This ship can be classified as a light-gunboat, since its power-core and hull offer less combat potential than its significant maneuverability. Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Review by Balthazzar

Review without version number

Review The Hydra follows the Nyx and Pytho in offering a very small profile from the front and side to get hit on. As a gunship, the Hydra performs excellent when used as a forward-firing fighter-like craft. The Hydra can direct all 6 turrets forward, to unleash a withering barrage on any incoming craft. When using 6 standard IMG gunboat turrets, you can fire them indefinately as their discharge does not exceed the ship's power plant - as such, it's better to use heavier damage guns, like the Cerberus gunboat cannons, or Zoner turrets. Adding a missile launcher into the mix works too. Alternatively, the slim profile of this ship lends it to the pulse/razor style gunboat. Two or three pulse turrets combined with three razors will obliterate any fighter craft in a single shot if you are able to hit them. However, such a barrage will completely drain the ship's energy, forcing you to wait about 10 seconds for your next shot. The ship has a slightly below average hull strength, so getting into a slugging match with another gunboat is not recommended. If you do end up in one, strafe vertically rather then side to side, to make optimal use of your ship's very low height. Error creating thumbnail: Unable to save thumbnail to destination Review by AeternusDoleo

Hardpoints

• 6 Gunboat Turrets

Purchase Includes

Spoiler:
1 Deep Scanner ($14,750) 1 Gunboat Positron Shield ($3,000,000)

Availability

Spoiler: Buying Locations
Base Owner System Location Sabah Shipyard Colonial Remnant Coronado Border Worlds

Origin

Modeled by Doom