Publisher: Sine Nomine Publishing
Introduction
In this review, we will explore the Mandate Archive: Bruxelles-class Battlecruiser, a supplement for the Stars Without Number role-playing game. This free archive provides players with detailed information about the Bruxelles-class battlecruiser, including its history, function, standard crew complements, and statistics. Additionally, the archive includes a half-dozen plot seeds and several examples of pretech ship weaponry.
Overview
The Bruxelles-class battlecruiser was one of the mainstays of the ancient Terran Mandate, a regular sentinel along the ragged borders of the core and the deep colonial wilderness of the frontier. Its fearsome guns brought peace to squabbling worlds and rebuked raiders and alien interlopers with radioactive fire. When the Scream washed over the human empire, countless Bruxelles-class ships were left lost and isolated on the fringes of human space. Many died in vain attempts to get back to Old Terra, but a few such corpses still linger in the dark between worlds, waiting for some reckless soul to drag them back to a bright and terrible life.
HISTORY
The Bruxelles-class battlecruiser was a common sight on the borders of the Terran Mandate’s core worlds in the decades before the Scream. Unlike most fleet cruisers, which struck a balance between armor, range, and weaponry, the Bruxelles class was designed for extended cruises along the periphery of Mandate space and occasional strikes outward into some unruly sector of the frontier. To achieve this, much of the advanced armor and ECM systems that protected other ships of the line were sacrificed for greater speed, endurance, and weight of fire.
FUNCTION
The external hull of the Bruxelles class occasionally varied from shipyard to shipyard, particularly as the design aged and the Terran Mandate began to fit military components into salvaged and retrofitted civilian hulls. Without the omen shields and bleedplate standard to more balanced Mandate warships, the Bruxelles class could afford to use the softer-skinned shells of civilian craft, and budgetary constraints increasingly pressed on the later run of battlecruisers.
CREW COMPLEMENTS
The Bruxelles-class battlecruiser could be flown with as few as 50 spacers, though only a desperate captain would take her into battle with such a minimal crew. Under ordinary conditions, 300 spacers filled out its complement.
For further details on the organization, crew, and daily operation of a warship and its departments, you may consult the Skyward Steel supplement for naval campaigns.
SHIP WEAPONRY
The Mandate Archive: Bruxelles-class Battlecruiser supplement for Stars Without Number role-playing game provides several examples of pretech ship weaponry that can be used in conjunction with a Bruxelles-class battlecruiser. Here are some of them:
- “Antaeus” Siege Missiles: Each siege missile is equipped with a sophisticated array of grav-shear technology designed to shake off the grip of conventional braker gun defenses. Standard ECM from any orbital station or spaceship is sufficient to put the missile safely off course, but against planetary targets, a few kilometers of wobble means nothing. The siege missile is an air burst weapon that tears a brief metadimensional hole over the target zone, subjecting it to a lethal barrage of heat, impact, and radiation. Every civilian structure within fifty kilometers of the impact point will be flattened and any hardened military bases within ten kilometers will share their fate. Only deeply-buried bunkers hardened against orbital bombardment will survive.
- Implosion Field Projector: One of the more common pretech cruiser-class weapons, the implosion field generator briefly inverts certain cosmological constants at the focal point of its triple alignment beams. Any frigate-class or smaller ship struck by an IFP must have the pilot save versus Tech or be instantly destroyed.
- “Ramrod” Warp-line Gun: A relative of the implosion field projector, the Ramrod system sacrifices the precision and agility of an implosion field to create a much larger conversion zone. Ramrod systems function only against orbital stations or immobile asteroids, as their range is insufficient to harm planetary surfaces, and any ship with a Speed rating can get clear of the inversion zone before it breaks open.
Stars Without Number – Mandate Archive: Bruxelles-class Battlecruiser on DrivethruRpg
