Serpent Riders

 by Ethan Marcus

Physically impressive, the Serpent Riders have taken "gunboat diplomacy" a step further by not only making their ships fearsome, but also by making them look fearsome.  It is their philosophy that a ship that inspires terror is more effective than one which is quietly strong.  Thus, Serpent Rider ships come in all manner of terrifying shapes, from lizards to dragons, snakes to wyverns. Serpent Rider ships are all modular as well, allowing a conversion from a light cruiser to a heavy cruiser to take place quickly and easily.  The standardization of parts has also made it possible for a race with such a small production base to maintain a sizeable fleet.

(SR1.0)  The primary armament of the Serpent Riders are battery cannon and depth charges.

(SR2.0)  Serpent Rider ships have the ability to "side slip".  In addition to turning conventionally, Serpent Rider ships may move forward to the left or to the right without changing facing.

(SR3.0)  The Serpent Rider torpedo takes no energy to fire, but requires three turns to prepare for launch.  It is not seeking, and fires only straight ahead.

(SR3.1) It's base damage is 40 points.  For every 5 hexes it travels, it sextuples in size (occupies the surrounding hexes).  Each time it does this, the damage it does is cut in half.  This continues indefinitely (note a ship might run away from this huge energy torpedo without realizing that at that size it only does one point of damage!).  If it hits a ship with any part of itself, it does the base damage * 1/2^s/5 where s is the distance travelled rounded down to the nearest 5 hex multiple.  Torpedoes may not be fired at.

(SR4.0) Depth Charges move at a speed of 16.  They may not be fired at.  They travel a pre-set distance (determined before firing) and explode.  They may only be fired in one of the six hex directions.  They do a base of 30 points of damage - 10 for each hex a target ship is away from the explosion.  Thus, they do a three hex wide swathe of damage.  One may be fired every turn.

The Ships:

The Lizard: A Scout

The Salamander: A Destroyer

The Diamond-Back: A Heavy Cruiser

The Sidewinder: A Command Cruiser

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