XM202 Gosillix Class Artillery Cruiser

Xygritt Matriarchy

      The Gosillix Artillery Cruiser was as its name suggests, created for long-range fire support.      The Gosillix pioneered the unusual split dorsal thermal vane, later used on the Makoria Force Dreadnought and more recent Aarpot Carrier. This departure from convention was required due to the Gosillix’s massive rail cannon. The original design specification called for a weapon capable of delivering a single huge slug, for penetrating planetary shields or attacking enemy capital ships. This proved to be impossible with current design technology. While the weapon theoretically possible to build, it would have required a vessel much larger than the Gosillix to mount, and would also have had limited utility. And the low mobility require from a larger hull would have reduced that further.
      In scaling back the weapon so that it could be fitted onto the Gosillix’s hull, a compromise was reached. By dropping the calibre and the penetrating power considerably, the engineers were able to drastically increase the cannon’s rate of fire. So instead of firing a single slug, the Gosillix’s rail cannon fires a short burst of four. While the penetration is reduced, this is gives the Gosillix considerably more tactical flexibility. Rather than a specialist siege weapon, the Gosillix could function as a ship-of-the-line.
      The weapon was still too large to be mounted with the dorsal thermal vane; it would have blocked the heatsinks. Placing it above would have required a complete hull-redesign and a much taller and more vulnerable bridge – and to either side would have added damaging torque to the recoil stresses. So instead, two dorsal vanes were added at an angle. While this required some compromises – the combined area is larger than a single vane would have been – it solved the problem.
      This required moving two of the Gosillix’s four missile pods to their current horizontally asymmetric positions, as the lower pods would otherwise have been block by the vanes.
      The Gosillix is unremarkable in shields, armour and agility for a ship of its size. It has an impressive rating 360 point-defence system, however, as the expectation would be that it would take most fire from long-range weapons like missiles.
      Unlike most cruisers, the Gosillix has only one primary fire-control array, meaning that the missiles have to be slaved to the main gun if they are to fire together.