Lurker Class History In the waning years of 2258 the Centauri were very impressed by the success the Dargan was having a long range Recon and Strike vessel. The problem of course was the expense of the vessel. The solution, a smaller vessel which could do several of the Dargans roles at less cost. Work was started for designing a HCV version of the Dargan. Since the Lurker would not be usually involved in fleet actions it was deemed unnecessary to make the vessel elint but the CSS was needed for its missions. The Lurker was being designed as a commerce raider primarily, therefore it was considered proper to give it the capability to either carry Rutarian fighters or assault shuttles or a combination of both depending on the mission. If the raid was to just destroy shipping the rutarians were used if they wanted to capture the assault shuttles were loaded. To help with the illusion
of being a freighter the Lurker was equipped with 2 particle cannons.
On several missions the lurker would be accompanied by a Demos or
Vorchan which would be "chasing" the Lurker while it was
disguised as a freighter, firing ( and of course missing) with its
particle cannons till it approached a convoy hoping for the cover
of numbers. When the escort would come out to meet the Vorchan both
vessels would destroy him then feast upon the convoy. (Note: This ship was either suggested on the B5W online forums, or in the old Variants-4 egroup. I don't know who designed it, but I thought it was pretty clever and decided to do an SCS.) |