Only have three ships. All others are stolen, primarily using the Ketanna Runner. The Hyperfortress is the only ship that can be captured. They are ascendant-having no shape. Best assassins in the universe, so they need a transport that can slip them past a planet's defenses.
Remember that the Aruri are ascendant. They have no natural shape and can overlap objects that would be called 'physical.' As a result, the Aruri can use the smallest ships in the game. Smaller ships are harder to detect and hit than the massive fortresses that some other races use. It should be noted that stealth is an Aruri specialty.
The Aruri must steal most of their designs, but they are not pirates. Given the choice, they would use their own three designs for the whole duration of the game. Do not look to the Aruri to create new ship designs. It might be nice to have ship designs that emerge after the game has gone a number of rounds, yet the Aruri do not put their faith in technology. Aruri technology is purely spiritual. Aruri hacker drones are more likely to steal organic craft, including ships formed from crystals, than purely synthetic varieties. They should have an advantage hacking organic designs offset by an equal penalty in time taken to hack purely synthetic ships.
Having not developed the standard warp technology, as used by all other races in the game, the Aruri fleet designers will have mastered every other form of space travel. Aruri ships do have warp drive, but it should be weak as it was developed late and not used much past the Nova Wars. Firmament is shielded so strongly that no other race could approach it. Every ship in the Aruri fleet will require a hyperjump system just to get home.
It will not be easy to have a race with only three native ships. There will be only three tech levels that have ships in them. I will have to balance out the resources so that the Aruri can survive at the lower tech levels while building up to the highest level tech. I'm thinking about ships at tech levels 1,5 and 10. It would be possible to have models of the lower tech ships at 3 and 7 as well, if there is a reason for that. They would still have only three ships.
Since the Aruri are not a physical race, they will not need life-support or space within the ships. Since the Vernxos Hyperfortress is a holdover from earlier generations, it will be the only ship with space for physical entities on it. These ships should be very difficult to destroy, but they have to be destroyed rather than captured. The lowest tech ship should have a cloak.
Ketanna Runner. - Solid rock Small and agile, no cargo space. Given a choice, this ship would have space for 3 clans. As I understand clans, that would be two full strike groups. The problem is that these clans, which would consume no physical space in the ship, should be the only cargo that the ship can carry. This ship also has hardware to steal ship plans.
Cometar Transport - Only cargo shuttle. Can carry 3 fighters. If I had a choice, this craft would contain no engines, just a jump point generator and the maximum number of aux-generators.
Vernxos Hyperfortress.- Leftover from the Nova Wars. Only ship that can be captured. The Aruri would have only depopulation weapons which were used in the Nova Wars. These are weapons that render a planet uninhabitable, however, they do not destroy the planets. Maybe it can make Candella fighters in space. Mobile Fighter (2) factory
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