Starship history: The Omen

The Omen class light cruiser is a new addition to the Imperial Navy. It is a medium-weight vessel, measuring in at a respectable 268 metres and with a mass of 11,650 metric tons; This ship is no doorstop.
The Omen was first proposed to the Amarr High Command nearly fifteen years ago but sidelined for nearly five years. It was deemed too weak for a cruiser and judged to be "Too independent to participate effectively in cruiser squadrons."
Imperial Navy commanders were looking forward to having a new multi-role ship to fill out the existing ranks of the stiff and inflexible cruiser groups and after four years of lobbying the Omen project was given the go-ahead and the first prototype chassis and hulls were built a year later


This ship caused a revolution in Amarr Navy battle doctrine. For the first time ever, ships were allowed full communication in battle and were able to receive updated orders on which targets to fire on. They were also given freedom of movement in the battlegrid. This also spurred the creation of logistics ships which assist friendly vessels that are taking severe damage.
In times gone by, Amarrian ship commanders had a docket of orders and a set of standard regulations which must be adhered to during every engagment, whether they were engaging pirate raiders or knocking down a space station. Eight cruisers screened every battleship and fifteen frigates formed a defensive perimeter of fifteen to thirty kilometers. If capital ships like Revelation-class dreadnoughts or Archon-class carriers were involved then there would be three battleships assigned to each vessel with the cruiser screens and frigate escorts.

Any deviation was met either with destruction of the ship in question and a dishonorable mark against the commander's house and family or immediate dismissal from the military and a public shaming of the commander's house. Recently, this tactic has made the Imperial Navy predictable to the point of impotency and many high ranking navy commanders have called for a change in procedure. The Omen was the beginning of this change.



When the first prototype was launched it was immediately put on rigorous space trials. And, as most first generation prototypes do, it showed up a serious flaw in the design. The flaw was so serious that the ship actually broke up during a turn. It was later shown that the armour plating was too heavy and the chassis had sheared in several locations leaving the vessel vulnerable to a breakup. The other prototypes had three layers of heavy armour removed and a layer of lighter ablative and refractive armour was installed to reduce mass to acceptable levels.

The ship performed like a dream and within five years it had passed all of it's space trials. The weapons testing went badly for two ships. The advanced cyclic capacitor banks that build up the power to fire the guns and massive heat-sinks that stop them overheating were designed and installed especially for the Omen-class. These upgrades managed to fail in spectacular fashion on O-522 and O-498.

O-522 was towed back to dock for scrapping after a bank of capacitors blew out the entire side of the ship. There were no survivors. Most died from the initial explosions, others died from exposure to vacuum and few died from the fire that blazed through the ship's internal structure at several thousand degrees.
All that was found of O-498 was the forward command superstructure and fire-control tower.

After the microleaks causing the problems were repaired on all other Omens, the upgrades worked perfectly.

Weaponry aboard the Omen is conservative but potently compensated for by fast cycle times and long range bonuses. The Omen sports five high power slots for heavy beam or pulse laser turret armaments. Three medium slots provide basic coverage for warp scramblers or target painters. five low slots allow for armour hardening and repair systems to be installed and increase the vessel's survivability under fire or to add special modules that further increase the range of the guns to turn the Omen into a long-ranger laser sniper. A drone bay was added as well to further increase the ship's adaptability.

The Omen is a relatively cheap ship to buy new, a modest 8 to 9 million ISK for the hull. And it is a tough vessel in a fight, it will not easily fall to enemy fire. If you are looking for a good all-rounder, then look no further.