Over at Citizens of the Imperium veteran poster Wbyrd has been churning out concept designs for fighters. They are really cool and I knocked out a deckplan for his Zhodani Olinaed “Trilobite” fighter.  Here is a link to the original discussion over at COTI.

To quote wbyrd

An older widely seen fighter deployed as a screening, scouting force for Zhodanii warships the Type 95 (“trilobite) is a fairly cheap, largely expendable fighter which is used in large numbers to harass enemy shipping, and screen larger ships against light attack craft and gunships.

Reasonably agile and fast the fighter can close into attack rage quickly and escape the heavier weapons of larger vessels before the formation is destroyed by heavy return fire. Few fighters can match its acceleration, and in expert hand the Type 95 can easily outrun missiles launched at them by other fighters and starships.

With few defensive system, light armour, and no pilot survival equipment installed the Type 95 is mockingly called a Prole Bomb, by Imperium fighter pilots. In practice the Type 95 is as effective as it’s Imperium counterparts, with numbers making up for the slightly better armour, and pilot survival hardware of Imperium fighters. Zhodanii admirals do not seem to concern themselves with the loss of mostly lower class Prole pilots assigned to these poorly defended craft.

Often older craft, or “Surplus” lots are sold at discounts to independent groups hostile to the Imperium. In the hands of Private “merchants” ,Pirates, and Vargr Raiders the Type 95 is as common in the hands of Rogue and criminal elements along the Zhodanii frontiers as it is in the hands of the Zhodanii fleet.

One distinctive feature of the Design is the hybrid Gravitic Plasma drives used by the designers. This is not a major advantage to the fighters since it has similar performance to a pure gravitic drive, and offer little advantage over their pure gravitic counterparts. They however do tend to leave a noticeable trail of ionised gas behind the fighter as it manoeuvres, giving opponents an easy visual cue to identify Zhodanii fighters among a mixed group of small craft.

Full Deck Plans