Editing Star Fleet Battles (section)

=== '''The Lyran Star Empire''' ===

Think Kzinti but Lion. Like Romulans are related to Vulcans Lyrans are related to Kzinti (or vise versa) but never bring that topic up in the presence of either.  Federation diplomats are ordered to never stand between a Kzinti and Lyran as violence is a certainty as the races hate each other and have been at war for centuries.  Lyrans are a member of the Klingon-Romulan alliance.

Lyran ships use the Expanding Sphere Generator as a main weapon with Disrupters and Phaser-1's to complement it. Lyran ships are powerful individual combatants with great forward arc shielding and firepower but due to the ESG and it's somewhat indiscriminate nature they are much weaker in fleet type situations so they tend to suffer on the larger scale.

The ESG is a powerful tool for offence or defence and useful in pretty much any situation a Lyran captain will find himself in.  Good shielding, strong Phaser-1 suite and a great power curve make for some pretty capable ships overall.

However the ESG is also your biggest weakness. As it's 100% indiscriminate in it's damage. If your ESG field comes into contact with something it will hit it (no roll needed). Friend or foe. Which is awesome sauce for hunting down cloaked ships or dealing with pesky Kzinti drone waves or those dangerous Hydran fighters but it will also hit your teammates, your own shuttles, mines, T-bombs or even near-by asteroids. Making using it in certain situations quite dicey and you know your opponent will make those situations happen. It also has a unique interaction with the Hellbore launcher (the Hellbore auto-hits because the ESG field is so damn big). This can be awesome when you want to use your ESG as an extra shield against a Hellbore armed ship and not so awesome when a Hellbore crushes the ESG field an impulse before you planned to smash into something.

An offshoot of the Lyran Empire is the Lyran Democratic Republic, a part of the empire that broke off for a few years and somehow aligned themselves with the Hydrans who where kind enough to give them Gatling Phaser technology. Now that ESG overun is doubly scary. Sadly the LDR only lasted a limited time before getting munched by the Andro's in Y195.

Over all Lyran ships are good, solid duelists but suffer in fleets. Also the ESG interactions complicate your plans making for FUN times. BPV costs are in line with comparable sized ships.