Editing Star Fleet Battles (section)

==='''Hydran Kingdoms'''===

The Hydrans are a strange little people who resemble mini-Cthulhu's who breathe methane with 3 tentacles for arms with a trinary social structure. Mirroring their physical structure they have 3 sexes (don't ask) and 3 life stages. As to an empire they are squashed between the Klingons, Lyrans and the Kzinti and border the Federation and have fought wars with all 4 to stay independent but are part of the Federation Alliance for the general war. Their ships are split between the  knife fighting Fusion Beam, fighter carriers and the sniper style Hellbore Cannon ships.  Meaning if you want to master Hydran's you've got to master two opposing fighting styles. But played properly each style of ship, while super specialized, are powerful in their niche. 

All Hydran units from Battleships to the lowly admin shuttle is armed with the dangerous Gatling Phaser (PH-G) which fires multiple times in a single impulse (if you want) so drones are much less dangerous and it turns a shuttle in to a ship mangler and when paired with fusion beams of a Stinger class fighter it turns a shuttle into a ship killer.

Hydran ships are built around very specific tactics but in that niche they do tend to dominate. No ship can put out the raw damage a fusion ship can and the Hellbore is one of the supreme snipers in SFB. While a Hydran heavy carrier can strike fear into the heart of the doughiest warrior. 

The fusion ships are armed with the Fusion Beam weapon. A weapon that does massive damage at short range (it will out damage any other weapon when overloaded) but is useless past range 5. Fusion ships are very simple to play, they win, hands down, if they get to range 1 or zero with their fusion beams intact. The ships have heavy forward protection to assist with this and are very speedy after they fusions are charged. These ships will also carry Stinger class fighters who are also armed with the very same fusion beams as the ships so a Stinger squadron coming at you is quite scary. So the typical fusion tactic is to protect your forward shield while closing with the enemy. Your fighters can either serve as a back up killing blow to be shat out just before you strike or out in front as a "shoot at me and the ship kills you or shoot at the ship and we kill you" deal.  Fusion ships are simple to play with a very specific play-style that the ships are literally built around.  Fun times if you like straight forward punch you in the face style.

The other style of ship is Hellbore Cannon armed.

The Hellbore is an odd weapon; it's a great sniper weapon that damages all the targets sheilds while having a deadly secondary effect, it does extra damage to a weak or down shield facing so once you have a down shield those hellbores will really start to hurt as all the maneuvering in the world won't mean dick as the hellbore will still pour in the internals.  However the hellbore lacks killing power so you can easily chase off your opponent but getting in a killing blow can be challenging. A typical fighting tactic is a turn 1 oblique pass with phasers to damage the #1 shield then keep range open and sandpaper away until your opponent flees due to you stripping away his weapons, engines and sensors. Hellbore ships tend to be vulnerable to damage as the cost of a hellbore per BPV point is fairly high so you'll have less heavy weapon then your opponent and the loss of a single hellbore launcher can be fatal.

Hellbores also have a unique interaction with ESG fields (they auto-hit at any range and the range is calculate to the edge of the ESG field not the ship) so if your opponent is a Lyran and puts up his ESG at anything other then zero width...punish him for it as any extra damage you inflict on the ESG field goes straight to his #1 shield. One of the few times an overloaded Hellbore can be useful. On the down side an Lyran can use that ESG as an extra shield vs you so plan accordingly, otherwise you'll end up trading Disrupter salvo's with ESG damage only and come out on the losing end as he can re-energize that ESG easily but you cannot refill those holes he put in you.

Over all the Hydran ships are powerful in their niche but suffer due to their specialization against non-historical opponents.