Subscribe to download
Astraeus-class Battleship

The Astraeus-class battleship is a heavy capital ship classification in the UNSC Navy. It is best suited to frontline combat duty and bombardment.

History (not current)
The Astraeus-class Battleship, like the Halcyon, is an ambitious pre-war design that was abandoned because of the UNSC's funding issues. Only two were built, Field of Hope and Contingency, and were left unfinished in drydock. The Covenant glassed and destroyed the shipyard, but the ships remained intact. This testament to their strength led to them being repaired, completed, and put into combat. A first for the UNSC, the Astraeus fields capital-scale MAC's on enormous turrets. Almost as astonishing as the armament is how the ship's reactors cope with the power requirements or how she can even move with all the weight. The result is a warship with awe-inspiring firepower at long range and unparalleled durability, but with an enormous price tag.

The UNSC Contingency is a Gladiator-pattern Frontline Battleship. She has a nose-mounted SMAC and fields 4 turrets each with a Standard MAC to effectively engage multiple enemy capital ships at medium range.

The UNSC Field of Hope is a Ballista-pattern Artillery Battleship. She has three nose-mounted Prototype MACs and fields 4 turrets each with a Prototype MAC allowing powerful, precision strikes at long range at the cost of more rapid fire.

Armament
SMAC/Protoype MACs - Capital MAC turrets - Archer Missiles - Point Defense Guns - Shiva Nuclear Missiles

Equipment
2 Ventral escort hangar bays - 1 Longsword/Fighter hangar bay - Assemblers - Jump Drive

Tactics
While working best with a fleet, the Astraeus can go toe-to-toe with almost any ship by focusing her immense firepower or distributing it evenly to tackle numerous targets. However, her enormous cost and slow speed mean that she is best kept protected just behind the main line to support the rest of the fleet.

PS: This ship is a non-canon creation of a Halo Fanon member named Velo. I could not resist the look of the build.