Sky Ships

Sky ships are sailing or screw-powered vessels that can modulate altitude through the usage of Lift Crystals . Unlike Sky Sweeps, sky ships use Lift Crystals entirely to actuate downward thrust and auxiliary methods to provide horizontal movement, allowing far larger vessels to be built. Sky ships are rare creations, primarily due to the scarcity of high quality Lift Crystals, with most nations having no more than a few examples used for exceptionally important tasks. Small, privately owned sky ships are more common, however, often being used as courier and trade ships over particularly dangerous regions, or hired as mercenaries.

Propulsion

Sky ships use Lift Crystals to modulate the ship's altitude through temperature, and standard wind-driven sails or screw propellers to move horizontally. The sheer size and quality of Lift Crystals required to lift these massive ships comprises a great deal of the total cost of each ship, and sky ships are often reticent to engage in combat lest these crystals be damaged or destroyed.

Weapons & Armament

Due to their rarity, sky ships are very difficult to effectively attack, leading to varying levels of armaments. Merchant ships carry very little armament, typically keeping a number of small ballistas and swivel crossbows on their top deck to repel sweepers and a small contingent of soldiers to protect the ship when grounded. Military ships are typically armed to the teeth to both combat opposing sky ships and to provide fire support to ground forces.

Armor and defense

Due to the heavy construction required to keep sky ships together through pressure and temperature changes, they are typically armored as part of their integral chassis. Most skyships use thick, elastic wood to grant protection against ballistas and blunt harder landings. Warships are usually lined with stone armoring in vital positions, but the latest warships use a combination of iron and copper lining interspaced between wood to save on weight.

Hangars & docked vessels

Sky ships usually carry a small contingent of small Sky Sweeps as secondary vessels to be used for boarding men and cargo. However, it is exceedingly rare for a military sky ship to travel alone, and they are more often the central element of a fleet of large Sky Sweeps. National flagships often carry gate mages to quickly transport important personnel, though the cost of effective gate mages make this infeasible for most sky ships.

Nickname

Floaters, Crystal Ships

Price

Unique

Rarity

Extraordinarily Rare

Width

60-100m

Length

250-400m

Height

60-100m

Weight

500-6,500 tons

Speed

10-30 knots

Complement / Crew

800-2,500 men