Reckoning-class Attack Prowler

Vali-class Strike Prowler

"Chieftain Barakus taught us some hard lessons in stealth warfare. The Vali-class represent those lessons learned."

- Commodore Damien Rutter

The is a heavy prowler, designed for counter-stealth warfare. It is armed in a much more aggressive set up than any other Prowler-class, and is focused around targeting and annihilating other stealth vessels. Possessing all of the stealth features of the Athena-class Heavy Prowler, with heavier armaments, and advanced counter-electronic warfare systems.

Armament
Its main threat is four 350mm gauss cannons built into the warship. While these are normally heavy guns on other ships, on this they represent it's main armament. These are mounted along the ships body, allowing it to bring these to bear on targets to it's front. They're can release a barrage of devastating slugs that will disable or destroy the types of stealth ship it was built to counter.

For ship to ship combat, it has 17 XEV11-Fibreak Nonlinear Pulse Cannons. Rare and powerful weapons, unseen outside of prowlers, the Fibreak Pulse Cannon is precise and deadly, being capable of rapidly adjusting it's power output, allowing it to disable a station with a electromagnetic pulse, or punch holes through a frigate. The beams burn hot, allowing them to rapidly fire in a hail of white-hot energy, but as they fire, the magnetic sheaths begin to deform and accuracy drops.

It packs 14 Archer launcher, designed for short to mid-range stand offs. Each Archer is accurate, powerful, and resistant to countermeasures. These missiles can be launched en-masse, thoguh at the cost of stealth, allowing the Vali to rapidly swarm the enemy with deadly missiles. These can be further augmented by exterior missiles pods, bolted onto the outer hull.

As part of it's strike role, it carries 6 missiles. These are carried in shielded silos mounted along the upper deck of the ship. These silos can carry either the RSM-103 Wayfarer, or the RSM-107 Vagrant. The Wayfarer is a long range missile, utilising advanced sensors, stealth features, and decoy protection. The missile can autonomously guide itself, or utilise telemetry provided by the ship or forward observers. The Wayfarer's greatest advantage is it's variable payload. It can be fitted with a variety of different nuclear warheads. The most common is the W700 Avenger, a dialable warhead capable of yields between 20 and 90 Megatons. The Avenger is specially engineered for detonation in deep space. It can also be fitted with the electromagnetic pulse warhead, W705 Vengeance, or the insidious W11 Revenge warheads, which causes little damage, but uses a Neutron warhead to kill personnel exclusively. Lastly, it can carry a W709 Retribution, a warhead engineered to target ground positions in a devastating nuclear attack. The Vagrant is functionally identical to the Wayfarer, but changes it's long range motor for a slipspace drive. While cost prohibitive, it can attack from outside of a star system.

As a means of subterfuge, it packs two mine dispensers. These allow it to deposit M612 Tactical Mines. These mines are both sensor invisible, and highly aggressive, using short burn motors and passive sensors. Once it picks out a target, it accelerates towards them, then detonates the nuclear charge held within. Most are fitted with the W700 Avenger, but some variants are fitted with the M705 Vengeance EMP warhead that lets it disable ships. Using it's stealth features, the Athena can deploy these mines in secrecy.

Sensors and Electronics
The ship features a wide range of electronic warfare gear including short range slipspace scrambler, radio scramblers, active cancellation pods, counter guidance systems and warfare direction systems. It also features a deep scan, high power Synthetic Array RADAR that is mounted in a linear fashion along the keel of the ship that is used for observing ground positions The ship is shaped much like a arrow head with two egg shaped engine pods. The hull is on one part, smooth plating and on the other angular shrouds, reducing its chances of detection. It is possible for the ship to go into 'silent running' where it simple lies still, drifts or goes into a stable orbit, with all systems focused on stealth and keep the engines, slipspace drive and defence weapons on standby, with little else being powered, par life support. While 'silent running' it can quietly observe the enemy or lie in wait for days on end.

The augment it's sensor array it has a Magnetic Array. This array detects magnetic anomalies caused by ships, through long-range electric and electromagnetic field detection arrays of great sensitivity and uses this to home in on them. The Magnetic Array is incredibly accurate and has a long range of 400,000 kilometres and is highly resistant to jamming methods, detection and interference. On top of that, stealth systems, such as RADAR resistance and optical camouflage, don't effect its capabilities.

In it's electronic warfare role, it carries not only the standard electronic warfare systems of UNSC warships, but it also mounts PAVE RAPTOR and PAVE PALADIN electronic warfare systems. The PAVE RAPTOR is capable of intercepting RADAR and intercepting MASER transmissions, deciphering them, and then tracking the source and jamming it through low-detectable narrow band jamming or wide area jamming, at the cost of stealth. It has the added functionality of being able to feed false information to any of the above sensor or communication systems, further confusing enemy forces or preform active cancellation, sending out directed, well timed signals on the correct wavelength to 'cancel' enemy RADAR, Radio or MASER signatures, resulting in a 'silence'. The second pod is a Electronic Protection system, the PAVE PALADIN that interferes with enemy attempts to intercept and jam communication and detection systems by producing narrow beam 'burn outs' that confuse and jam enemy attempts to jam them. Along with that, it uses a CPU driven decryption system that protects against attempts to intercept communication systems or boost cyber warfare attacks by the ship-board A.I..

For the role of hunting down enemy ships, it features a number of sensor systems especially tuned to tracking cloaked threats. The ship had a radial elecromagnetic sensor array, allowing it to accurately determine the location of a ship at range by its electromagnetic output, commonly caused by reactors, or stealth systems. However, these will only do half the job. To ensure an accurate lock, the EM array realigns itself to generate a weak, but directed EM pulse. This is not enough to cause any real damage, but that EM pulse will disrupt shielding and stealth features, revealing their target.

Stealth Systems
The vessel is virtually invisible to both the naked eye and the scanning systems of nearly every every faction. It is coated in ablative stealth systems and stealth paint, rendering it RADAR absorbent and near invisible to RADAR, reducing its cross section to something closer to flotsam or jetsam found in space. Matte black paint and active camouflage systems render it invisible to the naked eye also, meaning even when ships are normally visible against suns or planets, it remains invisible. Thanks to heat and radiation sinks as well it is incapable of giving off cherenkov radiation or heat signatures, meaning it cannot be detected leaving slipspace. These however are a double edged sword and depending on how active the ship is these sinks must be dumped, giving off massive heat and radiation signatures or the crew will be cooked or irradiated or both, while still alive. The ship can operate for a few days under full silence without having to dump its sinks or a few hours under full motion. The Slipspace engine dumps into a separate radiation and heat sink, meaning it can be charged or left charged without fear of it killing the crew and left charged during a operation for a speedy exit.

Role
The Vali-class was developed as a direct countermeasure to enemy ships that utilised stealth technology. Functioning as a Hunter-Killer, and a defensive ship, it is at home prowling planetary gateways as it is hunting down enemy ships during a fleet battle. The Vali-class is designed with offence in mind, with increased weaponry and sensors, for hunting down and eliminating enemy ships. It's development was spurred on by the increases in stealth-ship attack by the Remnant Chieftain Barakus, during the Remnant war. Its development was further spurred by the New Colonial Alliance's use of the stealth ship, Vengeance, during the New Corinth Uprisings. It's existence, and function, would remain a highly protected secret, something that aided the UNSC during the wars against the Demiurge, where this vessel would prove to be a threat against Demiurge stealth vessels, quickly and lethally executing them before they could cause much damage.