I've come up with the enemy counterpart to that light space cruiser: the Thunderstruck class "heavy frigate". Overall inspiration comes from the Omaha class, one of my favorite cruiser classes of all time:
So what is it? How does it relate to its irl counterpart? For one we're keeping the gun layout, though with two additional turrets underneath. Unlike before however, the two turrets are going to be railguns, 234mm or 9.2 inch, like this here:
Two barrels per turret, making 8 railgun barrels or 4 turrets. Each barrel fires at 10 RPM, making it 80 rpm with all firing at once.
As for the sponson guns, those will be light plasma beam cannons, 16 barrels total, 8 above, 8 below, putting the thunder in Thunderstruck.
Point defense will be notably better than the Omaha class. 72 VLS cells for point defense and long range AA missiles, as well as anti ship missiles. This will be combined with 8 laser turrets and 4 RAM style missile pods, half above and half below respectively.
For odd ball weapons, it has two plasma bombardment mortars, for, well, planetary bombardment. This is for when everything else is overkill and ground troops need steady yet not heavy fire support.
As for heavy ordnance, you have two forward 770mm "torpedo" tubes for heavy anti ship and anti planet. Slightly smaller than the light cruisers weapons, but this is the enemy species with different standards, east vs west and all that. Nuclear is available as well as enhanced plasma warheads specifically for space combat.
Misc things include strong shields, powerful reactors, good sensors, good countermeasures, good speed, reduced radar signature, though due to high energy use for all systems, it has a particularly high heat signature that even its various stealth measures poorly mitigate. Also armor is thin. It relies on its shields to do the heavy lifting in combat. Finally it has a small shuttle hanger in the belly.
Overall had this in my head for my book for a while after talking it over with my beta reader. I think in raw firepower it's a match for that light cruiser. Thoughts?
