Romulan Capital Ships are the pride of the Romulan Fleet, and are maintained by their crews as though they worked in heaven itself. A position on a Capital Ship is hard to come by in the Star Navy, as the qualifications required to crew such a vessel are five years in the Star Navy and an exemplary record. All Romulan Capital Ships have some basic defensive systems that allow their continual function even when main power and half of their subsystems are offline. These include emergency force fields and, when the field emitters have been knocked out by further bombardment, physical bulkhead doors.
D'Deridex Class Battlecruiser
The most numerous capital ship in the Romulan Fleet, and although the D'Deridex-class Battlecruiser design is more than a century old, the battlecruiser design and fleet are constantly being updated and refitted to compensate for weaknesses exposed combat with other vessels. At approximately 1070 meters in length, it is also one of the larger vessels in the Star Navy. On average, D'Deridex-class vessels have crews of 1450, security details of 250, and the capability to transport and support a half-Legion invasion force (9216 Troopers) and their support contingent (2784 personnel). The D'Deridex class shuttlebay is large and quite versatile, and the strike craft contingent carried by the vessel depends largely on the particular vessel's present mission.
Though designed originally around a transwarp drive system, (approximately equivalent to a Class 1.8 Hyperdrive) some D'Deridex cruisers have been modified to include a Class .6 Hyperdrive capable of use within hyperspace lanes that still exist within the Romulan Empire and along the few hyperspace lanes that are known leading from Romulan Space to the Wintreath Remnant and the Galactic Core.
D'Deridex class vessels also are armed with various (anywhere from 17-25) disruptor arrays (generally employed as anti-fighter weapons), 5 heavy disruptor arrays (two forward, two wing, one rear), 9 torpedo tubes, a quantum ballista, a shield inversion beam emitter, and a tractor beam emitter.
All D'Deridex Battlecruisers employ cloaking devices, in accordance with the age-old Romulan Military Maxim, "If Knowledge is Power, then to be Unknown is to be Unconquerable."
The most recent iteration of the D'Deridex Battlecruiser, the D'Deridex-XII, also carries upgraded ablative shielding and increased reactor efficiency, though the thousands of vessels in Flight I are still generally incomplete (1533 operational of 9770 in Flight I)
Arx Class Assault Carrier
The most numerous landing carrier in the Romulan Fleet, the Arx class is exceedingly good at what it is designed to do—ensure the rapid deployment of Romulan Naval Invantry Legions while simultaneously minimising casualty rates. To accomplish this goal, they are armed with various anti-artillery, anti-vehicle, and anti-fighter weapons that are not carried on most other Romulan ships, in particular, they carry 12 heavy missile batteries and mid-size railguns in addition to the far more ubiquitous point defence plasma disruptor arrays and quantum torpedoes found in use with most of the rest of the fleet to satisfy these goals. TBC
Valdore Class Patrol Cruiser
The Valdore class patrol cruisers were developed in response to frequent territorial violations recently by minor civilisations at the boarders of the empire, and are extremely effective in their role. A bit smaller and much more nimble than its cousin the D'Deridex, Valdore class vessels are approximately 650 meters long and carry a crew complement of 950 and a security contingent of 350 to board vessels illegally entering the empire. Valdores are equipped with a class .6 hyperdrive, backup transwarp systems and a cloaking device.
Tavara Class Battlecruiser
After the introduction of the Valdore, the High Command of the Romulan Star Navy quickly realised the effectiveness of the nimble cruiser in combined fleet operations, and they requisitioned a much more heavily armed cousin that retained much of the Valdore's manoeuvrability. Three years later, the Tavara-class Battlecruiser was born. With the armament of a D'Deridex and nearly the speed of a Valdore, the Tavara is in many respects the most advanced vessel in the empire. The Tavara class is approximately 725 meters in length, is crewed by 850, and carries contingents of Tal Shiar SpecOps Soldiers (50) and Naval Infantry (2 Brigades of 256).
Tavara-II Battlecruiser Modifications and Upgrades: Shield and armour upgrades, moderate engine efficiency corrections, increased modernisation allowing for a crew reduction to 550, allowing for increased space for a third Naval Infantry Brigade and an expanded shuttle bay.
Scimitar Class Battleship
The Scimitar Class is the heavy hitter of the Romulan Fleet, and packs the deadliest armament ever installed on a Romulan Warship, a Thalaron generator. In addition to this nasty device, the 1.2 km long, 1.5 km wide battleship crewed by 2344 and capable of deploying an entire Legion (18432 Troopers) and support personnel in an invasion is bristling with traditional weapons: 78 disruptor banks, 45 torpedo tubes, and a huge hangar. Scimitar Hangars contain at a minimum 512 Talon Interceptors and 1024 Scorpio Strike Bombers in addition to the support fleet necessary to deploy a Romulan Legion to the surface of an unsuspecting world. The Scimitar Class has not been equipped with a cloaking device, as the Thalaron residual radiation interferes with the function of cloaking devices, making any attempt to create a ship with both a Thalaron generator and a cloaking device a hopeless cause, with even the best cloaking technology still glitching out and covering only part of the vessel in question part of the time, even with the smallest hints of Thalaron radiation aboard the vessel.
Falchion Subclass: Sister class of the Scimitar-class battleships, the Falchion Subclass has the ability to cloak, as they carry no Thalaron generators. The space generally allotted to the Thalaron generators has been converted into a backup shield generator independent of the main Falchion shield grid.
Allegiance Class Assault Cruiser
At 1200 meters long and equipped with an impressive armament. (Armament: 14 heavy quad-plasma disruptor cannons, 44 Dual Disruptor Cannons, 2 heavy ion cannons, 24 point-defence ion cannons, 102 torpedo tubes and 8 tractor beam projector arrays.) The result of the Romulan Fleet's desire for a dedicated raiding vessel capable of long-term independent operations behind enemy lines to disrupt supply lines, the Allegiance Class is that vessel. Crewed by 600 with the capability of storing four years of consumables for them onboard, the main power of these vessels is their other cargo—nearly 1.5 million battle droids along with their necessary equipment. The Allegiance Class also is capable of cloaking for 160 hour intervals and has a class 1.5 hyperdrive with a backup warp-9.9 capable warp drive.
Dominus Class Command Carrier
At 5.6 kilometers in length, the Dominus Class Command Carriers were easily the largest dedicated military vessels in the empire until the introduction of their even more ferocious cousins, the Praenuntius class. Generally employed in fleet formations as the command headquarters for invasion forces, they are very vulnerable when isolated from the rest of their fleets. They are crewed by 14330 Romulan Naval Personnel and are capable deploying six full legions and their legionary support contingents from their hangars. They also carry a drastically varying array of strike and support craft.
Tarpeia Class Dreadnought
The only completely dedicated battleship of the Romulan Fleet is the Tarpeia class. (The Tarpeia-class is named for the Tarpeian Rock, the most recognisable name in the empire synonymous with death, as it is where all high-level traitors to the Romulan Empire are executed.) At 2.5 kilometers in length and equipped with a triad of the most powerful redundant deflector shield grids in the empire, and in addition to two meter thick ablative deuranium/durasteel composite armour, the Tarpeia class has amassed a reputation as a merciless executor—never do Tarpeia class vessels respond to hails when they are assaulting an enemy planet.
Standard "pacification" operations, as the Tal Shiar likes to call them, generally include the Tarpeia-class Dreadnought performing the operation opening up on a disloyal/enemy colony/planet/station/asteroid/city and decimating it (destroying 1/10 buildings, generally the most important defensive ones, but in the event that those buildings cannot add up to the 10% threshold, the commander of the Dreadnought will generally order the rest of the quota to be satisfied by targeting buildings at random). After this decimation is complete, the Tarpeia launches three legions of troopers to the ground to round up and execute any persons found that are unwilling to submit to the rule of the Empire. After this takes place, the operation is considered over and all personnel are given permission to return to the Tarpeia. The fear of these operations keeps many neighbouring sectors in line with the Romulan way.
Tarpeia-class Dreadnoughts are armed with 20 ion cannons, 8 heavy plasma pulse turbodisruptors, 10 heavy tractor beams, 68 heavy disruptor banks, 224 medium disruptor banks, 588 light disruptor arrays (anti-fighter) and 8 shield inversion beam emitters. Tarpeias also have large hangar bays capable of hosting various ground vehicles in addition to 288 Gladius manned interceptors, 144 Javelin manned heavy strike bombers, ~50 ground vehicle transports, and 64 Dominia-class Shuttlecraft. They also have two secondary hangar bays that are compact and filled entirely with drone craft (768 Talon Interceptors and 512 Scorpio Bombers total).
Praenuntius Class Heavy Assault Carrier
The largest vessels in the Romulan fleet, and a quite recent addition to the Arsenal of Romulus, the 9.5 kilometre-long Praenuntius-class Heavy Assault Carriers are what you would expect them to be—loaded with hangars and aircraft, and bristling with defensive systems. The class is crewed by 41,556 Romulan Naval Personnel and is capable of carrying 12 full Romulan Legions, including their support contingents, in their 36 modular hangars. Praenuntiuses are heavily automated, but all systems are very capable of being controlled manually in the event of a catastrophic computer failure.
Defensively, Praenuntius class vessels are equipped with redundant deflector and particle shields around all hangars, and there are additionally four ship-wide shield systems designed to alternate to minimise the risk of shield overload. They are armed with 16 heavy tractor beams, 130 medium disruptor banks, 8 heavy pulse plasma turbodisruptors, 3756 anti-fighter disruptor arrays (heavily automated and coordinated by the ship computer), and 12 shield inversion beam emitters. They also carry 2-10 metre thick reactive, ablative deuranium/durasteel composite armour, with the most heavily armour around the engines and the bridges.
As expected, IRW Praenuntius and her sister ships carry a vast array of strike craft, and their loads are especially diverse because of their modular hangar design, which allows the quick replacement of entire sections of their arsenal.