Okay:
Arrow Class Swarm fighter
Use:
The arrow is a small zippy little fighter, it has no armour and very weak sheilds, its engines are of poor quality and its weapon systems are weak crystaline lightbeams.
A long time ago Arrows were piloted by elves, but recently elven politicians and generals began computerizing them, making the fighters drones. Because of this they do not have any of the specialites of the lancer or other space forces.
Size/proportions:
The arrow is about 2.5 meters long and 1.5 meters across, making it a small cramped ship. They are created in huge numbers, one could truely say that the elves arrows will blot out the sun. Most ships that are larger than frigate class vessels can produce a small compliment of Arrows in the engineering bay, the entire arrow "factory" is only 3 rooms and is often put next to the engine room. Arrows have been known to suffer considerable losses, and as such little value is placed on them. The quality of metal used on them is horrible, often using cheap artificial suplements and alloys created from trash and junk from elf ships and planets.
Arrows are commanded by theyre mother-ships, if a mothership goes down arrows automaticaly are either rerouted to other ships or are outright destroyed.
Elven pilots often find them as the source of hilarity umong theyre units, often commenting : Gee, these buggers shoot worse than the Arrows ! or, I wonder who programmed these useless tin-cans ?
After the battle of Ceprus delta aproximately 237 destroyed or disabled arrows were found, giving an example of the pointlessness of these units.
Arrows find theyre strength in numbers, the often fill the sky with beams and can often swarm unguarded vessels. Any fleet commander would happily trade 2 squads of Arrows for half a squad of lancers.
Visuals:
Arrows look like, well, an arrow. Theyre hull is composed of weak silver metal outlined with simple gold strands. the front is an energy spike that looks much like the arrowheads of old, used for suicidal kamikaze rammings of larger ships.
the back of the arrow contains one simple Z22 ion drive, making them move only a quarter as fast as a lancer. along the sides are large wings, pilots often say that the entire mass of a arrow is in the wings. The wings contain simple pulse light cannons that fire rather slowly but when combined can be devastatingly powerful.
Had to rush this one, didnt much like how the visual presentation of it turned out, but it works. Hope you enjoyed my fan fic.
Edit: need any more ? i can pump these out in minuites.
Edit 2: I needed something to do
Drone-ships:
Use: ship dedicated to servicing and creating other arrows, about the size of a frigate.
Drone ships are a recent addition to fleets heavily dependant on arrows, they are large disk like ships with large arms to collect debris for archer creation, The entire ship inside is made up of archer factories and repair bays with a small mainframe computer at the helm to allow newly made drones to make it back to fleet. Drone ships are operated with skeleton-crews, and are a regular site umong asteroids and after battles. They have often been a requirement for archers to be used excessively and in battles far away from mother ships, due to theyre mainframes. Elves hate getting jobs on drone-ships, often complaining that they are loud clunky useless ships that are a deathtrap. You can find the scum of the elven race operating here. Theyre captains are often prone to anger and rash decisions, thus being demoted to this duty. Some drone ships are automated, but this is rarely done due to the cost of it.
A single drone ship can service and look after 100 arrows, provided they were not in a combat role, and that the drones were not doing something complicated.
In addition, a total of 80 archers can be constructed without some repair and new reasources to the factories. Some times elf admirals have ended up fighting theyre own archers if a drone ship goes rouge.
A drone ship is large, around 30-40 meters squared, due to the neccesity of containing spare parts for archer assembly, and the processing areas needed to change raw materials.
The life of a elf on a drone-ship could roughly be described as: "a metal hell" and is by far the worst side of the elven navy.
I like how this turned out, gives the arrows a personality behind them, and we see that the space elves arent always perfect, and that these arrows come at the sacrifice of many elves.