Collector Cruiser

A Collector Cruiser is a massive vessel capable of carrying large numbers of Collectors, Husks, Abominations, Scions, Praetorians and Seeker swarms along with enough stasis pods to capture every human colony in the Terminus Systems and still gather more from Earth. A Collector Cruiser is seen in Mass Effect 2, and is currently the only known Collector ship type.

Construction and Armament
The ships are vast in size, easily dwarfing both the original Normandy and her larger successor. As is typical of Collector technology and design, the vessels are hybrids of organic protrusions with a metallic superstructure. The interiors consists of cave-like hallways, similar to an insect hive, and vast open areas traversed by floating hexagonal platforms. Despite its huge size these ships are capable of landing on the surface of a planet (resting vertically) although they require an enormous rocket engine to propel them back into space.

The cruisers are armed with a large forward-firing particle beam weapon, capable of firing multiple shots in quick succession or a single devastating blast. There also appear to be beams on the side. The beams are powerful and accurate enough to cripple an Alliance Navy frigate in only a few shots. They also appear to be equipped with sensors capable of detecting a vessel with a heat retaining stealth system (such as the Normandy). Details of this capability are never revealed. The Collector ships are equipped with an Identify Friend/Foe (IFF) system that allows them to traverse the Omega 4 Relay without harm.

Although it can endure the atmospheric heat of reentry to land on planets, the Collector cruiser's hull is vulnerable to sustained bombardment from Alliance anti-aircraft GARDIAN turrets. This may also be a result of the cruiser being forced to lower any kinetic barriers in order to land (compare to the destruction of the SSV Iwo Jima).

Mass Effect 2
The Collectors used these ships to abduct the inhabitants of numerous human colonies. A single ship would approach quietly, disabling communications and sensors, land on a planet and unleash massive Seeker swarms to paralyze the colonists. Collector Drones would then gather up the colonists, store them in pupae-like pods and transport them onto the cruiser, which would then leave the planet. For this it would need to use a more subtle form of propulsion, as its rocket engine would leave traces of which none have been found on any of the planets from which colonies were abducted.

Commander Shepard first encountered a cruiser when one ambushed the SSV Normandy shortly after the destruction of Sovereign. Initially mistaken for a geth warship, it was somehow able to detect the Normandy despite its stealth systems. The cruiser demonstrated its incredible firepower and easily disabled the Normandy with several precise blasts before circling around and destroying the crippled ship. While many of the crew evacuated, Shepard, Navigator Pressly, and twenty other crewmen were killed in the attack.

The same cruiser was used in the Collector assault on Horizon. The resurrected Commander Shepard and the Normandy crew used the colony's defense system to drive off the ship and weakened it. However, the ship had already captured at least half the colony's population, and the ship's afterburners destroyed several buildings and much of the surrounding land during liftoff. This indicates that the Collectors may use a more covert method of lifting when not in a hurry in order to maintain the absence of evidence with the attacks.

Later this cruiser was found in a distant area of space, apparently deserted after reportedly being disabled by a turian patrol. Shepard's team investigated the dead ship and learned that the Collectors are in fact Protheans, upon analysis of a Collector corpse. Eventually, Shepard's team came into a massive circular room lined with millions of pods, suggesting the Collectors were intending to target Earth. However, when the team makes it to a command console, the Collectors spring their trap, having falsified the distress signal. Despite fierce resistance the team was able to escape, and were able to gain valuable information from the ship's database, identifying the need for an IFF code to access the Omega 4 Relay.

Later on, having acquired a Reaper IFF from a derelict Reaper, Shepard left in the Normandy shuttle together with the rest of the team, as EDI required most systems be shut down to test the new IFF. The cruiser made a second attack on the Normandy SR-2. This time, the cruiser was able to dock with the Normandy due to a Reaper virus from the IFF which had corrupted the systems aboard and had been transmitting the Normandy's location to the Collectors. Scions, Praetorians and Collector soldiers boarded the Normandy and the entire crew, save Joker, were killed or captured and brought onto the cruiser. After Joker, with EDI's help, escaped with the Normandy, the cruiser presumably headed for the Collector base.

Normandy encountered a Collector cruiser during the assault on the Collector base. Joker piloted the Normandy into a deadly dogfight with the cruiser, which was eventually destroyed. If the Normandy had upgraded weapons, it destroyed the cruiser at long range with little difficultly. Otherwise, Normandy's standard weapons crippled the cruiser at point-blank range &mdash; but not before the Collector ship severely damaged the Normandy. In either case, the cruiser's explosion disabled the Normandy's mass effect fields, forcing it into a crash landing on the surface of the Collector base. It is unclear whether this was the same cruiser that hounded Shepard and abducted Normandy's crew.

Trivia

 * In the Mass Effect 2 Collectors' Edition Art Book, the authors reveal that they designed the Collector Cruiser to have a combined sleek metallic structure with organic shapes inspired by termite mounds in Australia, to portray it as disturbingly insect-like.