The Invid never relied on space ships for much more then travel between star systems, but they still developed a few powerful combat ships in addition to their fleet of mecha transports. The most interesting ship operated by the Invid are their Hive Ships, which vary in size from 984' (300 m) to 3.7 miles (6000 m), and hold the majority of their race. The Hive Ships are powerful and are completely self-sufficient and when they land on a planet, they become instant garrison bases. The names of all Invid ship classes were provided by the REF as each ship class was discovered and identified.
The smaller version of the Mollusk carrier, the Oyster was introduced only in Invid Regent's army to land Inorganics as part of an invasion force. While they possess no weapons, their fast speed and fast rate of offloading mecha makes the Oyster drop ships effective at making landings into hostile areas.
The most common ship in the Invid fleet, the Mollusk carrier has a very simplistic design and has no weapons. Most of the ship's internal space is dedicated to special launching berths sized to different mecha. Any combination of berths can be placed in the ship, but most carriers only carry one type of mecha at a time.
Designed by the Invid prior to their final invasion of the Tirolian Mercantile Empire, the Scorpion gunship was the Invid's first real spaceship. Built for combat and troop transport, the gunship could operate in space and in an atmosphere with no penalties, and many of these ships led the invasions of heavily protected planets. Unfortunately, the Invid possessed very few of these ships, especially compared to the troop carriers like the Mollusk carrier and the Clam transports.
The first real combat ship built by the Invid, capable of fighting the smaller Zentraedi vessels head-to-head, The Trilobite combat vessel in an interesting example of Invid technology. Completely inexperienced with designing combat ships, the Invid still managed to design a very effective ship, which balances a powerful weapons suite with a large mecha complement. Developed just prior to the Invid's final invasion of the Tirolian Mercantile Empire, the Invid had very few of these ships, although the Invid Regent used one for his personal flagship while away from Optera.
Once Optera was defoliated through the genetic viruses introduced by the Zentraedi at the command of the Robotech Masters, the Invid spent years adapting what little technology they had to built a war machine that they could use against the Tirolians. The first phase of the Invid's plan was the conversion of hundreds of planetary hives into mobile space ships. The Mobile Hive Ships are spherical in shape and the Invid maintain a number of hives of various sizes, the larger sizes containing more facilities, more storage space, and supporting more Invid. All of the hive ships are completely self-sufficient and to occupy a planet, the Invid often land their hive ships, establish patrol patterns, and then expand their garrison across the entire planet. If given enough time to evacuate, the hive ships can simply lift off from the planet and execute a fold operation. The smallest of the hive ships, and also the most common, has a diameter of 984' (300 m) and is used for small fleet actions and to garrison either a relatively unimportant planet or as part of a larger planetary garrison.
Twice the size of the smallest hive ship, the 1968' / 600 m Mobile Hive Ship does not contain any special equipment that the smaller hive ship does not already have, it is merely larger. More capable in combat situations, this hive ship is often used in conjunction with a small group of 984' (300 m) hive ships to form an even more powerful garrison or combat unit.
Starting at this size, the hive ships now carry more then just simple support equipment. This hive ship has versatile mecha production facilities and cloning facilities to create more Invid soldiers. Although few in number, these ships are among the most powerful and common of the very large hive ships and were used by the Invid Regent in space battles during his final invasion of the Tirolian Mercantile Empire.
Larger and more powerful then the 3281' (1000 m) hive ships, these ships also include basic ship repair facilities and larger mecha production facilities and closing facilities. On important planets, these hive ships were generally used as the main headquarters of an entire Invid planetary garrison.
The largest hive ship aside from the unique royal hives, these ships sport not only huge mecha production and cloning facilities and larger ship repair facilities, but they also possess ship production facilities. These ships are extremely rare, and the Invid Regent only had a small handful of these ships at the time of his final invasion of the Tirolian Mercantile Empire and only a few actually survived to the Sentinels' War and they were all located on Optera throughout that conflict. The Invid Regis also had a few of these strategically important ships and they left Earth when the Invid withdrew at the end of the Third Robotech War.
The largest ship in the Invid fleet, the Invid only possess two of these massive ships, each with a diameter of 3.7 miles (6 km) and holding the best and largest mobile facilities controlled by the Invid. The Invid Regent and Regis each control one of these ships and they use them as their personal headquarters, although the Invid Regent uses a Trilobite combat vessel as his flagship when he is away from Optera.