New Starships: Old Material

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

the recent thread about the ships of the Three Galaxies coupled with cleaning my office led me to find some old material

While i was going through and cleaning my office, i ran into some VERY old material i’d wriitten for a Phase World campaign (we’re talking… 99-2001) that dealt with new Consortium ships.

The basic gist of the Scenario was that the PCs, the crew or passengers of a Hunter-class Destroyer, the CNS Star Drake, would get involved in the first trial-by-fire of a flotilla of experimental ships (not all of which would see eventual production, or would see changes from their experimental hulls to the production hulls) in a (small) Mechanoid invasion.

The actual outcome and progress of the campaign is less interesting here than the work i’d done on the ships.

First, these new ships were being tested and built to fight the war that the Consortium felt was inveitably coming between themselves and the TGE, under the title of "Project: Stormfront".

The CN was pushing for major advancements for the first time in millenia, with a new fleet doctrine (more in line with what most of us think of as a sensible fleet doctrine) and MUCH more advanced (and likely expensive) ships to match that doctrine.

The gist of the new fleet doctrine was an emphasis on more purpose-built ships and less generic, multi-role ships, though these would not be eliminated entirely. To whit, most of the changes were to ships below the Battleship size, as the Protector-class was deemed to be workable as-is or with a (relatively) simple and inexpensive refit. Same with the Packmaster, which is largely seen as a fantastic Carrier and needed little in the way of upgrades (though a refit to a proposed “Den Mother” class was considered and rejected).

Also part of this new doctrine was (by and large) less reliance on large, vulnerable single-gun emplacements in favor of slightly less powerful but more numerous guns.

The following is the gist of what i came up with: (again, a long time ago, i’d probably do things a little different today, though a lot of this i think holds up fairly well).

I have the basic notes on the ships themselves, but do not have the stat cards i made up for them with MDC, rates of fire, etc. I could try to recreate them though i think if i did so it would be hard to un-learn things ive learned from other settings and about being a better RPG writer.

I may still find the old stats hidden away somewhere.

Porting this over from Google Docs obliterated all the formatting and bold/italics, and im only going to go back and do headers here on the forums.

Major Technology Uplifts and Design Doctrine Changes:


Gravitic Catapult:


An outgrowth of research into improved engines and gravitic technology, Consortium Engineers figured out how to make what they called a “Gravity Catapult”; basically, This is a giant ring in space that projects a field of reduced gravitational stress along its path, out to roughly 1,000 LY. Any ship traveling in this “lane” travels as fast as a ship traveling between Galaxies!

These rings are major construction projects, and most planets couldn’t afford one if they wanted. However, the Consortium plans to make a single pathway through Consortium Territory that passes through major planets in each galaxy. This project alone will take several decades to possibly a century.

When it is complete, however, it will mean that travel across the central sectors of Consortium space from one end of the galaxy to the other will be cut dramatically. The Consortium is also aware that this technology will likely be figured out sooner rather than later by the TGE (and possibly the UWW, though they largely do not need it given that they can move troops and ships around their space almost instantly with planetary Rifts), as once the knowledge that is capable is out there, the actual method by which it is done is not that hard to puzzle out; but they figure that it will still give them 50-100 years of head start.

Eventually, the network will be extended to all Sector Capitals, but after that, any planets that want one will have to pay for their own.

It should also be noted that by placing rings along the path, the pathway can be extended, but even a single ring can still reach out to 1000LY (and, eventually, weaker installations that only project ~200LY will be designed), which means that travel FROM any world that has one, even if it isnt tied into the pathway network, will be much faster for the first 1000LY (or 200).

Some thoughts i had now, that i didnt think of or write down then:

You can only easily enter the Gravitic Pathway/Catapult at a ring station; otherwise, the gravitational stresses involved in passing into the pathway can shear your ship in half. Entering the stream CAN be done, but it requires matching your drive frequencies to the pathway and entering at a precise angle. Very difficult, but not impossible. Still, most non-military vessels will not risk it and will just travel to the nearest ring.

Phase World wont allow the Gravitic Pathway network within 1000LY of Phase World. They wont say why (the Promethians never say why they do anything, after all), merely that it will “not be tolerated”.

As no one wants to find their entire star nation banned from Phase World, everyone will comply, with the CCW network ending just outside of the range barred by the Promethians (about 1010 LY out) fro the Galactic North and above the central plane of the galaxy, with the (eventual) TGE network coming from the Galactic South and being directly on the central galactic plane.

Weapons fired into the Pathway are distorted into uselessness. An Interdictor ship CAN temporarily interrupt the pathway. Piracy will go up along the Pathways, but not enough not to utilize them, and increased patrols from both power bloc’s (and the UWW will be allowed to send light combatants to escort their own merchant traffic on the CCWs network) will keep this to a minimum.



Mangnetic Torpedo Cannon:



This is basically an energy rail gun. At the back of the gun, a magnetic bottle is generated and injected with either Ionized Gas, Energetic Plasma, or Anti-Matter, and then fire down the barrel, which contains magnetic stabilizers to keep the Bottle intact.

Once it leaves the barrel, the bottle has a short life (roughly 2 seconds) but given that it is fired at a small, but sizable fraction of light speed, gives them a pretty decent range).

On impact (or once the bottle fails), the contained payload is released. In the case of an impact, violently. Damage for the Ion and Plasma variants is not heavy (about the same as traditional weapons of these types, or slightly lower) but range is much higher than standard and rate of fire is often quite a bit higher.

Several of the new ship types are designed with Magnetic Torpedo Cannons as their main armaments. Given the need for a long magnetic rail, though, the cannons cant be used on most broadsides (the Stormfront-class Battlecruisers being notable exceptions, but they were designed with this in mind) and therefore make poor point-defense weapons.

The Anti-matter variant requires a massive amount of power, and cannot be mounted on vessels smaller than a Battlecruiser. Damage is somewhat light compared to many spinal-mount “main guns”, but rate of fire is quite a bit higher (4 per round, per mount for the battery on the Stormfront.) leading to rough parity or even better damage over-time, as well as (at least on the spinal-mount “main gun” variants) superior range.

Another minor advantage is the ability to fire slightly off-bore (the magnetic field can be adjusted at the end of the barrel, allowing a 25-degree angle of fire).

Tube-style Missile Launcher Emplacements:

Not so much a technological advancement as it is a difference in technological design theory. Instead of a big box with a rack of missiles in it, each missile emplacement is actually flush-mounted with the hull, and each tube in the emplacement has its own magazine feed, allowing a higher sustained rate of fire (but a MUCH longer reload time to reload its magazine if it goes empty; only a certain percentage of the tube’s magazine can be reloaded per round, so if you fire it dry, it may take several rounds or even several minutes before you can fire again at all). They also take up a bit more mass, as each tube has to be spaced out from the others so that the individual feeds can reach the tubes. They take up about 15% more mass and 20% more hull space. They can still be destroyed by enemy fighters (as the tubes are only covered by a hatch on the outside of the hull; as long as the pilot knows where to shoot, its not any harder to disable these than it is traditional box style launchers. )



Fighters


Other than a heavier reliance on new fighters (particularly the Katana and Black Eagle class fighters) not a lot of work was done by this group; this particular project focused on improving Consortium ship classes, not fighters. However, the venerable Scorpion-class fighter was saved by … well, not technological innovation so much as technological convenience and by whit of it being a pretty solid fighter already.



Red Scorpion-Class Fighters:


The Galactic Armory spent about 200 years trying to improve the Scorpion-class fighter, but their efforts met with failure at almost every turn; the fighter was truly one of those “magic bullet” designs that only worked like it worked. If you reinforced the armor, it altered the flight profile; if you tried to strap a shield generator to it, you needed to install a new power plant which affected the flight profile AND threw off the power loading of the ship. Trying to add external weapons screwed with the sensors and electronics.

Eventually, with the gradual advancement of armor technology, it was determined that the existing craft could be lightened slightly - about 5% - for the same armor. This didn’t really affect the way the craft handled, but it also didn’t create enough mass deficit to install a shield generator (which is, really, the ships only glaring weakness).

What a designer at Galactic Armory realized, though, was that there WAS just enough mass to install a Naruni Super-Heavy vehicle force field (320 MDC) Yeah, its not a variable field, and once it gets depleted, its down for hours, but it was better than nothing.

And thus, the Scorpion was rescued from complete oblivion and is back (at least for now) in the Consortium lineup as a lightweight space-superiority fighter. It has been re-dubbed the Red Scorpion.



Destroyers



Revenge-class Refit (Hunter-class Destroyer):



The Revenge-class Refit is a major overhaul of the venerable Hunter-class Destroyer platform. It retains the “general purpose warship” ideas of its ancestor, but streamlines its purpose somewhat.

The small craft bay is almost entirely removed; it contains room for only a pair of personnel shuttles, and is moved to the far rear of the lower deck. Forward of this is an attachment point/well for a single CAF Assault Shuttle; this isn’t a bay, but rather a slot in the bottom of the hull from which the small embarked marine force can enter the Shuttle; most of the Shuttle is visible (and vulnerable if the shields are down) from below the Revenge. Alternatively, this boarding blister can be replaced wholesale for one that allows the ship to carry two Red Scorpion-class Fighters in basically the same way - the pilots can get into the cockpit, but any service to the ships has to be done in vacuum. The fighters are visible and vulnerable from below.


The Cruise-missile launcher was completely removed in favor of a battery of heavy nuclear long-range missiles, the launcher and magazine for which completely replace the old CRM launcher AND what used to be the landing bay. Fires salvos of up to 8 missiles, can fire 2 salvos per round, and is reloaded and ready to fire on the next round.

The remainder of the armaments were left largely unchanged, though for the actual production/refit when it went into general service, the particle beam cannons were replaced with the same number of Ion-based Magnetic Torpedo Cannons. Overall damage throughput is up about 20%. In addition, the Medium-range missile launchers were moved further into the hull, making them somewhat harder to hit.

The three Revenge-class refit vessels of the experimental flotilla, though, remain armed with the traditional particle beams. (CNS Revenge, CNS Margrave, CNS Hellion)

The plan was to use these refit Destroyers in fleets as attack destroyers (a role for which they are still quite well suited, if not “the best”), and to use them in rear-echelon areas as patrol vessels (a role in which they excel, as they are still “multi-role” ships), paired with the refit Starshield-class Cruisers.

This saves the Consortium from having to design and build an entirely new Destroyer class for patrols and light attack purposes.


Enfilade-class Destroyer Escort:


A new-built hull designed specifically for Fleet Defense and Anti-fighter roles. The hull is an asymetrical diamond shape, with sides that slope away from a rounded top hull and a flat bottom hull.

She has no spine-mounted “main” weapons; almost all of her weapons are are broad-side mounted, with about ¼ of them mounted along the top spine or bottom hull to provide a 360 degree arc of fire.

In addition, she carries no strike craft (this being the purpose of the new Termagant-class Escort Carrier), and only a pair of personnel shuttles to get the crew around. She has only a small Marine complement, who exist mostly to repel any potential boarders; they help man the gun mounts in most fights.

Each broadside has a battery of Medium-Range missile launchers (grouped in six sections of six independent tubes each, for a total of 36 launchers per broadside), rail-guns (similar to the mounts on the Hunter/Revenge-class Destroyers, 8 per broadside), and middle-weight particle beam mounts (1d4x100, 3 per side). The top spine has three mini-missile launchers (10 tubes each, for a total of 30), a particle beam (1d4x100), and a pair of rail-guns. The bottom of the hull has 4 rail guns and a pair of mini-missile launchers (20 total tubes).

In terms of mass, she’s quite large for a Destroyer, with solid slabs of armor on her broadsides. Much bigger, and she’d be a Light Cruiser. Experimental Vessels: CXS Enfilade, CXS Warden, CXS Torrent, CXS Vordan. The Vordan and Torrent were destroyed in action against the Mechanoids, and the Enfilade herself was damaged so badly she was written off for scrap.

Production-model ships would lower the number of Medium Range launch tubes (down to 28 per broadside), add an additional particle beam to each broadside, remove the third launch cluster for Mini Missiles from the Dorsal hull, and remove two of the rail-guns from the Ventral hull and replace them with a particle beam emplacement (mostly to reduce costs).


Termagant-class Escort Carrier:


The “flimsiest” of the new Destroyer-weight hulls, the Termagant class is basically a floating flight deck with some engines and little else. It is intended to serve as a fast-attack capable/quick-response capable carrier ship to accompany task forces led by Cruiser-weight vessels and Destroyer flotillas, particularly in rear-echelon patrol areas or for local, nodal defense fleets where durability and time-on-station are less important than the ability to simply get where you’re going and deploy your fighters.

Essentially a truncated pyramid shape (the Ventral hull being the widest deck/bottom of the pyramid shape, with the Dorsal hull (deck six) being flat as well. The Dorsal hull can be used for crash landings/burn-ins for damaged fighters, and has extra armoring just for that purpose, as well as cable and force field emitters to slow down crashing ships.

The top deck itself (deck six) contains the crew quarters and most of the point defense armaments, such as they are. She packs only a dozen point defense mounts per side, with only one that is marginally heavy (a single medium-weight particle beam, 1d4x100), the others being split between rail-gun/mini-missile mounts and light lasers (similar to what the Hunter mounts).

The rear 1/6th of each remaining deck is the engines/shield generators/power generation, with the remainder of the lower 5 decks devoted to either launching, recovering, or re-arming fighters.

When “crunched”,the Termagant can carry 4 complete 12-ship squadrons, though usual peace-time/patrol duty complements will be 3 squadrons. Decks 1 and 2 are flight decks where ships are stored and launched, with dozens of launch doors. Deck 3 is a supply deck (for the two decks below and the two decks above) were parts, armaments and other supplies for the fighters are stored, and Decks 4 and 5 are more flight decks.

In terms of size, the ship is nearly the size of a light cruiser, but substantially lower mass (as four out of six decks are large empty hangars).

The ship does what it is supposed to do - carry a lot of ships for its displacement, and get them there relatively fast. Its meager self-defense armaments and shields make it a somewhat fragile ship, but properly protected or staged to the rear, they are usually in no less danger than any other carrier. And, if they are destroyed, they are cheap and simple to build.

There are no modifications to this ship from the experimental ships (CXS Termagant, CXS Hydra, CXS Gryphon) to the production-run ships. All three ships survived the encounter with the Mechanoids intact, sitting out most of the battle after they deployed their fighters, and then sent to evacuate the civilian population of the colony that remained. The design was considered a success (does what it is supposed to, cheaply). Actual ship complements would vary depending on war status, where the ship was located and what it was doing. After the war, the usual complement shifted to 2 squadrons of fighters (heavier types like the Katana) and up to 40 space-capable Power Armor units (depending on the actual unit and available space) or 20 Power Armor units and one Battleram. This complement was used in peacetime patrols when the Termagant class could be paired with Revenge and Enfilade Class ships to escort it.


Cruisers


Soltari-class Light Cruiser:


The Soltari-class is a purpose-built cruiser meant for the attack role. She has a decent amount of point defense to protect herself, but is not a dedicated fleet defense ship; rather, she is a fast-attack vessel meant to run down destroyers and carriers and other cruisers and cripple them with withering fire from her main guns. She carries few embarked small craft (a single CAF Attack Shuttle and 4 personnel shuttles), almost no marines (mostly to repel boarders, the marines help man the gun mounts during fighting), and little in the way of creature comforts or frills. The hull is an elongated hexagonal cross-section, with the two pointed ends being the ventral and dorsal areas, and the short flat section the port and starboard areas.

Only marginally larger than the Enfilade and Termagant class Destroyers, the Soltari is overpowered and overgunned for her displacement. If she has a weakness, it is that her weapons are concentrated in a few areas and can be destroyed by precision fire, leaving her largely toothless. She is also meant for close-in fighting, with only a single Cruise Missile battery and a pair of Long Range missile batteries for long-range punch.

Up close, however, she’s a terror, with an array of Magnetic Torpedo Cannons (Plasma) and a Battlecruiser-sized Spinal-mount laser to shred her opponents.

For point defense, she carries about 15 emplacements per broadside (with enough of a firing arc to reach the dorsal and ventral areas) - split evenly between SRM emplacements (8 tubes each), railguns, and plasma cannons.

Mounted forward are SIX magnetic torpedo cannons that fire plasma torpedos, which inflict heavy damage out to a range that is largely unmatched by other cruiser-weight vessels. In between these mounts is the opening for the spinal-mounted heavy laser cannon, basically the secondary mounts from the Protector-class Battleship (1d6x1000) with a slightly better rate of fire (3 times per melee instead of 2).

While the weapons themselves are not terribly vulnerable to destruction, their openings/aperatures in the hull are vulnerable to being damaged which will foul the weapons and prevent them from working, meaning that the Soltari can be crippled somewhat easily if the enemy can get in and hit them (they are recessed into the hull, and are hard targets but not by any means impossible).

The two experimental hulls (CXS Soltari and CXS Footman) survived action with the Mechanoids, though Footman was written off as a loss due to extensive damage.

Production models of these ships have 2 less Mag Torp Cannons forward (4, instead of 6), and the spinal-mount laser is reduced to the exact model that the Protector carries (only 2 blasts per round). There is, however, a mini-missle point-defense emplacement (10 tubes, 3 missiles per tube per round, reloaded and ready to fire the next round) mounted on the bow to protect the cannons.


Lothar-class Heavy Cruiser


A pure-bred Warship, with little in the way of creature comforts, and designed to do one thing: close in and crush the enemy in close action, though she also has a respectable long range punch due to her heavy CRM launcher load, though this is USUALLY intended to be fired in close. The Lothar (named for the famed Cosmo-Knight Lothar of Motherhome) has a strange hull form - basically two octagonal sections (ventral and dorsal) joined with a recessed rectangular portion.

She is light on point defense (relying on strengthened shields, heavy armor, and a proper screen to protect her) but packs a devastating one-two punch of heavy spine mounted lasers (2, one in the upper and one in the lower section of the hull - the same as the Protector’s secondaries, modified to fire 3 times per round) and (as originally designed) 8 lighter magnetic torpedo launchers (4 plasma, 4 ion).

She has an impressive battery of CRM launchers (20 tube-pairs per broadside (40 total tubes per side, but each pair is fired in tandem, no single missiles)), with the notable weakness/design feature of the launchers on each side being fed by the same magazine, meaning if she goes to rapid fire, she empties her CRMs quite quickly. The design intent was that she would only be using her CRMs in-close in sprint mode and would therefore only need to fire one broadside or the other. She doesn’t carry a huge depth of ammo for her CRM launchers (no more than a Warshield).

Her point defense is actually quite limited, if effective, eschewing SRMs and Mini-missiles for Medium-range missiles (on the dorsal and ventral angled surfaces) arranged in 5 8-tube mounts per side. For guns, she has fewer, harder-hitting particle beams (1d4x100, 6 per broadside; there are in the recessed rectangular portion of the hull between the ventral/dorsal hulls, making them hard to hit), with a single pair of railgun emplacements per broadside, arranged at the rear to cover the engines.

She carries no small craft of mention (just personnel shuttles), with her marines meant only to repel boarders; they serve as gun-mount crews unless otherwise needed.

She does feature reinforced shields (she can pick any two shield directions, and they are 20% tougher, so instead of 1000 per side, (ex only), she’d have 4 sides with 1000 and 2 sides with 1200); add this bonus AFTER figuring out what each side has out of the normal total.

Her ventral and dorsal octagonal hulls are also heavily armored; she’s a nasty, big Heavy Cruiser that can take a lot of punishment.

The three Lothar-class ships of the Stormfront flotilla all acquitted themselves admirably during the Mechanoid incursion. CXS Lothar was heavily damaged, but survived to be repaired, with CXS Ventauri destroyed in action by repeated suicide strikes from Wasps as she ravaged their mothership, and CXS Entlaurus written off as unreparable in the aftermath, though she (along with all other destroyed or scrapped vessels of the Stormfront squadron) was entered into the Rolls of Honor.

Production models of this class see their Magnetic Torpedo Launchers reduced to 5 from 8 (3 plasma, 2 ion) and the lower spine-mouned laser cannon replaced with the mount from a Packmaster-class Carrier (1d4x1000), and the upper cannon reduced to its regular rate of fire (2/round, not 3), mostly for cost savings.


Warhawk-class Light Carrier:


There was a large contingent of planners and engineers who struggled with simply replacing the venerable Warshield-class Cruiser out of hand. Several different teams of designers were given the task to “save” the old Cruiser from the breakers.

GIven that the hull design of the Warshield is actually fairly basic (basically just a tall rectangle), it actually lent itself quite well to internal reconfiguration. The first accepted design variant of the Warshield was as a Light Carrier.

The first course of action was to gut her existing armament; the main laser cannons, secondary laser cannons, CRM batteries, and Particle Beam point defense cannons were completely removed. The heavy G-cannon turrets were re-armored, and placed in pairs on the dorsal and ventral hull. The long-range missile batteries were retained, though reconfigured. Instead of four box-style launchers of 32 missiles, it was split into 8 tube-style batteries (recessed into the hull); 4 to a broadside. The GR Autocannons were kept but re-spaced around to hull so as not to interfere with flight operations, and the mini-missile point-defense launchers were reworked, recessed into the hull between the two primary flight decks to provide cover for fighters are they are recovered or launching.

The rest of the interior space was converted into munitions storage for the fighters (the amidships decks) with the two primary flight decks being near the dorsal and ventral surfaces, respectively. One deck above/below each flight deck is a recovery deck - all returning ships enter these decks, where there are force field and physical restraints to capture crashing ships and hopefully save their pilots.

Her “maximum military load” capacity is 7 12-fighter squadrons, with a single Proctor-class LRI to serve as the CAG’s “flagship” fighter, if he chooses, with 40 Silverhawk (or other similarly-sized, flying) power armors as a close-in Combat Space Patrol. Eschewing the Silverhawks, she can add another squadron of fighters, though this is rarely done.

During “peacetime” or if she is part of a patrol-oriented task group, she will typically carry 4 full squadrons, 40 Silverhawks, and 6 Proctor-class Long-Range interceptors.

The Warshield hull is well proven and capable, and serves admirably in its role as a Light Carrier. Only a single ship was converted as a proof of concept for the Stormfront task force, and it served admirably and as-advertised, serving as the flagship of the small task forces carrier group (itself and the 3 Termagant class Escort Carriers), during which time it served as a forward-deployment and re-armament station for the entire task forces fighters, when the 3 EC’s were re-assigned to retrieve the colonists. (The CNS Warhawk, the class-refit being named for the test ship).


Fusilade-class Escort Cruiser:


Another refit of the venerable Warshield-class Cruiser. In this form, she is re-imagined as a light-cruiser weight Escort vessel; with her main armaments reduced to carry more effective point defense and close-in weaponry.

She actually does quite well in this role when reconfigured, and is considered a Light Cruiser in this configuration because quite a bit of mass is jettisoned to make way for her point defense heavy armament. The primary reason for the creation of this class was the unwillingness of the Admiralty to simply abandon the thousands of Warshield-class cruisers in service (for one, they didn’t have the time to completely replace them).

Unlike an Enfilade class DD(E), the point defense mounts of the Fusilade are much heavier, able to punch out fighters in just one or two shots, and engage incoming CRM bombardment at maximum range. This is intentional - the Fusilade is imagined as a companion to the Enfilade, with the smaller ships dealing with anything that gets past the Fusilade’s guns.

The main cannons are entirely removed, as are the Cruise Missile batteries, and the close-in GR-Autocannons, Particle Beam Cannons, and Mini MIssile launchers.

The G-cannon turrets see themselves increased to 10 - three each port and starboard, and 2 each on the dorsal and ventral hulls; the “Secondary Laser cannons” are retained (two per broadsde) and 8 more heavy laser cannons are added (3 per broadside, and a pair each on the ventral and dorsal surfaces); these are roughly half as powerful as the Secondary Laser cannons - 1d6x100 per shot, with 3 shots per round instead of 2.

Of these weapons, only the “Secondary Laser Cannons” suffer a penalty to hit small ships/fighters; the rest are dedicated point-defense armaments.

Given her relatively heavy point-defense weapons, she can inflict a great deal of damage with a broadside if she can close on her enemy.

The Cruise Missile batteries are replaced with Medium Range missile launchers for point defense - 3 per broadside and one each dorsal and ventral mount - each with 16 tubes, which can each fire 3 missiles per round, and are reloaded and ready to fire the next round.

The Long Range Missile Batteries were retained, only split into 8 batteries instead of four, (to make them less easy to take out), with an additional 16-tube launcher on the dorsal surface.

She carries no fighters, but does have a pair of CAF Assault Shuttles attached to her dorsal surface (similar to the way the Hunter-class Revenge Refiit stores its Assault Shuttle), and a squadron of personnel shuttles (12); she often uses these for SAR during and after battles (Search and Rescue).

Only a single ship was refit this way for the Stormfront flotilla, the aging (over 120 years in service) CNS Metrion. She survived action with the Mechanoids though she sustained heavy damage from Wasp suicide attacks; she was later written off as not economical to repair.

She proved the concept, though, and a full half of the existing Warshield class ships are scheduled to go under the refit knife as Fusilade-class Light Cruisers.

“Production” (there will be new production as well as refiits) models of this ship will see the Secondary Laser cannons replaced with 4 more of the heavy point defense lasers (1d6x100); refit models will retain the Secondary Laser cannons as they are already in place.



Starshield-class Multi-role Heavy Cruiser:


This is a general-purpose refit of the Warshield class. Its role is to serve as a rear-echelon patrol vessel, command and control vessel, and local defense fleet ship. Only about 10-15% of Warshield hulls in CSN service will be upgraded with this refit, with the rest being turned into Fusilade class Escort Cruisers or Warhawk class Light Carriers; new production will be a similar breakdown, though Starshield-configured hulls will only be used to replace losses or as needed to build new system-defense flotillas and bring them up to strength.

For the most part, the ship remains largely unchanged, though some armaments are reconfigured, some done away with entirely, and its fighter capacity is increased substantially (roughly doubled). In this configuration, paired with Revenge-Class Destroyers and Termagant-Class Escort Carriers, they can form very effective system defense fleets and rear-sector patrol flotillas.

The Main and Secondary Laser cannons are retained, though the large G-cannon turrets are removed (to free up room for extra fighters), and the Cruise Missile batteries are omitted entirely. (As this is seen as a defensive fleet/patrol fleet vessel, weapons of all-out war are not really seen as necessary). The Long-Range missile batteries are expanded (one added on both the Ventral and Dorsal surfaces, and they are re-configured to tube-style launchers, with the same launch capacity), and the GR-Autocannons are outright removed, but the Particle Beam Cannons are increased from 8 to 12 (2 mounts each added to the Dorsal and Ventral hulls). The Mini-missile launcher point defense arrays are lowered to 4 (2 mounted rearward to cover the engines, and 2 mounted, one on each side, near the enlarged launch bays.

Her small craft capacity is increased a great deal (to 2 complete 12-fighter squadrons, though to avoid being very cramped, one is almost always the less space intensive Red Scorpion fighters), with 30 Silverhawk or other PA, and a single Battleram Assault Robot. In addition, she carries a decent complement of marines, with two CAF Assault Shuttles locked onto the Ventral hull (they will detach and come into the launch bay to load marines, if needed) and a complement of personnel shuttles (6).

No ships of this refit were present in the Stormfront flotilla, as it was seen as not necessary to test them.


Battlecruisers


Stormfront-Class Battlecruiser:


A hull size that the Consortium previously eschewed as a combination of too slow (not as fast as Cruisers) and not tough enough (too easily destroyed by Battleships or Dreadnaughts), one of the very first mandates of the project, and, in fact, its namesake is the Stormfront-class Battlecruiser.

Meant to be a fast-cruising, hard-hitting complement to the Protector-class Battleship, able to run down heavy cruisers and smaller vessels and blow them to scrap, and tough enough to hang (for at least a while) in the heat of battle.

Almost all of the research that led to the other hulls in this project came from research done to make the Stormfront-class possible. A new generation of compact, high-power reactors was needed to provide the necessary power. A new generation of higher-thrust engines and a more stable high-speed CG field were required to get the necessary speed. An entirely new line of weapons were developed to give her a hard-hitting punch without weighing her down with large, traditional lasers or particle beams (the Magnetic Torpedo Cannon was developed to be the main weapons of the Stormfront-class).

In truth, the Stormfront project was a failure on one point: while it produced an excellent Battlecruiser (in fact, its nearly as powerful as a Battleship in a lot of respects), its hideously expensive. So, while a number of these ships were produced for the war with the TGE, it was far fewer than originally projected, and they were only produced because the alternative was to simply not have them, and they were desperately needed to reinforce the limited numbers of Protector-class BBs (compared to which they were still cheaper and only marginally less powerful).

The cross-section of the Stormfront is somewhat hard to describe - it is basically a rectangular cross-section (taller than wide) that has several areas of irregular hull (above and below the front half of the ship, and four sections of heavy armoring on the rear part of the ship; - i used to have a basic sketch of this somewhere, but i couldn’t find that or the notecards that i know had the actual stats i assigned these ships). The engines and main cannon ports are heavily armored and shielded from all but a flying-directly-at-them angle, making them hard to target, and both the rear arc and the main cannon aperatures have dedicated point defense.

Additionally, she has heavy broadside armaments, in addition to her massive forward armament (this is a deliberate design; the “light” main guns (heavy plasma Mag Torp Cannons) can be re-directed to either broadside as needed) allowing her to brutally punish any ships that come alongside. Her point defense emplacements are heavier than lighter ships, but fewer in number, and she packs a devastating CRM launch capacity (up to 100 at a time, though shell fire herself dry fairly quickly at that rate) for long-range punch.

With a heavily armored hull, and reinforced shielding (same as the Enfilade-class Destroyer Escort), and a high speed for her displacement, she can get in close and ravage smaller ships, or hang back with her screen and fellow heavies and launch long-range bombardments.

Her main armament is TWELVE Magnetic Torpedo Launchers - all of which can fire down the centerline. There are four ultra-heavy Anti-matter cannons, and 8 “light” secondary heavy plasma torpedo cannons.

The eight plasma torpedo cannons can also be fired from the broadsides; their firing rails have divergent branches that lead to each broadside (two rows of four), meaning that a ship that gets up along side isn’t safe, and can be hulled with a heavy broadside of plasma torpedos.

She also packs one hundred(!) CRM tubes, split up into 20 5-tube blisters. 5 of these blisters are located in the bow near the Torpedo Launchers (25 tubes); they cant fire on any round in which the main guns are used, however (the electromagnetic energy screws with their targeting), but since its unlikely CRMs are needed in a situation where the mains have gone to continuous rapid fire, its not seen as an issue.

Thee other 75 tubes (15 blisters of 5 tubes each) are located along the centerline of the port and starboard broadsides, angled forward (so the missiles exit the ship pointing forward, roughly 20 degrees off truly straight, though their guidance systems meant this doesn’t matter much) - 5 blisters per side; with the remaining 5 on the dorsal section of the ship (firing angled forward, just like the broadside tubes). While it can fire 100 CRMs at a time, it rarely does so, as it can fire itself dry quite quickly doing this. The Broadside tubes also cannot fire when the main plasma guns have been fired from the broadside (like the front).

Point-defense is handled by 3 Long Range missile emplacements (16 tubes each, located near the rear quarter of the ship, port, starboard, and dorsal), and 6 Medium Range missile emplacements (1 Ventral, 1 Dorsal, 2 each Port and Starboard, near the bow) with 16 tubes each.

For guns, point-defense is handled by medium particle beams (1d4x100) - 4 per broadside and 2 each dorsal and ventral - and 12 GR-cannons (1d4x100) - 4 in a “ring” - port, starboard, dorsal, ventral) on the engine cowling at the rear, another ring of four at the bow, around the main gun cowling, 2 positioned WITH the main guns (to fire at anyone who tries to get a look “down the throat”) and the last 2 protecting the launch bay.

For small craft, she eschews fighters in favor of a Combat Space Patrol of 40 Silverhawk Power Armors (or other flying PA), but her flight deck (the bottom deck on the enlarged cowling around the front hull) can handle re-fueling and re-arming up to 18 fighters at a time, and can be entered from the rear (shielded by the ship) and launched out the front. This allows her to act as a rest-stop for friendly fighters, though if the CAP is embarked, only 4 fighters at a time can be handled. She has a small flotilla of personnel shuttles (12), and two CAF Assault Shuttles (similar to the Revenge-class Refit, they are docked in a special blister in the Engine-cowling protrusions at the rear of the ship) for her marines. The marines can enter the shuttles in their mounts, and the odd hull shape generally protects the shuttles from random fire (though they can be specifically targeted).

She also has 16 8-tube Mini-missile emplacements (2 each dorsal and ventral, 6 each broadside) but these are only used as a last-ditch defense, and are actually meant to repel boarding craft and other enemies that have to get close (like PA troops). The Stormfront relies on her screen for long-range missile defense (usually has a pair of Fusilade-class Cruisers as escorts, or a Fusilade and up to 4 Enfilade class Destroyers)

Of the two prototype ships of this class (CSX Stormfront and CSX Rage), the Rage was heavily damaged and scuttled in-place in the aftermath of the battle with the Mechanoids (she suffered a casualty in her Anti-matter torpedo cannons that caused catastrophic internal damage and crippled the ship) though her gunners continued to fight her in local control for the duration of the battle, a testament to the toughness of the design. This design flaw (basically the mag bottle failing in the “barrel”) was minimized by turning the entire inside of the barrel into a sloped magnetic field so that if a bottle failed, the anti-matter, plasma, or ionized gas would be vented out the front (with no appreciable application as a weapon, and could heavily damage any friendlies in the area). There were no further such catastrophic malfunctions in the production-model ships or the refitted Stormfront. The Stormfront herself survived action with the Mechanoids with moderate hull damage. The Class would go on to being pivotal in the coming war, with over 300 of the ships eventually constructed. Due to their expense, however, (well over 30 Billion Credits each) after the war was over, no new ships were constructed, and older ships would be retired as their refit costs became more expensive, though these were not sent to the breakers, but rather to depots, where they were left in vacuum.

The Stormfront herself was destroyed in action defending a refugee fleet against a Doombringer-class Dreadnaught and her escorts about halfway through the war; most of her crew escaped, as her Captain ordered all non-essential personnel off the ship and allowed only the minimum crew required to fight the ship to remain as volunteers. The Stormfront and her escorting Destroyers destroyed or crippled the entire Escort fleet (Smasher-class Cruisers and a flotilla of Destroyers) and mangled the engines of the Doombringer before taking a hit amidships that crippled her guns and shields, after which the Captain ordered the ship abandoned and remained aboard to pilot her on a collision course with the now-adrift Doombringer. The captain and the skeleton crew that refused to abandon ship were presumed lost when the Stormfront collided with the unknown Doombringer at a combined closing velocity of .18c, turning both ships into a glowing ball of gas and debris.


Battleships:


Defender-class Refit (Protector-class Battleship)


This was a proposed refit for the Protector-class Battleship that was never enacted, though it still could be, if needed.

For most purposes, the Defender refit left most of the existing systems of the ship intact, and mostly consisted of upgrades such as switching to tube-style launch emplacements, scaling back light point defense (by about half) and adding heavier point defense (MRM emplacements - 8; and particle beam cannons (8 per “side”, 1d4x100, total of 16), at the cost of all but four of her mini-missile launch sites (which were retained to cover her engines and launch bay, and ALL of her GR-cannon point defense (seen as too short-ranged).

Her small craft complement was largely unchanged - 4 12-fighter squadrons, a platoon of SIlverhawk PA (or other flying PA), and 6 Battleram Assault robots. The CAF Assault Shuttles were doubled, but 4 of them were simply clamped to the hull near the rear of the ship; only the pilots can enter the cockpit where they are docked, they then have to go to the launch bay to load up).

The only major change was the replacement of the 8 tertiary laser cannons with 8 medium-strength plasma torpedo cannons. Damage throughput on these is almost doubled vs. the laser cannons.

The CRM launchers remain (same throw weight), but are split up into 8 blisters instead of 4.

For the most part, massive overhauls weren’t seen as necessary, as the Protector was already a fairly well put together ship of its class.


Carriers:


Den-Mother Class Refit (Packmaster-Class Carrier)

Another proposed refit that never caught on.

This was even less far along than the proposed Defender refit, and largely entailed trying to increase the number of embarked craft at the sacrifice of ground troops, with enhanced shields (actually a somewhat revolutionary doubled-up shield grid, but the bugs never got properly worked out of that before the refit was scrapped), with the ground troops being shifted to a Battlecruiser-weight Assault Carrier class that was never designed. Also slated (but never developed past the “we think this will work” stage) was a gravity-catapult launch tube for fighters, basically flinging them hundreds of thousands of miles out at launch, allowing the carrier to loiter even further away.

That was about as far along as this got, when it was decided to scrap this effort since the Packmaster is quite a capable craft, despite its age.

[Warshield73]

I really like these and oddly enough I had a similar campaign but in mine it was the TGE developing new versions of there ships that were employing some techno-wizardry so they can have a better chance against the Splugorth and the UWW.

They had a large group of human TWs being overseen by kreeghor witches and trained by an Anvil Dwarf TW that had betrayed the UWW.

When I created new ships for Phase World they had minor improvements over existing ships. 10%-20% in three to five stats with or maybe 25%-33% in one stat and 10% to another one or two. For older ships I did the opposite, reducing a few stats by a small %.

My Defender Battleship was the predecessor to the Protector. Mainly a reduction in speed and fighter capacity.

The Magnetic torpedo is interesting, I had something similar but not a s varied.

I love the Gravity Catapult. I might use it myself but I might limit it use, maybe by requiring ships flying in it to use Phase Drives.

Really interesting stuff, thanks for sharing.

[Colonel_Tetsuya]

The Magnetic torpedo is interesting, I had something similar but not a s varied.

These were a direct lift/rip-off from the Honor Harrington series, though i would not have done so had i not felt they fit with the technology in the 3Gs.

If you're curious where they are in the HH lore, its the very first book, On Basilisk Station; 'Energy Torpedos' have been around forever but aren't used in that setting because of their short range (about the same as any other broadside energy beam) and the fact that they are 100%, grade-A useless against the shield technology in that universe (Gravity Sidewalls), so they can only be used on a ship who you've already managed to batter to scrap anyway (or somehow scored a miracle hit on their sidewall generators, and happen to be facing that broadside).

But they are brutally destructive IF you can make them work (a Light Cruiser manages to obliterate a DN sized ship in seconds).

Ironically, i think Braden's stuff in Fleets fits with this, as the Naruni keep for themselves gravity-focused (or force-field focused?) Plasma-beams, which is not too dissimilar.

I love the Gravity Catapult. I might use it myself but I might limit it use, maybe by requiring ships flying in it to use Phase Drives.

The intent was to cut travel times down by about half in a 3Gs game. Thats why they are so stupidly expensive and will only run in a "highway" through the central sectors of each Star Nation. It cuts the time to get from the Anvil to the far end of the Corkscrew, but once you need to get off the Grav-lane and head to whatever local sector you're heading to, youll be back to taking a few weeks to months to get there.

I'd always intended them to be so prohibitively expensive that even the expansion to Sector Capitals would eventually be scrapped (planned, initially, and then scrapped for being too expensive).

I wanted to cut Travel time down some for the sake of characters with a limited shelf life, without making it trivial.

[Warshield73]

The Magnetic torpedo is interesting, I had something similar but not a s varied.

These were a direct lift/rip-off from the Honor Harrington series, though i would not have done so had i not felt they fit with the technology in the 3Gs.

If you're curious where they are in the HH lore, its the very first book, On Basilisk Station; 'Energy Torpedos' have been around forever but aren't used in that setting because of their short range (about the same as any other broadside energy beam) and the fact that they are 100%, grade-A useless against the shield technology in that universe (Gravity Sidewalls), so they can only be used on a ship who you've already managed to batter to scrap anyway (or somehow scored a miracle hit on their sidewall generators, and happen to be facing that broadside).

But they are brutally destructive IF you can make them work (a Light Cruiser manages to obliterate a DN sized ship in seconds).

Ironically, i think Braden's stuff in Fleets fits with this, as the Naruni keep for themselves gravity-focused (or force-field focused?) Plasma-beams, which is not too dissimilar.

I love Honor Harrington and in fact it is one of my biggest influences on the ships I create for Phase World.

I have played around with something similar creating various energy torpedoes in magnetic containments- plasma, disruptor, and antimatter - but I never had a chance to use them.

I love the Gravity Catapult. I might use it myself but I might limit it use, maybe by requiring ships flying in it to use Phase Drives.

The intent was to cut travel times down by about half in a 3Gs game. Thats why they are so stupidly expensive and will only run in a "highway" through the central sectors of each Star Nation. It cuts the time to get from the Anvil to the far end of the Corkscrew, but once you need to get off the Grav-lane and head to whatever local sector you're heading to, youll be back to taking a few weeks to months to get there.

I'd always intended them to be so prohibitively expensive that even the expansion to Sector Capitals would eventually be scrapped (planned, initially, and then scrapped for being too expensive).

I wanted to cut Travel time down some for the sake of characters with a limited shelf life, without making it trivial.

I have used a few different methods to cut travel time down, Mostly I created things near Phase world so that they could use the phase gates to get there and then travel a few days or weeks to a device or rift that would take them near where they wanted to go.

I always wanted a way to shorten travel times without breaking the system too much and to make sure I could take it away or limit its use.