Post by Marcus Starkiller on Dec 18, 2005 12:14:08 GMT -5
When one thinks of the Imperial starfleet, the great Star Destroyers, Dreadnaughts and other warships of the line come easily to mind. Important as they are, no less needed are the uncounted support vessels that maintain Imperial presence and perform the less glorious tasks of the Navy. Chief among these ships are the hospital cruisers, communications ships and survey cruisers.
Previously, the Empire maintained thousands of each different type of craft. The sector and oversector Navy worlds had to carry dozens of support ships to cover any contingency. Colony exploration might require survey or first contact ships. Spy cruisers were always useful for monitoring pirates and potential Rebel activity. Many ships weren't in common use, but it was better to have too many ships than not enough. Still, it took money from warship production.
Following a report on streamlining fleet operations, a new approach was urged and from proposals, Tagge Industries won the contract and construction began in earnest. The result was the modular taskforce cruiser. Realizing the underlying design for many of these craft is very similar, rather than make the same ship over for new functions, the design was a ship that could be reconfigured as needed. The cruiser boasts a single framework, including engines, skeleton crew quarters, life support system and command compartments. Interchangeable modules with mission specific equipment can be added as necessary. With only a day at a space station or orbital facility, a hospital cruiser can be transformed into a long range scout or mining survey explorer.
The cruiser's weaponry is quite light for a ship of this size, but the cruiser's main mission is not combat, but support. In dangerous situations, a group of these cruisers will often have an armed escort.
Craft: Tagge Industries Shipyards Ltd. Modular Taskforce Cruiser
Type: Multi-task medium transport
Scale: Capital
Length: 1,150 meters
Crew: Varies according to mission profile
Passengers: Varies according to mission profile
Cargo Capacity: Varies according to mission profile
Consumables: 6 months
Cost: 2.5 million (base cruiser), additional cost for individual modules
Nav Computer: Yes
Atmosphere: 280, 800 KMH
Sensors: Standard sensor suite; more advanced sensors can be installed as needed
Weapons:
15 Medium Turbolasers
Mission Function Modules
Each individual mission function module is an entirely self-contained unit. The module need only be attached to the skeleton and be hooked into the power generators, life support and communications ports.
Each ship can only contain one module at a time. It is believed that Tagge Industries is working on mini-modules so a ship can be outfitted for a variety of smaller-scale functions.
Typical Mission Function modules (MFMs) are as follows:
Hospital Module
Crew: 225 doctors, 400 nurses, 1,500 medical technicians, 1,000 medical droids
Passengers: 2,750 (bacta tanks), 1,000 (quarantine ward), 19,600 patients
Cargo Capacity: 5,000 metric tons
Cost: 750,000 credits
Capsule: The hospital module is used in planetary disasters, anti-terrorist cleanup functions and space battle recovery. The hospital module can handle any number of disasters from combat, to radiation leaks. Equipment includes thousands of medpacs, repulsorlift stretchers, five shuttles for transporting casualties and a centralized medical computer.
Survey Module
Crew: 2,000 scouts, 1,500 techs, 5,000 droids
Cost: 1 million credits
Capsule: This module is used for the rapid exploration of planets and entire systems. Besides the crew, the module contains over 100 observation airspeeders for rapid surveys, 500 exploration droids, and five skipray blastboats and six TIE bombers for defense. The module has a centralized computer for quick analysis of all gathered data. This module and its crew can completely analyze a planet within a standard 24 hour day and determine likely colony sites, mineral and agricultural resources. The computer and its techs can also calculate likely astrogation routes from any nearby trade routes.
Observation Module
Crew: 1,550 intelligence officers and comscan specialists
Cost: 6.3 million credits
Capsule: This module is used for espionage and long range observation for intelligence gathering. The cruiser itself does not infiltrate into enemy territory since it would be easily detected by enemy sensors. Instead, the ship is equipped with 500 probots and observation droids, which are deployed around the perimeter of enemy holdings for passive observation. The probots can run the standard light/energy spectrum analysis and eavesdropping on communications frequencies. Some specially equipped (and very expensive) probots can scan very localized hyperspace and cross-channeled radiation (as is used with the planetary security net). With the subspace link-up, the probots can be deployed up to 30 light years away and still have instantaneous communication with the cruiser. The ship has 12 TIE fighters for defense.
Rescue Module
Crew: 140 doctors, 2,130 techs
Cargo Capacity: 40,000 metric tons
Cost: 500,000 credits (plus parts)
Capsule: The rescue module is used for space battle cleanup and repair. When a cruiser is dispatched to a battle scene, it is loaded with a variety of replacement parts for the ships that were involved in the battle. Doctors search any wrecks that weren't already checked for survivors (presumably a hospital ship is sent with these ships to the battle scene). The primary mission of the techs is to repair what ships they can so that they can be flown back to dockyards for complete repairs (naturally, only drive systems and life support systems are repaired at this stage). Those ships that can not be repaired are analyzed and the techs note what must be done to the ship so that it can be returned to the nearest Imperial Shipyard. Military planners at the shipyard will then determine whether repairs will be attempted or simply scuttled.
Inquisition Module
Crew: 100 Inquisitors, 3,600 CompForce/observation staff, 10,000 interrogation droids
Cost: 425,000 credits
Capsule: This module is the most recent addition and it is used for punitive actions against insurgents and rebellious worlds. Aboard the module's cavernous cargo holds are 15,000 pre-fabricated disintegration chambers, two garrison bases, an Orbital DataNet Eraser unit, probes with sterilization spores, five cluster bombs with magnetapulse bombs (see page 67 of the Imperial Sourcebook) and a complete orbital nightcloak system.