The Rebel Faction

Montcalm-class Frigate

Introduction:
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” ~Charles Darwin

Change.

The face of the galaxy has changed.

No longer do fleets of the Black Dragon Empire and the Galactic Coalition clash in mass battle. No longer does Simon Kaine lead the nearly unstoppable Imperial war machine. No longer is the Empire at rest, with Rebellions cropping up across its space. No longer is the Confederation an infant subfaction of the Coalition gearing up for war with BDE. But rather, it is a reasonably sized independent government barely singed by galactic war. It has become a fortified haven of peace and freedom.

With the Confederation’s transformation into a more peaceful state, so does that of the nature of the Confederate Military. Funds are increasingly being allocated for potent and cheaper ground defences rather than the expensive, high-tech warships which KDI designed to liberate the Tion Sector. Compounding the problem, there is a wide diversification of warship designs among local defence fleets. Making maintenance and supply a nightmare for large fleet expeditions, as well as making it difficult to train, rotate and promote service personnel across a multitude of ship types. Thus, while a diverse fleet of high-tech warships may look exceptionally effective on paper, it is prohibitively costly for most governments to pursue in addition to its logistical problems. Inspired by the New Republic’s successful response to a similar situation with its New Class modernization program, the Confederation has started its Unity Project.

As ships from the Unity Project are introduced, older vessels will be gradually replaced and their crews put onto their newer, cheaper, and less maintenance-intensive ships (though many service people are retiring as the chance of conflict lessens). Local governments do have the option of overriding this project, but they then must individually pay for extra planetary defences which are becoming standard across Confederation space. Thus far, only Kashan and New Oceanus have rejected the bill, mostly because of their defence resting in concealment as well partially because of the local influence of KDI.

General Ship Overview:

“These ships may well be economic and logistical triumphs, but I would much prefer to face our enemies in the newest wave of KDI’s technological terrors.”
~ Rear Admiral Corise Lucerne, SCO, Confederate Armed Forces

Unity Project ships in general have below average costs, good mobility, a peacetime dual purpose, and excellent armor coverage but lack heavy firepower. Various laborsaving devices and automation reduce crew sizes to cut costs in paying crewmembers and consumables. In addition, Unity ships are designed to accommodate a wide variety of parts to make logistics, upgrading, and repair easier at the cost of battle efficiency. Unity Project ships are built utilizing heavily standardized components for improved logistics, ease of training, and cheaper costs; thus, default components like powercells, engines, weapons, etc are often identical on a smaller ship and a significantly larger ship, though they do vary by amount. Most designs are intentionally simple and designed for mass-production, meaning that if the Confederation was attacked, large numbers of them could be quickly produced and green crews could easily adapt to them for mass fielding. Nearly all Unity ships are based on existing designs and technologies. One technology found on all ships is the Multi-Core Power System.



Name/Type: Montcalm-class Frigate
Designer/Manufacturer: Confederation Defence Industries
Designation: Medium Frigate
Crew: 254 + 66 Gunners + 100 LE Repair Droids
Length: 250 Meters
Speed: 25 MGLT, 900 Kph
Hyperdrive: x0.8
Shield Rating: 2560 SBD + 2560 SBD
Hull Rating: 1100 RU
Weapons: 2 Turreted Plasma Beam Drills, 10 CCA XX-9 Medium Turbolaser Batteries, 4 KDI IV-9 Medium Quad Ion Cannon Batteries, 10 Borstel RH8 Laser Cannon Batteries, 4 Phylon Q7 Tractor Beam Projectors. Fighter Complement: 24 medium starfighters or other equivalent.
Troops: 400 Infantry.
Support Craft: 4 Light Transports.
Modifications: Amorphous armor, Anti-concussion Field Generator

General Description: Designed primarily by Jabiim, and refined by the shipwrights of Thomork, the Montcalm Frigate is likely to become on the most popular ships of the Unity Project. The hull of the craft was based on a well protected and short-range bulk hauler used to move minerals and mining gear back and forth from the asteroid ring which orbits Jabiim. Jabiim engineers decided to then incorporate the mining equipment into the hull to make a mining vessel. Remaining space was configured by Thomork for weapons and other military devices. The resulting ship is a capable deepspace miner, and is also capable of putting up a furious defence against enemy vessels. It has excellent protection, with powerful shields equaling those used on the venerable Nebulon B series, and heavy amorphous armor designed to protect it against not only enemy weapons, but natural disasters like asteroid collisions. It is moderately well-armed, and is capable of dealing with most older vessels of similar size, though many designs used by larger governments can overpower it in terms of firepower. But perhaps the greatest failing of the design is its relatively slow speed. But the Montcalm does have one extra surprise that most opponents will fear: the plasma drills designed to cut through meters of iron-nickel rock can easily slice through unshielded ship’s hulls or batter down shields at close range. In times of peace, the ship acts as a mining vessel, procuring materials from asteroids and other stellar bodies. Thus, instead of costing money to produce and maintain, in the long run, Montcalms actually make money for their respective owners, both planetary and Confederate, which make the ships a popular choice for politicians and bureaucrats on most Confederate worlds.

Technical Descriptions

Relative Cost: Average

Cost: The ship has an average price tag for its size. Using commercial civilian-grade systems lowers the cost of the vessel, but that gain is offset by the pricetag of the heavy defensive mechanisms. However, it does pay for itself and more in the long run because of its use as a mining vessel.

Speed: Very Slow

Engines: The Montcalm is probably one of the slowest ships for its size. Several popular frigates, such as the Starstreak and the Fire-class, have over twice its speed despite being longer vessels. This is the result of using average engines to propel a heavily armored ship with relatively large volume. Like all other Unity vessels, the engine rooms have their own complement of LE Repair droids supervised by human mechanics to keep them operating at all times. And while the vessels is considerably slow, it does have good maneuverability for its size; a must for a vessel which has to navigate in dense asteroid belts.

Shield Rating: Very High

Shields: Because in times of peace, the Montcalm would be operating in dangerous areas for its mining operations and especially so in wartime, the frigate has excellent shielding. Rather than design a whole new shield system, Thomork engineers adapted the same one from the Nebulon B-class Frigate, an older and commonplace warship. The result is excellent shielding at a low cost.

Armor: Very High

Armor: The thick armor of the Montcalm is probably its most innovative design. Rather than using typical metallic crystals, the Montcalm’s armor is made up of amorphous amorphous metal combining common metals and glass formers. This protects the ship less against standard turbolaser or laser fire compared to most armors, but offers extremely good protection against projectile and ion based attacks. To maximize its effectiveness, the Montcalm does use a Electric Reactive Armor design and adds a Anti-concussion Field Generator, like the one used on the Revanche. Few ships have armor which can take as much damage as the Montcalm can.

Weapons: Moderately Low

Weapons: Weapons are probably one of the ship’s weaker points. While not overly weak, the overall power of the armament is slightly lower than normal, and its most powerful weapons, the plasma beamdrills, have a very short range in comparison to turbolasers. However, there are few ships which can withstand a beamdrill at close range, whose plasma beam is quite capable of burning through shields to lacerate through most armors and into the ship itself. It’s main armament, however, are a set of ten medium turbolaser batteries, which each have half the power of a heavy turbolaser battery. While not terribly powerful, the medium turbolasers are highly accurate do to software upgrades derived from the Majestic-class and have a higher refire rate compared to heavier turbolasers. They also have been noted to be less effective at penetrating through armor compared to most turbolasers. Older weapons, used on the Nebulon B, can also be found across the vessel.

Complements: Average

Complements: The Montcalm carries an average amount of starfighters, troops, and support craft for a frigate, despite its large volume. Most of the ship’s internal volume is actually used for mining equipment and to temporary store collected materials. However, if no materials are being stored, Montcalms can carry many more troops, which are often used for boarding operations.

Mining: Montcalms are most noted among the fleet for their ability to mine asteroids and other planetoids. They accomplish this by closing in and latching onto their mining target with the tractor beam projectors. That done, the turreted beamdrills, mounted laterally where the ship starts to bulge out, are activated, emitting a plasma beam which carves through rocks to find and isolate areas with ore veins. When an ore vein is found, the beamdrills carve around the area to completely cut it off from the main body. Tractor beams then pull the ore-laden chunk into processing bays where it is refined and then stored. Useless rock and other materials taken from the refined ore are then ejected into space.

Test Thread: Unity Project: Among the Stars