The Rebel Faction

Summit-class Battleship

“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 and an Anti-concussion Field Generator.



Name/Type: Summit-class Battleship
Designer/Manufacturer: Confederation Defence Industries
Designation: Battleship
Crew: 6,795 + 694 Gunners
Length: 4200 Meters
Speed: 10 MGLT
Hyperdrive: x1
Shield Rating: 8000 SBD + 4600 SBD Pinpoint (+ 12600 SBD Backup)
Hull Rating: 8300 RU
Weapons: 6 CCA III-2 Dual Very Heavy Multi-role Particle Cannons, 40 CCA X-9 Very Heavy Turbolaser Batteries, 60 CCA IV-7 Autogun Batteries, 100 CCA I-7 Defence Cluster Batteries, 224 Meteor Rocket Turrets, 20 Tractor Beam Projectors.
Fighter Complement: 156 Medium Starfighters or other equivalent (often 390 Piranhas).
Troops: 20,750 Troopers, 25 Heavy Vehicles, and 40 Medium Vehicles or other equivalent.
Support Craft: 20 Heavy Transports, 30 Light Transports.
Other: Anti-concussion Field Projectors, Automated Factories

Description: The Summit-class Battleship is the pinnacle design of the Unity Project, and undoubtedly the most complicated of them not only because of its scale, but the sheer amount of nonstandard weapon and production technologies included in it from around the Confederation: for essentially, the Summit is a hybrid battle-factory ship. Not only is it capable of destroying a fleet, but it can build one given the time and resources. As warship though, its performance is rather standard for a ship its size. As a factory ship using World Devastator technology, the Summit is capable of building anything from small arms and droids to various starships and prefabricated structures. Like the World Devastator, the Summit-class is capable of gradually modifying itself over time according to the ship’s needs (such changes will be RPed out and noted here with that particular ship, and with a link to the said RP).

Technical Descriptions:

Relative Cost: Average

Cost: The Summit uses many civilian-grade systems like the rest of the Unity vessels, and a fair amount of automation, making it somewhat cheaper than most other warships of the same size. However, the advanced warfare technology and the production facilities drive the costs back up, making it averagely priced for a ship its size.

Speed: Average

Engines: The Summit is slow ship compare to the star destroyers and cruisers which most navies field. However, for its size, the Summit has an average speed. Unlike other warships of its size, the Summit is fairly maneuverable from its advanced etheric rudder designs first used on the Seraph Mk III. This does not make the ship as maneuverable as any of the Coalition’s New Wave ships. As with other Unity ships, the Summit has dedicated maintenance and repair crews composed of LE Repair Droids supervised by human mechanics to repair damages and tune the engines for optimal speed.

Shield Rating: Average

Shields: The Summit sports two sets of shields. The first is a standard deflector shield array which provides average protection for a ship it’s size. The second is a combination of a weaker standard deflection shield generator system and a Pin-point shield system. The Pinpoint Shield is a defence system that uses a number of small, fast moving 'Force Shields' like those of the JK-series droids to intercept specific incoming attacks. The advantage of this system over conventional shields is that it is designed to quickly absorb massive amounts of damage in one spot; effectively negating penetrative attacks for weaker-all-around shield coverage.

Armor: Above Average

Armor: The Summits sports heavier armor plating that most ships its size, and like other Unity ships and many Confederation ships before it, the Summit comes equipped with Electric Reactive armor. Unlike other ships before it, the Summit also incorporates woven reflexive superconductors into the main armor plates. In doing so, the Summit can distribute the enemy electro-magnetic attacks across the entire hull. Thus a heavy ion or EMP strike designed to take out one specific system would instead create minor system fluctuations and failures across the entire ship. This part of the armor does nothing against turbolaser or other energy attacks.

Weapons: Average

Weapons: The Summit sports fewer weapons emplacements than most ships its size, but the ones it does sport tend to be significantly heavier, and more dangerous. This effectively makes the Summit ideal for taking out larger ships through penetration attacks at the cost of making it less effective against many other smaller targets. Most of the Summits weaponry is unique or is shared with only a few other designs within the Confederation.

CCA III-2 Dual Very Heavy Multi-role Particle Cannon: The best known particle cannons are ion cannons or the generic particle cannons used on Arakyd’s Tank Droids. However, all particle cannons fire magnetically contained balls of subatomic particles. Particle cannons operate on a similar principle as the railgun except they fire a magnetically contained ball of subatomic particles. The CCA III-2 is only different from these examples in its size, and in that it is capable of switching the type of particles infused in the plasma in order to match the situation. All particles, however, deal large amounts of kinetic and thermal damage at the cost of range (like ion cannons, the III-2’s range is 66% of that of a standard heavy turbolaser). Some particle cartridges can be used which provide the III-2 with range greater than a heavy turbolaser, but the damage for the weapon’s size is severely lacking. The only nonstandard cartridge of note allows the III-2 to partially perform like an ion cannon, dealing ionic and kinetic damage to the target. The III-2s are clearly visible on the Summit’s hull as the large turrets directly before the bridge.

CCA X-9 Very Heavy Turbolaser: This is almost average heavy turbolaser, save for its size and subsequent power, which is four times that of the XX-9s used on the Imperator-class Star Destroyer line. Unlike most turbolasers, the X-9 uses beamsplitters to improve its already powerful penetrating capabilities. Of course, weapons of this size are not remotely ideal to hunting many or smaller starships, even those of corvette size. They are, however, quite ideal to making short work of the star destroyer that strayed too close to the Summit.

CCA IV-7 Autogun: A multi-barrel autocannon whose design uses railguns arrayed in a gatling gun arrangement. With each individual barrel being the size of a light turbolaser and the use of maglev turrets, the CCA IV-7 has excellent tracking ability. It has an excellent rate of fire and armor piercing abilities, but lacks accuracy at long ranges and a relatively small amount of damage per shell. It is primarily designed to destroy subsystems on enemy capital ships, and would be a terribly inefficient way to destroy any enemy vessel. The IV-7 fires two types of shells: Pilum and Falarica. The Pilum shell is an attempt to combine the penetration of a solid shot with the versatility of a flechette round. It consists of a Mirrsteel Sabot shell with a payload of explosive-tipped Ferrocarbon Flechettes. When the shell hits, the kinetic energy of the shell and the solid sabot pierce through the armor and release the flechettes into the hull itself to destroy a small area directly beneath the armor. The Falarica is a fairly standard shell with a high yield thermal nuclear warhead shell. Typically used as basically a proton torpedo.

CCA I-7 Defence Cluster: The Defence Cluster is a combination of Caltrop 5 Launchers and rapid-fire autoblaster designed to destroy enemy warheads and starfighters. There are four Caltrop 5 Launchers and autoblasters per blister. The cluster allows these point-defence weapons excellent tracking and protection at the cost of smaller firing vectors and centralization. Each cluster appears as a slightly raised blister or bump from the ship’s hull.

Meteor Rocket Turrets: The Meteor rocket is much like a miniaturized Starflare missile, minus the armor-piercing warhead and the hyperdrive, and shrunk to a size just below that of most starfighter-grade munitions. The result is a stealthy missile (from its carbide construction and small size) with a high refire rate and a substandard range. The Meteor Rocket Launchers consists of a small, heavily armored turret which houses four accelerators capable of firing relatively small rockets slightly smaller than starfighter-grade missiles. Thus, when the turrets fire, the accelerators provide high acceleration and initial speed for the rocket; allowing the rocket to close in on its target faster and with improved range. Each rocket is made out of Quadranium Carbide for lower cost, stealth, and durability and is powered by a high power, solid fuel engine akin to those used on Vulture Drones. In an effort to keep costs down and to deter ECM warfare, meteors have only the most basic of tracking systems (much like space bombs). Meteors can be used for any number of things, such as destroying missiles inbound to other ships, to destroying starfighters and light transports, or if fielded in large numbers, take down capital ships. Each meteor is capable of carrying the following warheads.

Electrite Crystal: An old Confederation favorite taken from the Starflare, when the warhead contains two electrite crystals. When the rocket’s impact forces the two crystals together, they promptly disintegrate everything unshielded within a twenty meter radius. Against shield targets, it acts like a typical explosive.

Thermal: This warhead contains a thermal well, as developed by the Alliance during the Civil War. When the warhead hits, the thermal well is activated. The mixture of baradium and stabilized baradium ignites rather than explodes. The resulting thermal reaction last for several seconds and reaches temperatures of several thousand degrees, hot enough to melt through five meters of permacrete. This weapon does not a large blast radius, but has a very one which (for a capship) can be very deep.

EMP: This warhead contains an Electrostatic Charge Detonator. When the warhead hits the target, a powerful electrostatic discharge is generated across a large blast radius. Living beings are electrocuted (most hulls are metallic and conduct electricity) while circuitry in the area is fused or damaged and thus rendered inoperable.

Acid: This warhead is filled with liquid doonium acid. Thus, when the rocket hits the target, this strong acid is spread out across the hull, and begins to eat through, or corrode, everything in which it comes in contact with. T

KEP (Kinetic Energy Penetrator): A simple warhead made out of heavily hardened and reinforced ferrocarbon. Thus, this weapon uses its high speed and relatively high mass to inflict heavy kinetic damage. Against lighter hulls, the Thorn typically pierces through the hull. Against heavier armored targets, the kinetic impact typically vaporizes both the missile and some of the armor. Against mediumly armored opponents, the effects are somewhat in between the two. KEPs are often used to take down opposing missiles.

Complements: Below Average

Complements: The Summit’s complements are somewhat smaller than many ships of its size because the factory production facilities take up a fair amount of the ship’s internal volume. Because of the limited amount of volume and the onboard factories, many Confederate planners believe that the Summit should entirely use automated units (Piranhas, Paladins, Observers, etc) to be able to field around the same number of units as most other ships its size. It is unclear though if this will actually happen.

Factories: The Summit uses technology from World Devastators as provided for by Thomork, the now-Confederate world for World Devastators were originally produced. Essentially, the Summit is capable of drawing in asteroids and other material into several bays where molecular furnaces break down the material and reorganize them into new types of materials. From there, various automated fabrication units, such as machining scanners, robotic lathes, and automated assembley lines turn the material into new products, whether they be ammunition, droids, weapons, buildings, starships, to make modifications on the said Summit, et cetera. This process can be somewhat expedited by ships bringing already refined material (particularly Montcalm frigates). The Summit’s internal bays are only large enough to be able to hold the construction of a ship up to nine hundred meters in length. However, the Summit can build larger ships by producing the hull in sections and then assembling them into a complete ship in deep space. Doing so is rather rare though. Because the building process is so complex, the ship uses advanced AI to coordinate its production efforts, like the world devastators before them.

Anti-Concussion Field Generators: An Anticoncussion field was a highly advanced type of force field used at the Stars' End prison facility. To create the field, numerous anticoncussion projectors honeycombed the interior of the vehicle or building it was designed to protect. When activated, the field dramatically improved the integrity of floors, walls, ceilings and other internal surfaces. The projector's umbrella-shaped magnetic fields created a single cohesive anticoncussion field that absorbed and dispersed kinetic energy and was powerful enough to render blasts, collisions, and other impacts inert. The system used at Stars' End consumed as much energy as did a Star Destroyer's ion engines (Wookiepedia). Like other Unity ship designs, either the engines or all weapon systems have to go offline to provide power for the Field Generator to be on.