The Rebel Faction

StarForge Station: The Bounty Hunters Guild

Name: StarForge Station
Type: Mobile Space Station

Size: 6 Kilometers

Life Support: 10,000 Souls


[INDENT]Welcome to StarForge Station, your last best stop in the Ado Sector between the Mid and Outer Rim. The proprietors of StarForge Station are happy to welcome visitors to the StarForge Nebulae to visit the establishment on their voyages between No-Where and The Middle of No-Where.[/INDENT]

StarForge Station is a “shadow-port”; a mobile space station that caters to merchant and mercenary alike. It operates on the edge of law, much of its financial infrastructure dependant on illegal smuggling, piracy and some slave operations.

The station itself is built into the body of a dense asteroid body. It is a hodgepodge of starship hulls and prefabricated constructs shaped roughly like an oblong orb. The surface of StarForge Station is a mixture of exposed asteroid and implanted machined bits, pockmarked by blast scars, docking bays, sensor arrays and a cornucopia of other equipment. The ‘city’ of StarForge Station, home to the Promenade, Shipyard, Residences and Dockyard looms up from the rock face, stacks upon stacks of added salvage shaped into a vaguely space-station-ish conglomeration. This is watched over by the Command Tower and Administration Levels which share joint installations on the surface and deep within the core of StarForge Station.

No one is quite sure when StarForge was constructed but over the years it has had any number of construction influences incorporated into its ever evolving design. It has passed from owner to owner over the years, going from privateer hands to industrial hands and back again until finally ending up in the hands of one Beff Pike, President of the Bounty Hunters Guild; the group responsible for funding, and ownership of, StarForge Station.

Features-

StarForge Station has many attractive features that make it an ideal fringe star-port. The most notable of the amenities is without a doubt StarForge Shipyard.

The Shipyard is not a full operations shipyard; able to construct vessels of approximately one hundred meters though this limit can be moderately extended if all other operations are suspended. StarForge Station uses its shipyard mainly to affect repairs on Guild starships and to maintain private ships at cost to the owner. Due to the size of the shipyard and the equipment it is fitted with (on average over fifty years old) the construction rate is not comparable to the true orbital shipyards employed by planetary or systems governments. The construction berths double as moorage slips for large capital ships.

StarForge Station has a number of expansive docking areas. The main dockyard is large enough to accommodate most star-cruisers though it is typically host to much smaller traffic. Private bays are also available to the appropriate personnel and companies, though these are generally lease operated and overseen by Guild administrators on station.

The Promenade is home to a myriad of shops and stores from across the fringes of the Outer and Mid Rims. Merchants from a variety of planets have come to the station in an effort to find a new life for themselves. Visitors can expect to meet any number of species in the market and encounter a plethora of products both exotic and rare. There are no market restrictions on StarForge, which uses a barter based system of trade, which means that virtually anything and everything available is available in the Promenade.

Perhaps the most interesting feature of StarForge Station is its impressive bank of Faster Then Light engines. Though rarely utilized, these ancient drives can propel the station to almost any point within the nebula. Unfortunately these engines are extremely old and problematic requiring constant attention and maintenance during any voyage. When stationary, however; these engines sit silent and without power, hardly even visible when not active. To maintain its position the station has, placed across its uneven surface, a network of solid-fuel rocket thrusters which are able to propel the station at extremely slow sublight speeds (averaging 1000 Kph).

To truly call itself a shadow-port StarForge station needs the ability to disappear. To that end the Bounty Hunters Guild has installed a Mandalorian Cloaking Device aboard the space-station. This was, perhaps, the single largest change that StarForge Station has undergone in decades, possibly centuries. It required extensive work on the part of the Guild and their contracted engineering corps, but in the end proved successful. Given the sheer size of the station it was impossible to apply enough ore-coating to properly cloak the station and as such it suffers from serious penalties. The energy signature of the station, while masked, can still be detected by standard sensors with the proper direction and intensity applied. The station can even be identified visually from the appropriate position. What the cloak does do is conceal the space station from long range scans and further obscure its identity signature by masking its sensor readings against the nebula. In combat range the cloak is almost totally useless but beyond that makes the station almost totally invisible to scanners. The cloak has been modified to operate in the StarForge nebula, a dense cluster of high-energy stars. It will not operate outside of the nebula.

Defenses-

StarForge Station is not a combat installation. Over the years, however; it has endured a number of full engagements that have taught its owners the wisdom of protecting their investment. To that end StarForge Station has contrived a number of ways to defend itself.

The first line of defense on StarForge Station is retreat which is why; under Guild Administration the engineering section has been redistributed to proper effectiveness (see OOC). Though it is still a ponderously slow process, the over-all escape speed has been increased over the stations former owners. However; should the station be forced to stand and fight it is fairly equipped to do just that until such time as the station can withdraw.

Heavy protect the station from bombardment. These are generated by modified planetary-based shield generators which, though problematic, provide adequate defense against energy and concussion weapons. Unfortunately the power demands are such that, under sustained fire, various other systems may have to be taken offline. Over two decades out of date and falling apart the shield generators are the object of much criticism despite the fact that when functional they provide defensive ratings on par with a warship about half the size of StarForge station.

StarForge Station mounts fifty heavy-turbo laser canons as its primary and only line of offense. These are a decade out of date, purchased from Kuat Drive Yards during a time of political unrest when the weapons could be easily acquired without drawing too much attention to their purchase. The KDY turbo-lasers need constant maintenance and are subject to frequent firing errors, however; after decades of innovation at the hands of the engineering and gunnery crews these weapons can deliver a significant punch compared to their years. Each weapon is manned by a separate gunnery crew of five to seven men responsible for operating the system which is then tied into Administrations and Tactical Control.

And to this end, the main line of defense for StarForge Station does not come from the station itself but rather from the sheer number of vessels that it can accommodate. In previous conflicts it has been proven, time and again, that the most effective way to defend the station is to deploy the full extent of its embarked craft and hope for the best. Surprisingly, in numerous encounters, this has proven the most efficient defense.

In combat against a dedicated military force utilizing modern battlefield weapons systems StarForge Station would, in all likelihood, face certain annihilation.


OOC Restrictions/Summary -

StarForge Station, though mobile, may only move within the StarForge Nebula.
StarForge Station cannot maneuver in combat unless agreed.
StarForge Station requires four posts for Light-Speed.
StarForge Station will not be upgraded without a separate R&D document.
StarForge Station is unique.
StarForge Station, when used in combat, must be agreed upon by all parties involved.
StarForge Station requires two posts to engage cloak.
StarForge Station can only utilize the cloak feature within the StarForge Nebula.