Wolf Class Support Vessel
Name/Type: Wolf Class Support Cruiser
Designer/Manufacturer: Stellar Enterprises
Combat Role: Long Range Fire Support
Personnel: 450 + 55 Gunners
Size: 555 meters
Speed: 18 MGLT
Shield Rating: 2,250 SBD
Projection Shields: 10000 SBD
Hull: 1,300 RU
Weapons: Dual Heavy Rail Cannon turret (Damage= 6 heavy turbolaser blasts at a single section of shield or hull), 2 Dual Rail Cannon turrets (Damage= 4 heavy turbolaser blasts at a single section of shield or hull), 4 Repeater Heavy Laser Cannons, 20 Dual laser cannon turrets, 2 30 Cell Warhead launch systems
Fighter Complement: 24 Droid Fighters
Troops: 150 Marines, 350 Defense Droids, 50 Repair Droids
Description: This ship was designed to offer fleets heavy support in engagements. It was fitted with rail cannons so that its weapons range could be greater than that of turbolasers. This would allow it to be stationed at the very rear of formations so that it could fire upon targets transmitted to it through data links. These long range weapons allow the ship to stay away from harm and target the whole battlefield.
To power these weapons systems most of the ships interior space has been fitted with power generation systems. To space power engines were also made smaller, lowering the ships maximum speed and other energy weapons systems have been left out. The deletion of turbolasers prevents the ship from engaging ships at close range once its rail cannons are fired. For protection the ship contains laser cannon defense systems in order to fend off fighter and bombers attacks.
Rail Cannons: These cannons are similar to the type of slug cannon on the Stellar Enterprises Gladiator defense station, only smaller in size and not as powerful. The pairs of Rail cannons onboard the Wolf Class are stationed outside the ship on massive turrets that are capable of moving their mass.
While these weapons are powerful enough to inflict heavy damage on even the largest ships, they require great amounts of power to fire. In order to fire all these at once, every watt of power has to be drained from the systems systems. It's shields are taken down by half, 2/3 of the laser cannons must be brought offline, and the engines have to be shut down.
The Heavy Rails require 1 post to reload and 2 posts to recharge in order to fire. This means that there must be 2 posts between any fire missions. These weapons, like the other, fire in staggered orders, meaning one round leaves its barrel before the other in order to help take down shields faster and inflict as much damage as possible. The Heavy rails can pierce shields and hit the hull with a single round on most 400 meter type vessels, while two rounds are usually required for vessels that range from 420 meters to 700 meters.
The smaller Rail cannon weapons take one post to recharge and fire, but cause less damage.
30 Cell Warhead launch system: This system is made to hold 30 warheads of different configurations and the Wolf contains 2 of these. One is located on either side of the ship at the front. Each cell is lined with magnetic coils in order to launch the warhead out towards its target at great speeds. This always the warheads to be fired without their engines on, providing them with a little stealth before their engines finally ignite once close to their targets. These engines are than used to readjust their course.
The warheads can be fired one at a time or all at once. Reloading is limited by the systems design and only 2 reloads are available per cell. Once expanded this system can no longer fire. Since the cells are all connected together, the whole system must be removed in order to be reloaded.
In case of a direct hit, the whole launch system with all 30 cells must be ejected into space. If not, the explosion from the remaining warheards could seriously damage of destroy the ship.
Shield Projection System: This system is based off a canon design built long ago. It uses shield projectors to project shields over long systems, upto several thousands of kilometers away. It can divide the ships over sevel ships and help to reinforce their original shields. This could be done to ships under heavy fire in order to prevent their distruction. It is located on the angular hump underneath the Wolf Class.
While firing the Rail cannons, these shields can not be projected as the power if used to fire the heavy rounds.
(From The New Order Sourcebook: the shield projectors of Belt-Runner I can cover ships at sensor range, providing up to 600 points (that's over 2 times the points of an ISD II) to any given ship- more than enough to survive a head on collision with one of Dubrillion's Asteroids. The Belt Runner can split these shield points among multiple ships)
Comments
#7 8:20pm 10/10/06
Maybe I recalled wrong. So yeah, go ahead with these (just know that you aren't giving 10 000 SBDs worth of shields to multiple fighters, its 10 000 divided up amongst many ships or 10 000 to one (maybe thats how the real cannon ship worked, but it wouldn't be fair for RPing).
Essentially RP them fairly and I shouldn't even be making comments.
#6 7:18pm 10/10/06
The sourcebook doesn't say anything about the other ships needing to be specially designed, just says the station can distribute them to any ships it wants to.
#5 7:03pm 10/10/06
Well if it can't use the Rail Guns and Shields at the same time that takes away my major complaint. I still think the whole "1 shot damages hull of ship 400m or less and oh look, i've got a dual one so i get 2 shots" is extreme, maybe make it so that the combined damage of the first two shots would get to the hull (the first weakening the shields enough for the second to hit the hull)? Or something. Though its not necessary.
And if you are planning on using this ship like Belt Runner was used (which I admit is different than how the Heroic and Guardian ships work) then you'd have to have specialized ships capable of accepting the shields (or so i remember from the Yuuzhan Vong books).
#4 6:54pm 10/10/06
I think that with how the weapons & shields both have limits on their use (they both can't be used at once), the design is fine as it is. Still recommending that the RU-value be replaced with a comparitive damged for certain reasons.
Stellar is especially correct on the projectile being able to pierce through because in most cases, shields are spread across the ship. However, if the shields are stated as being concentrated in a specific area which the projectile then hits, then Jan is correct. It looks good though.
#3 6:47pm 10/10/06
1. it can't use both the shields and rails at the same time.
2. the canon system was on a ship 284 meters long, with shields and 20 turbolasers on it. This small ship could project these shields over great distances and have the shields remain very strong. My ship is almost 2 times largers and should should be able to still project such shields and carry more weapons system
3.people taking rail cannon shots into concideration have to look into not just the RU damage but also the velocity and force of these projectiles. I ment they could still cause damage because the shells would have enough force to slam through the particle shields of that section and still hit the hull. Other ships with heavier shield and greater mass will have their shields weakened significantly.
4. I can take down the number of fighters to maybe 2 squads since mine are droid and I don't have the large hangers imperial designs use.
5. I don't wanna be like the other ships with a single rail cannon or whatever, I wanna have my own ship with different kinds as I can attack more than one target and targets of different sizes. If you want me to increase the size, I will. Also know that this ship will be very limited in production.
With my weapons on the outside of the ship, more internal space can be used for power systems and the like.
#2 6:30pm 10/10/06
It could just be me, but it seems rather overpowered. Other vessels which have tried the off-ship shielding of a large area in TRF cannon have no offensive power. The Heroic - Support Vessel is 500m and only provides 5000 SBD in a 1km square around the ship (though to be fair its more designed as a tug and is just supposed to be providing shields for the ship(s) it/they are towing). A better example would be TNO's Guardian Fleet Defense Vessel (600m) which provides a shield wall infront of the vessel that other vessels can hide behind at a rating of 10 500 SBD (but the vessel itself has no shields of its own). And the Guardian has a grand total of 10 anti-starfighter weapons and 1 squadron of fighters.
Also for your Heavy Rail Cannon, similar ideas have again been done in the past and the ships have been almost entirely dedicated to the 1 Giant Rail Gun (rather than a Dual Rail Gun). As well most ships at 400m have shields over 700 RU so you couldn't actually follow your whole "1 round will go through a 400m ship's shields and hit the hull".
If you want a ship with a giant rail cannon with these damages and a shield projection system and the other weapons, I'd say the size should be raised considerably. These are generally considered very special powers and have ships of this size dedicated to just one, let alone a DUAL Rail Cannon AND shield projection system.
#1 1:31pm 10/10/06
It's an interesting concept; looks pretty well balanced to me; nice work.