The Rebel Faction

Styria-class Galleon

Name/Type: Styria-class Galleon
Designer/Manufacturer: Kashan Defence Industries / Galactic Coalition
Combat Role: Transport / Medium Frigate
Crew: 148 + 32 Gunners
Length: 275 Meters
Speed: 10 MGLT, 600 Kph
Hyperdrive: x0.6
Shield Rating: 2560 SBD + 2560 SBD Backup
Hull Rating: 1820 RU
Weapons: 24 KDI XII-19 Double Ion Encumbrance Cannons, 10 KDI L-W4.3 Point-Defence Laser Cannon Batteries, 4 Starflare-class Missile Launchers, 2 Hansen FeatherTouch Tractor Beam Projectors.
Fighter Complement: 12 Medium Starfighters or other equivalent (external racks).
Troops: 100 Troopers.
Support Craft: None. Cargo Capacity: 140,000 Metric Tons. Other: KIBC II, Apollo AI System, SSDS

Description: The Styria Galleon was designed to act as both a cargo ship and light combatant within the Coalition Fleet. It combines the cargo capacity of a bulk freighter with the combat systems and durability of a warship. As the Styria-class is able to fulfill both roles, Coalition convoys do not have to consist of poorly armed freighters escorted by warships, thus saving costs for the Coalition by combining the two roles. As well, the Styria’s hold is internally modular, allowing it to be adapted for different situations which range from simple cargo hauling to reconnaissance. Like the Star Galleon, in order to keep the warship from falling into the wrong hands, the Styria is designed with multiple anti-intruder systems, ranging from Blastech Class VI Automated Laser Projectors to gas dispensers which line the cooridors. In addition, individual sections of the vessel can be isolated by heavy blast doors and force fields to entrap enemy boarders or provide internal fortresses for the ship’s crew. The main fault of the Styria-class is its incredibly poor speed and maneuverability, which is a result from the heavy armor plating of the ship and the power priority to the shield systems.

Additional OOC Information:
Automation: Automation is still used in order to alleviate manpower for other purposes, such as the army. Also, it freed up space to be used for other systems and cargo/passenger space. As such, most systems of the ship have been automated as much as possible without reducing efficiency. Although most of this automation technology was designed by the former CIS Separatist members, the Resolve’s automation has been improved upon since the days of the Clone Wars.

The droid brains that make up most of the automation system have been programmed with data collected from actual crewmembers in the actual jobs that they do, making the ships as effective as if they were run by actual crewmembers. There are several “automation personalities” available for each system of the ship, making them unpredictable to the enemy. For further improved performance and unpredictability, the droid brains have been allowed to learn. The droid brains can be overridden by a command code from the officer in charge of the system that it automates. Thus, the weapon’s officer can override the weapons automation, etc.

In order to protect the droid brains, they are armored with Quadranium Carbide and Dallorian alloys and are positioned towards the centre of the hull to prevent damage from glancing hits on the vessel. Access to the droid brains themselves is severely restricted and is heavily protected by the ship’s security system, which is discussed below.

While automation certainly has its advantages for the Kashan Fleet, it does have on drawback. Moving and living creatures can help with damage control. Stationary Droid brains aren’t quite as effective to say the least. Thus, the efficiency of the damage control is below average for a ship it’s size.

Kashan Hyperdrive: The Hyperdrive found on the Styria is derived from that of the Seraph-class, which is in turn derived from the Acclamator-class Military Transport. While the design team did not have an actual Acclamator hyperdrive available to them, they did have several engineers and mechanics who worked on them during the Clone Wars. To the best of their abilities, it was reconstructed. Nonetheless, it still was slower than that of the Acclamators. In the end, the hyperdrive’s rating was raised to Acclamator levels by brute force engineering. It was modified to accept more power. In order to prevent the engine from overheating and melting, it was made with Dallorian Alloy and given an advanced cyro-cooling system.

Hull Construction: As the Styria is intended for use by the entire Coalition fleet, it does not use Ultrachrome armor because of the expense and limited production capabilities of the metal. Instead, the unusually thick armor of the galleon uses an alloy of Trimantium and Lanthanide. Trimantium is used to plate starship hulls. It is extremely durable, and provides a great deal of protection when used in combination with shields (CUSWE). It is also noted for its unusually tensile strength by spacers (WEG). This, along with the armor’s thickness, makes the Styria highly resistant to solid projectile weapons. Lanthanide is an ultra-dense alloy material was used in the creation of security barriers and personal furniture which was capable of deflecting or absorbing blaster or projectile fire (CUSWE). For the Styria, Lanthanide is capable of partially deflecting energy fire and putting up with more energy abuse than most other similarly sized and armored vessels.

Because warheads are among the gravest threats facing modern-day capital vessels, the Styria’s armor is Electric Reactive. Obviously the ultrachrome plates serve as the conductive plates in the armor whereas a Quadranium carbide serves as the insulator of the armor(discussed in more detail after the following explanation from Wikipedia):

A new technology of electric reactive armour is in development, where the armour is made up of two or more conductive plates separated by some space or by an insulating material, creating a high-power capacitor. In operation, a high-voltage power source charges the armour. When an incoming body penetrates the plates, it closes the circuit to discharge the capacitor, dumping a great deal of energy into the penetrator, which may vaporize it or even turn it into a plasma, significantly diffusing the attack. It is not public knowledge whether this is supposed to function against both KE-penetrators and shaped charge jets, or only the latter. This technology has not yet been introduced on any operational platform.

Previous Electric Reactive Armors used by the Contegorian Fleet has used various polymers of carbon; long-manufactured for use on the fleet’s Starflare missiles and a few of its small support craft, such as starfighters or probes. In short, it was the most available insulator to the fleet, hence its use. However, more experimentation with ERA using a wide variety of insulators from vacuum to plexiglass, but the most promising were the carbides, whose also had the benefit of an extremely hard refractory ceramic. And of those, Quadranium Carbide(QuC) was found to be the most effective. As with other hard refractory ceramics, Quadranium Carbide has an extremely high melting temperature due to its strong interatomic bonding between molecules. As with other materials of similar nature, it is rather hard and has a high tensile strength, meaning that solid projectiles such as PIMs or slugs do not inflict as much damage (albeit the damage is still devastating to the cruiser). Penetration by such weapons is hampered and reduced because of this layer. A side benefit of this layer is that it does not conduct electrical energy at all, making it effective in stopping the effects of most ion weapons (the exception being PIMs).

KDI XII-19 Double Ion Encumbrance Cannon: The XII-19 is a light-to-medium capital ship weapon, looking like a double turbolaser cannon to the casual military observer. But instead of being a pure energy weapon, it is an example of a rare hybrid ion-projectile weapon: the Ion Encumbrance System. The XII-19 launches meter long Ferrocarbon projectiles that generate ion fields called "tags." Tags pierce or latch onto an enemy vessel if the projectile, which is fired from the dual railguns, hits its target. The tag immediately inflicts ionization damage(roughly half that of a turbolaser) to the target vessel. The damage is constant unless the tag is physically removed in a manner similar to a PIM. The effective ionization radius for the weapon is 10 meters. The XII-19 by itself, no matter how many “tags” hit a vessel, cannot fully disable its opponent. Instead, it is meant to disable external subsystems such as weapons, sensors, communications, or other electronics not far from the outside of the hull.

KDI L-W4.3 Point-Defence Laser Cannon: The L-W4.3 is the reverse of most KDI weapon technology; instead of working of increased aim, the L-W4.3 is intentionally designed with a very short range. However, it’s bolts are as powerful as those of a heavy laser cannon. In addition, the Dallorian-plated weapon has been fitted with a Merr-Sonn advanced rapid-pulse energy module, giving it a high rate of fire. With it’s small size, the servos have little difficulty in rapidly tracking a fast target, making it an ideal defence against missile attacks.

KDI Starflare-class Missile Tube: The Starflare-class Missile Tube launches hyperspace missiles of the Kashan Fleet. In order to switch warhead types, the Styria uses a revolving rack of the warheads. To prevent premature detonation, the warhead changing process takes place behind durasteel blast doors aside from the ship’s typical hull plating. Also, each warhead is automatically armed only after it leaves the launching tube.

Hansen FeatherTouch Heavy Tractor Beam Projector: this tractor beam unit is capable of amazingly fine operations. They can harmlessly pull a bird out of mid-flight, or rip a small freighter to pieces. The FeatherTouch is turret-mounted, allowing it to be used in a multitude of configurations (CUSWE). The particular version used on the Juaire-class is the heaviest one available, and can perform as well as any other capital-grade tractor beam as well.

Apollo Artificial Intelligence System
Description: The AAIS has been under joint development by Kashan Automation Systems, Kashan’s premier droid manufacturer, and Kashan Defence Industries for over a decade. Because Kashan’s Seraph-class rely heavy on automation, there was speculation that a simple virus could make the entire Kashan Defence Fleet inoperable. In order to qualm those fears, the Apollo Anti-Virus Project was born. But as work progressed, the computer system became far more than the simple security system originally envisioned, but instead a computer that represented the ship itself.

True to the original vision, the Apollo is a security system that immediately detects any tampering with the ship’s electronic systems, (whether it be a dataport in the mess hall, a gunnery computer, or any of the automation hardware that keeps the ship running) by constant monitoring by controlling the ship’s security systems as well as making frequent diagnostics of every integrated electronic device onboard the ship. Not only does this prevent slicing, but it also allows the ship itself to monitor every beings activities within the ship.

Another aspect of the system is the use of rapidly changing code elements for locks and key systems of the vessel; making it harder for slicers, droids, and portable computers to gain access. Kashan programmers added another countermeasure by adding “flagged” codes to the computers. If any of the “flagged” codes are used by the slicer, it silently trips an alarm to both the Apollo and the troops stationed aboard the ship.

The idea of “fighting with fire with fire” was also on the mind of the designers when designing the AAIS. Thus, the Apollo has full slicing capabilities from programs designed by slicers from Kashan as wells as some bought via the black market from the rest of the galaxy. In order for the Apollo to start its own slicing activities, it must either be on a communication channel with the target or docked with the target. For more offensive capabilities, the Apollo can also send out “Trojan Horses”, which are normal communications or datafeed interlaced with the code of the viruses to the target. Parts of the AAIS are always developing their own unique slicing programs for use against the enemy. Most of the virus designed thus far allow the Apollo to take control of an opposing ship’s computer system or allow the AAIS to glean information from the opposition’s computers.

The AAIS is based in the central droid brains that the ship. In the unlikely advent that the droid brains are deactivated or for some reason are inoperable, all of the AAIS benefits are lost. The security systems then become the basic ones found on all warships.

SSDS (Stealth Ship Detection System): The Confederation uses a large amount of stealth fighters, and thus recognizes the value stealth can play in naval operations as well as its general advantage. In order to deny that advantage to its enemies, Confederation ships use the SSDS. The SSDS is a fleet-wide system routed through the KIBC Mk II in which the DERs found on all of the fleet’s vessels, from the starfighters to star destroyers, are geared specifically to pick up thermal signatures of ships, notably through most ships propulsion systems and heating systems required to make other ship’s inhabitable for their crews. The system’s detection ratings improve as the stealthed ship approaches closer to a Contegorian vessel, or in the reverse, when a fleet dispatches a S9 to a distant and faint signature, which the Deathsaber soon gets a closer and accurate signature of the vessel. In this way, it is possible for Confederation ships to track the general area of a where a most cloaked or stealth ship(s) reside. DERs and heat signaturing technology are also only effective against larger objects, and the SSDS is incapable of detecting or tracking stealthed or cloaked ships/objects that are under 50 meters of length, unless the said object for some reason makes a disproportionate amount of heat for its size because of some function. As well, the Styria carries a pair of Full Spectrum transceivers in its package aside from the standard one. One is of a low frequency variety, uses a long-wavelength, which when used against smaller vessels, generates a partial-wave resonance effect, which can suggest the presence of a stealth ship or weapon(depending on its specifications) in the immediate area. The low-wave transceiver is even then somewhat limited in terms of accuracy and range, and no precise location for the target can be found by this sensor alone. The other transceiver sends out high-frequency and high-energy waves beams in coordination with the other two full-spectrum transceivers onboard. Since each transceiver is located in a different position in relation to each other, it is possible for them to cross-check and filter out the results in a manner similar to passive radar systems used on actual modern-day Earth.

Internal Modularity: Most of the internal hold is just open space, capable of holding and mixing different types of cargo and their packaging, as with many other freighters. However, as the Styria was also designed to see use within conflicts, it be fitted out to carry starfighters, shuttles, and troops as well. In it’s starfighter carrier role, the Styria is a light carrier, capable of taking 48 Deathsabers or 64 S11s or 72 S12s or 36 A3s or other equivalent. If the ship is only carrying shuttles, typically loaded with troops, it can fit 20 CG-10s or Meteor Dropships or other light transports. In rare occasions, the Styria is completely loaded as a troopship, in which case it can carry 1,500 Infantry (with no vehicles).