Paladin Steel/Aegis Stellar Industries ‘Hikyaku’ Heavy Scout/Courier(aka “Astroburner’, ‘Comet Express’,'Scorchstar', 'Red Rivet')
http://i408.photobucket.com/albums/pp164/taalismn/img299.jpg“Neither rain nor heat nor plasma pulses, nor anti-matter missiles, nor Demonstars, nor gloom of eternal night shall keep these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds!” ----Unofficial Motto of the Galactic Couriers.
“Yep, the Darien War’s gone hot again; both sides were simply using the ceasefire to rearm, so there’s now more of both sides, more heavily armed than ever, blasting away at each other and anything else in a five light year radius of the contested systems. The Ambassador and his staff are stuck, can’t get out, and their food supplies are running out. Their hosts can’t come up with anything that our people can properly eat, they can’t spare the ships to escort the delegation out, and their enemies have made no bones about killing neutrals unless they join their side. Eating the chow’s slow death by cumulative poisoning for our people, so we’re going to run the gauntlet to deliver them a few hundred tons of proper grub, so’s to tide them over until the war winds down enough for us to properly extract them. We go in full drive, through BOTH sides, with BOTH jammers and IFF going full blast, and we drop our supply pods to make atmo-brake on the Darian homeworld, then slingshot back out and try to ourselves back out alive. Hopefully, they’ll listen to our sig-signals and won’t mistake our grocery bags for city-busters and blow them out of the sky, because then we’ll have to go back and do it all over again!”
---Captain Haddam Chestr, ASI GalCourier
Myrtilus“Another hot run into a war zone at maximum speed, hard gees crushing us in our seats, ship shaking bucking free molecular turbulence, enough bigger garbage and free flying ordnance to tear our shields down to next to nothing at the end of the run, and ablate our forward armor down to the flint steel if we’re lucky and nobody deliberately shoots at us? Strong chance of death and destruction if they ignore our transmissions and use our signals and drive wake to home their weapons in on? Hey, SOMEBODY’s got to tell those two fleets of chuckleheads their war’s officially over.”
---Ensign Lorn Tallavor, ASI GalCourier
Sybil Ludington “Yeah, we wear ‘relief garments’ on duty, because we pull more hard gees for longer than even fighter pilots. Because on a ‘hot’ run, getting up to use the facilities like normal is asking for strained muscles and maybe broken bones if we fall or the ship has to suddenly maneuver. I don’t feel like trading my meat for a full prosthetic body like some of the other burn-riders do, so I get used to it. But right now, I’m off-duty, off my ship, and under normal gees, and I take exception to being called a ‘diaper pilot’ by some orbit-hopper like you. So unless you want to know how being hit with high-gee exercised muscle feels like, I’d shut my ‘ports if I were you.”
----Warrant Officer Callia Durmann, ASI GalCourier
Cephalus As more modern designs became possible with the advance of PS/ASI’s shipbuilding technologies, older, but still sound, designs were re-tasked to new roles, Just as older modular pre-gravitic ship designs and production lines were retooled to produce orbital platforms and equipment, so too were older CG-tech designs retained, but mined for all possible use. Such was the case with the Falx and Masakari Heavy Space Destroyers. The ships of the ‘mushroom force’(so-called for their distinctive ‘toadstool’ configuration) were small, cramped, and under-armed by Galactic standards, but they were also built tough. PS/ASI has capitalized on that toughness to rebuild the design into a high-performance high-speed auxiliary.
The Hikyaku(named for ancient Japanese Shogunate message runners) is a reworked Falx/Masakari-class hull, remade as a fast light scout or heavy galactic courier. Crew requirements have been cut down through redundant automation. The engines have been considerably beefed up, using military-grade powerplants developed in anticipation of PS/ASI’s on-the-drawing-board heavy cruiser classes. These engines make up more proportionately of the Hikyakus’ mass than those of the parent Falx and Masakari destroyer classes. Though capable of matching the top speeds of advanced and finely-tuned Three Galaxies machines such as the Altess
Zhokil-class battlecruisers, the high speeds that the Hikyakus can reach strain the ships’ spaceframes, requiring substantially more maintenance between ‘hot’ runs(some estimates place the turnaround between high speed ‘burn-runs’ at 2-3 times the standard for the Falx/Masakaris). The high performance also takes a toll on the gravitic shielding protecting the crew; when operating at maximum speed, the crew is advised to take to specially-fitted acceleration stations and work stations, as sustained long-term g-loads commonly reach 3-5 gees, and hit spikes of 7-9 during combat maneuvering. For FTL transits, the C-G FTL drives have been tweaked for as much boosted performance as PS/ASI’s drive technology knowledge allows.
Weaponry is reduced to point defense types, the ships’ armor and speed being their main defenses. Most of the weaponry has been stripped off; especially projectile weapons types, in favor of energy weapons and point defense systems. The shields have also been beefed up, especially to resist the potentially catastrophic collisions with free floating matter possible at the high speeds the Hikyakus typically operate at. Passive defenses in the form of sensor jammers have also been added, with power allocated to operate them, in the hopes that such systems will further increase the survival of the ships on their assigned missions.
Sensors and communications are above par for ships of this weight classification; as scouts the vessels need to know what’s around them, as couriers they need to avoid hazards well in advance. Their advanced communications systems allow them to more effectively dump their accumulated or carried data quickly and securely to their support elements or target receivers.
The Hikyakus normally carry only small amounts of cargo, and in courier missions, even this is kept to a minimum, most courier missions carrying only highly encrypted and compressed digital data in secure storage. LIkewise, while they can carry a few passengers, quarters and accommodations are spartan, and any passengers must double up with the crew. more often than not,those electing to travel by courier typically travel in stasis.
As warships, Hikyakus are too weak armament-wise to have much of a chance against other warships, and as interdiction craft they lack available onboard manpower to conduct search and boarding operations. Hikyakus are generally deployed as ‘look and dash’ scouts, doing quick flybys/thrus of a target system, hopefully before any enemy can mount an effective intercept. Hikyakus are not stealthy vessels; their massive engines pump out a very visible wake of gravitational distortion that can be easily detected. Because they are also decidedly not very maneuverable at maximum speed(where time dilation affects crew response time), they tend to stay away from the thick of things.
Hikyakus are occasionally used as commercial scouts and search and rescue vessels, as they can quickly cover large areas of normal space. Paladin Steel/Aegis Stellar Industries maintains a ‘runner circuit’ of these ships throughout their commercial empire, waiting to dash at a moment’s notice to relay important messages.
Type: PSS/ASI-DS-15 Hikyaku
Class: Heavy Space Scout/Courier
Crew: 30, plus 1-7 additional passengers
MDC/Armor by Location:
Main Body 11,000
Bridge 5,000
Main Engines(2) 4,000 each
Heavy Laser Batteries(2) 500 each
Point Defense Lasers(10) 100 each
Variable Forcefield 2,000 per side, 12,000 total
Height: 120 ft
Width: 120 ft
Length: 400 ft
Weight: 5,000 tons
Cargo: 300 tons
*External Cargo Racks(2)---The Hikyaku can carry external cargo in the form of modules identical to those carried by the Brunel-class heavy transports. Each rack can hold 400 tons of cargo poddage. However, this capability is rarely ever used by couriers, unless delivering ‘drop pod’ cargos, as the added mass reduces performance by as much as 10%. Scientific and scout-recon Hikyakus typically use these for sensor pods, or to deploy decoys and surveillance sats.
Powerplant: Nuclear Fusion, w/ 20 year energy life
Speed: (Atmosphere) Hover to Mach 3; transatmospheric.
(Space) Mach 20
(Kitsune Values: 60% of light speed; Accelerates/decelerates at 2% of light speed per melee)
(FTL) 6.6 light years per hour
(Underwater) Not possible
Market Cost: 415 million credits
Systems of Note:
*Full Sensor Suite---Specialized sensor pallets include radiation detectors and counters, spectrographic analysis devices, gravitic sensors, electromagnetic activity readers, and optics packages.
*Long Range Radar---Phased Array Search and Early Warning Radars
Maximum Target Resolution: 1.3 million miles
*Laser Targeting-------100,000 miles
*Communications Suite:---Long Range Radio and Video. Hikyakus use high-compression directional tight-beam ‘squirt’ systems to transmit highly-encrypted data to target receivers to minimize the chance of signal interception.
*Laser Communications ---Tactical (i.e. ship-to fighter/shuttle)Range: 50,000 miles
*Optical Tracking Clusters----These are transparent blisters fitted with gimbal-mounted high-resolution visible-light/IR/UV optical telescopes that continually scan the arc of sky before them. Linked to the navigational arrays and other tracking sensors, and to a series of highly-sophisticated near-AI search and discrimination software systems, these sensors attempt to detect objects that have low radar returns/sensor signatures, such as stealthed vehicles, iceballs, or asteroids. The high-tech equivalent of the man in the crow’s nest with a pair of binoculars.
*EW Jamming Systems---In combat, the Hikyaku will attempt to use its electronic warfare suite to confuse enemy sensors as to the ship’s exact position and activity, or, given the fact that the ship’s drive plume is obviously NOT going to be missed, deflect enemy targeting to fire at the energetic drive efflux, not the ship itself. Communications Jamming has a 10,000 mile range, is 90% effective against civilian systems, and is 65% effective against more sophisticated channel-jumping military communications suites. Missiles and sensor-guided weapons are -4 to strike.
*Passive Stealth Systems----The Hikyaku can use passive stealth systems to reduce its sensor signature by as much as 50%, but in order to achieve this, the ship cannot be under acceleration, and its engines must be running ‘cold’. This is typically used when the ship is being pursued and can break away long enough to go to ground ahead of an enemy, but cannot yet outrun them entirely.
*CAF Sensor Shielding----Purchased from CAF sources. Limits effective opposition sensor range to 4,000 miles or less.
*Self-Destruct Systems---It’s not particularly well-advertised, but couriers carry the means to electronically and mechanically destroy their databanks and ‘special’ cargoes to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands. The more extreme mission parameters may call for/provide for the entire SHIP being destroyed, rather than leave crew and onboard systems to be tortured and studied for information.
Weapons Systems:
1)Heavy Laser Batteries(2x2)---Mounted in twin turrets are two heavy twin-barrel laser cannon retained to destroy missiles and dissuade fighters and heavier warcraft from approaching too closely.
Range: 10 miles in atmosphere, 40 miles in space
(Kitsune Values: 40 miles in atmosphere/ 40,000 miles in space)
Damage: 2d4x100 MD per single blast, 4d4x100 MD per double blast
Rate of Fire: Twice per melee
Payload: Effectively unlimited
2)Point Defense Lasers(10)---- Arranged around the hull are ten standard laser PDS turrets for knocking down missiles and fighters. PS/ASI added the large number to the small starship to insure all-around coverage, and to allow at least two or more turrets to be able to come to bear on an incoming threat.
Range: 1 mile(4 miles in space)
(Kitsune Values: 4 miles in atmosphere/ 400 miles in space)
Damage: 2d6x10 MD per blast
Rate of Fire: ECHH
Payload: Effectively unlimited
Auxiliary Craft:
One Light Shuttle(Lifeboat)
Variants:
*DS-15E---This is an even faster, harder-driving version, with accelerations so hard on the crew that PS/ASI only crews them with full-conversion cyborgs and cyberhumanoids able to survive the sustained 12-25 g-loads these ships can sometimes pull.
Speed: (Atmosphere) Hover to Mach 3; transatmospheric.
(Space) Mach 30
(Kitsune Values: 60% of light speed; Accelerates/decelerates at 0.9% of light speed per melee)
(FTL) 6.8 light years per hour
*DS-15F---To address concerns that the Hikyakus sacrifice too MUCH armament to focus on a specialized duty, PS/ASI rearmed a small number with cruise missile launchers, giving them SOME utility in striking against capital ships. These ‘torpedo couriers’ each have two 15-shot Cruise Missile Launchers of CCW pattern, for a total of 30 CMLs per ship, giving them some increased ‘bite’ against heavier opposition, such as capital ships.
So that means I need to keep adjusting them until more people are happy with them.
“GET’EM! HANG’UM HIGH!”
“RUN! RUN AWAY!!!”
“Wow, the flamethrower mode on this thing sure is effective in close quarters.”
“Nice. You set the trucks in the street on fire too. Let’s make the most of it and SCRAM!”
