Amphion-class Light Frigate
Name/Type: Amphion-class Light Frigate
Designer/Manufacturer: TransGalMeg / Kashan Defence Industries
Designation: Light Frigate
Crew: 48 + 28 Gunners
Length: 175 Meters.
Speed: 35 MGLT, 850 Kph
Hyperdrive: x0.6
Shield Rating: 605 SBD + 605 SBD Back-up
Hull Rating: 250 RU
Weapons: 10 KDI III-7 Dual Turbolaser Cannons, 8 KDI B-W5.3 Quad Laser Cannons, 4 KDI Starflare-class Missile Tubes, 2 Tractor Beam Projectors.
Fighter Complement: None.
Troops: 20 Shock Troopers.
Description: The Kashan Defence Fleet captured Xiytiar-class freighters and supplemented them with ones purchased on the market or confiscated for criminal activity. While the ships could be used for cargo hauling, KDI was inspired by a previous conversion of the freighter into a picket ship by the Rebel Alliance. Thus, KDI designed their own conversion of the freighter based on the experience and equipment of the Corellian Gunship. The result is a lightly armored vessel with exceptional speed, making it an effective anti-starfighter screening vessel for the Kashan Fleet. When not on the battlefield, Amphions are used as Custom vessels because of their speed and armament. While the first batch of the vessels were made from conversions, KDI intends subsequent vessels from the keel up. At this time, most Amphions are assigned to the joint Gestalt-Kashan Fleet.
An outdated transport ship no longer in production. It was converted for war by the rebel alliance in the early Civil War era as a picket ship. Much of the storage bay was converted into additional crew quarters and a small starfighter hangar. It still keeps a 500 ton cargo compartment.
Automation: Automation has become a trademark of Kashan vessels, and the Amphion-class is no exception. When the freighters were rebuilt, they were given the same automation technology employed on the Seraph-class cruisers. This 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 Amphion’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 ultrachrome 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.
Hull Construction: Kashan’s dominant industry is mining along with metallurgy. Thus, it should come as no surprise that the Amphions have been reconstructed with better materials. The frame of the Amphion is composed of Ferrocarbon, giving it excellent structural strength, laminated with carbon and Trimantium fibers to increase the frame’s tensile strength. One of the combat weaknesses of the Xiytiar-class was the use of a spar to connect the main hull with the engines. In order to eliminate this, the spar has been heavily reinforced with ferrocarbon and has thicker than normal hull plating than the rest of the vessel. As with the other Kashan warships, the craft is plated with Ultrachrome.
Each Ultrachrome plate is made by liquefying the metal with ion fusers and flash-freezing it by the vacuum of space or any number of cooling agents. This process makes the metal abnormally dense than even typical Ultrachrome. (Ultrachrome is an incredibly-dense metal was used in the production of vibroshields and other forms of blades, since it could withstand high temperatures and maintain a razor-sharp edge despite hard usage. When connected to a power supply, ultrachrome became a form of superconductor, absorbing energy and shunting it aside… (CUSWE)). The Ultrachrome is connected to the ship’s power supply, allowing it to absorb energy weapon attacks and transfer that power to reserve power cells of the vessel’s Power System. In the advent of excess energy, the power grid system will automatically vent the excess energy into space as heat until more power storage becomes available. It should be noted that all weapons and other systems that bulge out from the main hull are equally protected as the main hull itself with Ultrachrome plating.
Shields:
The Amphion-class carries fairly typical shield systems for any modern warship. The main innovation of the Seraph is that both the main and back-up shield generator systems are identical. This leads to easier maintenance and improved battle capabilities. All shield generators are located below the Ultrachrome armor plating. Thus, the shields themselves are situation just on top of the hull plating.
Kashan Hyperdrive: The Hyperdrive found on the Seraph is derived from that of 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.
Weapons: The Amphion is primarily designed for use against smaller ships such as corvettes, light freighters, shuttles, and most obviously, starfighters. As such, the Amphion’s weapons are all mounted on fast-tracking turrets that are based on those of the successful DP-20 (Corellian Gunship). This makes the ship an effective fighter-screening and light-pursuit vessel for the Kashan Fleet.
KDI III-7 Dual Turbolaser Cannon: The KDI III-7 is a light capital-grade weapon designed for use against enemy starfighters and smaller capital ships, somewhat like the light turbolasers of the Pandora-class. However, the III-7 is geared for long-range with a 150% of the range of typical weapons using the same technology as the KDI XIV-7 Heavy Turbolaser: the III-7 design is actually based on the rare SW-APE rifle manufactured decades ago. Like that weapon, it has the Stysor blaster chamber's prismatic crystal housing and galvern pattern, that boosted the static pulse output from the weapon's actuating module for a higher range. Combined with the ion sheathing and particle accelerator technology currently employed on the Seraph-class, the weapon acts as an effective deterrent for lighter ships such as starfighters or more often, smuggling cargo ships.
KDI B-W5.3 Quad Laser Cannon: A KDI weapon based on the famous and effective CEC AG-2G Quad Laser Cannon employed on the Lancer Frigate. Much of the design is similar, although KDI technology as been incorporated within it, giving it an exceptional range. To this end, the B-W5.3 also incorporates particle-accelerator at the end of each barrel, giving it improved accuracy and damage ratings. As well, it has 135% improved range of typical laser cannons.
KDI Starflare-class Missile Tube: The Starflare-class Missile tube has become a mainstay among Kashan vessels, including the Amphion. In order to switch warhead types, the Amphion uses a revolving rack of the warheads. To prevent premature detonation, the warhead changing process takes place behind durasteel blast doors aside from the Ultrachrome Hull plating. Also, each warhead is automatically armed only after it leaves the launching tube.
Integrated Kashan Battle Computer: The Integrated Kashan Battle Computer is actually multi-purpose network that is connected to every vessel of the Kashan Fleet, whether it is a patrol starfighter or a Seraph-class Cruiser. The main purpose of the Battle Computer is to intertwine, triangulate, and transmit sensor data collected from each ship.
This allows the ships to instantly gather target acquisition data and triangulate that data. The triangulation process ensures excellent target data, foiling most anti-targetting and sensor-jamming systems.
More importantly, the network can also provide navigational data from each ship along. Each vessel automatically transmits its location to the other vessel and shares navigational data with it as well. This allows the vessels of the Kashan fleet to act as navigation beacons for hyperspace jumps. As such, it is possible for Kashan ships to make instant intra-system micro-jumps to a Kashan vessel with the Battle Computer.
Security: Aside from the typical security monitors, security passes, and checkpoints, the Amphion-class uses Ultrachrome for the bulkhead lining of the entire ship. When an intruder is detected, it runs electricity through those linings, which then. Thus, the intruder is fried by the electric current, whether it be a living being or a droid. The power settings of the electricity can be adjusted from a shock that will normally knock a living being unconscious to the highest level, which can start circuits on fire.