Unity Project: Juaire Mk II-class Gunship
Introduction:
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” ~Charles Darwin
Change.
The face of the galaxy has changed.
No longer do fleets of the Black Dragon Empire and the Galactic Coalition clash in mass battle. No longer does Simon Kaine lead the nearly unstoppable Imperial war machine. No longer is the Empire at rest, with Rebellions cropping up across its space. No longer is the Confederation an infant subfaction of the Coalition gearing up for war with BDE. But rather, it is a reasonably sized independent government barely singed by galactic war. It has become a fortified haven of peace and freedom.
With the Confederation’s transformation into a more peaceful state, so does that of the nature of the Confederate Military. Funds are increasingly being allocated for potent and cheaper ground defences rather than the expensive, high-tech warships which KDI designed to liberate the Tion Sector. Compounding the problem, there is a wide diversification of warship designs among local defence fleets. Making maintenance and supply a nightmare for large fleet expeditions, as well as making it difficult to train, rotate and promote service personnel across a multitude of ship types. Thus, while a diverse fleet of high-tech warships may look exceptionally effective on paper, it is prohibitively costly for most governments to pursue in addition to its logistical problems. Inspired by the New Republic’s successful response to a similar situation with its New Class modernization program, the Confederation has started its Unity Project.
As ships from the Unity Project are introduced, older vessels will be gradually replaced and their crews put onto their newer, cheaper, and less maintenance-intensive ships, with the exception of the already cheap Nebula-class Star Destroyer. (though many service people are retiring as the chance of conflict lessens). Local governments do have the option of overriding this project, but they then must individually pay for extra planetary defences which are becoming standard across Confederation space. Thus far, only Kashan and New Oceanus have rejected the bill, mostly because of their defence resting in concealment as well partially because of the local influence of KDI.
General Ship Overview:
“These ships may well be economic and logistical triumphs, but I would much prefer to face our enemies in the newest wave of KDI’s technological terrors.”
~ Rear Admiral Corise Lucerne, SCO, Confederate Armed Forces
Unity Project ships in general have below average costs, good mobility, a peacetime dual purpose, and excellent armor coverage but lack heavy firepower. Various laborsaving devices and automation reduce crew sizes to cut costs in paying crewmembers and consumables. In addition, Unity ships are designed to accommodate a wide variety of parts to make logistics, upgrading, and repair easier at the cost of battle efficiency. Unity Project ships are built utilizing heavily standardized components for improved logistics, ease of training, and cheaper costs; thus, default components like powercells, engines, weapons, etc are often identical on a smaller ship and a significantly larger ship, though they do vary by amount. Most designs are intentionally simple and designed for mass-production, meaning that if the Confederation was attacked, large numbers of them could be quickly produced and green crews could easily adapt to them for mass fielding. Nearly all Unity ships are based on existing designs and technologies. One technology found on all ships is the Multi-Core Power System.
Name/Type: Juaire Mk II-class Gunship
Designer/Manufacturer: Confederation Defence Industries
Designation: Corvette
Crew: 100 + 45 Gunners
Length: 200 Meters
Speed: 65 MGLT, 1050 Kph
Hyperdrive: x0.8
Shield Rating: 600 SBD
Hull Rating: 440 RU
Weapons: 20 Quad Laser Cannons, 4 Tractor Beam Projectors, 4 Starflare Missile Launchers.
Fighter Complement: 3 Squadrons (36 Medium Fighters or Other Equivalent).
Troops: 80 Troopers + 32 LE Repair Droids (Various other payloads if no starfighters are carried).
Support Craft: 4 light transports / shuttles (external racks).
Modifications: Special Sensor Suites
General Description: This Kashan Defence Industries sole design contribution to the Unity Project. Though it is based on the hull design of the powerful Juaire Mk I, this design shares almost nothing else in common. Instead of carrying powerful, experimental weaponry, the Mk II carries Quad Laser cannons across its hulls to act as a potent anti-starfighter escort during war, and as a customs ship in times of peace. The space formerly occupied by the power-hungry Tachyon cannon and the Gravitational Disruptor has been completely gutted and refurbished into three internally modular decks, each one running a little over 120 meters. Most Mk IIs have these outfitted as hangars, with each deck capable of carrying a squadron of medium fighters. Otherwise, the bays are sealed and used for carrying additional infantry and accompanying vehicles, or just pure cargoes. Several of the more wealthy worlds in the Confederation plan on converting one of theirs into armed diplomatic transports. Because of its customs duty role in times of peace, the Juaire is equipped with powerful scanning arrays, both for penetrating to inspect cargos, and to detect vessels trying to sneak by unnoticed.
Technical Descriptions:
Relative Cost: Average
Cost: The ship has an average price tag for its size. Using commercial civilian-grade systems lowers the cost of the vessel, but that gain is offset by the pricetag of the advanced sensors and partially from the MagLev technology used by the quad laser cannons.
Speed: Moderately High
Engines: One of the prime advantages of the Juaire Mk II-class is its high speed. The ion engines that propel the warship by themselves are very typical, albeit larger in proportion compared to most ships, taking up nearly 40% of the ship’s internal volume. As speed is one of the Juaire’ assets, the engines are not only well-protected, but also have dedicated maintenance and repair crews composed of LE Repair Droids supervised by human mechanics to repair damages and tune the engines for optimal speed. The two planes on the on the end of the ship are large, etheric rudders, which give the ship excellent maneuverability.
Shield Rating: Moderately Low
Shields: In order to cut costs, the shield generators of the Juaire are civilian designs, mass-produced for bulk freighters. While they are capable of putting up with some damage, they are somewhat sub-par compared to the average shielding for a ship its size. This generally is not much of a problem because of the ship’s armor, which is cheaper to buy and maintain compared to military-grade shielding.
Armor: High
Armor: Though made out of cheap and common metals, the armor of the Juaire Mk II is exceptionally thick, and is layered into a simplified version of the Electric Reactive Armor first employed on the Pegasus-class Star Destroyer. In essence, when a missile hits the hull, it is essentially hitting a charged capacitator, which instantly detonates the missile or other explosive device before it can penetrate the hull. This allows the ship to soak more physical damage than a ship for its size is normally capable of taking.
Weapons: Moderately Low
Weapons: While the Mk II retains the four Starflare Missile Tubes incorporated in the Mk I, the rest of the armament is significantly different because of the ship’s function as a patrol and anti-starfighter escort. To this end, it carries twenty standard quad laser cannons, mounted using Confederation MagLev technology and utilizing civilian superconductors instead of Ultrachrome. This makes it a moderately armed vessel, though it is highly oriented towards anti-starfighter and missile work. This specialization makes it something of a liability in battle, because it is not capable of standing up to enemy ships half its size.
Complements: Moderately High
Complements: This is the real strength of the Mk II, which basically turns it into a versatile light carrier, making the ship as useful as its complement. While most ships are equipped with the fighter bay, the Admiralty does intend to use some Mk IIs as armed cargo ships for important supplies and possibly as invasion transports.
Sensors: Customs Duty requires that it have improved sensors for inspection, which differ little from normal sensors in terms of operation, except for being larger and more powerful. More interesting, perhaps, is the stealth detection suite, which is little more than an enlarged and more powerful version of the CAA used on the S12 Shadowcaster. Unlike most sensors, the CAA does not search for a target, but instead finds what’s missing. I uses a pair of Full Spectrum transceivers; 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. Some Mk IIs used to patrol sensitive systems also carry the SE Spectrographic Sensor Array.
Test Thread: Unity Project: Among the Stars
“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.” ~Charles Darwin
Change.
The face of the galaxy has changed.
No longer do fleets of the Black Dragon Empire and the Galactic Coalition clash in mass battle. No longer does Simon Kaine lead the nearly unstoppable Imperial war machine. No longer is the Empire at rest, with Rebellions cropping up across its space. No longer is the Confederation an infant subfaction of the Coalition gearing up for war with BDE. But rather, it is a reasonably sized independent government barely singed by galactic war. It has become a fortified haven of peace and freedom.
With the Confederation’s transformation into a more peaceful state, so does that of the nature of the Confederate Military. Funds are increasingly being allocated for potent and cheaper ground defences rather than the expensive, high-tech warships which KDI designed to liberate the Tion Sector. Compounding the problem, there is a wide diversification of warship designs among local defence fleets. Making maintenance and supply a nightmare for large fleet expeditions, as well as making it difficult to train, rotate and promote service personnel across a multitude of ship types. Thus, while a diverse fleet of high-tech warships may look exceptionally effective on paper, it is prohibitively costly for most governments to pursue in addition to its logistical problems. Inspired by the New Republic’s successful response to a similar situation with its New Class modernization program, the Confederation has started its Unity Project.
As ships from the Unity Project are introduced, older vessels will be gradually replaced and their crews put onto their newer, cheaper, and less maintenance-intensive ships, with the exception of the already cheap Nebula-class Star Destroyer. (though many service people are retiring as the chance of conflict lessens). Local governments do have the option of overriding this project, but they then must individually pay for extra planetary defences which are becoming standard across Confederation space. Thus far, only Kashan and New Oceanus have rejected the bill, mostly because of their defence resting in concealment as well partially because of the local influence of KDI.
General Ship Overview:
“These ships may well be economic and logistical triumphs, but I would much prefer to face our enemies in the newest wave of KDI’s technological terrors.”
~ Rear Admiral Corise Lucerne, SCO, Confederate Armed Forces
Unity Project ships in general have below average costs, good mobility, a peacetime dual purpose, and excellent armor coverage but lack heavy firepower. Various laborsaving devices and automation reduce crew sizes to cut costs in paying crewmembers and consumables. In addition, Unity ships are designed to accommodate a wide variety of parts to make logistics, upgrading, and repair easier at the cost of battle efficiency. Unity Project ships are built utilizing heavily standardized components for improved logistics, ease of training, and cheaper costs; thus, default components like powercells, engines, weapons, etc are often identical on a smaller ship and a significantly larger ship, though they do vary by amount. Most designs are intentionally simple and designed for mass-production, meaning that if the Confederation was attacked, large numbers of them could be quickly produced and green crews could easily adapt to them for mass fielding. Nearly all Unity ships are based on existing designs and technologies. One technology found on all ships is the Multi-Core Power System.
Name/Type: Juaire Mk II-class Gunship
Designer/Manufacturer: Confederation Defence Industries
Designation: Corvette
Crew: 100 + 45 Gunners
Length: 200 Meters
Speed: 65 MGLT, 1050 Kph
Hyperdrive: x0.8
Shield Rating: 600 SBD
Hull Rating: 440 RU
Weapons: 20 Quad Laser Cannons, 4 Tractor Beam Projectors, 4 Starflare Missile Launchers.
Fighter Complement: 3 Squadrons (36 Medium Fighters or Other Equivalent).
Troops: 80 Troopers + 32 LE Repair Droids (Various other payloads if no starfighters are carried).
Support Craft: 4 light transports / shuttles (external racks).
Modifications: Special Sensor Suites
General Description: This Kashan Defence Industries sole design contribution to the Unity Project. Though it is based on the hull design of the powerful Juaire Mk I, this design shares almost nothing else in common. Instead of carrying powerful, experimental weaponry, the Mk II carries Quad Laser cannons across its hulls to act as a potent anti-starfighter escort during war, and as a customs ship in times of peace. The space formerly occupied by the power-hungry Tachyon cannon and the Gravitational Disruptor has been completely gutted and refurbished into three internally modular decks, each one running a little over 120 meters. Most Mk IIs have these outfitted as hangars, with each deck capable of carrying a squadron of medium fighters. Otherwise, the bays are sealed and used for carrying additional infantry and accompanying vehicles, or just pure cargoes. Several of the more wealthy worlds in the Confederation plan on converting one of theirs into armed diplomatic transports. Because of its customs duty role in times of peace, the Juaire is equipped with powerful scanning arrays, both for penetrating to inspect cargos, and to detect vessels trying to sneak by unnoticed.
Technical Descriptions:
Relative Cost: Average
Cost: The ship has an average price tag for its size. Using commercial civilian-grade systems lowers the cost of the vessel, but that gain is offset by the pricetag of the advanced sensors and partially from the MagLev technology used by the quad laser cannons.
Speed: Moderately High
Engines: One of the prime advantages of the Juaire Mk II-class is its high speed. The ion engines that propel the warship by themselves are very typical, albeit larger in proportion compared to most ships, taking up nearly 40% of the ship’s internal volume. As speed is one of the Juaire’ assets, the engines are not only well-protected, but also have dedicated maintenance and repair crews composed of LE Repair Droids supervised by human mechanics to repair damages and tune the engines for optimal speed. The two planes on the on the end of the ship are large, etheric rudders, which give the ship excellent maneuverability.
Shield Rating: Moderately Low
Shields: In order to cut costs, the shield generators of the Juaire are civilian designs, mass-produced for bulk freighters. While they are capable of putting up with some damage, they are somewhat sub-par compared to the average shielding for a ship its size. This generally is not much of a problem because of the ship’s armor, which is cheaper to buy and maintain compared to military-grade shielding.
Armor: High
Armor: Though made out of cheap and common metals, the armor of the Juaire Mk II is exceptionally thick, and is layered into a simplified version of the Electric Reactive Armor first employed on the Pegasus-class Star Destroyer. In essence, when a missile hits the hull, it is essentially hitting a charged capacitator, which instantly detonates the missile or other explosive device before it can penetrate the hull. This allows the ship to soak more physical damage than a ship for its size is normally capable of taking.
Weapons: Moderately Low
Weapons: While the Mk II retains the four Starflare Missile Tubes incorporated in the Mk I, the rest of the armament is significantly different because of the ship’s function as a patrol and anti-starfighter escort. To this end, it carries twenty standard quad laser cannons, mounted using Confederation MagLev technology and utilizing civilian superconductors instead of Ultrachrome. This makes it a moderately armed vessel, though it is highly oriented towards anti-starfighter and missile work. This specialization makes it something of a liability in battle, because it is not capable of standing up to enemy ships half its size.
Complements: Moderately High
Complements: This is the real strength of the Mk II, which basically turns it into a versatile light carrier, making the ship as useful as its complement. While most ships are equipped with the fighter bay, the Admiralty does intend to use some Mk IIs as armed cargo ships for important supplies and possibly as invasion transports.
Sensors: Customs Duty requires that it have improved sensors for inspection, which differ little from normal sensors in terms of operation, except for being larger and more powerful. More interesting, perhaps, is the stealth detection suite, which is little more than an enlarged and more powerful version of the CAA used on the S12 Shadowcaster. Unlike most sensors, the CAA does not search for a target, but instead finds what’s missing. I uses a pair of Full Spectrum transceivers; 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. Some Mk IIs used to patrol sensitive systems also carry the SE Spectrographic Sensor Array.
Test Thread: Unity Project: Among the Stars