Bushido Industries Hie Maru class Star Liner:

Originally ocean liners were needed to cross the major oceans and might take days or even weeks. Eventually, airliners could do the same thing in hours. With the vastness of space, something very much like the ocean liner in form was reborn. To cross the vastness of space might require days, weeks, months, and in some cases even years.

Bushido Industries manufactures all of the major civilian starship designs that one commonly sees within the Three Galaxies. This includes small, medium, and large merchant ships. As one might expect, the company builds their own class of star liner. The company is not considered a major manufacturer of liners although its is considered a very solid design.

What makes the Bushido Industries Hie Maru class really unusual is the ship’s incredible speed. At six light years per hour, it is actually faster than many warships. It is similarly fast as far as acceleration at sublight speeds. The liners great speed makes many passengers consider voyages on them extremely safe. Still, these liner has only been operating for a few years and there are not enough reports to be able to write with any confidence that these ships are actually less likely to have problems with pirates.

The ship is a bit small compared to other liner classes at just under one hundred thousand metric tons. As one might expect, passenger compliment is a bit smaller than many other liners with a normal capacity of around six hundred. Included in this are sixty luxury staterooms and the remainder double occupancy smaller cabin. Both the luxury and standard cabins are slightly smaller than on larger liners. Still, they are extremely well appointed. In addition, there are extensive entertainment facilities including multiple restaurants and exercise areas with swimming pools.

A number of these liners have been built for less spacious accommodation with eight hundred passengers. With smaller cabins than standard version of the liner, these do not have the luxury staterooms or the extensive entertainment facilities. As one might expect, the number of stewards on these ships is vastly reduced compared to the more luxurious version of the ship.

While there are no official troop transport versions of these liners, many believe a number of these ships have been built for this role by Bushido Industries for their own use. In such a role, about two thousand troops could be carried rapidly to a hot spot. Presently, there is nothing indicating these ships have been modified to operate as hospital ships.

These ships rely more on speed to protect them from pirates and other potential threats than firepower. As such, they are less heavily armed than many other liner classes. Still, they are well armed and could be consider more like a warship than a merchant ship. While no truly heavy energy weapon batteries are carried, one long range missile battery and four medium range missile batteries are carried. Each battery has one hundred and sixty missiles. For closer range defense, six combination mounts with a variable focus particle beam and a heavy point defense gravity rail gun are carried.

In addition to the weaponry, these ships have full military shielding including variable defense shields. These ships are reasonably well armored and able to withstand a fair amount of abuse. It is believed that the design is partially based on their light carrier design and shares many similarities. These ships also carry advanced military class sensors. As a result, the Bushido Industries liner can often detect threats before they are unable to escape. Compared to most merchant ships, they do require large crews. It should be noted that these liners have no provision to carry fighters although in theory might be able to be carried in place of the standard passenger shuttles.

This starship design uses modified starship speed and weapon range rules. See Revised Starship Rules for Phase World / Three Galaxies for more details.

Model Type:	BIL-12L	Star Liner
	BIL-12T	Troop Transport

Vehicle Type: Star Liner

Crew:	Liner	85 (15 Officers and 70 Ordinary Crew) with 50 Stewards (30 in some)
	Troop Transport	95 (20 Officers and 75 Enlisted Crew)
Passengers:	Liner	600 Passengers (800 in some)
	Troop Transport	2,000 Troops

Vehicles:

Shuttles:

Passenger Shuttles

M.D.C. By Location:

	Combined GR-1000 Rail Gun / Particle Beam Cannon Turret (6):	400 each
	Long Range Missile Batteries (1):	600
	Medium Range Missile Batteries (4):	500 each
	Outer Hull (40 ft/ 12.2 m Area):	150
	Inner Hull (40 ft/ 12.2 m Area):	100
	[1] Bridge:	5,000
	[2] Main Engines (2):	6,000 each
	[3] Main Body:	32,000
	[4] Variable Force Field:	4,000 a side (24,000 Total)

Notes:

[1] In reality this is how much damage needs to be done for a weapon to hit the bridge through the ship’s armor. This ship does not have an auxiliary bridge. Even if the bridge is destroyed, the ship can still be piloted from engineering but ship is -3 to dodge and all weapon systems will be at local control. Weapon hits near the bridge that do not penetrate the ships integrity can injure crew members on or near the bridge.

[2] Destroying the main engines means that the ship’s faster than light propulsion systems are destroyed and maximum sublight speed is reduced by half.

[3] Depleting the M.D.C. of the main body will put the cruiser out of commission. All internal systems will shut down, including life support and internal gravity. The ship itself will be an unsalvageable floating wreck.

[4] Shields positions can be varied and all could be combined in one shield. Shields regenerate at the rate of 5% (1,200 M.D.C.) per melee round.

Speed:

Driving on the Ground: Not Possible.

Sublight: Has a special sublight engine that allows the ship to travel up to 60 percent of the speed of light. Star Ship can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 0.85 percent of light per melee.

Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is 400 mph (644 kph), can enter an atmosphere and can leave but is not designed for atmospheric operations.

Stardrive: Uses a Gravitonic Drive system that allows the ship to reach a maximum of 6 light years per hour.

Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either drive system. Carries about two years worth of supplies on board.

Statistical Data:

Length: 612 feet (186.54 meters).

Height: 105 feet (32.00 meters).

Width: 180 feet (54.86 meters).

Weight/Mass: 106,000 tons (96,200 metric tons)

Power System: Advanced Fusion with a 15 year life span. The ship normally only goes 5 years between refueling and refitting.

Cargo: Cargo holds are scattered about the ship that allows for carrying up to 8,000 tons (7,250 metric tons) of cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition. These cargo spaces are used for both passengers' luggage/cargo and to carry contracted cargo or mail.

Market Cost: 1.5 billion credits including luxuries. The ship would cost 800 million without luxuries.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

One (1) Long Range Missile Battery: Missiles have a top speed of Mach 20 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 8% of light per turn (faster than any starship.) Whether weapons can be shot down is calculated from the speed of target, battery, and missile. When drive goes dead, the missile will continue to travel in a straight line unless set to self destruct but has very low odds of hitting star ships (Great for hitting bases and planets because the target does not move and missile, when unpowered, is at -25% to be detected.) Long range missiles do not have penalties to hit small targets unlike cruise missiles and are all considered smart missiles. Batteries can launch on multiple targets each at the same time.
Maximum Effective Range: Long Range missile range is 3,400 miles (5,470 km) in an atmosphere and 1,800,000 miles (2,897,000 km/9.7 light seconds) in space.
Mega-Damage & Properties: See revised Phase World / Three Galaxies missile tables for details. (Fusion warheads inflict 2D4x100 M.D.C. each.)
Rate of Fire: Can fire missiles one at a time or in volleys of two (2), eight (8), sixteen (16), or thirty-two (32) missiles per battery, per melee attack.
Payload: 160 long range missiles total
Four (4) Medium Range Missile Batteries: Weapon system is used for hitting enemy robots, fighters, and against incoming cruise missiles. Like other Phase world systems, weapon system range and speed has been greatly increased compared to Rifts Earth systems. Missile has a top speed of Mach 15 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 6% of light per turn. Batteries can launch on multiple targets each at the same time.
Maximum Effective Range: Medium Range Missile range is 160 miles (257.5 km) in an atmosphere and 80,000 miles (128,750 km/0.43 light seconds) in space
Mega-Damage: Varies with medium range missile type (See revised Phase World / Three Galaxies missile tables for details.)
Rate of Fire:Can fire missiles one at a time or in volleys of two (2), four (4), eight (8), or sixteen (16) missiles per battery.
Payload: 160 per battery for a total of 640 medium range missiles.
(6) Combination GR-1000 Rail Gun/Particle Beam Cannons Ball Turrets: Mounted in turrets are one GR-1000 Rail Gun with a particle beam above the rail gun laser cannons. Turret are main defensive weapon of starfighter and they inflict a huge amount of damage. Both weapons can be fired together if the weapons are within range and both are controlled by the turret gunner. The turrets may be put under the bridges control. Turrets have 360 rotation and 120 degree arc of.
- GR-1000 Rail Gun (1 each mount): Very powerful rail gun mounted in turret. This is the same weapon system that is mounted in the nose of the Scorpion starfighter. Projectiles are fired from the gravity rail guns at a significant fraction of the speed of light. The weapon cannot be used while the ship is traveling at faster than light velocities.
  Maximum Effective Range: GR-1000 Rail Guns: 16 miles (26 km) through atmosphere and 1,600 miles (2,575 km) in space.
  Mega Damage: GR-1000 Rail Guns: 40 round burst inflicts 4D6x10 M.D. (Combined particle beam [on heavy setting] and rail gun inflicts 8D6x10)
  Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the gunner (usually 4 or 5).
  Payload: 10,000 rounds (250 Bursts)
- Variable Focus Particle Beam Mounts (1 each mount): The particle beam is copied from those carried on the CAF Assault Shuttle and will fire a very powerful narrow beam and can fire a scatter effect that is less powerful but is capable of striking multiple targets. The weapon system is quite useful against missiles although the cone is not as wide as Tachyon cannon sprays are (Gives +2 bonus vs fast moving targets such as missiles.) The weapon cannot be used while the ship is traveling at FTL speeds.
  Maximum Effective Range: 300 miles (480 km) in space and 3 miles (4.8 km) in an atmosphere.
  Mega Damage: Single Target: 4D6x10 per blast. Wide Beam: 5D6 to all targets within a 5,000 foot (1,524 meter) diameter area. When fired as a wide beam, the cannon cannot be used on targets closer than 5,000 feet (1,524 meters) away (Combined particle beam [on heavy setting] and rail gun inflicts 8D6x10).
  Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the gunner (usually 4 or 5).
  Payload: Effectively Unlimited.

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Writeup by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

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