Sharlin class High Speed Tender / Repair Ship (C.A.F.):

The Sharlin is radically different than the previous Button class tender with the ship able to be considered almost a small mobile spacedock. Part of the reason for the development of this repair ship was that the older Button class tender, first built by Human Alliance before the formation of the Consortium, was not very well equipped to make repairs on Scimitar class patrol ships. In addition, the Consortium wanted a much faster tender.

Even though the Scimitar class was an important consideration, these ships retain the ability to make major repairs on other class of light ships as well as minor and even moderate repair work on cruisers and even larger vessels. As one might expect, the Sharlin class is a fair amount larger than the old Button class.

While construction continues on these fast tenders, the last of the Button class were retired around two decades previously. The Consortium still does retain a number of the older tenders in inactive reserve forces where there is no real plan to discard them. The fast tender has been offered to the Human Alliance and while an extremely capable vessel, it was considered beyond the budget at the present time.

A small number of these fast tenders have been sold to Independent Defense Forces although the cost of them is prohibitive. As a result, most have preferred to purchase older tender classes or build their own tender classes from converted merchant hulls.

In a similar manner to the Button class tender, the Consortium military names these vessels after famous and significant individuals in the repair, logistics, and support branches of the Consortium military. Many are named after serving fleet officers and enlisted but in some cases are named after civilians. The class namesake, “Sharlin” in named for a Wolfen engineer that was the director of Consortium Armed Forces shipbuilding during their war against the Trans-Galactic Empire.

The ship is constructed to an unusual set of standards, kind of half military and half civilian. While the hull is based on a civilian design, key reinforcements were added so it is much stronger than it might otherwise be. In addition, the repair ship carries variable force fields although relatively light compared to a warship of similar size.

As with the Button class, proposals to have these vessels unarmed were rejected. Still, weaponry is strictly secondary and defensive in nature. These include a pair of long range missile batteries, eight point defense particle beams, and eight mini-missile launchers. If there is virtually any chance of these vessels being attacked, they will be escorted by multiple warships. In low risk areas, this may be just a few corvettes, frigates, or destroyers. In higher risk areas, this may also include cruisers. A standard heavy escort might consist of a single cruiser, usually a Warshield, and four to six lighter vessels.

While the old Button class could only reach faster than light velocities of around three light years an hour, the Sharlin is quite fast and is able to reach up to five light years an hour, the same as a Warshield class cruiser and Scimitar class patrol vessels. This is in part to allow the repair ship to operate with a fast task force. With some ships under construction being even faster however, thought is being given to tender which can reach up with the new even faster vessels. In normal space however, the Sharlin simply does not have the acceleration of most warships. It is however powered by an anti-matter power plant backed by fusion systems.

When looking at a Button class and a Sharlin class, the external changes will immediately jump out at an observer. This is in addition to the huge size disparity. The fast tender actually has two two internal bays large enough to put ships up to the size of Scimitar class patrol ships. Of course ships like the Hunter can also be docked in these bays. The cavernous bays are located on either side of the ship and make the Sharlin quite a bit wider than a Button class tender. These bays are also why the fast tender has been described as a small mobile spacedock.

Having the ability to actually dock smaller vessels inside the Sharlin has already saved several badly damaged destroyers. In a hot zone where, even with escorts, there are cases repair ship cannot remain to make major repairs. Instead, the damaged vessels docks inside of the Sharlin and the repair ship quickly departs the hot zone.

It is very possible to build or completely refit ships inside of the huge bays. The Consortium has been trying to keep the refitting of Scimitar class patrol ships to the Long Bow configuration as low key and quiet as possible. As a result, several of these refits have been done by navy personnel inside of Sharlin class tenders. A few of the minor navies which have purchased these vessels have used them to construct destroyers.

In addition to having a bay for ships up to destroyer sized, the Sharlin class has four bays to refit or repair up to a squadron (12) of small or medium fighters or up to four heavy fighters each bay. In comparison, the Button was designed to deal with less than half as many fighters at one time. Normally, the Sharlin class does not embark any fighters for its own uses although can potentially.

The heavy repair equipment allows the Sharlin to make moderate to heavy repairs and refits to cruisers, however the tender is mostly limited to minor and some moderate repair and refit work on battleships and fleet carriers. Such heavy repairs are usually performed by the truly huge mobile space docks.

As far as actual onboard facilities, the Sharlin has a total of one hundred and forty work shops on board and eight heavy material fabrication areas. In addition, the fast tender has the ability to carry even more cargo that the Button class. As with the older class, most of this cargo is in the form of raw materials, components unable to be fabricated, and extra missiles for ships that need to be supplied after being repaired.

The fast tender has an extensive medical facility and often need to act as repair ships to both the ships themselves and the ship’s crews. These facilities are enlarged over the Button class tender but the class does not replace hospital ships. As far as actual facilities, the Sharlin has six state of the art operating rooms, advanced regeneration equipment, cloning banks for replacement limbs and organs, eight hundred medical beds, and one hundred and sixty stasis chambers. Because of all this equipment, the ship has a medical staff of around two hundred and twenty medical personnel to support the medical facilities.

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: AR-1200.

Vehicle Type: Tender / Repair Ships.

Crew: 1670 total [250 (35 Officers and 215 Ordinary Crew) for ships operation, 1,200 repair personnel, and 220 medical personnel].

Vehicles:

Fighter Compliment:

	24	Mini-Tugs
	48	Transient Fighters (Normally to be repaired)

Shuttles:

	6	Passenger Shuttles (usually used for medical emergencies)
	10	Cargo Shuttles

Other:

800

Repair Drones

M.D.C. By Location:

	Point Defense Particle Beam Cannons (8):	150 each
	Long Range Missile Batteries (2):	600 each
	Mini-Missile Launchers (8):	100 each
	Outer Hull (40 ft/ 12.2 m Area):	125
	Inner Hull (40 ft/ 12.2 m Area):	100
	Ship Repair Bay Doors (2):	15,000 each
	Fighter Repair Bay Doors (4):	6,000 each
	[1] Bridge:	10,000
	[2] Main Engines (2):	15,000 each
	[3] Main Body:	65,000
	[4] Variable Force Field:	5,000 a side (30,000 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 hull. 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 ship faster than light systems are destroyed and maximum sublight speed is reduced by half.

[3] Depleting the M.D.C. of the main body will put the liner 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% (1,500 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 maximum due to military shields. Star Ship can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 0.65 percent of light per melee.

Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is 250 mph (402 kph), can enter an atmosphere and can leave but is not designed for atmospheric flight.

Stardrive: Uses a Gravitonic Drive system that allows the ship to reach a maximum of 5 light years per hour.

Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either drive system. Carries about two years worth of supplies on board for the crew but normally does not operate for that long without resupply.

Statistical Data:

Length: 1,650 feet (502.9 meters).

Height: 500 feet (152.4 meters).

Width: 820 feet (249.9 meters).

Mass/Weight: 1.21 million tons (1.1 million metric tons).

Power System: Anti-Matter with a 50 year life span. The ship normally only goes 10 years between refueling and refitting. Backed up with emergency fusion plants.

Cargo: Can carry up to 250,000 tons (226,800 metric tons) of cargo in addition to crew’s supplies. Each enlisted crew member has a small locker for personal items and uniforms. Ship’s officers have more space for personal items. Most of the ship’s spaces are taken up by extra ammunition, armor, troops, weapons, engine, and other equipment.

Market Cost: The ship costs 12.5 billion credits to manufacture. When sold to outside interests, the ships are normally sold for half again the manufacturing cost. This means they will normally sell for around 18.5 billion credits.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

Eight (8) Point Defense Particle Beams: These weapons are used for anti-missile, anti-power armor, and anti-star fighter defense. Each particle beam is in a turret that can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire. The weapon system cannot be used to engage targets while traveling at faster than light velocities.

Maximum Effective Range: 600 miles (960 km) in space and range is 6 miles (9.6 km) in atmosphere.

Mega Damage: 3D6x10 M.D.C. each.

Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the gunner (usually 4 or 5).

Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Two (2) Long Range Missile Batteries: Missile has 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, launcher, and missile. When drive goes dead, 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 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) per battery, per melee attack.

Payload: 1,640 total, 320 long range missiles per battery.
Eight (8) Mini-Missile Launchers: These are missile turrets used for point defense against enemy fighters and missiles. Missile has a top speed of Mach 10 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 2% of light per turn (slightly faster than any starship except if it is exceeding it maximum safe acceleration).Batteries can launch on multiple targets each at the same time.

Maximum Effective Range: Mini Missile range is 2 miles (3.2 km) in an atmosphere and 100 miles (161 km) in space.

Mega-Damage: Varies with mini-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 four (4) or eight (8) mini-missiles.

Payload: 128 per launcher for a total of 1,024 mini-missiles.

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Writeup by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

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