Elettra class Heavy Merchant (Caramelles Kingdom):

While Warships are often the first ships though about when discussion the shipbuilding of the Caramelles Kingdom, they built far more merchant hulls than warships. These ships form the core of internal trade within the kingdom and are sold to various interests outside of the kingdom itself. These ships are less expensive generally than those built in the Consortium which makes them popular vessels. Still, most merchants which trade within the Consortium will not operate these hulls. The reason why is simple. Due to the Caramelles Kingdom policies of sentient rights abuse, the Government of the Consortium, including many member systems, will not blacklist any company which is known to trade with the Caramelles Kingdom.

One disadvantage these ships have over similar Consortium designs is that these ships lack the automation of more advanced merchant vessels and require larger crews. Inside the Kingdom itself, this is compounded by the fact that the education system is lacking. The only members of the society of the Caramelles Kingdom which have relatively good education are the nobles. Nobles form the officer core of the merchant fleet and ships operated within the kingdom have large officer compliments. When these merchant ships are operated outside the kingdom, officers compliments are often cut by around half. The ship does have the ability to carry a small number of passengers however. The kingdom itself does not allow their own citizens to operate outside of the kingdom and all trade within the kingdom itself has to be in hulls built in the kingdom.

Unlike the Consortium, the Caramelles Kingdom does not build any small merchant vessels. These ships are commonly called "Tramp Freighters." The kingdom's shipbuilding industry is not up to the standard of most of the Three Galaxies as far as building small vessels and small merchant ships are seen as a potential source of discontentment. There is also not enough interest outside of the kingdom to build these smaller designs. Instead the kingdom concentrates on medium and large merchant vessel designs. These ships are built in a larger number of yards across the kingdom although the larger hulls are only produced in two yards. No military vessels built by the kingdom are near the size of the larger merchant vessels.

The kingdom produces these vessels with a variety of different weapon suites. One version is unarmed. Because the larger vessels are more tempting targets for pirates, the Kingdom does not operate as many unarmed large merchant vessels. They make up about fifty percent of the merchant fleets of the Caramelles Kingdom. These is a lightly armed version sixteen mounts which combine a triple barrel particle beam with a mini-missile battery. These make up most of the remainder of the merchant fleets of the Kingdom. There is finally a heavily armed version of the vessel which mounts the same battery as the lightly armed version. It also adds eight combination rail gun and mini-missile mounts and four long range missile batteries. In addition, military type variable shield shields are mounted instead of light non variable shields. Outside the kingdom, the lightly armed version is most commonly operated vessel although all three can be found outside of the Kingdom.

Unlike the medium sized vessel, the heavy merchant ships are only build as cargo vessels. These ships are powered by fusion plants. Few merchant vessels, even those built by the Consortium and other advanced cultures, use anti-matter plants. As long mature technology, fusion power plants produce less power than anti-matter plants of a similar mass but are far safer and require less maintenance. These plants are designed to need refitting and refueling every sixteen years. These ships are fairly slow, with a top speed of only two light years per hour.

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: Elettra class Heavy Merchant
Vehicle Type: Heavy Freighter
Crew: 155 (25 Officers and 130 Ordinary Crew / Enlisted)
Passengers: 150

Vehicles:

Light Cargo Shuttles (Provision for cargo transport, not always carried)

M.D.C. By Location:

Standard:

Military:

Triple P-Beam /Mini-Missile Batteries (16):	200 each	200 each
E-Mag Rail Guns/Mini-Missile Batteries (8):	None	200 each
Long Range Missile Batteries (4):	None	600 each
Outer Hull (40 x 40 ft/ 12.2 m x 12.2 Area):	100	100
Inner Hull (40 x 20 ft/ 12.2 m x 12.2 Area):	75	75
[1] Bridge:	12,000	12,000
[2] Main Engines (2):	16,000 each	16,000 each
[3] Main Body:	60,000	60,000
[4] Force Field:	12,000 (Regular)	4,000 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 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 the ship’s 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 freighter 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] Standard ship shields are not variable regenerate at the rate of 5% (600 M.D.C.) per melee round. Military versions carry variable shields (all could be combined in one shield) and shields regenerate at the rate of 5% (1,200 M.D.C.) per melee round.

Speed:
Driving on the Ground: Not Possible.
Sublight: Most have merchant class shields that allows the ship to travel up to 20 percent of the speed of light maximum due to civilian shields. Some have military class shields and can reach 60 percent of the speed of light. Star Ship can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 0.3 percent of light per melee.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is 100 mph (161 kph), can enter an atmosphere and can leave but is not designed for atmospheric flight. The ship would likely come apart in an atmosphere and are only operated in space.
Stardrive: Uses a Gravitonic Drive system that allows the ship to reach a maximum of 2 light years per hour.
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either drive system. Carries about two years worth of supplies on board for the small crew but normally does not operate for that long without resupply.

Statistical Data:
Length: 5,400 feet (1645.92 meters)
Height: 1,050 feet (320.04 meters)
Width: 1,120 feet (341.38 meters)
Weight: 20 million tons (18.14 million metric tons)
Power System: Advanced Fusion with a 16 year life span. The ship normally only goes 5 years between refueling and refitting.
Cargo: Can carry up to 30 million tons (27.22 million metric tons) of cargo in addition to crew’s supplies. Each enlisted crew member or passenger have a small locker for personal items and uniforms. Ships officers have more space for personal items.
Market Cost: Cargo Vessel: 10 Billion credits (Military versions about 12.5 billion and non armed version about 8 billion)

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

Four (4) Long Range Missile Batteries: Carried on military versions of the vessel. 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. Batteries have a lower number of actual launchers than the modern CAF long range missile batteries although the actual battery is slightly smaller.
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 twenty-four (24) missiles per battery, per melee attack.
Payload: 768 total, 192 long range missiles per battery.
Eight (8) 40 mm Electromagnetic Rail Gun/Mini Missile Batteries: Carried on military versions of the vessel. Unlike most of the rail guns used on Phase World / Three Galaxies starships, these are standard electromagnetic rail guns. Comparatively heavy weapons, the rail guns fire a heavy 40 mm high density projectile and have excellent range. Each turret can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire. Weapons are mounted around the ship for point defense. The rail gun still fires projectiles at incredible velocities compared to rail guns on Rifts Earth and projectiles are fired from rail guns at a significant fraction of the speed of light. 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). Missile launchers 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. Rail guns have a range of 12 miles (19.3 km) through atmosphere and 1,200 miles (1,930 km) in space.
Mega-Damage: Rail Cannon inflicts 3D6x10+30 M.D. for a 10 round burst. Mini-Missiles vary by mini-missile type (See revised Phase World / Three Galaxies missile tables for details.)
Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the gunner (usually 4 or 5). Mini-Missiles are fired one at a time or in volleys of two (2) or four (4) mini-missiles.
Payload: Rail Cannon has 2,000 Rounds (200 Bursts) each cannon, has forty-eight (48) mini-missiles at each launcher (384 total, can carry potentially several times more in storage holds).
Sixteen (16) Triple Particle Beam/Mini Missile Batteries: These mounts are similar to the rail gun mounts with the rail gun replaced by a triple particle beam. While damage is similar, range is less that the rail gun mounts. Each turret can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire. Weapons are mounted around the ship for point defense. 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). Missile launchers can launch on multiple targets each at the same time (See revised Phase World / Three Galaxies missile tables for details.)
Maximum Effective Range Mini-Missile range is 2 miles (3.2 km) in an atmosphere and 100 miles (161 km) in space. Particle beams have a range of 8 miles (13 km) through atmosphere and 400 miles (640 km) in space.
Mega-Damage: Triple particle beam inflicts 3D6x10 M.D. per burst. Mini-Missiles vary by mini-missile type.
Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the gunner (usually 4 or 5). Mini-Missiles are fired one at a time or in volleys of two (2) or four (4) mini-missiles.
Payload: Effective unlimited for the particle beam mounts, has forty-eight (48) mini-missiles at each launcher (768 total, can carry potentially several times more in storage holds.)

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Writeup by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

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