Dartrok Star Cruiser:

Morne Gutstabber, Captain of the Pirate ship “Pale Demon” sagged in his bridge chair waiting on a convoy that he had been carefully trailing through the borders of Dartrok space staying just at the edge of his sensor range. He had gotten ahead of the ships and planned to use gravity capital missiles to pull the group out of FTL travel. The rumors he had gotten from multiple sources indicated that the Dartroks had no vessels besides those Dreadnoughts. He also had heard that they only had a very limited number of the Dreadnoughts so none would be escorting convoys. There might be a few ships from the races that the Dartrok had taken over but likely nothing more than a couple of destroyers. He considered himself more lucky than most pirates and had acquired an old Kreeghor Defiler class heavy cruiser and no destroyer ever built would be able to survive his weaponry. He ordered his weapon officer to fire a spread of gravity warheads from two of his cruise missile launchers and he watched the group of merchant ships get pulled from FTL space. He reacted in horror when he saw what he had pulled into his trap. There was a ship that was the size of a cruiser yet gave a signature similar to his stolen ship data on a Dartrok Dreadnought. The Dartrok cruiser started to accelerate toward his position and he knew he would not have time to jump into FTL. He was dead because he had trusted those damn rumors.

Little is actually known about the Dartroks. What is known is that the Dartroks are a race of very powerful beings that have only recently appeared in the Three Galaxies. No examination of historic sources indicates them having ever been in the Three Galaxies before and even the Prometheans appear to have no useful information on them either.

In size, the Dartrok are only slightly larger than base stock humans although quite a bit more massive. Their form is in many ways similar to the Terran jellyfish type creature known as a “Man-O-War.” They are almost coal black and have a huge number of prehensile tentacles. A closer look at their appearance makes them more like cephalopods. The Dartrok appear to be able to simply hover in the air indefinitely. Most exobiologists think this is a psychic ability which the Datrok possess.

As far as their ships, they are based on a pseudo organic material and are Incredibly powerful, heavily armored, and quite capable of taking on most ships of the races of the Three Galaxies. Especially since the motivations of the Dartroks is completely unknown, these ships cause a lot of nervousness among most other races when these ships appear in their system.

For the first few attacks by the Dartrok, only the huge dreadnoughts and fighters were seen but as time went on, a larger variety of their ships were seen. The cruiser seems to be used in jobs that a Dreadnought might be considered too large but these cruisers are still not to be taken lightly. In many ways, the Dartrok cruiser seems to be a Dreadnought made smaller. These ships are the equals of many navies’ best heavy cruiser designs and need to be engaged by overwhelming odds if possible.

These ships look a little like a very thin and streamlined manta-ray. Like the dreadnought, these ships are not constructed in any traditional way and the equivalent of the ship’s systems are biologic in design and are mostly grown. These include computers, engines, weapons, and even the ship’s hull. The computer is a powerful neural intelligent and capable of operation independently. The ship’s hull has the ability to repair damage and to adapt to attacks directed at it given enough time. The ship’s systems are all based on electric and gravitic manipulation. The ship propulsion is based on gravitic systems, the ship’s shields are based on gravitics, and all of the ships weapon systems are based on one or the other as well. The faster than light propulsion system is very similar are very similar to those operated on most ships in the Three Galaxies but as stated previously are biological.

The ship has an acceleration as fast as many of be better fighter designs in the Three Galaxies although it is not really any faster than the dreadnought is. Because of the extraordinary speed of this ship, the large capital ships of the Three Galaxies cannot stay at missile range to fight the ships that way. As far as faster than light travel, the cruise is one of the fastest ships in the Three Galaxies.

Like the Dreadnought, the ship’s weapon systems are designed around close combat and the ship does not mount any missile systems. This might allow other ships to use the intercept time to use missile launchers to destroy the ship before engaging in close combat but the ship has a gravity wake weapon that throws a wave of gravity out in all directions. While less powerful than the one mounted on the Dreadnought, this system is still capable of destroying missiles quite easily but is also quite capable of doing fairly heavy damage to larger targets as well if within range. Its limitation is that it is fairly short ranged and can only be used once per melee. In addition, the cruiser’s acceleration is vastly reduced when the system is used.

Instead of the four on the dreadnought, the cruiser mounts a single long range gravitic slicer cannon as the ship’s main anti-ship weaponry. The weapon is still capable of doing massive damage to other ships and has a good change to hit vital systems on ships. When fired at a destroyer, often the smaller ship is wrecked or destroyed from a single shot. In addition the cruiser mounts a total of eight heavy electrical discharge cannons. While they do not inflict anything like the damage of the gravity slicer beam, they fire far more rapidly. There are twenty light electrical discharge cannons which act as point defense.

The Dartrok cruiser can carry up to twenty fighters and can carry slave race troopers for ground assault. Both the fighters and armors are of an organic design similar to the cruise itself. The number appears to be in the range of eight hundred or more embarked at any one given time. A small number of assault shuttles are embarked to support the troops. As with most Dartrok ships, there is little reliable information about inside these ships.

This writeup of the Dartrok Cruiser uses modified Phase World starship rules. See Revised Starship Rules for Phase World / Three Galaxies for more details.

Model: Dartrok Star Cruiser.

Class: Cruiser.

Crew: Unknown, needs one Dartrok to function but does need crew for maximum performance. Actual Crew size unknown (For game terms assume that the ship has a crew of around 400 with 20 being Dartroks and the remainder are slave races. Boarding parties will have trouble due to the fact that each Dartrok is about as powerful as a low powered supernatural intelligence).

Troops: 800 Slave Troopers.

Vehicle Compliment:

Power Armors & Robots:

800

Dartrok Minion Bio-Power Armors.

Fighter Compliment:

Dartrok Fighters.

Assault Shuttles:

Dartrok Assault Shuttles.

M.D.C. by Location:

	Slicer Beams Cannons (1):	4,000.
	Heavy Electrical Discharge Cannons (8):	1,000 each.
	Point Defense Electrical Discharge Cannons (20):	400 each.
	[1] Bridge:	15,000.
	[1] Emergency Bridge:	15,000.
	[2] Main Body:	80,000.
	[3] Variable Force Field:	10,000 a side (60,000 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 also has an auxiliary bridge. Even if both bridges are 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] Depleting the M.D.C. of the main body will destroy the cruiser, putting it out of commission. All internal systems will shut down, including life support and internal gravity. The ship itself will be an unsalvageable floating wreck. Both the hull and the ship’s systems have the ability to repair themselves. The ship’s hull and ship’s systems regenerate damage at the rate of 1D4x100 M.D.C. per minute. The ship can only repair up to half the total M.D.C. of a system or the main body.

[3] Shield positions are variable and can be combined into one shield. The shields regenerate at a rate of 5% (3,000 M.D.C.) per melee round.

Speed:

Driving on the Ground: Not Possible.

Sublight: Gravity drive allows the ship to travel up to 60 percent of the speed of light. The ship can accelerate/ decelerate at an incredible rate of 1.3 percent of light per melee.

Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is mach 10 (7,612.1 mph / 1,2250.6 kph.) Can enter atmosphere and leave the atmosphere of a planet easily.

Star Drive: Gravitonic drive; maximum speed: 8.0 light years per hour.

Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either drive system. Carries about four years worth of supplies on board and power system gives power for 20 years before the ship needs refueling.

Statistical Data

Height: 200 feet (61 meters).

Length: 750 feet (228.6 meters).

Width: 300 feet (366 meters).

Weight / Mass: 180,000 tons (163.000 metric tons).

Power System: Unknown.

Cargo: Cargo holds are scattered about the ship that allows for carrying up to 20,000 tons (18,150 metric tons) of Cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition.

Cost: Unknown, any culture in the Three Galaxies would pay hundreds of trillions of credits for an undamaged working model of this ship.

Weapon Systems:

One (1) Gravity Wake Generator: This weapon system outputs a series of gravitic waves in all directions. This weapon is quite effective for a variety of different purposes. It is useful to destroy missile and do damage to larger ships. The weapon system prevents most forms of faster than light from being used within the radius of weapon system when activated for once melee even though the system only lasts for about four seconds each time activated. Any ships with variable shields will have the damage applied to all shields at once but divide by six each penetration of an individual shield for damage applied to ship’s hull. When this system is used, the cruiser’s acceleration is reduced to 1/3 of normal or 0.5% of light per turn.

Maximum Effective Range: 10 miles (16 km) in an atmosphere and 1,000 miles (1,610 km) in space.

Mega Damage:
Rate of Fire: Once per melee (last four seconds each activation.)

Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
One (1) Gravity Slicer Beam Cannon: This weapon is incredibly powerful and can decimate most ships very quickly. The weapon uses controlled opposing gravimetric waves to create an energy beam weapon that shreds the target. Due to the deep penetration of the weapon, it has a much better chance to do critical damage to the target and ships dread the slicer beam hitting their fusion reactors. The weapons have standard penalties to hit fighters and other small targets. The gravity slicer beam cannon fires individually and has a 60-degree arc of fire. Since the gravity weapon propagates itself at faster than light speeds, this weapon can actually be used against vehicles that are traveling at faster than the speed of light. The weapons do full damage to targets in magic rich universes with the spell impervious to energy.

Maximum Effective Range: 187 miles (300 km) in an atmosphere and 187,000 miles (300,000 km) in space.

Mega Damage: 4D6x1,000 per slicer beam strike (optional rule is that cannon gets a critical on a natural 18, 19, or 20 due to its high penetration).

Rate of Fire: Once per melee round.

Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Eight (8) Heavy Electrical Discharge Cannons: These weapons systems are in many ways similar to Phase World ion cannons but are very powerful. The weapons have standard penalties to hit fighters and other small targets. Each electrical beam cannon fires individually and have a 180 degree arc of fire. The weapon system cannot be used to engage targets while traveling at faster than light velocities. The weapon system cannot be used to engage targets while traveling at faster than light velocities.

Maximum Effective Range: 16 miles (25.8 km) through atmosphere and 16,000 miles (25,800 km) in space.

Mega Damage: 4D6x100 per blast.

Rate of Fire: Four (4) times per melee round per cannon (two per cannon under computer command.)

Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Twenty (20) Point Defense Electrical Discharge Cannons: These weapons systems are in many ways similar to Phase World ion cannons. They are very effective against fighters but are not as effective against larger ships. The weapon does more damage to organic targets because of the nature of the beam. Each mount has a 360 degree rotation and 180 degree arc of fire. Weapon has a bonus of +4 to strike. 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: 4D6x10 per cannon (Double damage to organic targets).

Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the gunner (usually 4 or 5). On computer control, has three attacks per melee round.

Payload: Effectively Unlimited.

Special Equipment:

Adaptive Hull: The cruiser has the ability to adapt to any non magical attacks on it. Once a specific attack has been used against the ship, it will adapt to that attack and any attack of that type that is encountered afterwards will only be at half effect in the next engagement. Magical attacks will continue to inflict full damage. Variable frequency weapons such as variable frequency lasers can be reset to do full damage once this is discovered. The adaption takes about five days to be completed.
Sentient Ship: The cruiser is alive, and is quite aware of what it is and what its doing. It will not take orders from a non Dartrok. The computer is also telepathic and can communicate with Dartroks and other ships using this method.

The ship should be considered to be a powerful neural intelligence in terms of Rifts. This computer can pilot the ship at 98%, can fire weapons with half normal attacks for most weaponry, and has +10 to strike, +4 to dodge, and +4 to initiative (these include all bonuses). If a full crew is onboard it will be able to fire all weapons at will and will have +12 to strike, +6 to dodge and +7 to initiative.

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Image drawn and copyrighted by Talis D. Merrill (taalismn@pop.tiac.net).

Writeup by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

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