Dartrok Star Dreadnought:

Captain Henry Fenley watched as eight vessels left FTL into the Targa system. They were huge, the size of large battlecruisers or small battleships, and the energy signature indicated that had shields equal to that of a Consortium Protector class Battleship. There was no way that his three Monitors and eight system defense boats were going to hold of the kind of firepower that was heading his way but he had to try. They were fast, as fast as most fighters he had seen yet these ships were huge. As the enemy ships got within range, he ordered his all of ships to fire missiles hoping to get some good hits before his force got wiped away. His tactical officer yelled in horror and the Captain saw on his sensors a gravity wave come from the ships and destroy all of the incoming missiles. He had little more than half a minute to worry because the enemy ships quickly intercepted his defense force and shredded his ships like they were constructed from tissue paper not battle steel.

-First Known Encounter with the Dartroks in the Three Galaxies

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.

Only slightly larger than human sized although quite a bit more massive, these creatures appear to be coal black and in the form of what almost appears to be a to man-o-war jellyfish with a huge number of prehensile tentacles. A closer look at their appearance makes them more like cephalopods. Interestingly, they appear to levitate in order to be able to travel. Most exobiologists think this is a psychic ability which the Dartrok possess.

Their ships 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.

The term Dreadnought was given by the Dartrok race but may actually be a mistranslation based on some scholarly work. Some think the term battlecruiser might be better representation of the ship’s purpose. Even though they appear to be the largest Dartrok ship design, the dreadnought is actually a fair amount smaller than a Consortium Protector class battleship. Still, these ships are heavier armored than that same Consortium Protector class battleship and carry equal shielding to the larger battleship as well. The ship’s hull is in a shape similar to that of a fat manta-ray.

These ships are not constructed in any traditional way and the equivalent of the ship’s systems are biologic in design and are most likely 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 rivaling many of the better fighter designs in the Three Galacies. Because of this extraordinary speed, 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 propulsion, the dreadnoughts are some of the fastest vessels in the Three Galaxies.

The ship’s weapon systems are designed around close combat and no Dartrok designs appear to be armed with missiles of any sort. 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. This system is capable of destroying missiles quite easily but is also quite capable of doing fairly massive 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 dreadnought’s acceleration is greatly reduced when the system is activated.

For the ships’ main anti-ship battery, the dreadnought has four long range gravitic slicer cannons that are capable of doing massive damage to other ships and have a good change to hit vital systems on ships. Smaller ships such as destroyers are likely to be wrecked from a single shot of these slicer batteries. While not anywhere near as powerful, these ships mount twenty anti-ship electrical discharge cannons. The sheer number of these batteries and great rate of fire makes up any weakness compared to the slicer beams. They are however much shorter ranged. Finally, these ships have almost fifty point defense electrical batteries to deal with attacks that make it through the gravity wake weapon system.

The large Dartrok ship can carry up to sixty fighters and can carry slave race troopers for ground assault. The fighters and armors appear to be of a similar organic material to the ships of the Dartrok. The number appears to be in the range of two thousand or more. A number of assault shuttles are also embarked to support troops. Very little is actually known about what the inside of any of the Dartrok ship’s look like.

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

Model: Dartrok Star Dreadnought.

Class: Battlecruiser.

Crew: Unknown, needs one Dartrok to function but does need crew for maximum performance. Actual Crew size unknown (For game terms assume that the ships have a crew of around 1,200 with 100 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: 2,000 Slave Troopers.

Vehicle Compliment:

Power Armors & Robots:

2,000

Dartrok Minion Bio-Power Armors.

Fighter Compliment:

Dartrok Fighters.

Assault Shuttles:

Dartrok Assault Shuttles.

M.D.C. by Location:

	Slicer Beams Cannons (4):	4,000 each.
	Heavy Electrical Discharge Cannons (20):	1,000 each.
	Point Defense Electrical Discharge Cannons (45):	400 each.
	[1] Bridge:	65,000.
	[1] Emergency Bridge:	65,000.
	[2] Main Body:	325,000.
	[3] Variable Force Field:	15,000 a side (90,000 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 dreadnaught, 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 2D4x100 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% (4500 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. Is thought to carry about four years worth of supplies on board and power system gives power for 20 years before the ship needs refueling.

Statistical Data:

Height: 1,200 feet (366 meters).

Length: 3,000 feet (914 meters).

Width: 2,000 feet (610 meters).

Weight / Mass: 16.5 million tons (15 million metric tons).

Power System: Unknown.

Cargo: Cargo holds are scattered about the ship that allows for carrying up to 500,000 tons (453,000 metric tons) of cargo in addition to a 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 the whole melee round even though the system only lasts for about four seconds each time activated. Still, a whole volley of missiles will usually pass through the field within that time frame and be obliterated. Only staggered missiles have any real chance for missiles to not be obliterated. 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 dreadnought’s acceleration is reduced to 1/3 of normal or 0.45% 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 & Effects:
Rate of Fire: Once per melee (last four seconds each activation.)

Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Four (4) Gravity Slicer Beam Cannons: 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. Each 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.
Twenty (20) Heavy Electrical Discharge Cannons: These weapon 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 has a 180-degree arc of fire. 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.
Forty-Five (45) Point Defense Electrical Discharge Cannons: These weapon 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 dreadnought 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 dreadnought 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.

[ Altara TM, Brodkil TM, Bushido Industries TM, CAF TM, Catyr TM, CCW TM, Consortium of Civilized Worlds TM, Coyles TM, Free Worlds Council TM, Gene Splicers TM, K-Hex TM, Kankoran TM, Kittani TM, Kreeghor TM, Kydian TM, Machine People TM, M.D.C. TM, Mega-Damage TM, Metzla TM, M’Kri Hardware TM, Monro TM, Mutants in Orbit TM, Naruni Enterprises TM, Noro TM, Paradise Federation TM, Phase World TM, Psylite TM, Rifter TM, SAMAS TM, S.D.C. TM, Seljuks TM, Splugorth TM, Sunaj TM, Trans-Galactic Empire TM, Tri-Galactic Military Service TM, United Worlds Warlock TM, U.W.W. TM, Wolfen TM, and Zembahk TM are trademarks owned by Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books Inc. ]

[ Beyond the Supernatural®, Heroes Unlimited®, Nightbane®, Ninjas & Superspies®, Palladium Fantasy®, and Rifts® are registered trademarks owned by Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books Inc. ]

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

Writeup by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

Return