HAFS Saratoga class Fleet Carrier (Modified Intrepid class):

The Intrepid class fleet carrier has been an important foundation of the Human Alliance Navy since the fleet carrier's introduction. A total of about two hundred of this class of fleet carrier were built although the Human Alliance only retains about a third of these carriers with plans to reduce this class further. These ships were well armored, shielded, and armed when they were first build and highly effective.

Interestingly, these carriers were not adopted by the Consortium Navy but instead the Wolfen Packmaster class carrier. Those Intrepid class carrier that were transferred to the Consortium Navy were immediately put into the mothball fleets. A number of Intrepid class fleet carrier were reactivated in the war against the Kreeghor where they served with distinction.

A number of these fleet carriers have been sold by the Consortium with some even being stripped of most of their weaponry and converted into merchant vessels. Only a few independent defense forces and mercenaries can afford to operate these hulls as warships. Most prefer light carriers over full sized fleet carriers. Still, they are among the most common fleet carrier designs.

The Intrepid class fleet carrier is smaller than the Packmaster class carrier. Compared to the Packmaster class carrier, the Intrepid class carrier carries a slightly smaller fighter compliment and no assault component. The Human Alliance operated a separate assault carrier class to fill this role. The Intrepid class fleet carriers are both better armed and armored than the Packmaster class carrier even though smaller. The Human Alliance design also has better shielding than the Wolfen design although not up to modern standard. The Human Alliance fleet carrier is considered by many fleet officers to be more effective than the Wolfen Packmaster class carrier generally. After much wrangling, the Consortium has developed the Independence class battle carrier which is even heavier armed and protected than the Intrepid class.

One advantage of carriers is that the main firepower of the carrier is the fighters. When fighters become obsolete, they can simply be replaced and upgraded to be kept effective. As a result, there was a much lower need to upgrade these ships than battleships and cruisers. While many have replaced their older fighters, a number of these carriers still embark older Osprey and Vixen class fighters.

The first ship of the class have not yet been upgraded with plans to upgrade being a lower priority than many other warship classes. No military has an unlimited budget and present priority of production is in the new fast Dragonfly light carriers. It is planned to begin upgrading the fleet carriers to the new Saratoga class when the

ships in the mothball fleets being examined being examined to see which are in the best condition. Plans are to have twenty Saratoga class carriers on active duty and ten fleet carriers in the mothball fleet. There is some discussion of eventually building a new full size fleet carrier.

Upgrading the carrier is mostly concerned with defensive batteries although does also include replacing older fighters with newer fighters types. The long range missile batteries will be replaced by batteries with fifty percent greater throw weight. Long range missile payload is basically unchanged. The close range batteries will be replaced by eight medium range missile batteries, sixteen heavy gravity rail mounts, sixteen particle beam mounts, and eight tachyon beam mounts. These are considered more effective against missiles. In addition, the variable shields are also to be replaced by tougher shields. Sensors are also to be upgraded to modern standard.

Armor, propulsion, and power plant will be retained unaltered. Replacing propulsion and power plant would involve a virtually complete rebuilding of the fleet carrier and would be extremely expensive. The ship is a bit slower than a modern fleet carrier design. The basic tactic is to have the Dragonfly light carrier respond to a situation first and have the Saratoga class fleet carriers come in for support.

These ships are planned to have additional automation to reduce crew by around ten percent compared to the Intrepid class fleet carrier. In addition, the marine compliment will be reduced from eight hundred to four hundred. Two hundred embarked Silver Hawk power armor are retained. The Battleram robots have not been retained but instead the fleet carrier will embark twenty five heavy fighters. The carrier is planned to retain the same compliment of light and medium fighters as the Intrepid class fleet carrier.

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: CVA-55 (FRAM I)
Vehicle Type: Fleet Carrier
Crew: 1,080 (100 Officers, 980 enlisted)
Troops: 400 marines (200 in power armor on modern ships) and 800 fighter pilots / crews

Vehicles:
Power Armors & Robots:

200

SH-CCW100 Silver Hawk Power Armors

Fighter Compliment:

	120	SF-69 CAF Scorpion Star Interceptor
	60	SF-101 Black Eagle medium fighter
	60	SF-101 Storm Eagle medium interceptor
	120	BIF-67 Katana fighter ship
	25	CAF LRF-25 Proctor Long Range Star Fighters

M.D.C. By Location:

	GR-1000 Point Defense Gravity Rail Gun Turrets (16):	200 each
	Point Defense Particle Beam Cannons (16):	150 each
	Tachyon Scatter Beams (8):	200 each
	Long Range Missile Batteries (4):	600 each
	Medium Range Missile Launchers (8):	500 each
	Outer Hull (40 ft/ 12.2 m Area):	150
	Inner Hull (40 ft/ 12.2 m Area):	100
	[1] Bridge:	25,000
	[1] Auxiliary Bridge:	25,000
	Hanger Bays (2):	25,000 each
	[2] Main Engines (4):	10,000 each
	[3] Main Body:	100,000
	[4] Variable Force Field:	8,000 a side (48,000 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 taken out, 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 carrier 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% (2,400 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 0.6 percent of light per melee.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is 300 mph (482 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 3.5 light years per hour.
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either drive system. Carries about four years worth of supplies on board

Statistical Data:
Length: 4,200 feet (1,280 meters)
Height: 620 feet (190 meters)
Width: 800 feet (245 meters)
Mass/Weight: 30 million tons (27.2 million metric tons)
Power System: Anti-Matter with a 25 year life span. The ship normally only goes 7 years between refueling and refitting.
Cargo: Cargo holds are scattered about the ship that allows for carrying up to 2 million tons (1.8 million metric tons) of cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition. 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: An unmodified Intrepid class fleet carrier would cost about 15 billion credits to manufacture in present time in the Three Galaxies. Upgrades cost around 7 billion credits and if the ship was constructed new it would cost about 20 billion credits to construct. Cost does not include embarked craft.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

Sixteen (16) GR-1000 Large Point Defense Rail Guns: Used as an anti-starfighter and missile weapon and against targets that are impervious to energy. Each rail gun is in a turret that can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire. Rail gun projectiles are fired from mounts at a significant fraction of the speed of light. The weapon system cannot be used to engage targets while traveling at faster than light velocities. Cannon uses a 30 mm projectile.
Maximum Effective Range: 16 miles (26 km) through atmosphere and 1,600 miles (2,575 km) in space.
Mega-Damage: Rail gun inflicts 4D6x10 M.D.C. for a 40 round burst.
Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the gunner (usually 4 or 5).
Payload: 10,000 Rounds (250 Bursts) each cannon.
Sixteen (16) 25 mm 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.
Eight (8) Point Defense Tachyon Scatter Beams: The main purpose of this system is as an anti-missile point defense. They do this by firing a wide blast that affects all targets in a cone that can destroy whole volleys of missiles before the strike the ship (Roll once against a volley and unless the missiles roll to dodge greater than strike roll, they are all destroyed.) The stream lasts for significant fraction of a second and missiles tend to run into the stream (Gives +4 bonus vs fast moving targets such as missiles.) This system has an interesting property that the system can actually be used at FTL speeds because Tachyons travel faster than the speed of light. Each Tachyon Scatter Beam is in a turret that can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire.
Maximum Effective Range: 99.4 miles (160 km) with a width of 12.4 miles (20 km), range and width is one sixteenth in an atmosphere.
Mega Damage: 2D4x10 M.D.C. each.
Rate of Fire: Maximum of four (4) times per melee each.
Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Four (4) 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) missiles per launcher, per melee attack.
Payload: 960 total, 240 long range missiles per launcher.
Eight (8) 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 launcher.
Payload: 320 per launcher for a total of 2,480 medium range missiles.

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Writeup by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

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