Centurion class Fighter Transport:

The fighter carrier was original designed by a starfighter manufacturing company as a means to transport fighters from factories to customers in other systems. The transports were popular because it meant that manufacturing companies would not have to operate a full sized carrier or take the fighters apart for storage in a standard transport ships and then reassemble them once the fighters got to their destination. It was not until the fighter transports had been being manufactured and operated in this manner for several years that a new use for them was discovered. Two star systems were at war over a third star system that was rich in mineral due to the system having large number of asteroid belts in place of planets. One of the systems had two destroyers in their fleet but the other system has no large ships but had a decent number of star fighters. In an unusual maneuver, they purchased two fighter transports and had them carry full loads of fighters. The difference is that the fighters were manned while in transport. The trip was uncomfortable but it allowed the system with no fighters to make an attack out side their system. The fighters overwhelmed the destroyers and the system was won by them. Since then, the ships design has been refined to a transport for the use of taking non FTL capable fighters from nearby systems to the battlefront. This ship design is popular with systems that cannot afford true carriers but wish to have out of system fighter strike ability. Both planets that are fairly wealthy and multi system groups prefer true carriers, even escort carriers, over this design because of the greater comfort afforded the fighters crews, the ability to operate longer outside of their home system, and because fighters can be maintained as well.

The Centurion is one the latest in a long line of fighter transports. Like all fighter transports, the design is very utilitarian. It is simply three frames in a semi triangular pattern when looked at from the front. Each bar extends from the front of the ship to the back and the fighters are mounted on these bars. In the middle front of the ship is the control room and a tiny living quarters for the ships actual crew. The ships are operated with very small crews to reduce the cost of operation. The ships crew themselves sleep in coffins similar to FTL capable star fighters and has a small common room. The officers of the ship share a tiny stateroom. The one nice feature is that the command section houses all the life support systems and has emergency fuel cell power backup to support the life support systems for two months. Along the bars runs tubes that allows the crew to crawl to the rear in which the ships fusion power plant and contra-grav engines are located. A fusion power plant was chosen because it is much less expensive to purchase. The ship has no provisions for the fighter crews to leave their fighters. For weaponry, the ship only carries a small amount of point defense weaponry consisting of four point defense lasers and two mini-missile launchers. The ship does not have a military style variable force field and instead carries a civilian style fixed force field. The civilian manufacture standards also include the ships sensor systems and the ships radiation and particle shields.

The number of fighters than can be carried on the transport varies by the size of the fighters. Each rail is 250 feet long and each fighter must have some clearance. A good general rule of thumb is that 7 light fighters or 4 to 5 medium fighters can be carried per rail. This gives the ship the ability to transport about 21 light fighters or 12 to 15 medium fighters. Older fighter designs are the most common operated from these ships. Different fighters can be mixed and matched and a motley assortment of fighters is carried on some of the transports.

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: LFT-57 Fighter Transport
Vehicle Type: Space, Fighter Transport
Crew: 22 (2 Officers and 20 enlisted)

Vehicle, Robots, and Power Armors: This is a listing of the most common loading of starfighters, mixture of different types of fighters is also possible as is common as well.

	21	Light Starfighters (Scorpion, Tanto, and other designs)
	or
	12 to 15	Medium Starfighters (Ospreys, Black Eagles, Katanas, and most Naruni Fighters)

M.D.C By Location:

	Triple Barrel Defense Laser Turrets (4):	150 each
	Mini-Missile Launchers (2):	100 each
	[1] Command Center / Bridge:	1,000
	[2] Engineering Section:	1,200
	[3] Main Body (Fighter Rails):	3,000 (1,000 each Rail)
	[4] Fixed Force Field:	3,000 total

Notes:
[1] The ships command section / bridge is in the front of the ship and is relatively easy to target. This ship does not have an auxiliary and has no duplicate controls in the engineering section. Weapon hits that do not destroy the command center can still cause injuries to crew members in the section. The crew section does have one small advantage and that is that the section has all life support systems and a two month emergency power supply.
[2] Destroying the engineering section means that both the ship FTL and sublight propulsion systems are destroyed and the ship is dead in space. Life support can still be operated using emergency fuel cells.
[3] Depleting the M.D.C. of the main body will put the transport out of commission. Life support can still be operated using emergency fuel cells and the propulsion system may be intact but will no be operable. The destruction of a rail prevents fighters from being operated off that rail but all three rails much be destroyed to destroy the ship.
[4] Unlike most military ships, this ship has a fixed force field. Shield regenerate at the rate of 5% (100 M.D.C.) per melee

Speed:
Driving on the Ground: Not Possible.
Sublight: Has a special sublight engine that allows the ship to travel up to 20 percent of the speed of light. Star Ship can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 0.4 percent of light per melee. Ship has had merchant radiation and particle shields.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is 150 mph (241.4 kph), can enter an atmosphere and can leave but is not designed for atmospheric flight but must do so very slowly or the ship will be destroyed by wind shear. The ship also cannot carry any fighters while entering or leaving an atmosphere. Because of these reasons, the ship will rarely enter or exit an atmosphere.
Stardrive: Uses a Gravitonic Drive system that allows the ship to reach a maximum of 3 light years per hour.
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either drive system. The ship carries about three months worth of supplies on board but the fighters cannot be carried with crews on board for any extended length of time.

Statistical Data:
Length: 300 feet (91.4 meters)
Height: 65 feet (19.8 meters)
Width: 85 feet (25.9 meter)
Weight: 3,200 tons (2,900 metric tons)
Power System: Main: Fusion with a 15 year life span. Emergency: Fuel cells with 2 month endurance to support life support
Cargo: Minimal Storage Space 10 x 20 x 20 feet (3.0 x 6.1 x 6.1 meters) compartment in crew section.
Market Cost: 165 million credits

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

Four (4) Point Defense 2 cm Lasers in Double Mounts: Used as an anti-starfighter and missile weapon. Each laser turret can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire.
Maximum Effective Range: 2.5 miles (4 km) miles through atmosphere and 250 miles (40.2 km) in space.
Mega-Damage: 2D6x10 M.D.
Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the gunner (usually 4 or 5).
Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Two (2) 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).
Mega-Damage: Varies with mini-missile type (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.
Rate of Fire: Can fire missiles one at a time or in volleys of four (4) or eight (8) missiles.
Payload: 128 per launcher for a total of 256 mini-missiles.

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Writeup by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

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