Super Berserker Light Attack Vessel (Trans-Galactic Empire):

One might consider the Trans-Galactic Empire to be on a constant state of war whether the Kreeghor Emperor is willing to admit it or not. Part of this are a number of unofficial engagement which the Trans-Galactic Empire passes off as being pirates and even blaming them on the Free Worlds Council. These include against the Consortium of Civilized Worlds and the United Worlds Warlock. Of course there is much more of a “Hot War” against the Free Worlds Council. Finally there was the abortive raid against the REF at New Tirol and the REF counter punch.

In these engagements, there have recently been quite a loss of warships. This was especially severe with the Berserker attack vessels. While the Berserker class attack ship is considered disposable, the Emperor expects the ship to take enemy vessels with it. As a result, there has been an attempt made to improve the firepower of warships along with replacing lost ships. Currently, the Trans-Galactic Empire forces are extremely under strength with concerns that any major losses creating a situation where further systems may decide to rebel.

A second concern with the Kreeghor Emperor has always been that more powerful and larger warships might inspire captains and fleet officers to attempt to take over the Empire themselves. As a result, the Empire has mostly preferred the smaller Berserker over larger combatant vessels such as cruisers and battleships. The Emperor decided as a result to concentrate on building an improved Berserkers. One advantage of these ships also is that they are far quicker to build than larger vessels might be.

The result is known as the “Super Berserker.” At present, one quarter of all Berserker production has switched over to the improved design. It is planned that within a year, half of all Berserker production will be of the improved model and within two and a half years all production be of the “Super Berserker” model. Theoretically it should be possible to upgrade all existing Berserkers to the new model but the Emperor appears to have no plans to convert them. Instead, he plans to simply have them slowly be phased out of service by attrition.

Of course because these ships are a new design, the Empire has no plans to use them against the Consortium of Civilized Worlds or the United Worlds Warlock. In either case, it would be impossible to convince them that it was actually the work of pirates. As a result, older ships will likely be used those two major powers for the foreseeable future. Instead the advanced model Berserker are being used primarily against the Free Worlds Council.

In these engagements, these ships have been devastating. In an engagement against a pair of Hunter class destroyers, the Super Berserker allowed the two Hunters to close to beam weapon range. The point defense of two Hunters would have almost certainly been able to defend the two ships from any capital missiles fired by the Super Berserker. However, the Hunters also simply could not fire heavy enough capital missile volleys to overwhelm the point defense of the Berserker either. As the ships closed to beam weapon range, the main energy battery of the Super Berserker opened fire and wrecked in one shot one of the Hunters. Even so, the Berserker was badly damaged. The crew of the second Hunter was in shock and did not react as rapidly as they might otherwise. A volley of capital missiles overwhelmed the point defense of the surviving Hunter as the two ships left each other’s energy weapon range.

In appearance, the Super Berserker is only slightly different in appearance compared to a standard Berserker. As one might expect from the previous incident, the Super Berserker however is designed for close combat instead of long range combat. Instead of mounting two horn lasers, the upgraded attack vessel mounts a pair of pods. Each pod has a nuclear fusion device which is used to power an extremely powerful X-Ray laser array.

While the weapon system is extremely powerful, it is potentially dangerous to the ship mounting them. There is data recordings of the X-Ray laser pods exploding catastrophically. Engineers examining the data believed that it is possible that the weapon system could actually take out the vessel mounting them in extreme cases. Of course the Trans-Galactic Empire never concerns themselves that much with casualties and the ability to inflict extreme damage on another ship to be an acceptable risk. As one might expect, the most common tactic of the Super Berserker is to close as rapidly as possible. Otherwise, it risks being taken out at long range by capital missiles.

Otherwise, the design of the Super Berserker is unmodified compared to the standard model. While long range capital missile batteries are replacing the standard capital missile batteries on a number of new Trans-Galactic Empire designs, there are no plans to replace these batteries on the Super Berserker. Instead those batteries are meant for less disposable ships. For point defense, these attack vessels carry eight mounts combining a gravity rail gun with a mini-missile launcher. As with the standard Berserker, the upgraded attack vessel does not embark either troops or fighters.

Even though these ships are considered extremely powerful in close range combat, there are a number of designs which can come close to matching it. These include the New Coventry Super Hunter, the new Wolfen Predator, the Icaria Aspis, and the Havock class destroyers. While none are able to fire a single blast as powerful as the Super Berserker, they all have much greater rates of fire. None of them carry the inherent risks of exploding a fusion bomb inside of your ship as well.

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: TIV-AS2.

Vehicle Type: Light Attack Vessel.

Crew: 103.

Troops: None.

Vehicle, Robots, and Power Armors: None.

M.D.C. By Location:

	X-ray Laser Arrays (2, underside):	550 each.
	Cruise Missile Batteries (2, front):	1,000 each.
	GR Cannons/Missile Batteries (8):	400 each.
	[1] Bridge:	1,500.
	[2] Main Body:	3,500.
	[3] Variable Force Field:	1,000 a side (6,000 total).

Notes:

[1] In reality this is how much damage needs to be done for a weapon to hit the bridge. This ship does not have an auxiliary bridge. The ship can still be piloted from engineering but ship is -3 to dodge. All weapon systems will be at local control. Weapon hits near the bridge can injure crew members near the bridge.

[2] Depleting the M.D.C. of the main body will put the frigate out of commission. All internal systems will shut down, including life support and internal gravity. The ship itself will be an unsalvageable floating wreck.

[3] Shields positions can be varied and all could be combined in one shield. Shields regenerate at the rate of 5% (300 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. Frigate can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 0.90 percent of light per melee.

Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is 500 mph (804.7 km), 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 4 light years per hour.

Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either drive system. carries about one year worth of supplies on board.

Statistical Data:

Length: 300 feet (91.5 meters).

Height: 112 feet (34.1 meters) from the X-ray laser arrays to the top of the ship or 80 feet (24.4 m) main body only.

Width: 65 feet (19.8 meters).

Mass/Weight: 7,600 tons (6,895 metric tons) fully loaded.

Power System: Anti-Matter with a 40 year life span. The ship normally only goes 8 years between refueling and refitting. Backed up with emergency fusion plants.

Cargo: Small cargo hold that can carry up to 100 tons (90.7 metric tons) of cargo not including a standard compliment of supplies and ammunition. Hold is 20 x 20 x 20 feet in dimensions (6.1 x 6.1 x 6.1 meters). If ammunition was taken out, amount of cargo ship is able to carry would increase greatly. Each enlisted crew member has a small locker for personal items and uniforms. Ships 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: No ships of this design have ever been put on sale on the market. Cost to build ship is currently 365 million credits although price is expected to reduce slightly as production ramps up.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

Two (2) X-Ray Laser Arrays: These weapon systems are powered by nuclear fusion bombs. These bombs are detonated inside a series of very powerful force fields and incredibly heavy armor that are designed to resist the explosion. The energy and radiation of the explosion are directed to power a series of X-ray laser arrays that are longer ranged than those of an X-ray missile warhead. Each cannon fires off 10 X-ray laser beams from the explosion. They can be targeted as one or individually. Individually targeting the lasers reduces the damage because not all beams will usually hit but it virtually removed the chance the weapon system will completely miss. This is because normally the target will attempt to make radical course change changes as the weapon fires and can completely dodge much easier if the beams are targeted together. When fired together, the two X-Ray Laser Arrays can easily destroy frigates and destroyers in one shot. Laser resistant materials do not take half damage from this weapon. The weapon has less range than the original horn laser’s beams unfortunately. The weapon system also has a major problem. Each time the weapon is fired, there is a 5% chance the shield around the fusion explosion will fail causing that weapon system to be destroyed. In addition, 1% of the time the array is fired, the system will fail catastrophically and destroy the ship in a massive explosion (the whole crew is killed). The weapon system cannot be used to engage targets while traveling at faster than light velocities.

Maximum Effective Range: 8,000 miles (12,875 km) in space and 8 miles (12.9 km) in an atmosphere.

Mega-Damage: fires ten beams with each doing 2D4x100 per beam (2D4x1,000 for one array total or 4D4x1,000 for both arrays when combined).

Rate of Fire: One (1) shot per array for every two melees rounds.

Payload: Weapon requires a fusion bomb to fire array. The ship can carry up to 80 bombs (40 for each array) but will normally only carry 40 bombs (20 for each array) unless on long range missions.
Two (2) Cruise Missile Batteries: The ship carries batteries with ten cruise missile launchers each. Missiles have a top speed of Mach 25 in an atmosphere and have an acceleration of 10% of light per turn (far faster than any starship) in space. Whether missiles can be shot down is calculated from the speed of target, launching starship, and missiles. When drive goes dead, missiles will continue to travel in a straight line unless set to self destruct or receives a destruct code, but have very low odds of hitting star ships (Great for hitting bases and planets because target does not move and missiles, when unpowered, are at -25% to be detected.) Cruise missiles have penalties to hit small targets but almost always smart missiles. Each battery can be used to launch against multiple targets but is rarely used that way.

Maximum Effective Range: Cruise Missile range is 8,000 miles (12,875 km) in an atmosphere and 4,000,000 miles (6,437,376 km/ 21.5 light seconds) in space.

Mega-Damage & Properties: See revised Phase World / Three Galaxies missile tables for details (Anti-Matter warheads inflict 4D6x100 M.D.C. each.)

Rate of Fire: Volleys of ten (10) per launcher, per melee round, for a total of twenty (20) cruise missiles per melee round. Launchers are reloaded on the same melee and can be fired again on the next.

Payload: One hundred (100) total, fifty (50) cruise missiles per launcher.
Eight (8) 22 mm GR Rail Gun/Mini Missile Batteries: Weapons are mounted around the ship for point defense. Each turret can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire. The rail gun fires projectiles at incredible velocities compared to rail guns on Rifts Earth. When used in space, projectiles are fired from rail gun at a significant fraction of the speed of light. When used in an atmosphere, projectile velocities are slower to prevent them from burning up but still are at hypersonic speeds. Mini-Missiles have a top speed of Mach 10 in an atmosphere and have an acceleration of 2% of light per turn in space. This is slightly faster than any starship except if it is exceeding it maximum safe acceleration. Mini-Missile launchers can launch on multiple targets each at the same time. Mini-Missiles in the Phase World / Three Galaxies setting are normally smart missiles.

Maximum Effective Range: Mini-Missile range is 2 miles (3.2 km) in an atmosphere and 100 miles (161 km) in space. Gravity rail guns have a range of 4 miles (6.4 km) in an atmosphere and 200 miles (362 km) in space.

Mega-Damage: GR-Cannon inflicts 3D6x10 M.D. for a 40 round burst. Mini-Missiles damage varies 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: GR Cannon has 8,000 rounds/ 200 Bursts each, has thirty-two (32) mini-missiles at each launcher (256 total, can carry potentially several times more in storage holds).

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Writeup by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

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