Vree War Saucer (Babylon Five):

Of all of the younger races, the Vree are the most advanced with the exception of the Minbari. They are moderately more advanced than the Centauri and are far more advanced than any of the other younger races. The Vree seem to content with the territory they have and do not have a large fleet of these ships.

The Vree ships are shaped like the flying saucers which were described during the late twentieth century. This is not accidental, the Vree visited Earth during that time and are the actual cause of the many stories although only a small number of the reports were actually genuine. The race also looks much like the pictures drawn for aliens as well but they did not produce the crop circles and will tell you that if asked.

The Vree prefer to construct a fairly small design but the ships are still quite impressive. The ships are well armored and are protected by a defensive force field similar to those carried on Centauri capital ships. For weapon systems, the Vree prefer an anti-matter spray weapon. This is due to the fact that the weapon inflicts a large amount of damage yet is capable of being directed at small targets. The War Saucer is armed with four of the spray cannons on top and four mounts on the bottom. The cannons use waste anti-matter from the ships reactors. The Vree War Saucers have sensors and can target most Minbari ships without penalty but do have penalties to strike Shadow and Vorlon ships equal to the penalties that Minbari ships suffer against them. The ships are also equipped with an ECM system. While this system is not as advanced as the Minbari system, it is still quite advanced and is capable of confusing most of the sensor systems of the younger races.

The ship has long range endurance and is equipped with jump engines enabling the ship to travel anywhere in the Galaxy. Before the construction of the White Star class ship, the Vree ships were the smallest ships operated by the younger races that had jump engines. The engineering systems of the ship are highly disbursed and cannot be disabled by a series of hits in one location. The ship has a spacial feature that allows it to do a jump from one location to another but it requires a huge amount of the ships power. In many ways, this is similar to the Promethean constructed vehicles of Phase World. The ship is equipped with inertial dampeners allowing for much greater acceleration and is equipped with full internal gravity.

Notes of game conversion:

For purposes of game balance, there are two different versions of the starship. One is designed with accelerations in terms of gravities (G) which can better interact better with other Babylon 5 ships such as Earth Force and the Narn military. The other is written to operate within the Three Galaxies and operated with Consortium and Kreeghor vessels.

Phase world version uses my revised phase world starship rules and can hold their own against most C.A.F and Kreeghor fighters. This version is recommended if you with to put them into Phase World as among equals. See Revised Starship Rules for Phase World / Three Galaxies for more details.

Moderate version uses Gs of acceleration but does not have reduced weapon ranges except for missiles. This version is useful for Mutants In Orbit, Phase World if used as a lower tech race, used with my Earth Force ships conversions for B-5, and as a possible crash on Rifts Earth. Listed is the formula to allow player and game masters to calculate the fighters velocity and distance traveled.

Velocity = Acceleration x Time + Initial Velocity

Distance Traveled = Acceleration x ½ x Time ² + Initial Velocity x Time

1 G = 32 feet (9.8 m) per second ²

Model: Vree War Cruiser (Light Cruiser)

Crew: 80 but can be crewed by as few as five crewmembers

Vehicles:

None

M.D.C. by Location:

	Anti-Matter Cannons (8; 4 top and 4 on the bottom):	1,000 each
	[1] Bridge:	6,000
	[2] Main Body:	50,000
	[3] Variable Force Field:	5,000 a side (30,000 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 does not have an auxiliary bridge. Even if the ship’s bridge is 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] Depleting the M.D.C. of the main body will put the Vree ship 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% (1,500 M.D.C.) per melee round.

Speed:

Driving on the Ground: Not Possible.

Sublight:

Phase World Version: 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 1.0 percent of light per melee.

Moderate Version: The Vree War Saucer does not have an effective top speed but is limited by acceleration. The War Saucer can reach a top acceleration of 10 G but standard is 5 G to reduce stress on engines.

Atmospheric Propulsion: The Vree War Saucers are an excellent atmospheric starship and can reach up to Mach 8 in an atmosphere.

Stardrive: Uses a hyperdrive system that allows the ship to reach a maximum of 60 lightyears per hour. This means that the Vree Crusier can cover the Galaxy in about 10 weeks. The ship enters hyperspace by means of a jumpgate. This ship can use an already made jumpgate or can form its own jumpgate. Ship can also enter or leave hyperspace within an atmosphere but the ship must have very precise coordinates or it will open the hyperspace gate within the planet itself and the ship will destroy itself. The ship can also perform instant combat jumps of up to 1 million kilometer.

The saucer has enough power to open a jumpgate every five minutes (20 rounds). The gate then takes one round to open, one round to traverse, and another to close

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

Statistical Data

Height:213.3 feet (65 meters)

Length:656.2 feet (200 meter)

Width:656.2 feet (200 meters)

Weight / Mass: 137,800 tons (125,000 metric tons)

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

Power System: Quantum Singularity/Fusion power system (10 year duration)

Cost: 10 billion credits to construct. Any culture in the Three Galaxies would pay hundreds of billions of credits for an undamaged working model of this ship.

Weapon Systems

Eight (8) Anti-Matter Cannon: These guns fire a spray of anti-matter and are effective against both large targets and small targets. It can potentially strike more than one target within the effect of the spray and fires a cone that is five times longer than it is wide. Even the Shadows respected hits by these weapons. The weapon system does not have penalties to hit small targets such as fighters and have a bonus of +4 to strike large targets. Because of the wide nature of the beam, larger targets receive more damage than smaller targets. If this weapon has any limitations, it is that the weapon systems have a relatively short range. Four of these are mounted on the top of the hull and four are mounted on the bottom of the hull.

Maximum Effective Range: Fires a cone that is 9.3 miles (15 km) long and 1.86 miles (3.0 km) wide in an atmosphere. Fires a cone that is 9,320 miles (15,000 km) long and 1,860 (3000 km) wide in space.

Mega Damage: 6D6x100 per anti-matter cannon blast when directed at a large target. 6D6x10 per anti-matter blast when directed at a small target such as starfighter

Rate of Fire: Maximum of Three (3) times per melee.

Payload: Effectively Unlimited but have a limited recharge rate. Each cannon can fire 12 times before running out of charges. This means a total 96 beams total can be fired. The cannons slowly recharge at the rate of one shot per cannon for every two melees.

Special Equipment:

ECM: The Vree do not have as advanced an ECM system as the Minbari but it is still quite effective. This prevents the targeting systems from the ships of the younger races (except Minbari and Centauri) to lock on. Attackers are -9 to strike the ship when outside visual range. Inside visual range (approximately 500 miles) an attacker is -5 to strike. Missiles would have a 70% chance of being unable to lock on, but after multiple engagements this could be compensated for, with only 30% unable to lock. The sensors on Minbari, Centauri, and the First Ones ships are more sophisticated and would not be hindered by the ECM. This also includes the systems on Phase World, Macross 2 and Robotech ships.
Combat Jump System: This system is believed to work by folding space and is very effective. The ship can activate this system and reappear up to 620,000 miles (1 million km) from the location it was. This requires one melee of charging but there is no outside signs of the activation of the system during that time. This system can only be activated twice in a one hour period due to strain on the ships systems. For eight melees immediately after completing the jump, the ships power systems are at partial strength. This causes the ship to accelerate at half normal, the ships shields do not regenerate, and the weapon systems do not regenerate charges. The ship retains any inertia it had previously but may direct the inertia in a different direction than the ship was traveling originally. The ship does have +5 on initiative and +2 to dodge incoming fire from a jump.
Sentient Computer: The Vree ships have artificial intelligence computer controlling them. This computer should be considered to be a moderate artificial intelligence in terms of Rifts. This computer can pilot the ship at 80%, can fire all weapons with half normal attacks, and has +2 to strike and +2 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 +3 to strike, +4 to dodge and +1 to initiative.

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Technical information sourced partially from Babylon 5 Technical Manual!

CGI of Ship by Marco Cavet. More of Marco's CGI pictures of B-5 Ships at Marco Cavet's Langweilige Home Page.

Writeup by Mischa (E-Mail Mischa) and by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

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