Kuat Yards Nebulon-B Frigate (Star Wars):

The Nebulon-B escort frigate was originally designed by the Empire for use against rebel starfighters, which had made several successful raids against poorly defended Imperial cargo convoys. The rebel alliance got there hands on several Nebulon-B when a number the these vessels were captured by rebel forces, and when their crews defected to the alliance. These ships became the backbone in the alliance's fleet, especially in the early years of the rebellion when larger starships where not available.

Standard Nebulon-B frigates are equipped with six double barreled turbo lasers for use against capital ships, and twelve laser cannons against starfighters and missile defense. It also carries two ion cannons which are used to disable a ship without damage.

The frigates fighter complement is twenty-four (two squadrons) starfighters. Standard complement for the Rebel Alliance and New Republic is one squadron X-wings. The second squadron changes depending on mission. Y-wings or B-wings for assault, A-wings for reconnaissance and escort missions.

Many Nebulon-Bs have additional and sophisticated sensor and communication equipment, allowing the ships to act as long-range scouts or as a command ship in battle. In many cases, the low on resources, rebel task forces used a Nebulon-B as command ship, with Corellian corvettes and gunships acting as supplementary capital ships.

Some frigates has been converted to medical duty. The medical frigate has treatment facilities for over seven hundred patients. With complete modern medical materials, including fifteen bacta tanks, the ship’s patient survival rate is nearly 98%. To make room for the medical facilities, the ship’s weaponry is generally reduced to three turbo lasers and eight laser cannons. Most of the interior hangar bay space is also lost, and the medical frigate carries no fighters.

Notes of game conversion:

Because of the nature of the movie series "Star Wars" and the needs to put the Starship into game mechanics, I have given many statistic as two different possible statistics to take this into account. The G that I have seen listed would not be sufficient to get near the speed of light yet many episodes have indicated speeds in this area. In some ways each version is closer to what was seen in the series. I do make one huge change, fighters in Star Wars act as if they are in the atmosphere even when they operating in space. The Television series Babylon 5 is a good series to watch to get a clearer idea on how space vehicles should would probably maneuver.

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

Moderate version uses Gs of acceleration and reduced weapon ranges. 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 velocity and distance traveled:

Model Type: Kuat Drive Yards Nebulon-B
Vehicle Type: Escort Frigate
Crew: 850; 77 Officers, 773 Enlisted.
Troops: The ship can carry up to 1000 passengers total in cramped conditions.

Vehicles:
Fighter Compliment:

Fighters (2 squadrons, type depending on mission)

Other vehicles:

Lambda-class shuttles

M.D.C By Location:

	Turbo-laser Cannon Mounts (6):	800 each
	Ion Cannon Mounts (2):	1,000 each
	60 mm Point Defense Laser Turrets (12):	250 each
	Capital Proton Torpedo Batteries (2):	1000
	[1] Bridge:	20,000
	[1] Auxiliary Bridge:	20,000
	Hanger Bay:	20,000
	[2] Main Engines (7):	15,000 each
	[3] Main Body:	60,000
	[4] Shield Generators (6):	300 each
	[4] Variable Force Field:	6,000 a side (36,000 Total)

Notes:
[1] In reality this is how much damage needs to be done for a weapon to hit the bridge through the ships 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] Destruction of main engines reduced acceleration by 20% per engine destroyed. If all engines are destroyed, the ship can still accelerate and decelerate at 5% using maneuvering thrusters.
[3] 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.
[4] The Frigate has one shield generators per facing. If one is destroyed, the shield cannot operate on that side and reduce the shields regeneration by 1/6 for every generator destroyed. The Shields must be penetrated before the shield generators can be hit. Shields positions can be varied and all could be combined in one shield. Shields regenerate at the rate of 5% (1,800 M.D.C.) per melee.

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. The Frigate can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 0.6 percent of light per melee maximum (Standard is 0.2 percent of light per turn).
Moderate Version: The Frigate does not have an effective top speed but is limited by acceleration. The Star Destroyer can reach a top acceleration of 3 G but standard is 1 G to reduce stress on engines.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Both Version: The Frigate cannot operate within an atmosphere. If the ship enters an atmosphere, it will crash.
Stardrive: Uses a hyper drive system that allows the ship to reach a maximum of 40 light-years per hour (In the Game universe of Phase World, it could be limited to 4 light-years per hour to compare to the other Phase World FTL systems).
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either drive system. Carries about four years worth of supplies on board.

Statistical Data:
Length: 984.3 feet (300 meters)
Height: 518.4 feet (158 meters)
Width: 170.6 feet (52 meters)
Weight/Mass: 352,700 tons(320,000 metric tons)
Power System: Fusion with a 20 year life span. The ship normally only goes 5 years between refueling.
Cargo: Cargo holds are scattered about the ship that allows for carrying up to 10,000 tons of cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition. Each crew member also has a small locker for personal possessions and officers have decent sized quarters.
Market Cost: 8 billion credits to construct. Neither the Empire or the Rebel Alliance/New Republic will not sell the Nebulon-B to other interests.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

Six (6) Turbo-laser Cannon Mounts: Each of these mounts have two barrels that normally fire together. This gives the ship a total of twelve turbo-laser cannons. Each is 10 cm wide and are capable of doing heavy damage to large capital ships and destroying smaller capital ships in just a few shots. The ship has one mount on either side of the hull. A minimum of three cannons can be linked to fire at the same target. The weapon systems cannot be used in hyper space.
Maximum Effective Range:
Mega Damage: 2D6x100 per mount (Each cannon does approximately 1D6x100).
Rate of Fire: Maximum of Two (2) times per melee per mount
Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Two (2) Ion Cannon Mounts: The Nebulon-B frigate has two ion cannon mounts. Each mount has a 360 degree rotation and a 180 degree arc of fire. Ion cannon mounts have standard penalties to strike fighters and other small targets. The weapon systems cannot be used in hyper space.
Star Wars ion cannons operate differently than the Ion cannons in Rifts and Robotech. Instead of just being another type of energy weapon, Star Wars ion cannons do not cause any physical damage, though they do damage shields. They disable targets by interfering with the target's electrical systems.
For gaming purposes, Star Wars ion weapons have a damage rating. This is how much damage the weapon will inflict on shields. Once any shields are penetrated, however, the damage works differently. The ion damage is recorded separately from normal physical damage. The amount of "damage" inflicted by the ion weaponry is compared to the amount of main body remaining. The percentage of damage inflicted is determined in relation to the main body: (damage / main body) x 100 = percentage
For every 10% damage from ion weapons, the following penalties apply: The target will be at -1 to Strike, Parry (if appropriate), and Dodge. In space, target acceleration will be reduced by 15% and in an atmosphere, top speed will be reduced by 15%. Roll once on the Critical hit chart in the Phase World Source book or Rifts Conversion book as appropriate.
If a ship takes 60% or more of its main body in ion damage, then the ship or vehicle will be disabled completely. All weapon, navigation, and other systems will shut down. The ships Emergency life-support and emergency communications are likely to work, but nothing else.
When crossing universes, some ships would probably be immune to these weapon systems. These include the U.W.W. ships and the UFO Intruder ships from Phase World, the semi biological protoculture based systems from Robotech, and the Unusual hull construction of the Vorlons, Shadows, and races that copied the first ones technology from Babylon 5.
Maximum Effective Range:
Damage: 1D4x1000 M.D.C. per mount to shields and special effects (See above)
Rate of Fire: Maximum of Two (2) times per melee per mount
Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Twelve (12) 60 mm Point Defense Lasers: These are the main point defense weaponry of the Frigate and are used against both fighters and missiles. These mounts are distributed evenly around the ships hull. Each Turret can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire. The weapons have no penalties to strike small targets but are relatively short ranged. The weapon systems cannot be used in hyper space.
Maximum Effective Range:
Mega-Damage: 4D6x10 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) Capital Proton Torpedo Batteries: Essentially equal to cruise missiles. Located in the front of the ship.
Phase World Version: Effectively very similar to Phase World cruise missiles. Missiles has a top speed of Mach 25 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 10% of light per turn (far faster than any starship). When drive goes dead, the missile will continue to travel in a straight line unless preset to self destruct or receives a destruct code but has very low odds of hitting star ships (Great for hitting bases and planets because target does not move and torpedoes when dead is at -25% to be detected.) See Modified starship rules for more details
Moderate Version: The description of these are close to that used for conventional cruise missiles Missile are assumed to accelerate at 2 times normal mach speed in Gs greater than the starships speed when used in space. Missiles can be launched at non moving targets beyond the powered range of the missiles to hit targets without the chance of the launching ship being hit by missiles itself but penalties exist when launching missiles beyond normal missile range.
Maximum Effective Range:
Mega-Damage: Both Versions: Varies with cruise missile types (Use new missile/bomb tables) - Anti-Matter warheads are NOT available.
Rate of Fire: Volleys of 10 per battery, per melee round, for a total of 20 missiles per melee. Launchers are reloaded on the same melee and can be fired again on the next.
Payload: 200 total, 100 cruise missiles per battery.

[ 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, 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. ]

[ Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi and their associated logos are registered trademarks of Lucasfilm Ltd. ]

CGI / artwork of craft / ship by David Benjamin. More of his/her CGI pictures of Star Wars craft / ship at SWMA Gallery.

Writeup by Michael Söderlind (michael.soderlind@telia.com).

Revisions by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

Return