Federation U.S.S. Defiant class Attack Ship (Star Trek):

The writeup of the U.S.S. Defiant is designed to be used during the later Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager episodes.

The USS Defiant is a starship built to a different set of standards to most starships in the Federation. She was built as a combatant starship and does not have large amount of space allocated for crew quarters although crew quarters are still spacious when compared to modern naval vessels. The ship design was designed to fight Borg cubes using large squadrons but according to the first episode that the USS Defiant was introduced, the program was scrapped. The U.S.S. Defiant herself was put into mothball status due to some problems with the design. The ship program was continued after the beginning of tension between the Federation and the Dominion but the class has only been produced in small numbers. The reasoning for this is unknown and many senior officers strongly disagree with this and want a large number of this class produced. At least one Star Trek novel indicates that more than one Defiant class and several voyager and next generation episodes has indicated that more than just the U.S.S. Defiant has been built.

The ship class has proven its worth several times and is one of the most effective ship in the Federation fleets. In several battles, the U.S.S. Defiant has been used at the spear point in major battles. Later, the U.S.S. Defiant was destroyed but another ship was renamed to replace her.

The Defiant class does not fight like most cruisers but instead fights much like a fighter but has far more firepower than any fighter ever produced. The main firepower of the ship are pulse phasers that point forward on the vessel. These weapons are cable of doing severe damage to larger vessels and completely destroy ships in one shot. The ship is very well protected with shields and later in the ships service, the ship had ablative armor added to the outside of the vessel. The U.S.S. Defiant carried a Romulan cloaking device until it was destroyed. While that ship was allowed to carry a cloaking device due to a special arrangement with the Romulan government, the Federation can produce their own cloaking devices or can purchase them from the Klingons.

The U.S.S. Defiant, if defined by Phase World terms, would be considered to be a light cruiser by the ships size and mass. The ship has very powerful beam weaponry compared to phase world ship that are the same size, but her missile weaponry is not as heavy as most starships of the Three Galaxies and she does not have a large amount of point defense.

This design is written to be able to interact with modified phase world rules. See Revised Starship Rules for Phase World / Three Galaxies for more details. There is a lack of hard detail on this ship. Some materials have suggested accelerations that are simply beyond scope. I have taken a moderate level in writing up this starship for Phase World because otherwise the ship would either be far too powerful or far too weak for Phase World. Warp speeds are far slower than the FTL speeds for Phase World but they are very close to those from the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual. Also, a note on the mass of starships. The original sources indicated much smaller masses for starships than Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual does and where possible, both masses are listed for the gamers to choose which one seems most appropriate.

Model Type: NX-74205
Vehicle Type: Escort/Attack Corvette (Light cruiser by Phase World terms)
Crew: 75 although ship can be crewed by 8 crew members in emergencies
Troops: 50 Marines
Vehicles: 2 Small Shuttles

M.D.C. By Location:

	[1] Main Body (Primary Hull):	45,000 / 30,000 before ablative armor was added
	Warp Nacelles (2):	15,000 each / 10,000 each before ablative armor was added.
	Impulse Engine:	6,000
	[2] Bridge:	6,000
	Photon/Quantum Torpedo Launchers (4):	1,000 each
	Pulse Phaser Arrays (4):	600 each
	Conventional Phaser Arrays (2):	600 each
	[3] Variable Force Field:	8,000 per side (48,000 total)

Notes:
[1] Depleting the M.D.C. of the main body will put the Defiant out of commission. All internal systems will shut down, including life support and internal gravity. The ship itself will be an unsalvageable floating wreck.
[2] 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 bridge is 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.
[3] 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 1.2 percent of light per melee round.
As an alternative, the starship can reach .99 of the speed of light but is normally restricted to slower speeds so that starship is not effected severely by time attenuation that occurs at the higher sublight speeds.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is Mach 10. using impulse engine. Due to starship having gravitic propulsion systems, starship can enter and leave the atmosphere.
Stardrive: Uses a warp engine that allow ship to travel at Warp Factor 8.8 on cruise (0.16 light years per hour), Warp Factor 9.4 Flank (0.2 Light Years per hour), and Warp Factor 9.982 Emergency (0.68 Light Years per Hour). Speed is calculate using a formula designed to emulate Star Trek: Next Generation speeds. These speeds are very slow when compared to Phase World ship, so if used in that universe, they could be increased enough to operate within Three Galaxy speeds but should not exceed them.
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either drive system. Ship carries about two years worth of supplies on board.

Statistical Data:
Length: 560.0 feet (170.68 meters)
Height: 98.8 feet (30.10 meters)
Width: 440.0 feet (134.11 meters)
Mass: 355,000 metric tons (Deep Space Nine: Technical Manual)
Power System: Anti Matter with 5 year life span. Ship normally only goes 2 years between refuelings.
Cargo: Very Small, Cargo holds are scattered about the ship that allows for carrying up to 400 tons of cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition.
Market Cost: 8 + billion to construct. As far as it is known, the Federation does not sell their starship designs to other interested parties.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

Pulse Phaser Arrays (4): On the front of the starship are four forward firing phasers that do incredible amounts of damage but is shorter in range than the heavy laser weapons of phase world starships. Normally, all four phasers are fired at the same time and in bursts. Weapon system is controlled by a single gunner and has half the normal negatives to hit small targets such as fighters and missiles due to the maneuverability and small size of the ship. Weapon system cannot be used when the starship is moving faster than the speed of light.
Maximum Effective Range: 149 miles (240 km) through atmosphere and 14,900 miles (24,000 km) in space.
Mega Damage: 3D6x100 per phaser. All four phasers firing a 3 pulse burst does 3D6x1,000 and costs one attack.
Rate of Fire: Equal to gunners hand to hand (Usually 4 or 5) - Maximum of 6 attacks per melee.
Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Phaser Arrays (2): On both the top and bottom sides of the starship are standard phaser arrays although slightly smaller than mounted on larger ships. Each phaser array can fire two individual beams at the same time and can be aimed at different or the same targets. Each one can fire in any direction and directly up for top phasers and directly down for bottom phasers. These weapons are often used defensively and have half the normal penalties of a heavy weapon to hit fighters and small targets when fired normally. When combined into a heavy beam, they have full penalties. Weapon system cannot be used when the starship is moving faster than the speed of light.
Maximum Effective Range: 187 miles (300 km) through atmosphere and 18,700 miles (30,000 km) in space.
Mega Damage: 4D6x100 per normal phaser beam or can be combined into a single heavy beam that inflicts 1D4x1000 + 200
Rate of Fire: volley of 2 phaser beams per array twice per melee (4 beams per melee per array / 8 beams for all arrays) or can fire a total of two combined heavy blasts per melee per array.
Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Photon/Quantum Torpedo Launchers (4): The ship has two launchers that fire forward and two launchers that fire aft. Effectively very similar to Phase World cruise missile launchers but instead of having groups of multiple launchers, Starfleet has concentrated on launchers that can launch more than one torpedo at the same time. There are two launchers that fire forward and two launchers that fire aft. Once spread of torpedoes has been launched, the launchers must reload and rearm before launching another spread of torpedoes. In the early service of this ship, it carried photon torpedoes which are anti-matter/matter warheads but in later service they have been replaced by quantum torpedoes.
Torpedoes 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 torpedo 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 - Sublight torpedoes have penalties to hit small targets but are all considered smart missiles. Launchers can launch on multiple targets each.
Maximum Effective Range: Powered torpedo range is 8000 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: Photon Torpedoes (Matter/Anti-Matter Warheads): Old Series inflict 2D6x100 each, Star Trek Movies One through Six inflict 3D6x100, and Next Generation inflicts 4D6x100 each. Quantum Torpedoes: 8D6x100 each.
Rate of Fire: One at a time or in volleys of 2 or 4 per launcher, per melee round, for a maximum of 16 torpedoes per melee. Launchers are reloaded on the same melee and can be fired again on the next.
Payload: 192 total, 48 torpedoes per launcher.
Cloaking Device: The USS Defiant has a cloaking device that allows the ship to be undetectable by most sensors. If the Defiant has sister ships, it is unclear if they carry cloaking devices. The Federation had a treaty with the Romulan Empire that the Federation would not develop cloaking technology but the federation does have cloaking technology. In Phase World this system has the problem that it does not hide the ships signature on gravitic sensors (This is even more of a weakness on Romulan ships because they use a black hole in their power systems). The starship cannot raise shields or fire any weapons while cloaked, for one attack previous to cloaking, or just after decloaking.
When attacking and if ship is not detected, the ship has +8 initiative bonus against a target that is not alerted and +4 initiative bonus against targets that are alerted (at general quarters). If the cloaked ship get a higher initiative, the ship can both raise its combat shields and can fire its weapons previous to any opponents attacks.
Each time the ship main body (Primary Hull) gets damaged, the is a percentage chance the cloaking device will be damaged. This is done by determining the total damage the ship has sustained and dividing that by the amount of damage the ship can take (30,000 in the Defiant's case) and getting a percentage of the hull that the ship has taken for damage. A percentile roll is then made. If the percentile roll is less than the percentage of damage the cloaking device is damaged and will be non operation.

[ 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. ]

[ Cardassian TM, Deep Space Nine TM, Jem'Hadar TM, Ketracel White TM, Klingon TM, Photon Torpedo TM, Quantum Torpedo TM, and United Federation of Planets TM are trademarks owned by Paramount Pictures. ]

Technical information partially sourced from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual (Mostly ship sizes.)

I would like to recognize Henning Rogge as giving assistance with the revision of the Star Trek starships.

CGI of ship created by Andrew Hodges. More of his CGI pictures of Star Trek ships and craft at Devil World 6.

Writeup by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

Return