Ships

Traveling in space almost always meant having a vessel that could carry people from place to place. While there are several concepts of personal travel through space, the fact that most people cannot survive in a vacuum means that starships would always remain a staple of space travel.

Hyperspace travel is not restricted to any ship class. Even one-man fighters can mount hyperspace drives. Most merchant vessels mount these drives, and some are capable of atmospheric operation. However, these combination ships are not very big, and the most popular mode of transportation for goods by far are small dedicated hyperspace freighters, called jumpships or driveships, equipped with several hard points for dropships of various classes. This system is more versatile, and places less stress on the businessman, for hyperspace and atmospheric-capable ships require a great deal of maintenance on both systems.

For the sake of brevity, the following entries will describe the various ship types currently operating in space.

Warships

All warships are capable of hyperspace travel, unlike their lesser, but no less important cousins, the dropships.

Most warships are incapable of atmospheric action, leaving the task to dropships and fighters. They are strictly power projection vessels, capable of traveling from one system to another and smashing flat all opposition.

They are different from normal jumpships or driveships in that they carry both a massive normal space drive, as well as a hyperspace drive, whereas driveships carry only a hyperspace drive. In addition, the hyperspace drive warships use is a more specialized version that is lighter, smaller, and more expensive than the one used in driveships, in order to fit in the massive engines that are required for maneuver in normal space.

Spyships, 1000-20,000 tons

Spyships are surveillance vessels, often equipped with cloaking fields and fast engines. They mount few weapons and even less armor.

Gunboats, 20,000-100,000 tons

Gunboats occupy the niche for quick patrol vessels for defense of a number of systems, able to harass and tie down the enemy for heavier elements to arrive.

Military freighters and transports are also often built on gunboat hulls, serving as critical supply ships. These specialized vessels are often equipped with many dropship hardpoints.

Some transports were further modified to carry fighters. These jeep carriers, often escorting transport convoys, serve the dual purpose of providing pilots with on-the-job training, as well as shipping the same pilots to their respective fleet postings. They carry a maximum of 3 squadrons.

Corvettes, 100,000-300,000 tons

Corvettes are often the lightest capital ships attached to a fleet. They serve as outriders, and the first line of defense of a warship group.

Lightly armored and swift, designed for extended operations, they most often see action as raiders or convoy escorts.

Carriers built on corvette hulls are termed escort carriers, often carrying 4 or 5 squadrons of fighters.

Destroyers, 300,000-600,000 tons

Destroyers occupy a similar niche to corvettes, but are more heavily armed. In addition to raiding and escort duty, they also guard orbital installations.

Carriers built on destroyer hulls are light carriers. They carry 6 squadrons.

Frigates, 600,000-800,000 tons

Frigates serve as both picket vessels and escorts. Usually equipped with top-notch sensors, frigates often stay on the outskirts of a fleet to act as sentries and screening units, to provide additional defense for the fleet’s core.

Unlike corvettes or destroyers, frigates are also often equipped with hard points to carry dropships.

Carriers built on frigate hulls are frequently light carriers, though some designs squeeze in the fighter complement of medium carriers. Light carriers would carry 6 squadrons, while medium carriers would carry 8 squadrons.

Cruisers, 800,000-1,200,000 tons

Cruisers have many roles. One was to literally cruise the universe; showing the flag, and representing overwhelming force that could be brought to bear in an instant.

In battle, heavy cruisers are tasked to protect the fleet battle line against enemy light cruisers, and also to defend against heavy fighter assault.

Light cruisers were primarily scout cruisers, intended to operate far in front of the battle line to find the enemy fleet and report its position. They are also tasked to hunt down frigates and enemy destroyers that might attempt to cause trouble.

Carriers built on cruiser hulls are medium carriers, with 8 squadrons, though some heavier hulls are heavy carriers, with 10 squadrons.

Battlecruisers, 1,200,000-1,500,000 tons

Battlecruisers are often the main components of a battle line, often equipped with heavy weapons and adequate speed to provide a knockout punch. However, they often lack the protection of a battleship.

Carriers built on battlecruiser hulls are heavy carriers, with 10 squadrons.

Battleships, 1,500,000-3,000,000 tons

For a long time, battleships were the largest of warships, multi-million ton behemoths with overwhelming firepower and armor. They often serve as flagships of a fleet, leading assaults on an enemy line and breaching enemy formations for smaller craft to exploit.

Carriers built on battleship hulls are often heavy carriers, though larger battleships are assault carriers, with 12 squadrons, as well as a formidable weapons array that would allow them to participate in any battle line confrontation.

Dreadnoughts, 3,000,000-10,000,000 tons

Dreadnoughts were a theoretical hull design emphasizing the ‘big is better’ philosophy. For a long time in the Inner Sphere, they were simply products of overactive imaginations, before the Einstein yards finally produced the first dreadnought in 3072.

Dreadnoughts are equipped with tremendous amounts of weaponry and protection, and are often able to pacify entire star systems on their own. Their speed is a potential weakness, but it is more than compensated for by their guns.

Carriers built on dreadnought hulls are assault carriers, though all ships of dreadnought size and above carry integral fighter bays, integrating the battle line combatant and fleet carrier concepts into a single hull.

Colossi, 10,000,000-30,000,000 tons

The next largest class of hulls, colossi are even more powerful vessels, capable of fighting off entire fleets single-handedly. The empire’s Star Destroyer class exemplifies the colossi classification, mounting massive weapon arrays, integral fighter support, and attached dropships capable of planetary invasion.

Titans, 30,000,000-60,000,000 tons

Titans are mobile attack bases, equipped with the very best in combat technology. Most titans carry monitors, warship-sized dropships without hyperspace drives, further increasing their firepower. Most titans are able to scour entire planets on their own, and more than a few are equipped with stellar converters capable of destroying worlds.

There have been rumors of a Star League project codenamed ‘Nightblade’, concerning the construction of a Titan warship with phasing cloak technology, and a one-shot-one-kill shield piercing cannon. Such claims have yet to be verified, but rumors persist of a secret task force operating outside Star League territories armed with such a vessel.

Warstars, 60,000,000+ tons

The Empire’s Death Star was the first glimpse Star League strategy planners had of the mobile fortress concept. Long derided for being white elephants, the only two Death Stars the Star League possessed were solely due to the Serpent Knight’s efforts to upgrade his military in face of Vong aggression.

Death Stars were hideously expensive, and to many planners, they represented a concentration of firepower and resources that could be better employed protecting a whole chain of star systems with battleships and battlecruisers for a fraction of their cost.

The Battle of Inferno’s Pyre changed the Star League’s strategic thinking, as they came up against numerous enemy death stars spearheading nigh-unstoppable fleet assaults, and presenting insurmountable defenses at critical points.

Since then, the Star League has carried out a crash fleet building program, with the emphasis on dreadnoughts, colossi, titans, and death stars. In an attempt to sway public opinion, the Senate changed the name of this class of hull to Warstars.

The first new Warstar, the Cameron Star, emerged from the extensive Einstein yards in 3087, and was promptly assigned to 4th Fleet, currently engaged in Gaddenspy County.

Dropships

Unlike warships, dropships are classified according to function, and not size. There are six categories for dropships, according to their function. There are troop carriers, fighter carriers, assault ships, cargo carriers, passenger liners, and monitors. Most of them are capable of atmospheric operation, and almost all of them can land on the ground, hence their name of ‘drop-ship’.

None of these ships have hyperspace engines, so they cannot travel in hyperspace under their own power. However, they are still able to use warp points, which is an important strategic tool for commanders in the case of monitors.

Dropships are transported through hyperspace by jumpships or warships with docking hard points.

Troop Carriers

These dropships carry battlemechs, vehicles, and other units required for a ground assault. They are moderately armed and armored for their sizes, and are formidable fortresses on the ground. The largest troop carriers can transport an entire heavy regiment of troops.

Fighter Carriers

Fighter carriers are the dropship versions of carrier units. They exists in various sizes, up to the massive Vengeance class, which carries about 3 squadrons. Such a force can defeat even an unwary warship.

Assault Ships

Certain dropships can designed for the intrasystem interdiction role, as well as to serve as light anti-fighter and anti-warship units. These are the assault dropships. They are heavily armed and armored, and often possess incredible speed for their size. Most are aerodyne in shape, and perform much like heavier fighters. A swarm of such ships can seriously damage any battle line.

Cargo Carriers

These commercial ships are in use throughout known space for shipping purposes. Lightly armored and poorly armed, they are employed in combat only in the most desperate of situations.

Passenger Liners

With commerce flourishing throughout the Star League, tourism and human migration for business and entertainment has again become extremely popular. Passenger liners allow civilians to travel in style, placing a premium on luxury and entertainment, and giving up raw cargo space and passenger capacity for such creature comforts.

Monitors

Purely military in nature, monitors are to dropships what Warstars are to warships, the heaviest and most powerful of their class. Monitors are almost always huge vessels, armed with massive weapon bays, heavily armored, and without need for a hyperspace drive, often equipped with large conventional engines that provide them with greater speed than equivalent warships.

Monitors require huge hard points for transportation, and only the largest warships and jumpships are able to transport them.

Jumpships

Jumpships or the less common name, driveships, are simply starships built around a hyperspace drive and nothing else. As the hyperspace drive they use is the larger and more conventional version that takes up the bulk of the ship’s mass, little is left for the provision of weapons, armor, and even maneuvering drives.

While jumpships can approach and even stop in planetary orbits from hyperspace transit, none of them can land or engage in atmospheric operations. The hyperspace drive, while theoretically enabling them to get around a system by traversing hyperspace, cannot substitute for a normal space drive in battle as hyperspace drives require time, often several minutes, to spool up for the transit into hyperspace. Such a delay would be fatal in combat, even without considering the poor armament of jumpships. Their station keeping thrusters, slowly being replaced by null gravity modules, take up the bulk of the remaining space.

Nevertheless, jumpships are still widely in use by merchants, private citizens, and even the Star League in secure areas, with their attached dropships providing defense and cargo transport capability. Cheap and easy to maintain, most merchants are loath to part with these invaluable vessels.

Fighters

All fighters are swift moving small craft, often operated by a single pilot. All have streamlined fuselages, and can operate in atmosphere. Many fighters are incapable of hyperspace travel.

Fighter have traditionally been grouped according to function. There were scouts, interceptors, space superiority, close air support, and bombers.

Alternatively, there have been several general classes of fighters in recent years, grouped according to their technology bases, and not by their tonnage or function, especially since the omnifighter concept appeared, and thus invalidating the function-based classification systems.

Normal fighter

Normal fighters, derisively called norms, are ordinary space fighters capable of both space and atmospheric operation. However, they lack hyperspace drives, and cannot even travel far within a star system on their own.

Omnifighter

These fighters are nicknamed omnis, and they have an advantage over normal fighters in that their weapons loadouts can be customized according to their mission profile. They still possess the disadvantage of non-hyperspace travel.

Snubfighter

Snubfighters are nicknamed snubs, or snobs by disgruntled omni and norm pilots, and they are capable of hyperspace travel. However, this results in their carrying less weaponry and protection than equivalent norms and omnis. Many commanders feel that the strategic penetration the snubs provide is a

Veritech

Veritechs, or veris, are advanced mech and fighter hybrids, capable of transforming from one to the other. While the equipment for the transformation somewhat reduces the space available for weapons and armor, the versatility and effectiveness of the Veritech in almost any combat situation is unparalleled.

Starblades

The Star League decided soon after its formation to start fighter research into producing the most powerful line of fighters by integrating the advantages of all the different fighter types into a single design concept.

The result is a Veritech analog capable of mech, fightermech, and fighter form operation, capable of hyperspace travel, and with various hardpoints able to receive different weapons packages.

Advances into hyperspace microengines, as well as miniaturization of the transformation equipment, allow the new fighter type, called Starblades, or blades, to carry very nearly the same amount of weaponry as an equivalent weight omni or norm.

The first blades, of the Gladius and Epee models, debuted in the Battle of Inferno’s Pyre, and their exemplary performance in that battle has resulted in almost every frontline fighter wing clamoring for the new designs.

Since then, a few more designs have debuted, like the Saber and Cutlass medium and heavy fighters, as well as the assault class Broadswords. Several more designs are undergoing final trials, and work is now commencing on the Excalibur model, which would be the flagship blade design.

Miscellaneous

As mentioned before, hyperspace drives could be fitted onto almost any ship, regardless of size. The only constraint is money.

For rich operators, those who deal with highly perishable and valuable goods, and the occasional smuggler, they use small merchant analogs of warships, able to both traverse hyperspace, and land on a planet with their maneuver drives. Important diplomats and government officials also often have access to such ships.