[Agemegos]

Necho-class exploration frigate (TL10^ superscience)

This is an interstellar naval vessel designed to carry a small multidisciplinary team of planetologists and social scientists on 'first contact' missions with non-starfaring cultures and exploring previously-unsurveyed habitable worlds. It is lightly armed and armoured, mostly for self-defence, but its tech edge might make it suitable for a little light gunboat diplomacy.

The Necho class frigate is built in a 3,000-ton unstreamlined hull 70 yards 'high' and 46 yards in diameter. Artifical gravity was not available to the designers, and the habitats were clustered in the core for safety, so that spin gravity was not practical. When not under acceleration, the ships are intended to be occupied in free fall. So that it remains habitable while under acceleration, this vessel is laid out as a 'tail-lander', with decks perpendicular to the acceleration axis and the drives in the 'basement', pointing down.

Necho-class frigates have a limited-superscience antimatter plasma torch drive giving 1 gee of acceleration, and allowing 3 gee of 'emergency thrust' when antimatter-boosted water from a special tank is used as propellant. They are capable of landing on and takeoff from any habitable planet under emergency thrust, but are not intended to do so because their drive exhaust would be immensely destructive. They therefore carry two ram-rocket-powered orbital shuttles for landing and recovering explorers with their gear. Interstellar performance is modest: Necho and her sister-ships were intended to proceed on their exploration circuits by a series of short hops from star to star.

Forward hull

[1] Hardened nanocomposite armour, $30M, —
[2] Hardened nanocomposite armour, $30M, —
[3] Cargo hold (150 tons), $ negligible, —
[4] Hangar bay (100 tons), $0.3M, —
[5] Open space (2 areas, garden), $0.2M, —
[6] Habitat (20 cabins specialised rooms), $3M, —
[core] Habitat (20 cabins accommodations), $3M, —

Midships hull

[1] Hardened nanocomposite armour, $30M, —
[2] Power plant, de-rated fusion (1 power, 400 years), $15M, —
[3!] Weapons, medium battery, $15M, —

• turreted 300MJ UV laser
• turreted 32cm missile launcher
• turreted 3 MJ very-rapid-fire improved laser (RoF 200) [note 5]

[4] Tactical array, $30M, —
[5] Defensive ECM, $30M, —
[6] Engine room, $1M, 2

Aft hull

[core] Control room (Complexity 8, c/s 8, 6 control stations), $6M, —
[1] Hardened nanocomposite armour, $30M, —
[2!] Stardrive engine, $30M, —
[3] Fuel tank (150 tons antimatter-boosted hydrogen), $1M, —
[4] Fuel tank (150 tons antimatter-boosted hydrogen), $1M, —
[5] Fuel tank (150 tons antimatter-boosted water), $1M, — [note 1]
[6] Reaction engine, antimatter plasma torch (1 g), $30M, —

Basic Stat block

PILOTING/TL10 (HIGH-PERFORMANCE SPACECRAFT)
TL: 10^
Spacecraft: Necho-class exploration frigate
dST/HP: 100
Hnd/SR: -1 / 5
HT: 13 [note 2]
Move: 1 g. or 3 g. / 280 mi./sec. [note 1]
LWt.: 3 000 tons
Load: 170 tons
SM: +9
Occ.: 45 ASV
dDR: 60H / 30H / 30H
Range: 1x
Cost: $288.25M
Refuel: $54M [note 3]

Crew

• Control room crew: 6
• Engine room crew: 2
• Turret gunners: 3
• Damage control: 6

Fit-out

Cargo hold

• 50 tons assorted spare parts for ship repairs [note 2]
• 75 tons assorted camping, construction, survival, and security equipment
• 15 tons assorted scientific instruments
• 5 tons assorted medical supplies
• 5 tons assorted trade goods

Hangar bay

• Two SM+5 orbital shuttles

Forward habitat section

• Establishment (wardroom), 2
• Establishment (faculty centre), 2
• Establishment (mess), 2
• Establishment (gym), 2
• Lab (Biology), 2, $1M
• Office (captain's day cabin), 1
• Briefing room (double size), 2
• Minifac, 1, $0.5M [note 2]
• Armory (10 tons steerage cargo), 2
• Stowage (10 tons steerage cargo), 2
• Cabins (visitors), 2

Core habitat section

1. Single cabin (captain)
2. Single cabin (ambassador)
3. Single cabin (head of survey)
4. Double cabin (1st Lieutenant & Chief Engineer)
5. Double cabin (2 officers)
6. Double cabin (2 officers)
7. Double cabin (Ambassador's aide and advisor)
8. Double cabin (2 Survey experts)
9. Double cabin (2 Survey experts)
10. Double cabin (2 Survey experts)
11. Double cabin (2 Survey experts)
12. Double cabin (2 Survey experts)
13. Double cabin (2 Survey experts)
14. Double cabin (Buffer and Helmsman)
15. Bunkroom (4 ratings)
16. Bunkroom (4 ratings)
17. Double-sized bunkroom (8 marines)
18. 2-bed Sickbay with auto-docs, $0.2M

Magazine

• 5 of 32 cm missiles with 2.5 Mton antimatter warheads $10M
• 15 of 32 cm missiles with conventional warheads $15M [note 4]

Notes

1. I assume that a given antimatter plasma torch engine can run on either antimatter-boosted hydrogen or antimatter-boosted water without modification. If not, all tanks carry antimatter-boosted hydrogen, and Speed is 1 g. / 360 mi./sec..
2. I assume that neither the spare parts in the cargo hold nor the minifac in the forward habitat section will give the bonus to HT that a factory would give.
3. The Necho-class was designed for a setting in which limited superscience production of antimatter provides antimatter-boosted fuels for $120,000 per ton at TL10^. At book prices for antimatter a ship such as this is not economic, and the class should be re-designed with a fusion torch engine, which would raise the cost of the ship to $301.5M, and alter its Move to 0.5 g. / 45 mi./sec., or to 0.5 g or 1.5 g / 37.5 mi./sec.
4. I reckon that the Weapons, medium battery table on p.27 lists missile shots per launcher. If not, the fit-out would be six or seven antimatter warheads and none conventional.
5. The very-rapid-fire laser is meant for close defence against projectiles, and is designed on the assumption that any hit will kill a missile or shell. If you can be bothered to muck about with split systems, you might like to treat this turret as a SM+8 major battery, and replace it with an SM+8 tertiary battery of 30 turreted very-rapid-fire 100-kJ improved lasers, each with a RoF of 200.