Project Phoenix Refits

[Terry Mixon]

With all the talk of Hop Drive 1 being introduced as almost ready for prime time in the Singularity campaign, I've decided that the Imperial Navy would jump all over that, even with the high price tag. They'd be fools not to. There wouldn't be much new construction at first, but I can definitely see some refits happening at the yards at Vincennes. MixCorp would be glad to help the Navy out, so here is the first refit.

The Atlantic-Class 75,000-Ton Heavy Cruiser is behind the power curve and is fast approaching obsolescence. That makes it ripe for a refit as ships of this class wouldn't be missed too badly in the line of battle right now. The High Guard times for a refit don't work well for prototype systems as one doesn't have half a millennium to wait, so I'm ignoring that aspect of the process. Those rules need an overhaul.

I have a before and after spreadsheet for comparison, but I tried to keep as much of the original as possible, though some changes and additions were possible and even desirable with the extra space after the hop drive was taken into account.

First, the J4 drive came out, and the H1 drive went in. That cut the fuel requirement by three quarters, but I only recovered half the space, allowing the ship to have a second H1 on tap for quick in and out operations or to penetrate a border area by up to 20 parsecs. That is, after all, the strategic strength of the drive.

Here is the complete list of changes:

J4 (reduced Fuel x1) -> H1 (prototype with governor at x5 the cost of a TL17 production H1, which is 10 times the cost of a comparable J1 drive)
J4 + 8 weeks operating 29,360 fuel -> H1 x2 + 12 weeks operating 16,135 fuel
M5 -> M6 (reduced size x2 to fit)
TL12 power plant 64,500 power points -> TL15 power plant 75,649 power points)
Bridge -> Added Holographic controls
Comp/90 -> Comp/110
Software: Advanced Fire Control/2 -> Advanced Fire Control/3
Software: Added Basic Fire Control/5 for the meson spinal weapon
Software: Electronic Warfare/2 -> Electronic Warfare/3
Software: Evade/2 -> Evade/3
Software: Jump Control/4 -> Hop Control/1
Sensors: Improved -> Superior
Sensors: Countermeasures -> Advanced Countermeasures
Added 18 Advanced AutoDocs to the 6 medical bays
Weapons: 4x Point Defense Batteries Type II-L -> 20x Point Defense Batteries Type III-L
Weapons: 6x Particle Beam Medium Bays -> 20x Particle Beam Medium Bays (size reduction x3)
Weapons: 40x Small Missile Bays -> 40x Small Missile Bays (size reduction x3)
Weapons: Added 38 Large Meson Bays (long range, energy efficient)
Screens: Added 10x Nuclear Damper
441 Middle Staterooms -> 331 Middle Staterooms
443 common area -> 332 common area
408 cargo (after the 750 tons reserved for supply units) -> 825 tons (after the 750 tons reserved for supply units)
Added High Quality Entertainment System

The value of the vessel jumped from BCr44.820 to BCR196.541 or 4.3x as expensive. The cost of the refit is higher as it is supposed to be 1.5x the cost of the system being replaced, but I'm not mathing that. Also, the fact it is a prototype drive skews the numbers in ways it shouldn't.

Also attached is a zip file with both the original and the new version.

Here is the original version:



And here is the refitted version:

 

[Galadrion]

This would make a pretty good strike cruiser or a suitable platform for a reconnaissance-in-force vehicle. It could also be a reasonable test-bed for something like the Deepnight Revelation, only there are some trade-offs. (The ship has a lot more in the way of legs, but as written it's got a lot less in the way of sensors and long-range independence regarding support. Updating this ship the same way D.R. was would make up a large amount of the deficits.) All-in-all, it's a reasonable update and fairly interesting.