Forge Class Cruiser

Forge class Triarch Industries Cruiser:

Overview: One of the most frequently seen ships in the Galaxy the Forge class cruiser from Triarch Industries is a workhorse and a well-known ship, capable of holding its own on the battlefield, escorting convoys, hauling goods or backing up the forces of other factions. While not having the offensive power of some other cruiser class ships it makes up in terms of armour and shielding, able to take massive punishment the Forge has been in use with multiple free-lance factions and pirates as well as some of the other factions scattered throughout the galaxy.

Armament: The Forge mounts an average cruiser armament which can be some par to some. With a Single spinal mounted Heavy Proton cannon for frontal firepower it also mounts 6 light missile launchers, 12 Heavy mass drivers in 6 turrets of 2, 86 Mass drivers in turrets of 2, 6 heavy photon lances and numerous point defense.

Mass Drivers: Triarchs principle weapon system, the Mass Driver. Built upon Union designs as Triarch was once part of the Union, these Mass drivers are nearly the same in aspect. However Triarch Mass drivers do not have void cooling like the Union guns, but do have nano assemblers. Triarch Mass drivers trade ROF for much higher calibre and so typically are far larger than their opposites. These Mass drivers can either fire high intensity penetrator rounds, high explosive rounds, Beehive Anti attack craft rounds or saturation bombardment rounds.

Heavy Proton Cannons: Commonly found on Triarchs heavier ships while normal Proton cannons can be found on the smaller craft these spinal mounted weapons are linked directly to the ships main reactors. Capable of delivering one of two modes of fire, a continuous fire mode in which the proton cannons send streams in 8 second intervals (to avoid overheating and warping of lensed arrays) into a target which can cause immense damage even in heavy armoured targets and seriously weaken shields. Or it can be fired on full burst mode, in which the ship will power down for a period of one minute after this fires, disabling weapons and shields and putting it at a disadvantage. However all the reactors power is then rerouted into the proton cannons and able to fire a devastating beam capable of blasting apart even battleships in one shot.

Photon Lances: essentially large laser arrays each Photon lance is a large spherical lensing emplacement through which up to as many as 3000 high intensity lasers can be fired at any one time. This allows the vessel to engage vast amounts of targets either destroying large numbers of attack craft or escorts or using large beams to cut ships apart at range, while not as powerful as some of the more exotic laser weapons around it is a tried and tested weapon with excellent versatility.

Missile launchers: Triarch Industries still uses missile launchers in its arsenal and all missile launchers can fire a variety of warheads. First off nuclear munitions are available purely to bombard worlds or to destroy the enemy if their defences are down. Second are stealth warheads, armed with a powerful plasma charge these missiles when launched mask their signal completely by using the same stealth systems as Triarch uses on their tanks, meaning some smaller Triarch vessels can strike without being noticed or that surprise missiles strike are available. The third type of missile is the swarmer, these have compact plasma charges and MIRV warheads of up to 20 per missile, if this wasn’t bad enough the missile also has an active ECM suite and tricks enemy PD into thinking each missile can be a swarm of hundreds, causing enemy CIWS fire to engage ghost targets while the missile itself delivers its payload. The last is a warhead with an independently targetable laser, when fired the laser deploys and can engage up to 300 soft targets (such as other missiles and fighters) enabling the vessel to destroy vast swarms of enemy targets and aid its own CIWS.

Defences: The Forge class cruiser mounts 12ft of Azanium plating extremely thick for even a ship of this class. Azanium is a synthetic metallic substance created by Triarch as a response to the Unions quantum lattice armour, while much worse at taking energy weapons fire Azanium is excellent for taking physical impact and kinetic weapon damage giving Triarch ships excellent anti kinetic defence along with their powerful shielding.

Evolving from the traditional approach of close-range shields that hug the ship and deflect kinetic directed energy attacks as well as modular shields that cover individual portions of vessels to retain redundancy, Triarch composite shields are their ships' biggest survivability multiplier. Composite shields are concentric arrangements of shielding expanding for thousands of kilometers from the ship divided into two types: refraction and reflection shields.

The outermost layers, separated by hundreds of kilometers each, act as extremely weak shields meant to let most attacks through but not without exerting a minute force upon them, altering their course by fractions of a degree without doing any major damage to the projectiles themselves or absorbing energy attacks. However, with the extreme distances involved and the numerous "nudges" that enemy projectiles receive, the extremely simple shielding becomes capable of making even extremely high-energy attacks miss the ship altogether. As they are meant to redirect rather than absorb hits, these outer "refraction shields" are very low-energy, allowing them their great size. To avoid running the risk of redirecting attacks into ships flying behind the target, the refraction shields can be adjusted to direct the attacks on a desired direction. Within the huge shroud created by the refraction shields and closer to the ships, additional layers of high-energy "reflection shields" are encased, separated from one another by a few kilometers to act as spaced armor.

Due to their efficiency and the power banks built into most Triarch ships, composite shields are also capable of being overcharged. Energy can be redirected from the ships unused weaponry and engines while outside of battle to charge up large banks of supercapacitors which, as soon as the ship enters the battlefield, will begin powering the energy in alongside the ships' reactor with stored energy. While limited in duration to the supercapacitors' charge, this overcharge allows Triarch ships to be even more heavily protected for a limited ammount of time.

Power plant: The Forge class boasts 3 large cold fusion reactors, giving the ship clean energy and preventing any massive reactor critical scenario from detonating the entire ship. These are them backed up by 8 Thorium reactors for minor energy providing and no risk of radiation leaks or catastrophic reactor explosions.

Electronic capabilities: The Forge mounts an excellent fire control and command suite, while not on par with those mounted in the Warsmith or Vulkan the Forge can effectively manage smaller fleets or convoys without issue. While the Forges ECM suite is not as advanced as some of the smaller Triarch vessels it is able to hack incoming projectiles and break through into enemy systems if they have weak computer systems.

Stealth wise the Forge doesn’t actually carry a stealth field, unlike Triarchs heavy reliance on stealth technology for their ground forces and lighter ships the Forge is not equipped with one and only has its usual ECM interference and hacking to gain defence vs smart projectiles. However Unlike the Warsmith and Vulkan the Forge CAN be equipped with a stealth suite which while reducing armament allows it to become invisible to basic sensor wavelengths and more advanced kinds at longer ranges.

Crew: The Forge class has a crew complement of 8000 with another complement of 2000 marines aboard or around 2000 extra crew.

Attack craft: The Forge does not mount any hangar bays and such has no attack craft, however towards the upper decks on the front of the ship there are large cargo bays, these can be used to transport large amounts of cargo safely and in times of desperation can be used as ad hoc launch bays for a maximum of 60 fighters and 10 bombers but in this cramped environment accidents are common.

Speed and engines: The Forge is a ponderous and heavy vessel, only able to muster 0.55 light speed it is also equipped with a Triarch slipstream FTL drive.

RULES FOR EXPORTS:

You may order Forge class Cruisers from Triarch Industries, this doesn’t have to be fully RPed but will count as you having dealings with them etc. paying in raw materials or technology will suffice, once this is done I will note you or send you the blank copy of the Forge so you can customise it, you MAY then re upload it and copy and paste this descript (changing whatever needs to be changed, for instance if you change the defences specify) BUT PLEASE CREDIT ME

I am eager to see what some of the export versions will look like, a few samples can be seen here for examples. Comment below if you would like to do this (Smile)

Forge class and Triarch Industries belong to me