The Troubleshooter Class Corsair was designed to be a light ship capable of both supporting the functions of other starships as well as handling a wide variety of tasks where deployment of larger ships would be impractical. It carries a small crew and an assortment of multi-purpose equipment. The internal areas of the ship are designed to be easily modifiable allowing for the inclusion of special equipment or space to store diplomats, vital cargo, or to entertain the crew.
E1 escort (in white) next to a C1.
Power Armor and Shuttle Staging Area
Small and Inexpensive
High mobility telescopic arms, ideal for repair & construction
Assortment of sensor systems
Variable size shield and FTL systems, ideal for supporting other ships.
Cuddly Junker Drones
The Troubleshooter is a Jack of all trades. It does not specialize in any particular duty however it can perform any task with some degree of success.
The Troubleshooter is built as a conventional 'stack' of equipment. As such the outer shape most resembles that of a rocket. Two wings extend from either side of the rear of the craft, angled downward slightly, while numerous smaller control surfaces extend from the rear to help direct thrust. A single sensor dish sits above and behind the nosecone while an electromagnetic catapult for the launch and recovering of power armors, shuttles, and weapons is positioned along the right side of the cylindrical body.
It looks like that…
The Troubleshooter was designed as part of the Green Army's re-evaluation of its fleet status and needs. Nepleslian fleet composition at the time was beginning to move away from designs produced mainly is by other nations to domestic designs produced by NAM. This would in turn leave the Green Army with numerous ships that didn't fit into their fleet plans because they lacked certain pieces of technology or up to date defenses. The Green Army also needed to expand its logistics capacity. The ship design was intended to kill these two birds with one stone while at the same time providing a platform capable of efficiently solving problems that had yet to arise.
Class: NAM-E-01
Type: Corsair
Designers: NAM, Heram J. Wazu, Ally (NSS Alliance AI), M. Mercir, Free State Networks
Manufacturer: NAM
Fielded by: Star Army of Nepleslia
Crew: 3-10 (Captain, Pilot, payload specialist and up to 7 additional specialists or power armor pilots Maximum Capacity: 35
Length: 151.5 meters
Width: 50 meters
Height: 15.625 meters
Decks: 2 (3 meters each) 1 (7 meters for multi-function and cargo rooms)
Under New Starship Speed Standard:
Continuum Distortion Drive: 17,500c
Hyperspace Fold Drive: .75 ly/min
Sub light Engines: .375c (ship is capable of accelerating to this speed but it is not practical, requiring a considerable amount of time to reach 'full' speed.
Range: 3 weeks
Lifespan: 20 years (longer with proper maintenance)
Refit Cycle: 10 years
Old Version:
Continuum Distortion Drive: 150,000c
Hyperspace Fold Drive: 8 ly/min
Sub light Engines: .99c (ship is capable of accelerating to this speed but it is not practical, requiring a considerable amount of time to reach 'full' speed.
Range: 3 weeks
Lifespan: 20 years (longer with proper maintenance)
Refit Cycle: 10 years
The airlocks contain not only pressurization systems but numerous security systems as well. The airlocks measure mass inside of them to prevent cloaked personnel from sneaking inside and contain visual and sonic sensor devices. The Airlock is capable of venting a cloud of sterilizing nanomachines into the chamber to clean people coming aboard. The airlock is a small metallic room that can comfortably hold two people with inset lighting along the ceiling and floors. There is also a touch screen interface and PA system embedded into both walls for use. Two airlocks on either side open out from the crew quarters into space and an additional airlock exists between the cargo section and multi-function rooms.
The bridge is rather simple as far as most go, with a single room with several control consoles around the sides and the curved front of the room. A chair at each of the five consoles allows for easy working and combines adjustable lumbar support with adjustable firmness cushions to ensure comfort. The Chairs also have tactile interfaces inbuilt into the armrests, allowing the occupant to work and freely swivel about if they so choose. Two computer cores are used to run the vessel and are stored under semi-transparent panels in the floor of the ship at either side of the doors. Medical supplies and pressure suits (6) deploy down from panels in the ceiling through either manual or computer deployment. The medical cases are padded and both they and the pressure suits are attached via removable cords to the ceiling to prevent them from falling on top of people as they are deployed from the ceiling. The panels, walls, and ceiling of this room are covered with a thin white padding while the floor is carpeted in a green shock absorbent material that resembles shag carpeting. The walls and ceiling of the room double as a screen, which can display the surroundings of the ship in addition to anything that the crew or computer wants. This can also double as lighting for the room though typically the bridge is kept dark.
The Bridge, just like the Crew Section, has its own power, thrust, and life support systems. In an emergency the bridge and the Crew section can be jettisoned as separate sections as escape pods.
The ship’s crew section is divided into two levels with a hallway down the center of each. The hallway’s walls and ceiling are covered in a thin white padding while the floor is covered in a shock absorbent material that resembles green shag carpeting. Lights are inset into the corners between the walls and ceiling/floor. Every crew member has their own small ‘dorm style’ room complete with bed, workstation, and a small shower/bathroom area. These rooms can easily be modified with new carpeting materials or new colors. The walls on the dorm double as display screens and can be used to change the wall color or pattern at well. The doors leading to each room slide sideways into the walls to allow access manually. There is a shared bath/hot tub on the lower level in a room of similar size to one of the other door rooms. The Hot Tub has several settings, bubble features, and three squirt guns hidden away in secret compartments in the walls. A green carpeted staircase connects the upper and lower areas. A small kitchen/dinning area is situated on the top floor towards the front of the crew compartment. The dinning area itself is situated like a small café, with two circular tables and many different chairs. The kitchen is behind a chest high counter, slightly obscured from view, and has numerous cooking tools and a refrigerator.
The ship’s cargo section is a large, cylindrical, open area with one large sliding door facing towards the ‘front of the ship that open into the multi-function rooms with an embedded smaller door for personnel, a large downward rear facing ramp that can open up, an intake port in the top for the fabrication printers in the engineering section, and a port towards the rear and on the side that leads to the catapult. Numerous nets and hand-holds are stationed around the surface of the cylindrical area to help crew move about and tie things down. This section of the ship is usually kept in a state of zero gravity.
Between the Crew Section and the Cargo Bay are the ship’s multi-function rooms. Each has a small fabrication system that ‘prints’ out objects. These can be used to change the room’s shape, texture, or the equipment inside, allowing the rooms to be used for virtually any function. The doors between this area and the cargo bay can be opened to extend the amount of payload the ship can carry internally.
The ship’s hull is made out of a variety of smart metal alloys designed to maximize ease of repair. The metals deform normally, but when heat is applied they will attempt to return to their original shape, considerably reducing the amount of repairs and maintenance required to keep the ship’s hull and support structure intact.
Bridge Area: 5 Crew Compartment: 5 Engineering Section: 5 Launch System: 4 Rear Section: 5 Sensor Dish: 4 Wings (R, L): 4, 4
The Troubleshooter uses the Drei Computer system to function. This computer system handles all of the communication needs of the ship as well, in the form of point to point wormholes, directed gravity, laser, hyper wave and subspace radio, and normal radio communications.
The troubleshooter was designed to function in an atmosphere. The rocket shape and wings provide enough lift to keep the ship going at lower speeds and minimal drag when moving at high speeds. The wings can also fold backwards to further reduce drag. Small moving surfaces in the wings and along the hull help control the airflow around the ship’s surface to allow it to turn in the atmosphere. Additional control surfaces in fins protruding from the rear of the craft direct thrust and can even be used to help turn in space when combined with the ship’s thrust.
The ship uses nanomachine, ionic filters, and chemical scrubbing systems to clean the ship’s air, removing pollutants, replacing CO2 with oxygen, and to keep interior pressure and temperature at optimum levels.
The designer atmosphere system also provides extra features such as changing temperature and pressure automatically for a variety of reasons ranging from conditioning the crew for a certain world, keeping them alert, or just to help them sleep at night. The system will also deploy a small amount of drugs into the air to keep the crew awake, allowing them to safely work for 22 hour days if they so desire with only 2 hours worth of down time.
Towards the rear of the ship on its top is an Engineering Suite that holds numerous mechanical arms and fabrication technology designed to, with sufficient mass, create or repair a wide variety of objects from power armors to starships. The six telescopic arms that deploy from sliding panels on the suite will assemble objects outside of the ship or extend to repair nearby objects at the direction of the ship’s crew. The equipment carried by each arm can be interchanged at will between numerous tools such as fabrication printing tools to grappling arms, to cutting tools to pumps.
The Troubleshooter does require a considerable amount of power to operate all of its systems. This power supply is facilitated by banks of fusion reactors fueled by mass collected by the ship’s external intakes or pumped into storage tanks while docked. The Fusion reactors are serviced by the ship’s own mechanical arms and repair systems, requiring little to no actual human control. The reactors themselves are hidden under panels in the multi-function room (partially to improve weight distribution) that can be removed in case of emergency. Waste heat generated by the reactors are picked up by a cooling system which then converts the waste heat into additional energy, preventing virtually any heat from bleeding through into the crew areas.
The banks of fusion reactors, when all running, are easily capable of matching the same power bandwidth as NAM’s hyperspace tap.
The ship carries a single ‘High ground’ Interdiction system located in front of the bridge. The area of effect interdiction field and anti-grav field systems are integrated into the ship’s shield generators while the directed interdiction field and directed anti-gravity systems are integrated into the ship’s point defense system, allowing the ship to aim both its directed interdiction and point defense systems at the same target.
The ship is capable of landing in the water and on land. To facilitate landings at high speeds low friction skids can deploy from the underside of the ship, two in front and two on either side towards the rear. High grade shock absorbers are built into the skids to help cushion landings. The legs which the skids are mounted on can facilitate a very slow walking or landing on uneven surfaces at extremely low speeds which normally require the assistance of the ship’s distortion systems to carry out.
The Troubleshooter has two reward deploying cargo nets that can easily hold up to thousands of cubic meters of large, bulky, material. The nets themselves are made of up super strong fabrics and smart metals which allow for easy deployment/retraction of the net. The loose weave of the nets prevent them from holding small objects, as they tend to slip through the ¼ meter sized gaps but they are ideal for pulling large objects. The nets themselves are anchored on either side of the main body of the craft and the outer edges of the wings, keeping them out of the way of the thrusters that power the ship.
Heat radiation is quite difficult in space. Typically waste heat in the ship is dumped into the ship’s internal cooling system and then converted into energy. Additional heat can be radiated out of the ship through the ship’s radiator which is encapsulated inside of intakes along the underside of the ship. These coverings can be removed, but are typically left on so that the troubleshooter can enter a planet’s atmosphere and dump waste heat there.
The Troubleshooter is protected by three primary shield systems, two electrostatic barriers, and a High ground Interdiction Field Package. The ship's two electrostatic barriers are designed to physically stop incoming projectiles and bursts of energy coming from any direction. The fields can also be extended to cover higher-dimensional space, protecting the ship against weapons that would try to bend space to enter into the ship and destroy it. Because of the exponentially greater surface area the shields are required to cover when operating in this mode they are generally considerably less effective at stopping damaging attacks. (DR:7 in normal mode DR:5 in multi-dimensional mode)
The Ship's Shields can also be expanded a considerable distance, enough to cover a small grouping of nearby ships. This reduces the strength of the shield as the surface area increases, leading to a 1DR reduction for every time the size increases by a factor of 10.
The Troubleshooter is also equipped with a High ground Interdiction Field Package which allows it to generate a .3AU interdiction field or a .1AU anti-gravity field that will either stop or aid FTL travel respectively. The Interdiction mode allows the ship to protect itself against FTL actions as well as disrupt shielding based on certain FTL technology while the anti-gravity mode protects the ship against Scalar weapon attacks. Both modes can not be active at the same time however.
The Troubleshooter carries a package of Omni-directional sensors including radar, subspace radar, aether usage sensors and space distortion sensors. These are supplemented by a forward facing sensor array packed into a disk positioned above and behind the ship’s nosecone. Sensors in this section include directional subspace radar, optical, thermal, and numerous passive radiation sensors designed to detect objects at great range from the ship.
The directional sensor ‘saucer’ on the top of the ship is capable of being folded down parallel to the top surface of the hull to reduce drag in the atmosphere.
The sensors have a maximum effective range of .3 ly and the directional sensors can make observations up to 5 ly away.
The Troubleshooter has numerous lighting systems designed to be used in low light situations. A pair of inset lights is on the forward section of the craft and additional lights are positioned on the tips of the wings and the top and underside of the ship at the midsection. The small, inset, lighting devices can generate considerable amounts of light in a variety of wavelengths and direct that light to either flood the area around the ship or focus it on one spot nearby.
By focusing energy from the power systems out the rear of the ship, the troubleshooter can propel itself slowly. In an atmosphere mass is collected and vaporized then focused out the rear of the ship, greatly improving the speed of this STL drive system. Additional thrusters are positioned around the ship in strategic locations to allow the ship to quickly change its heading while not using the distortions of the FTL system. These thrusters use a small focused fusion reaction to move the ship and tend to provide more acceleration than is necessary for a ‘smooth’ movement of the ship.
The Troubleshooter uses a modified ‘Vogel’ FTL system to warp space around the ship for a variety of functions. Pieces of the Vogel are used to generate the ship’s interdiction shield and to support its point defense weapon as well as in part of the power system. The Vogel is an important part of the ship and damage to it can often render many other systems inoperable.
For FTL movement a Vogel FTL system is used that combines both point to point ‘hyperspace’ travel with conventional space distortion FTL travel. The system has a considerable amount of control over the shape of the space distortion bubble used to move the ship and can expand or contract this bubble to include or exclude other ships.
The Vogel system also has an attack mode. The system can generate a FTL movement ‘bubble’ and release it in a specific direction. The edges of the bubble will create intense shearing and heat for any mass passing through the boundary.
The ship also carries a colony of Junkers, autonomous drones with an insect-like behavioral programming provided by the Freespacers. Unlike traditional Junkers these units are slaved to a “Queen” SI which micromanages their operations. The Queen automatically monitors internal and external sensors, and will automatically send drones to repair damage to its host ship, collect derelict parts of value, and send drones to attack perceived threats when capable of doing so.
Many, but not all of these drones are also upgraded with a high-end communications suite to allow a Queen to attempt a hack and take control of any systems her drones happen to have access to.
The troubleshooter is equipped with an electromagnetic catapult designed to accelerate masses out of the ship at high speeds. This servers numerous functions such as deploying power armors or slowing down shuttles on approach as they land. The system is also capable of launching a variety of unmanned payloads as well such as explosives, sub munitions, probes, cargo, and guided weapons. Combined with the Vogel system the Catapult can launch payloads both into real space and into hyperspace even while moving in FTL itself.
The primary torpedo type the ship carries is an ‘assault pod’. The egg shaped object is equipped with numerous propulsion systems ringing the outsides and power generator at the front which generates a localized area of extreme energy. The pod is capable of exiting hyperspace by itself (and only exiting) and will ‘burrow’ through a hull, repeatedly attacking it with the localized energy mass at the front of the pod until it completely burns through all of the layers of armor in front of it. When the onboard computer detects that it has passed through enough ‘armor’ it can be set to move about inside the ship or simply detonate. The high speeds the pod travels at combined with the intense heat generated by the pod tends to allow it to quickly cut through enemy armor while numerous shields utilizing the older ‘energy sheathing’ effect of NDI weapons allows it to pierce through most shields and ignore scalar weapons.
The secondary type of weapon that the ship carries is a sensor fused weapon pod. The ship will launch the pod which is set to go off after a set amount of time or under certain conditions. The pod will then perform a quick subspace sensor ping and deploy the ten sub munitions onboard the pod, creating ten directed energy detonations targeted at the 10 most important targets within range. The range of these directed energy detonations is nearly 3 AU however because they only travel at near C the effective range is only a fraction of an AU.
The Rapier was designed with the idea that NAM’s energy weapon production skills were wasted trying to build more powerful and widespread beams of death. Instead the Rapier uses a very conventional energy discharge system that sacrifices power for sustainability and features. The aiming system of the weapon can quickly track targets and even direct the beam of the weapon into hyperspace to strike higher-dimensional targets. The beam is further supported by a co-axel ‘high ground’ system which can project a beam of directed gravity or directed anti-gravity for a variety of uses. The ship’s own ‘Vogel’ FTL drive also supports the energy weapon, by generating a short ranged wormhole or space distortion bubble the beam can reach its target faster than light would without space distortion.
2 N-F/A 01 Or 14 Water Power Armors
(An additional 2 fighters can be stored externally)