Freelance Traveller

designed by Peter Gray

Overview

Originally known as the Halls of Montezuma class, before some Imperial bureaucrat with a speech impediment decided to shorten it to a more comfortable length. The "Monty" was a common sight among colonial navies, providing spacelift capability for a mixed grav battalion. The core of the ship is its twelve Rapid Deployment Aeroshells, with several cutters in support. Her original specification called for landing upon hotly contested worlds, resulting in heavy armor and fast acceleration, though her armament is relatively light, and she lacks the meson screen of the smaller Gotham assault transport. The vessel also lacks an EMM suite, but this allows for a lower unit cost, and the ship does not operate without escort support anyway.

The RDA operators have their own separate control center, and a bank of meson communicators adequate to the task of guiding in the aeroshell computers. Since the RDAs do not carry sensors of their own, the operators oversee their charges from afar, relaying intelligence and threat warnings to the aeroshell computers as it comes available. The extra maintenance crew keep the troop's equipment and the RDAs in top working condition, and act as armorers and battle dress support crew during loading operations. The 444 bunks are sufficient for an entire armored infantry battalion, provided that some troops have to hot bunk. In appearance, the Montezuma is a tapered "boom and mike" needle, where by the bridge and habitation sections are a large section attached to the main hull by a slender neck. The ships docking rings are under the ships engineering hull and aft fuel tanks.

General Data

Displacement: 5,000	Hull Armor: 420
Length: 153 m	Volume: 70,000 cu m
Price: MCr 1,824.691	Target Size: M
Configuration: Needle SL	Tech Level: F (15)
Mass (L/E): 63,084.615 tons/45,169.735 tons (loaded mass includes fully-loaded cutters and RDAs)

Engineering

Power Plant: TL-15 12,480 MW Fusion (One Year Duration) (300 MW/Hit)
Jump Performance: Jump-3 (4666.67 m3 per parsec, 14,000 m3 for J-3)
G-Rating: 4G Heplar (2500 MW/G), CG Lifters (Hi-Eff, 500 MW)
G-Turns: 50 (312.5 m3 each), 94.8 using jump fuel
Fuel Tankage: 29,625 m3+1248 m3 for power plant
Maint: 1653

Electronics

Computer: 3xTL-15Fb (1.1 MW)
Commo: 3x1000 AU Radio (20 MW), 23x1000 AU Maser (0.6 MW)
Avionics: Imaging EMS, Grav/Inertial Positioning
Sensors: PEMS 180,000 km Fixed Array (Range:6, 0.2 MW), 240,000 km Folding Array (Range:8, 0.3 MW), AEMS 3x420,000 km (Range:14, 23 MW)
ECM/ECCM: None
Workstations: 34 Bridge plus 110 Normal

Armament

Offensive

20x420 MJ Lasers in 20xRemote Single Barbettes (-1 DMs, 71 MW, Barbette Volume: 84m3) arranged as five batteries

Weapon Performance

420 MJ LB 10:1/16-51 20:1/16-51 40:1/16-51 80:1/16-51

Defensive

20xRemote Sandcasters (Canisters:50, Beam Atten:2D10x5, 1 MW) arranged as ten batteries

Location	Type	Arcs
6-9	4x420 MJ LB	All
	2xSandCaster	All
10-11	4x420 MJ LB	All
	2xSandCaster	All
12-15	4x420 MJ LB	All
	2xSandCaster	All

Fire Control

5xTL-15 msl/bm MFDs (Range:10, -6 DMs, 1 Crew, 0.06 MW)

Accomodations

Life Support: Extended (14 MW), AG/GC (6G, 350 MW)
Crew: 188 (4 Maneuver, 4 Electronics, 5 Gunnery, 10 Screens, 83 Engineering, 26 Maintenance, 12 Small Craft, 12 RDA Operators, 26 Command, 4 Stewards, 2 Medics)
Crew Accomodations: 26 Small Staterooms (Single Occupancy), 81 Small Staterooms (Double Occupancy)
Passenger Accomodations: 444 Bunks (Varying Occupancy)
Airlocks: 50
Cargo: 1153.103 m3 (82.36 tons), 4 Large Cargo Hatches
Small Craft and Launch Facilities: 4 Lushina Cutters (Docking Ring), 12 Rapid Deployment Aeroshells (Docking Ring), 16 Launch Ports
Other Fittings: Sickbay (0.8 MW)
Features: Fuel Scoops (5%, 2.12 hours), Fuel Processing Plant (24 hours, 37.03 MW)
6.034 MW Shortfall

System Damage Tables

Damage Location Table