Freelance Traveller

designed by Peter Gray

Overview

The Rudimgir sloop is a typical small warship design used by Ziru Sirka paramilitary forces prior to the First Interstellar War. The enormous amount of territory controlled by the First Imperium, and the onerous bureaucratic control exerted over its subjects, created a constant demand for small intervention craft that doubled as either small warships or troop transports. She primarily acted as a cheap means of reinforcement for frontier patrol and security forces, or as a dispatch and resupply craft for remote listening posts and interdiction stations on the periphery of the empire. Besides police and security detachments, many tax collectors and customs inspectors were assigned these ships to facilitate carrying out their duties. Many Vilani governors even used them for ferrying archival information and shipments of precious metals, protecting their estates, or just rewarding their cronies in schemes to build up their own loyal militias in the decadent period of the dying First Imperium.

The core of the ship is its large bunkroom, with provision for up to a reinforced platoon of Vilani marines or scouts in hot bunking accommodations. Under normal conditions these were accommodations for rotating crews from outpost duty. In combat operations, raiding troops and covert operatives were housed here, taking advantage of the crafts small size, airframe hull and low EM signature to launch direct attacks against pirate and rebel bases, or against lightly defended installations. During the Interstellar Wars, raiders frequently used these craft to attack Terran colonies along the Fenris Arm and in Dingir Subsector.

Like most ZS vessels of Tech Level 10 construction, she has fuel tankage for two jump-1s. The armament is light, consisting of three 80 MJ laser turrets operated remotely by gunners on an auxiliary bridge. An EMM suite is standard issue, since the class was often used to resupply covert outposts guarding against smuggling or other seditious activities. Though the ship has sufficient acceleration and firepower to overtake an armed merchant, light armor and relative fragility limits space combat options to self defence. Her severe power shortfall is even more of a combat limitation, requiring that one active sensor act as a reserve in most situations, or preventing the use of full acceleration when the CG lifters are used.

Her internal and external layout are typical of the Vilani. Externally a "Flying Condom" design, consisting of a simple cylindrical body mated to a pair of delta wings. The forward laser turrets are mounted on the wings of the bridge, and are accessible via two maintenance tunnels. The third and final turret is located amidships on the dorsal spine, where it acts as a "chaser" weapon against targets in the rear broadside and aft arcs. The forward bridge contains the main control and sensors stations, with the main fire bridge directly below where the three gunners and the ship's executive officer conduct combat operations. The ships officers have their own individual staterooms, each arranged in a "trefoil" aft of the bridge; the main crew deck is aft of the fire bridge, arranged along a common corridor. The bunkroom is on the top deck, but is separated from the bridge and officers quarters by a a bulkhead that dead ends their access corridor. Access from the bunkroom to the rest of the ship is accomplished via a lift down to the main crew deck, where the passengers share the galley and entertainment areas with the enlisted personnel.

Though of considerably archaic technology by the founding of the Third Imperium, a number of former Vilani states and pocket empires still used the craft. Though never incorporated as an Imperial Design Package, Naasirka resurected the design in the mid-600s during the brief period of Vilani cultural revival follwing the Alkhalikoi Accension. It aggressively marketed the design among navies in the Vilani Cultural Region, to low tech Imperial colonial and client state navies that otherwise lacked starflight capabilities, and to various starmercs and bounty hunters. It is theoretically possible to encounter the class almost anywhere in the former Third Imperium, the Vargr Splinters, allied clans in the Aslan Hierate and among the Spinward Client States between the Regency of Deneb and the Zhodani Frontier.

General Data

Engineering:

Power Plant: TL-10 630 MW Fusion (Eight Months Duration) (50 MW/Hit)
Jump Performance: 2xJump-1 (420 m3 per parsec)
G-Rating: 3G Heplar (150 MW/G), CG Lifters (Improved, 60 MW)
G-Turns: 56 (18.75 m3 each), 100.8 using jump fuel
Fuel Tankage: 1890 m3+63 m3 for power plant
Maint: 136

Electronics:

Computer: 3xTL-10Fb (0.6 MW)
Commo: 2x1000 AU Radio (20 MW), 2x1000 AU Maser (0.6 MW)
Avionics: Imaging EMS, Grav Inertial Positioning, 140 km NOE
Sensors: PEMS 150,000 km Fixed Array (Range:5, 0.3 MW), AEMS 2x180,000 km (Range:6, 190 MW)
ECM/ECCM: EMM (4.2 MW)
Workstations: 7 Bridge plus 12 Normal

Armament:

Offensive: 3x80 MJ Remote Laser Turrets (Loc:2,3; Arcs:1,2,3; Loc:10, Arcs:2,3,4,5; 1 Crew, 2.22 MW)

Weapon Performance:

80 MJ Laser Turret 1:1/7-22 2:1/7-21 4:1/4-10 8:1/2-5

Defensive: None

Fire Control: Individual Targetting

Accomodations:

Life Support: Extended (0.84 MW), AG/GC (1G, 21 MW)
Crew: 21 (2 Maneuver, 2 Electronics, 3 Gunnery, 9 Engineering, 2 Maintenance, 3 Command)
Crew Accomodations: 3 Small Staterooms (Single Occupancy), 9 Small Staterooms (Double Occupancy)
Passenger Accomodations: 24 Bunks (Varying Occupancy)
Airlocks: 3
Cargo: 154.7 m3, Large Cargo Hatch
Small Craft and Launch Facilities: None
Other Fittings: None
Features: Fuel Scoops (10%, 1.13 hours), Fuel Processing Plant (48 hours, 1.89 MW) 148.133 MW Shortfall

System Damage Tables

Damage Location Table