Federation USS Constellation Class Heavy Cruiser

Federation USS Constellation Class Heavy Cruiser:

This design is mean for the times between the movie Star Trek Six: The Undiscovered Country until Star Trek: The Next Generation Episodes and could be used during the episode times as well. A return of many of these ships could be explained by ships being pulled from Mothball / Reserve fleets to cover the huge losses incurred while fighting against the Borg and Dominion.

The Constellation was one of the most innovative starship design. Instead of the ship having a primary hull and a secondary hull or warp drives slung under the primary hull and removing the secondary hull, the ship puts the warp engines in a quad configuration and all four warp engines are mounted from the rear of the primary hull. In order to increase ships space, the primary hull section was made thicker than on previous ship classes. This has allowed a threefold increase in internal space with far less surface area to weaken the ships shields and the ships mass is only increased by twice as much. The ships mission was primarily exploration and the ship replaced the Constitution class as Star fleets premiere exploration starship.

The ship is designed for long range missions so carries more repair parts and supplies than starship that are not assigned to exploration. The warp drive system is also designed to run with less maintenance. While these features were for space exploration, they give the ship marked advantages in combatant roles as well.

Because of the weight of the starship, two warp drives could only propel the ship at a maximum of Warp 3.4 without making a much larger warp drive like those carried on the Excelsior class battleship. Because engineers did not want to construct this ship with that configuration, the engineers devised a system that uses four warp engines that work in tandem. The four warp engines can propel the ship faster than any starship class previously and provide large amounts of power for the ships weapon systems. Finally, if one or two warp engines are damaged, the ship can configure the two remaining warp engines to work independently of the damaged engines and the ship can travel at warp 2.9 to return to Federation space. Because in many cases, ships impulse engines are damaged, the Constellation also has two impulse engines.

The ship is very well armed. Under the front of the primary hull, the ship has three mega phaser pods. The pods protect the mega phaser mounts better than the external mega phasers on older starships. The only disadvantage is that the Pods can only be fired forward. The ship also carries a total of eight banks of siege phasers to support the Mega Phaser Pods. Four of the mounts are on the top of the primary hull and four of the mounts are on the bottom of the primary hull. The ship also carries more torpedo launchers than any previous ship class with the exception of the Starstalker class. The ship has one torpedo pod between the top pair of warp drives and one torpedo pod between the bottom warp drives. Each pod has a total of four launchers with two being able to fire forward and two launchers being able to fire aft.

This ship carries a good sized contingent of marines and carries more fighters than most ships of her size and can operate as a light carrier as well as a heavy combatant. The ship has two hanger doors on either side of the primary hull.

This design is written to be able to interact with modified phase world rules. See Revised Starship Rules for Phase World for more details. There is a lack of hard detail on this ship. Some materials have suggested accelerations that are simply beyond scope. I have taken a moderate level in writing up this starship for Phase World because otherwise the ship would either be far too powerful or far too weak for Phase World. Warp speeds are far slower than the FTL speeds for Phase World but they are very close to those from the original series and Star Trek: The Next Generation Technical Manual. Also, a note on the mass of starships. The original sources indicated much smaller masses for starships than Star Trek: Deep Space Nine Technical Manual does and where possible, both masses are listed for the gamers to choose which one seems most appropriate.

Model Type: NCC-1017
Vehicle Type: Star Cruiser (Would be considered a heavy cruiser by Phase World Terms)
Crew: 640 (80 officers and 560 enlisted)
Troops: 100 Marines, 100 fighter and Shuttle pilots, and can carry up to 40 passengers in addition.

Vehicles:
Fighter Compliment:

12 Tycho class light interceptors.

12 Arco class attack sleds

24 Argus Class warp fighters

Shuttles:

6 Standard Shuttles

M.D.C. By Location:

Mega Phaser Pods (3, Front of Primary Hull): 2,000 each

Siege Phaser Cannons (8 banks of 2 each): 800 each bank

Torpedo Pod (2, Above and Under Hull): 2,000

Torpedo Tubes (8, 4 in each Torpedo Pod): 800 each

Warp Nacelles (4, rear of Primary hull): 15,000 each

Impulse Engines (2): 8,000 each

[1] Primary Bridge: 12,000

[1] Auxiliary Bridge (Also used as Flag Bridge): 12,000

[2] Main Body (Primary Hull): 50,000

[3] Variable Force Field: 8,000 a side (48,000 Total)

Notes:
[1] In reality this is how much damage needs to be done for a weapon to hit the bridge through the ships armor. This ship does have an auxiliary bridge. Even if both of the bridges is destroyed, the ship can still be piloted from engineering but ship is -3 to dodge and all weapon systems will be at local control. Weapon hits near the bridges that do not penetrate the ships integrity can injure crew members on or near the bridge.
[2] Depleting the MDC of the main body will put the Frigate out of commission. All internal systems will shut down, including life support and internal gravity. The ship itself will be an unsalvageable floating wreck.
[3] Shields positions can be varied and all could be combined in one shield. Shields regenerate at the rate of 5% (2,400 MDC) per melee round

Speed:
Driving on the Ground: Not Possible.
Sublight: Has a special sublight engine that allows the ship to travel up to 60 percent of the speed of light. Star Ship can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 0.8 percent of light per melee round.
As an alternative, the starship can reach .99 of the speed of light but is normally restricted to slower speeds so that starship is not effected severely by time attenuation that occurs at the higher sublight speeds.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Cannot travel within an atmosphere efficiently.
Stardrive: Uses a warp engine that allow ship to travel at Warp Factor 8.6 on cruise (0.073 light years per hour), Warp Factor 12.1 Flank (.202 Light Years per hour), and Warp Factor 15.5 Emergency (0.4251 Light Years per Hour). Warp speed is raised to the third power to figure out how many times the speed of light the ship travels. These speeds are very slow when compared to Phase World ship, so if used in that universe, they could be increased enough to operate within Three Galaxy speeds but should not exceed them.
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either Drive system. The ship carries about eight years worth of supplies on board and a small hydroponic section.

Statistical Data:
Length: 1030.6 feet (313.9 meters)
Height: 201.9 feet (61.5 meters)
Width: 465.2 ft (141.7 m)
Mass: 325,000 Tons (Starfleet Prototype)
Power System: Anti Matter with 25 year life span. Ship normally only goes 10 years between refueling.
Cargo: Cargo holds are scattered about the ship that allows for carrying up to 20,000 tons of Cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition.
Market Cost: 8.5 billion to construct. As far as it is known, the Federation does not sell their starship designs to other interested parties.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

Three (3) Mega-Phaser Pods: Weapons are locate on the from underside of the primary hull and are used as the ships main anti-capital ship weapons and can take out frigates in one shot or do large amounts of damage to bases or larger ships. The Phaser cannons can be combined or used separately. They cannot be used faster than the speed of light. Weapon has standard penalties to hit fighters and small targets. The barrels can only be fired forward and can be rotated 60 degrees horizontally or vertically.
Range: 93,300 miles (150,000 km) in space and 93.3 miles (150 km) in an atmosphere.
Mega Damage: 1D4x1000 MDC each and can be combined in any combination of weapons up to a damage equal to 3D4x1000.
Rate of fire: Maximum of Two (2) times per melee per cannon.
Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Eight (8) banks of 2 Siege Phaser Cannons: Secondary energy weapon system with four banks on the top and four banks on the bottom of the primary hull. The weapons damage is about equal to laser cannons used by the CAF but the Phasers have a greater rate of fire. The phasers are also slightly shorter ranged but only slightly. Both Phaser Cannons in each bank can be linked or can be fired separately. They cannot be used faster than the speed of light. Weapons system has half the normal penalties to hit fighters and small targets.
Range: 12,437 miles (20,000 km) in space and 12.4 miles (20 km) in an atmosphere.
Mega Damage: 2D4x100 MDC each or 4D4x100 for both in a bank..
Rate of fire: Maximum of Three (3) times per melee each cannon.
Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
Eight (8) Photon Torpedo Launching Systems: The ships has two photon torpedo launching pods. One pod is mounted between the upper warp nacelles an one pod is mounted between the lower warp nacelles. Each pod has two launchers that fire forward and two launchers than fire aft. The pods has the advantage of being easily jettisoned but has the disadvantage of being an exposed target. While the launchers are older than those used on the U.S.S. Defiant and other next generation ships, they can use new torpedoes and quantum torpedoes if used in later Next Generation times. Newer photon torpedo warheads carry more anti-matter.
Effectively very similar to Phase World cruise missile launchers but instead of having groups of multiple launchers, Starfleet has concentrated on launchers that can launch more than one torpedo at the same time. There are two launchers that fire forward and two launchers that fire aft. Once spread of torpedoes has been launched, the launchers must reload and rearm before launching another spread of torpedoes. In the early service of this ship, it carried photon torpedoes which are anti-matter/matter warheads but they can carry quantum torpedoes when they are available.
Torpedoes has a top speed of Mach 25 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 10% of light per turn (far faster than any starship). When drive goes dead, the torpedo will still cruise unless preset to self destruct or receives a destruct code but has very low odds of hitting star ships (Great for hitting bases and planets because target does not move and torpedoes when dead at -25% to detect.) See Modified starship rules for more details, Torpedoes have minuses to hit small targets but are all considered smart missiles. Launchers can launch on multiple targets each.
Range: Powered torpedo range is 8000 miles (12,875 km) in an atmosphere and 4,000,000 miles (6,437,376 km/ 21.5 light seconds) in space
Mega-Damage & Properties: Photon Torpedoes (Matter/Anti-Matter Warheads): Old Series inflict 2D6x100 each, Star Trek Movies One through Six inflict 3D6x100, and Next Generation inflicts 4D6x100 each. Quantum Torpedoes: 8D6x100 each.
Rate of fire: One at a time or in volleys of 2 per launcher, per melee round, for a maximum of 16 torpedoes per melee. Launchers are reloaded on the same melee and can be fired again on the next.
Payload: 400 torpedoes each pod for a total of 800 torpedoes ((because the launchers are right next to each other in the pod, they all use the same magazine).

[ Phase World™, Kreeghor™, and CAF™, are trademarks owed by Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books, Inc. ]
[ Rifts® is a registered trademark owned by Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books, Inc. ]
[ Star Trek is copyright © Paramount Pictures ]

Technical information from Starfleet Prototype

By Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

I would like to recognize Henning Rogge as giving assistance with the revision of the Star Trek starships.

	12	Tycho class light interceptors.
	12	Arco class attack sleds
	24	Argus Class warp fighters

	Mega Phaser Pods (3, Front of Primary Hull):	2,000 each
	Siege Phaser Cannons (8 banks of 2 each):	800 each bank
	Torpedo Pod (2, Above and Under Hull):	2,000
	Torpedo Tubes (8, 4 in each Torpedo Pod):	800 each
	Warp Nacelles (4, rear of Primary hull):	15,000 each
	Impulse Engines (2):	8,000 each
	[1] Primary Bridge:	12,000
	[1] Auxiliary Bridge (Also used as Flag Bridge):	12,000
	[2] Main Body (Primary Hull):	50,000
	[3] Variable Force Field:	8,000 a side (48,000 Total)