NationStates Jolt Archive


The Merkar Republic introduces the next generation of Space Superiority Fighter

Athiesism
05-11-2005, 21:47
Merkar Military Industries (MMI) has just completed research, design and testing work on the Hercules-class Space Superiority Fighter. MMI invites all nations to view this fine example of Merkari ingenuity, efficiency and design prowess.

Hercules class Space Superiority Fighter
http://i14.photobucket.com/albums/a333/Athiesism/Hercules.jpg
Speed (point above which manuevering becomes impractical): Mk 1 (1 mark= 1% the speed of light) or 1,860 miles per second
Propulsion: 4 Mekar Military Industries CF-100 Plasma Acelleration Devices, rated at 453 MGI (Merkar Gravity Increments). Manuever is accomplished by structural morphing.
Armament: Six Merkar Military Industries M-8 Plasma Destruction Devices, range 3,000 miles
Approximate rate of fire: High power, 70-80 rounds per minute; low power, constant stream; variations between high and low power
Ammunition: Plasma, produced by onboard reactor
Endurance: 16 hours before fusion reactor meltdown; must return to base to stage controlled reactor shutdown.
Max. Length: 39.3 meters
Max. Width: 11.05 meters
Mass: 300+ tons; depends on variant
Manueverability: Dependent on speed; at cruise speed approximately 772 degrees/second.
Crew: One
Cost: $1.4 billion
Production rate: 30 per year per factory; Merkar currently has three such factories

The superb Hercules class space superiority fighter builds upon the sucess of the Talon class, more than thirty years its junior. During the War with Joint Conglomerates, barely more than two hundred Talons held off hordes of National Commonwealth fighters, taking almost 50% casualties but preventing the destruction of all but one Bastion Prime star destroyer it flew anti-torpedo and anti-bomber escort for. The Hercules itself embodies the same principles behind all Merkari craft- stealth, indirectness and firepower. It carries an updated form of the Talon's elastic Karmaline armor, which encases any incoming kinetic-energy projectiles in a surrounding of high-friction material. This new armor, designated Schythium, is not only markedly more effective against solid shot but also versus the more common heat energy attacks- plasma and lasers. It dissipates almost all energy that impacts it into space, spreading the rest out evenly among the hull to minimize its impact. The potent Talon, the former fighter of Merkar, was already noted for its thick skin. Still, technology was only in its early stages at the time of its construction. Incorporating modern knowlege, Hercules is a giant leap forward.

For combat, it is required that the craft be flown by a genetically-engineered pilot posessing ten times the reflex speed of an unmodified human. Pilots in the Merkar Space Force recieve eight years of flight training, and it is recommended that you put equal emphasis on pilot training to equip a fleet of these high-quality craft. In addition, the craft must decelerate to Mark .01 (186 miles per second) in order to manuever most effectively in a dogfight. Still, the craft is capable of opening fire at a range of 3,000 miles, or approximately 1-2 seconds before passing the enemy target taking into account closing speed. Herein lies the Hercule's main advantage. Equipped with an outstanding six high-accuracy, adjustable-fire plasma rifles, a competent pilot can easily destroy half the targets presented to him at this distance. High power mode offers the best accuracy, damage and range, but also the lowest rate of fire for the guns. They can be adjusted in power to suit the situation, from point-blank dogfight to long-range sniping. Whatever the case, they are more than enough to make short work of the most potent enemy with a handful of shots.

For defence, the vessel is equipped with multiple missile decoys, rendering missile weapons virtually useless. These include image replicators to confuse the hostile weapon, laser devices intended to incinerate missile seeker heads, chaff, flares, radar-absorbent paint, small decoy dispensers, electronic, infrared, and x-ray jammers, plus some classified devices. At the same time, Hercules' large onboard computer and sensors cannot be fooled by most of these decoy devices. Very few missiles are large enough to mount such a large computer, and are therefore extremely susceptible to deception. This is why all of the ship's armament is unguided.

All of this comes at a price in bulk, not to mention cost- at $1.3 billion outstripping all but the most expensive fighters for sale today. During the War with Joint Conglomerates, it was found that the Talon was often too heavy to operate from smaller Bastion Prime vessels, and the Hercules, with almost twice the mass, can only operate from specialized capital ships. All in all, though, if experience against National Commonwealth fighters proves anything, an excellent fighter is needed to counter today's sophisticated torpedo and bomber environment.

Several variants are currently for sale:

Hercules Vijanta (Merkari for "Duelist")- Standard fighter. Has a mass of 302.4534 tons and posses all specs as mentioned at the beginning of this entry. Uses a variety of systems to assist in evading detection.
Hercules Riyunin ("Hunter")- Reconassaince variant with mass of about 314 tons. Sophisticated sensor and communication equiptment, able to detect large enemy warships millions of miles away. Has only two plasma blasters.
Hercules Fahr'antu ("Deciever")- Emissions deception (EMDEP) craft. Mass of 322 tons. Equipped with extensive transmission, coding and decoding equipment. Useful for psychological warfare, military feints, or other creative uses. Full armament, but less manueverability, speed and sensors.
Hercules Nivinmotre ("Concealer")- Special stealth variant. Costs $4 billion and has mass of 324 tons but is equipped with cloaking equipment. Armament: Two light lasers.
Hercules Sharta ("Nimble)- High-speed intercetpor/messenger. Carries significantly less armor but has antimatter engines, propelling it to five percent the speed of light (500,000 miles per second +). Mass 131 tons, cost $2 billion.

See also...

Nomenclatur'a class carrier

Speed: Mk. 15 (15% the speed of light)
Propulsion: Six Hunt Aerospace Yt98 Plasma Acceleration Devices; variable-direction thrust
Plasma supplies: Indefinite; dependent on reactor life
Reactor endurance: 35 years between refittings
Armament: 2,332 Mark One plasma cannons, range 4,000 miles; maximum of 110 antimatter torpedoes, range over 500 million km before disintegration; 553 Talon-class fighters or 182 Hercules-class fighters can be carried but are not included in cost. 500 ground bombardment missiles, each with 2,000 pound warheads; smaller missiles can be fitted inside them. Each of the three docking bays has an electromagnetic railgun used to launch fighters and Supply-class cargo vessels, but could potentially lauch some kind of weapon.
Approximate rate of fire: 42 rounds/minute for Mark One laser cannons; full torpedo barrage can be released in five seconds, although it takes a few minutes to supply them with target data. Two Durtan ramming spikes can be deployed from the bow.
Ammunition: Indefinite for plasma cannons; 110 antimatter torpedoes
Max. Length: 3,045 meters
Max. Width: 400.7 meters
Mass: 845,234 metric tons
Manueverability: Maximum of 30 degrees/sec.
Crew: 17,213
Construction time: 4 years
Cost: $31.5 billion with escape pods ($1.5 billion); extra $14 billion for 110 antimatter torpedoes at $127,272,727,273 per torpedo.

The Nomenclatur'a is an enlarged and updated Invincible-class carrrier. Its onboard space superiority fighters are intended to escort all antimatter torpedoes fired by the carrier and ensure that they are not destoryed by enemy interceptors. Once the antimatter torpedo approaches within 3,000 kilometers of its target as it speeds along at Mark .1, it releases its warhead, causing a large swathe of antimatter to destroy anything in its path for about 50,000 kilometers distant. This means that it is likely to bring down its target in addition to many nearby enemy vessels. The fairly big, 100-meter long torpedo is equipped with a large signal processor, making it immune to decoys and able to adapt to changing situations. As long as enemy reconassaince vessels do not detect the torpedoes, they will be unable to shoot at it with their own missiles, and even then these will have to avoid getting shot down by the escort screen. However, it is essential to maintain space superiority with your fighters to ensure that the torpedoes can find their target. This is why the Fleet has sucessfuly argued for the introduction of the carrier class.

The main sensor on the ship is a powerful large visual scanning device, although countless other sensors are also carried. This is in normal conditions capable of detecting warship-sized targets at a distance of five million kilometers, and fighter-sized targets at one-tenth of that. This allows it sufficient time to scramble its fighters currently stationed on alert. However, a competent commander will attempt to scout past that area in order to have more warning time.

Defensively, the Nomenclatur'a carries the same basic missile countermeasures suite as found on the Talon, except in larger quantities. The armor ammounts to 20 feet of pressure- and freeze-treated composite diamond fibers, dramatically increasing the mass but making it impervious to kinetic-energy weapons. The composite material in the diamonds distributes the shock of plasma and laser weapons throughout the entire hull, making it difficult to destroy such a ship.

With over 2,000 plasma batteries, the vessel is practically impervious to attack by fighters and bombers. During the War with Joint Conglomerates, the National Commonwealth bomber fleet kept a healthy distance from this fearsome warship. The batteries are relatively short-ranged, however, and enemy warships of any significant size are intended to be taken out with torpedoes. Two ramming spikes, constructed of Durtan (the hardest manufactureable material known to Merkar), can be deployed to devastate enemy vessels. However, use them only as a last resort as part of a shock-tactic strategy, as this class relies mainly on stealth and speed to stay alive. Being signifcantly smaller than almost any other carrier on the market today, its emissions signature is minimal, and it will be able to fire off its antimatter missiles before it is even detected. This is the same tactical concept embodied in the earlier Invincible class. One such vessel has seen combat. It proved highly effective against the National Commonwealth fleet, ramming two destroyers to dust and anihalating the enemy flagship, NCS Olympique, with antimatter torpedoes (not to mention a number of smaller vessels). Although heavily damaged, the lone Merkari carrier was able to retreat to safety after doing damage out of all proportion to its small cost. This is what makes it perhaps the best buy in the galaxy.

Orion class frigate

Max. speed before disintegration: Mark 30 (30% the speed of light)
Propulsion: One Cartanae Aerospace J78 antimatter/plasma reactor, variable-direction thrust
Endurance: Indefinite; food stores for 200 years, but may need maintenance every 6 months or so
Armament: 10 Mark Two plasma cannons, range 130,000 miles; bow is hardened for ramming
Rate of fire: 12 rounds/minute
Max. Length: 295 meters
Max. Width: 35 meters
Mass: Approximately 30,000 tons
Crew: 3,478
Construction time: 1 year
Cost: $5.4 billion

Designed for scouting and police work, the Orion is perfect for smaller empires needing a cost-effective way to equip their defence force, or larger ones needing fast "fire brigades" to deal with arising issues in their vast territory. The armament is designed mainly for use against enemy warships, and this vessel needs some kind of protection against fighters. Signficant space is available for installing upgrades, such as an enlarged docking bay or anti-bomber missiles. Still, this armament is only for destroying other ships of comparable size during, for example, reconassaince or counter-reconassaince engagements.

It would be far too expensive to fuel a full antimatter reactor, so the craft's great speed is provided by a fusion reactor mixed with small ammounts of antimatter. This is enough to propel it to 35% the speed of light. As the ammount of fuel required to accelerate increases exponentially at high percentages of lightspeed (also called "c"), this is no mean feat. The Orion class is technically capable of going slightly faster, but it has never been tried as this would probably cause the craft to disintegrate.

Armor is provided by three feet of metal alloy. Although relatively light, it was decided that increasing armor any more would cause the ship to become too expensive for a scouting vessel.

For even more warships, space freighters, tanks, aircraft, and more, visit our Storefront:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=446558
Athiesism
07-11-2005, 03:29
Also check out our Tiberian Sun storefront:

http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?p=9894345#post9894345
Athiesism
07-11-2005, 03:47
Picture of Hercules added. Feel free to comment and complain, it's the first "rendering" (if you can call it that) I've posted here.
Athiesism
07-11-2005, 15:03
Any purchases?
Athiesism
07-11-2005, 17:59
Any comments at all?
Otagia
07-11-2005, 18:05
Not bad at all. The quality over quantity approach with your fighters is rather unique (I'm a fan of cheap AI fighters myself). Also, I'm not sure of the utility of the ramming spikes on the cruiser. If it hits anything at any decent speed, they're both dead anyway, correct?
Athiesism
07-11-2005, 20:41
The spikes are very solid and sharp and will tear through whatever they come across. There's a sophisticated shock-absorber system to make sure that the ship stays intact from the collision. Notice none of my vessels have energy shields; I focus on hull strength so I can ram stuff.

As for the fighters, it's really more of a pilot quality thing. I have a few good pilots, and if I had too many fighters I wouldn't be able to man them all. So it's not really about the equipment.
Thrashia
07-11-2005, 21:05
"I think we're going to need a bigger fly swatter."
Sarzonia
07-11-2005, 21:08
If you've got a quality over quantity approach to any kind of combat, that will get my attention. I'm not a FT player, but I might use one of my puppets for FT roleplay. I might also need to buy that nation some stuff until I can get comfortable enough to design my own, so I'll keep this in mind.

Interesting way of noting speed compared to light speed, I must say.
Athiesism
07-11-2005, 21:15
I like the human element of RPing more than the technical stuff, so I hate it how people always say "Battleship X kills battleship Y" without telling you what the human beings on Battleship X are thinking, for example. So instead of hordes of unthinking fighter pilots I give a little character to them.
Athiesism
07-11-2005, 23:06
bump
Athiesism
09-11-2005, 15:58
bump
Athiesism
09-11-2005, 21:21
Does noone like to purchase fighters? There's capital ships up there too. It seems like that's were the business is. I've never ever sold a single space fighter.
Athiesism
10-11-2005, 15:20
bump
SkyCapt
10-11-2005, 15:31
To: Merkar Republic
From: Incorporated SkyCapt Space Corps

We would like to palce an order for 5 Vijanta Class Hercules Fighters, for evaluation. $7 Billion will be wired.

(I believe that's the total, anyways... >.>)
Athiesism
10-11-2005, 15:42
We gladly accept your order, and hope that you will not be dissapointed by our ships. They are on the way in a commercial Katanga-class freighter. Remember, though, that they take high-quality pilots with years of experience to be used to full potential. Quality versus Quantity means more about men than equiptment to us.