The Merchantman is an auxiliary warship within the chelti fleet that operates as an armed freighter during peace-time. It is used for long hauls across dangerous chelti space and for important naval cargoes, rarely seen among the safer space-lanes of the hub and inner systems. In wartime it is activated and quickly converted into a large battlecruiser with its internal freight areas converted into massive missile silos.
| Mass | |
|---|---|
| Beam | 220m |
| Height | 50m |
| Width | 80m |
Considered an auxiliary warship by the chelti fleets, these large vessels are usually only moderately armed and armored, barely qualifying for cruiser firepower in some strip-downs. However, the ship is designed to quickly converted using only basic shipyards into a formidable front-line warship, featuring large low-impulse missile reserves and can be devastating in close quarters combat.
The armor of a fully activated Merchant man is formidable to any smaller starship, but only qualifies it as battlecruiser rather than a full-fledged battleship, even then the extra mass of the added armor makes evasive action naturally difficult even for the powerful maneuvering thrusters on the ship.
Merchantman warships are often used as part of strike groups to tear through defensive formations of enemy capital groups before retreating, allowing the rest of the chelti fleet to engage the enemy fleet directly. Some merchantmen are also used as armed freighters within the fleet nucleus, appearing indiscernible from a fully activated Merchantman.
When not called to arms, the Merchantman is often deactivated, stripped out and returned to commercial duties. Freeing up naval personnel and administration, while padding the budget from its commercial ventures.
Due to its nature as an auxiliary ship, is considered less effective than a purpose-built warship, but with the needs of war calling for more, always more, these ships are still used as a blunt object with which to smash the enemy.
After the first generation of FTL capable chelti voidships, the needs of the merchants and the military found themselves at harsh odds as colonies sprung up all over the first sphere. With the first round of colonial wars going on, and the logistic demands of supplying and making colonies profitable were competing for the limited number of FTL drives that could be manufactured by the fledgling spacefarers.
The situation in some systems were so dire that pre-generation 1 ships were deployed to slowboat supplies within some systems to let the massive and expensive jumpships and smaller warp-capable ships move around the system with maximum speed, barely staying in front of the demand growing demand.
With such massive growing pains, the chelti fleet was forced to cooperate with civilian interests requiring military engineers to develop freighters that could be quickly converted into warships while being effective transports. While being officially on the void register, these auxiliary ships are not counted as part of the order of battle until activated from reserves. Meaning that covert intelligence on chelti fleet sizes are often underestimated until well after initial engagements.
While these auxiliary ships are not the combat spec that the chelti navy wanted, nor the dedicated haulers that the merchants needed, they were effective enough as both and could be produced in large numbers, the Merchantman being one of several classes of such hybrid warship.
Merchantman ships can often be used as disguised warships, pretending to be freighters to lure pirates in high-risk trade zones with the intent to capture of destroy the would be plunderers. While these ships are operating in trade missions, the fleet itself receives a share of the profits from its missions, making these ships are renewable investment, if not a permanent one.
| Travel Type | Capability | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| High Impulse | Yes | Able to build up speed |
| Evasive Action | Marginal | Heavy armor |
| System Cruise | Yes | Can fly between planets at supercruise |
| Interstellar FTL | No? | Requires Jumpship |
When fully armored the Merchantman is able to maneuver adequately, but finds evasive action naturally difficult as a large ship. When activated it has a fleet-spec Intrasystem FTL drive unless earmarked for planetary protection duties. Like most warships it has no Interstellar FTL system and requires the use of a jumpship to travel between systems.
10 Officers, 54 Crew. Cabins available for five more officers and twenty more crew (usually marines).
The primary anti-ship weapon of the Merchantman, massive rocket silos along the broadsides shielded by massive armored shutters, at close range the high rate of fire and ability to use both broadsides at once (the rockets on the reverse side simply arcing around the ship) can be highly destructive to almost any combat vessel.
Considered a secondary armament, the Navy 400 is often used on frigate sized ships and below. Acting as a second weapon system against more agile targets.
A somewhat basic point defense system, the Laser Ring is an all around series of lasers that are deployed in bands around the hull of the ship. The fire from these “rings” is able to cover all directions, but cannot focus upon a single direction.
Wartime vessels only. Part of the refit process includes adding additional layers of armor to increase protection and allow the ship to engage enemy vessels more aggressively. If the ship is still in Peacetime spec, this armor will be Light, and the ship will usually attempted to disengage.