Travel Tech
Starships are expensive as anything but you know how lucky we are these days to even have what we have? Most folks have never even seen a pre-Collapse ship in their lives, there are so few of them left.Despite the Collapse decimating a great deal of the technology in the Cluster, starship technology and the ability to build more of them survived in some capacity. While almost 90% of ships and shipyards in The Outer Range were rendered inoperable and 60% of those in the Inner System met the same fate despite efforts to shield them, ships in The Deeps Range were only about 20% affected (however, The Deeps Range held and still holds no shipyards).
Engines
There are three types of engines found in starships:- Ion: The replacement for the ancient Old Terran chemical rocket engines. These were the engines in the massive ships that carried the original settlers to the Orionis Cluster. As a relatively fuel-thrifty engine, they're most common in starships.
- Plasma: A more modern upgrade to the ion engine that uses electromagnetic fields instead of fuel. These engines already existed with Old Terran tech but were only just starting to be used. With further development, they have become the best engine to have for the ultimate results.
- Sunlight: Sunlight engines are purely a post-Collapse invention. Although converting heat from the sun into energy via solar panels was Old Terran tech, making it into an engine to transport a starship was different. As ion and plasma engines failed post-Collapse, some storage batteries for solar energy were converted into massive jury-rigged engines with solar panels and sails rigged to the starships. Since then, these engines have come a long way and are no longer jury-rigged together and are mostly used on transports travelling long distances.
FTL Drives
Only one production line of the FTL (faster-than-light) drives that allow starships to move quickly between star systems survived the Collapse. On A'Vasi in the Ortasto System, the milNic Corporation was the one surviving company that maintained both the blueprints to build the drives as well as the equipment to do so. After the Collapse, they purchased the rights to all other surviving FTL drive plans and now hold a monopoly on them. There are three types of FTL drive that can be installed in starships.- High-End: A high-end FTL drive is capable of quickly crossing across the Orionis Cluster from the further reaches of The Outer Range to the depths of The Deeps Range in a matter of days. These drives can rarely - if ever - be afforded by the general population and are usually only in ships owned by military or trading vessels.
- Mid-Range: A mid-range FTL drive is capable of traveling across an individual region in a matter of days. However, a ship with this engine would take a week or so to cross from the furthest reach of The Outer Range to the depths of The Deeps Range. These drives are relatively more affordable than the high-end drives and can be found in ships of those who can afford them, usually smaller traders and personal starship of rich
- Low-End: A low-end FTL drive is capable of traveling from one planet to another in a star system within a day. However, travelling from one star system to another can take several days depending on how far away it is and will require rest periods between. A trip from the furthest reach of The Outer Range to the depths of The Deeps Range can take upwards of a month at lowest estimate. These drives are those most often found in personal starships owned by the average person.
Starships
While there are many appearances to starships, there are only six main categories that each starship falls under. No matter whether it is a pre-Collapse or post-Collapse, all starships fall under one of these designations.- Frigate: Large warship, capable of carrying up to 1000 people. Has large cargo holds and other storage.
- Corvette: Small warship, capable of carrying up to 200 people. Has large cargo holds and other storage.
- Windjammer: Large transport (generally one that uses a sunlight engine), capable of carrying from ten to twenty people comfortably. Has large cargo hold.
- Caravel: Small transport or a large personal ship, capable of carrying from four to ten people comfortably. Has large cargo hold.
- Sloop: Small personal ship, capable of carrying from one to three people comfortably.
- Skiff: One-man ship, generally a fightercraft.
Other Transportation
While starships are the method of moving between planets, there are also multiple other modes of transportation across the Cluster. From the watercraft used to navigate the many waters on Natchi Krilli to the air sailers in the Eusarre Erria System, there are vessels of transportation all around.- Watercraft: Boats of multiple shapes and size. These are usually only in use on planets that revolve around waterways as most use starships for transportation.
- Air Sailer: Designed somewhat similar to an Old Terran hanglider, air sailers are an upgraded version as they are capable of shifting sections to turn (akin to the shift of a birds feathers) and are also often equipped with a low-power ion engine.
- Skimmerbike: Known commonly simply as a 'skimmer', skimmerbikes are one of the few vehicles that can be classified as hovercraft. Skimmers are one to two person craft at most, capable of fast travel across the ground thanks to the pressurized air they ride on and their low-power ion engine.
- Floater: The other set of vehicles that can be classified as a hovercraft, a floater is any terranean vehicle. Small versions can carry one to four people and larger ones can carry up to eight people. However, large floaters are usually only used for on planet transport of materials rather than of people.
Weaponry
In the post-Collapse era, weaponry on starships was largely non-existent. Most ship weapons had been laser only by that point with a few missile variations installed on military craft but almost all of these weapon systems were destroyed. Even if the starships itself survived the EMP blasts, if was very possible that its weapon systems did not.- Ballistic: While the most basic of weaponry, Old Terra ballistics are generally the most reliable with a very low failure rate. Although they are generally useless in space, any ship that can enter atmosphere usually has at least one compliment of ballistics for close range combat. Ballistics are the more common main weapons for sloops, skiffs, and are sometimes found installed on skimmers or floaters.
- Laser: Lasers were one of the first weapons that were redeveloped after the Collapse. Thankfully several factories that produced them were left intact and capable of swinging back into production, allowing ships to replace their laser compliment quickly and efficiently (as the surviving companies producing them at the time halved the cost for a number of years). There are at least three variants of lasers that do different levels of damage, these being:
- Small: Most effective at close-range only. Usually these are more often seen on skiffs or in personal handheld weaponry. Against the thicker armor of a starship, they don't do much damage.
- Medium: The most common ship and HAEM weapon. These type of lasers pack a hearty punch, fully capable of slagging armor and surface components of whatever they strike.
- Heavy: Usually a ship weapon only, a heavy laser is capable of punching through armor and several inches of the components underneath. While sometimes seen on a HAEM, they are seen as being too deadly for use against anything smaller than a starship.
- Missile: Like lasers, missiles were brought back into production very quickly post-Collapse as several factories survived. While laser costs were cut in half, however, missle production was a much costlier endeavour and the prices skyrocketed for many cycles until other factories were able to open and spread out the cost. While there were once five types of missile, now there are only four:
- Antiship: These type of missiles are only employed against other vessels or massively armored targets. They are designed to break armor open to expose the more delicate components underneath.
- Air-to-surface: These missiles are equipped on starships that are targeting locations on planets. Usually only a weapon used in extreme times of war, they have been used in other cases to devastating effect on the population.
- Surface-to-air: While not necessarily as strong as an antiship missile, surface-to-air missiles are the main defence that groundside populations have against anyone that would use air-to-surface missiles against them. Usually these are merely a countermeasure against their opposing missiles but sometimes they are used to target starships themselves, particularly skiffs.
- Assault: Any missile used in any kind of handheld or mobile weaponry is classified as assault. While they do not have the punch of other types of missiles, anything hit with them does take an extreme amount of damage.
- Cannon: These are a purely post-Collapse invention. When lasers failed and many went back to ballistic weaponry, someone decided to make a massive ballistic weapon. These were eventually converted into starship weapons as the cannons fire at high speed, capable of throwing even a ballistic shell through space at short distances without it falling off and getting lost. These starship class cannon shells are usually made out bits from depleted ion engines.
Armor
Armor is a critically important feature in a starship and potentially other vessels as they need to defend against the weaponry of other craft.- Carborus:
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Credits: Banner was created using Canva with stock photo by Edvin Richardson from Pexels.
Original New Terra Mission Arks
- Apollo
- Sojourner
- Explorer
- Curiosity
- Perserverance
Pre-Collapse Vessels
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Post-Collapse Vessels
- Stellar Endeavour (Windjammer)
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