A common tactic for many of the planets, smaller governments, mercenary companies, and even corporations is to convert asteroids into incredibly powerful fortresses. There are many different possible configurations but one of the most common is to take a 20 mile (32 km) diameter high metal (Normally Iron/Nickel) asteroid, place weapon system on the surface of the asteroid, and build a control center in the center of an asteroid. These fortresses are virtually invulnerable to attack on the asteroid itself and most attackers will attack the individual weapon systems and fighter bays. These fortresses are fairly inexpensive to construct and the weapon systems used on these are normally older weapon systems from decommissioned ships. This allows for the further reduction in the Fortress's cost. Listed is simply one individual Fortress that is the average in asteroid fortress. The weapon systems, fighters, and small vehicles are of CAF in origin. Some Fortresses are much larger and have more weaponry and some are smaller and have less weaponry.

Because of the large amount of rock between the control center and the surface of the asteroid, the control center is virtually invulnerable to attack. Weapon systems and fighter bays are more vulnerable to attack and are in clusters so that they can be shielded. Because the it would be extremely expensive to shield the entire asteroid, individual locations are shielded.

If compared on the basis of firepower against the asteroids size, the Fortress has far less firepower than starships but the Asteroids have more firepower than ten or more battleships normally carry. For the main energy battery, the fortress has twenty four energy clusters. Each cluster consists of two super heavy particle beams, four heavy laser mounts, and four heavy rail mounts. These are protected by the defensive shield but also have four point defense lasers, four point defense rail guns, and four mini missile launchers. The platform has twenty four missile clusters as well. Each missile battery cluster has four cruise missile batteries and eight long range missile batteries. They have the identical point defense weaponry to the energy clusters. The fortress also has the same number of point defense weaponry protecting each of the hanger bays. The point defense weaponry work in concert and are designed to protect the whole fortress from all attacks not just the individual cluster or bay that they are located at.

Because of the enormous volume of the asteroid, it has a huge amount of space available for use. Some of this space is used for six huge bays for starships. These allow the fortress to act as a shipyard. Two of the bays can fit ships up to cruiser or escort carrier sized ships and the additional four bays can fit up to destroyer sized ships. The remaining bays, twelve in total, contain between them more fighters than four CAF Packmaster class carriers have.

This design uses modified starship speed and ranges. See Revised Starship Rules for Phase World for more details.

Weapon Clusters:
24 Energy Weapon Clusters each containing:

	6	Particle beams (or 2 Triple particle Beams)
	4	12 cm Heavy Lasers
	4	8 cm Heavy Rail Guns
	4	Point Defense Rail Guns
	4	Point Defense Lasers
	4	Point Defense Mini-Missile Launchers

24 Missile Weapon Clusters each containing:

	4	Cruise Missile Batteries
	8	Long-Range Missile Batteries
	4	Point Defense Rail Guns
	4	Point Defense Lasers
	4	Point Defense Mini-Missile Launchers

18 Hanger Defense Clusters each containing:

	4	Point Defense Rail Guns
	4	Point Defense Lasers
	4	Point Defense Mini-Missile Launchers

Model Type: ODF-S1
Vehicle Type: Orbital Defense Fortress
Crew: 25,400 (1,500 Officers and 23,900 enlisted)
Troops: 15,000 Marines, 4,500 fighter pilots, and 2,000 Silverhawk pilots.

Vehicles:
Power Armors & Robots:

	2,000	Silver Hawk Power Armors
	6,000	Ground Pounder Power Armors

Fighter Compliment:

	800	SF-69 CAF Scorpion Star Interceptor
	400	BIF-67 Katana Star fighters
	320	SF-6 Osprey Starfighters or SF-101 Black Eagle Star fighters
	80	Proctor Long-Range Interceptors

Assault Shuttles & Starships:

20

CAF Assault Shuttles

M.D.C By Location:

Main Energy Clusters (24):

	Super Heavy Particle Beams (2 each cluster, 48 Total):	4,000 each
	Heavy Laser Cannons (4 each cluster, 96 Total):	750 each
	Heavy Gravity Rail Guns (4 each cluster, 96 Total):	800 each

Main Missile Clusters (24):

	Cruise Missile Batteries (4 each cluster, 96 total):	800 each
	Long Range Missile Batteries (8 each cluster, 192 total):	500 each

	Point Defense Rail Gun Turrets (264 total, 4 each cluster or bay):	150 each
	Triple Barrel Defense Laser Turrets (264 total, 4 each cluster/bay):	150 each
	Mini-Missile Launchers (264, 4 each cluster or vehicle bay):	100 each
	[1] Protective Forcefields (66, One each cluster or vehicle bay):	20,000 each
	Small Craft Hanger Bays (12):	40,000 each
	[2] Control Center:	10 Million
	[2] Auxiliary Control Center:	10 Million
	[3] Main Body:	30 Million

Notes:
[1] Instead of having variable shields, the station has shields over vital surface installations. These include weapon clusters, fighter bays, and starship bays. Each shield regenerates at the rate of 5% (1,000 MDC) per melee
[2] In reality this is how much damage needs to be done for a weapon to hit the control center through the asteroids. The control centers are near the center of the asteroid. This fortress also has an auxiliary control center. Even if both control centers are taken out, the weapon systems can be fired using local control. Unlike most platforms, weapon strikes have to penetrate the asteroid fully to be able to injure crew on the bridge. If an attack is attempting to penetrate directly to the control centers, the damage is also applied on the main body of the asteroid.
[3] Depleting the MDC of the main body will completely destroy the Asteroid Fortress. While the material the asteroid is constructed from are SDC materials (Rock), a weapon must inflict MDC damage to do any actual damage to the asteroid.

Speed:
Does not move; if the position of the Fortress is changed, fleets of tugs are used to move it.

Statistical Data:
Length: Approximately 20 miles (32.2 km)
Height: Approximately 20 miles (32.2 km)
Width: Approximately 20 miles (32.2 km)
Mass/Weight: Approximately 8.3 trillion tons (7.5 trillion Metric tons)
Power System: 16 Large fusion reactions (20 year duration each)
Cargo: Cargo holds are scattered about the asteroid fortress that allow for the storage of up to 20 billion tons of Cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition.
Market Cost: 120 billion credits to construct

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

1. Main Particle Beam Batteries (48): Mounted along the surface of the asteroid are twenty four mounts with two turrets in each beam weapon cluster. Each turret has three 40 cm particle beams on each mount. This give a total of six particle beams in each battery. While these weapons are not quite as powerful as the 40 inch laser batteries on the Protector, they are quite powerful and capable of taking out huge targets. Each battery can fire at up to three different targets or can be combined on one target. When these weapons are massed, they are capable of taking out cruisers in two blasts. Weapon has standard penalties to hit fighters and small targets. Because of the positioning of the mounts, approximately half of the mounts can fire on any target.
   Range: 70,000 miles (112,650 km)in space and 70 miles (112.7 km) in an atmosphere
   Mega Damage: 1D6x1000 MDC each Particle Beam. All three in a battery can be combined to do 3D6x1000 MDC.
   Rate of fire: Maximum of three (3) times per melee per particle beam.
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
2. Ninety Six (96) 12 cm Heavy Laser cannons: Mounted along the surface of the asteroid are twenty four mounts with four turrets in each beam weapon cluster. Weapon has standard penalties to hit fighters and small targets. The barrels can be can be rotated 180 degrees in all directions. Up to two may be fired as one volley. Because of the positioning of the mounts, approximately half of the mounts can fire on any target
   Range: 16 miles (25.8 km) through atmosphere and 16,000 miles (25,800 km) in space.
   Mega Damage: 2D6x100 MDC each. Two can be combined for 4D6x100 Mega Damage.
   Rate of fire: Maximum of Two (2) times per melee each.
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
3. Ninety Six (96) 8 cm Heavy Rail Guns: Mounted along the surface of the asteroid are twenty four mounts with four turrets in each beam weapon cluster. Used as one of the fortresses secondary batteries and they are used against targets that are impervious to energy as well. System can be operated by a gunner or a gunner program (+2 to strike, 3 Attacks per melee) and can rotate 180 degrees. Unclear by Palladium Books writeup is the weapons speed. In order to make weapon useful, Rail gun projectile speed should be considered to be close to the speed of light. Because of the positioning of the mounts, approximately half of the mounts can fire on any target.Weapon has standard penalties to hit fighters and small targets.
   Range: 10,000 miles (16,100 km), range is 10 miles (16.1 km) in an atmosphere
   Mega Damage: 1D4x100 MDC per 80 round burst each.
   Rate of fire: Equal to gunners hand to hand (Usually 4 or 5).
   Payload: 32,000 rounds each (400 bursts).
4. Point Defense Rail Guns (264): The Asteroid fortress has four point defense rail guns mounted in each weapon cluster and around each hanger bay. They are directed for defense of the whole fortress not just the cluster they are mounted in. Unlike most of the rail guns used on Phase World Starships, these are standard electromagnetic rail guns. They are used as an anti-Starfighter and missile weapon and against targets that are impervious to energy. Each Rail Gun is in a Turret that can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire. Projectiles come out of launchers at close to the speed of light. Cannon uses a 15 mm depleted uranium projectiles.
   Range: 16 miles (26 km) through atmosphere and 800 miles (1,290 km) in space.
   Mega-Damage: 80 round burst does 3D6x10 M.D.
   Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the Gunner (usually 4 or 5).
   Payload: 16,000 Rounds (200 Bursts) each cannon.
5. Point Defense Lasers in Double Mounts (264): The Asteroid fortress has four point defense laser cannons mounted in each weapon cluster and around each hanger bay. They are directed for defense of the whole fortress not just the cluster they are mounted in. Used as an anti-Starfighter and missile weapon. Each laser turret can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire.
   Range: 2.5 miles (4 km) miles through atmosphere and 250 miles (40.2 km) in space.
   Mega-Damage: 2D6x10 M.D.
   Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the Gunner (usually 4 or 5).
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited
6. Ninety Six (96) Cruise Missile Batteries: The Fortress has four cruise missile batteries in each missile battery cluster. Missile 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). Since star ships will no longer engage at rock throwing distances, whether weapons can be shot down is calculated from the speed of target, launching starship, and missile. When drive goes dead, missile 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 missile when dead at -25% to detect.) See Modified starship rules for more details, Cruise missiles have minuses to hit small targets but are all considered smart missiles. Batteries can launch on multiple targets each. Batteries have a lower number of actual launchers than the modern CAF cruise missile batteries and each launcher is slightly larger in size.
   Range: Missile 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: See Phase World Missiles (Anti-Matter does 4D6x100 MDC).
   Rate of fire: One at a time or in volleys of 2, 8, 16, or 24 per launcher, per melee round, for a maximum of 2304 missiles per melee. Launchers are reloaded on the same melee and can be fired again on the next.
   Payload: 2304 total, 24 cruise missiles per battery. Fortress has 30 reload of missiles (69,120 cruise missiles total) for each launcher.
7. Long Range Missile Batteries (192): The Fortress has eight long range missile launchers in each missile battery cluster. Missile has a top speed of Mach 20 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 8% of light per turn (faster than any starship). Since star ships will no longer engage at rock throwing distances, whether weapons can be shot down is calculated from the speed of target, launcher, and missile. When drive goes dead, missile will still cruise unless set to self destruct but has very low odds of hitting star ships (Great for hitting bases and planets because target does not move and missile when dead at -25% to detect.) Long range missiles do not have minuses to hit small targets unlike cruise missiles and are all considered smart missiles. Batteries can launch on multiple targets each. Batteries have a lower number of actual launchers than the modern CAF long range missile batteries and each launcher is slightly larger in size.
   Range: Missile range is 3400 miles (5470 km) in an atmosphere and 1,800,000 miles (2,89700 km/9.7 light seconds) in space.
   Mega-Damage & Properties: See Phase World Missiles (Fusion does 2D4x100 MDC).
   Rate of fire: One at a time or in volleys of 2, 8, 16, or 24 per launcher, per melee attack.
   Payload: 230,400 total, 1200 long range missiles per battery.
8. Mini-Missile launchers (264): The Asteroid fortress has four point defense mini missile launchers mounted in each weapon cluster and around each hanger bay. They are directed for defense of the whole fortress not just the cluster they are mounted in. These are missile turrets used for point defense against enemy fighters and missiles. Missile has a top speed of Mach 10 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 2% of light per turn (slightly faster than any starship except if it is exceeding it maximum safe acceleration).
   Mega-Damage: varies with mini-missile type (See Phase World Missiles).
   Range: Missile range is 2 miles (3.2 km) in an atmosphere and 100 miles (161 km) in space
   Rate of fire: Can fire missiles one at a time or in volleys of 4 or 8 missiles
   Payload: 128 per launcher for a total of 33,792 mini-missiles. Cargo hold has an additional 640 mini-missile for each launcher (168,960). Reloading launchers from cargo hold takes 1D6 minutes.

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By Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune ).

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