This ship class can be best described as a direct descendant of the Human Alliance Forces Navy's Ferret class corvette and the ships look very similar to each other. In fact many people have joking called the ship class as Ferret Mk II.

There have been several incidents with Scimitar class patrol ships having to engage pirate ships and because the pirate ships were armed with cruise missile launchers, the Scimitars were destroyed because of their lack of any long range weaponry. Several Consortium Armed Forces admirals used these incidents to leverage the construction of a missile corvette or patrol ship. Their real motivation was not pirates though, their true motivation is the fact that they realize that there will be another war against the Kreegor and they need a ship that can fight a Kreegor berserker in a fight. There was some dispute and the CAF was given a very small budget for development which precluded the development of a new ship class. Three ideas were explored: First was to develop a missile armed version of the Scimitar class patrol boat. This was rejected because a huge amount of modifications that would have been required. The Second idea was to use the modified Hunter class destroyer used by New Coventry using pepperbox cruise missile launchers as well. This design while accepted as a possible idea was rejected in favor of the last idea. The final idea was to construct a Corvette based on the old Ferret Corvette. One line of thought was simply to reactivate the Ferret Corvettes but many of the Ferrets have stress hull and structural support and the electronics would need to be completely updated. The hull gives the ships an active life span of only five to ten years yet the replacement of the electronics would make them relatively expensive for such a short operational career. The fleet decided that a new ship based off of the Ferret would be the best approach. In operation, the plan is to have the ships operate with two Cheetah Corvettes operating with one Scimitar class patrol ship.

There are several other parties interested in the ships. The Human Alliance fleet have requested the purchase of these ships to replace their aging Ferret fleet and it is planned that even if the ships are not sold to them that they will design a close cousin of the design. There is also several planets that are looking into constructing non FTL versions of this ship for in system defense.

While based on an old design, the ships are virtually a brand new design in many ways. The hull has been reinforced and structural problems have been eliminated and these ships are designed to operate for much longer periods of time between refits and have a longer operational career. Both the ships sublight and FTL engines are completely new and have greater speed. The ships computer systems have been updated and upgraded as well. The missile battery has been upgraded with a larger batter and the ship can now throw up to thirty missiles in a single launch. The ferret could fire three volleys of twenty four cruise missiles. The Cheetah can fire three volleys of thirty two but even though te other weapon mounts are slightly smaller, there is even less space for the ships crew. The ship retains the same amount of point defense weaponry. In place of point defense lasers, the ship now uses point defense particle beams. The conventional rail guns have been replace by gravity rail guns. The mini missile launchers were retained but a smaller launcher with the same capacity is used.

Like the Ferrets, these corvettes carry no fighters and no troops. The Cheetahs are even more cramped in crew quarters than the Ferrets were

There is no plan to give the ships names although some crews will probably give their ships names on their own.

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

Model Type: FFL-12S
Vehicle Type: Missile Corvette
Crew: 17 (3 officers)

M.D.C By Location:

	Point Defense Gravity Rail Guns (2):	200 each
	Point Defense Particle Beam Cannons (2):	150 each
	Cruise Missile Battery:	800
	Mini-Missile Launchers (4):	100 each
	[1] Bridge:	1000
	[2] Main Body:	3,200
	[3] Variable Force Field:	1000 a side (6,000 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 not have an auxiliary bridge. Even if 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 bridge 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 corvette 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% (300 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 50 percent of the speed of light. Star Ship can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 1.1 percent of light per melee.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is Mach 2, can enter an atmosphere because flight system is by contra grav.
Stardrive: Uses a Gravitonic Drive system that allows the ship to reach a maximum of 6 light years per hour.
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either Drive system. Carries about eight months worth of supplies on board.

Statistical Data:
Length: 122 feet (37.2 meters)
Height: 235 feet (71.6 meters)
Width: 84 feet (25.6 meters)
Weight: 2100 tons (1905.1 metric tons)
Power System: Anti-matter with a 40 year life span.
Cargo: Small cargo hold that allows for carrying up to 20 tons of Cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition.
Market Cost: Ships cost 350 million credits to manufacture. Presently not for sale but will probably sell for twice ships cost if sold by the CAF. A copy of the ship without FTL engines would probably cost in the range of 150 million credits.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

1. Two (2) Point Defense Rail Guns: 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 20 mm projectile. Replaces original rail gun desing on Ferret corvette.
   Range: 2 miles (3.2 km) through atmosphere and 200 miles (320 km) in space.
   Mega-Damage: 20 round burst does 2D4x10 M.D.
   Rate of Fire: Equal to the combined hand to hand attacks of the Gunner (usually 4 or 5).
   Payload: 10,000 Rounds (500 Bursts) each cannon.
   2. Two (2) Point Defense Particle Beams: These weapons are used for anti-missile, anti-power armor, and anti-star fighter defense. Replaces point defense lasers on Ferret corvette.
   Range: 600 miles (960 km) in space and range is 6 miles (9.6 km) in atmosphere.
   Mega Damage: 3D6x10 MDC each.
   Rate of fire: Equal to gunners hand to hand (Usually 4 or 5).
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
2. One (1) Cruise Missile Battery: 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 standard penalties hit small targets but are all considered smart missiles. This launcher is a standard CAF launcher and the ship could have larger batteries than the original Ferret Corvette. Batteries can launch on multiple targets each. 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 32 per melee round. Launchers are reloaded on the same melee and can be fired again on the next.
   Payload: 32 cruise missiles with 2 reload of missiles (64 cruise missiles total in reloads)
3. Four (4) Mini-Missile launchers: 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 512 mini-missiles. Cargo hold has an additional 512 mini-missile. Reloading launchers from cargo hold takes 1D6 minutes.

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