Captain Henry Fenley watched as eight vessels left FTL into the Targa system. They were huge, the size of large battlecruisers or small battleships, and they had shields equal to that of a Consortium Protector class Battleship. There was no way that his three Monitors and eight system defense boats were going to hold of the kind of firepower that was heading his way but he had to try. They were fast, as fast as most fighters he had seen yet these ships were huge. As the enemy ships got within range, he ordered his all of ships to fire missiles hoping to get some good hits before his force got wiped away. His tactical officer yelled in horror and the Captain saw on his sensors a gravity wave come from the ships and destroy all of the incoming missiles. He had little more than half a minute to worry because the enemy ships quickly intercepted his defense force and shredded his ships like they were constructed from tissue paper not battle steel.

A few bits and pieces are known but still little is actually known about the Dartroks. The Dartroks are a race of very powerful beings that have just recently appeared in the Three Galaxies. The races appear to be slightly large than human sized coal black figures that appear similar in shape to man-o-war jellyfish with a huge number of prehensile tentacles. Their ships are based on a pseudo organic material and are incredibly powerful, heavily armored, and quite capable of taking on most ships of the races of the Three Galaxies. Especially since the motivations of the Dartroks is completely unknown, these ships cause all nervousness among most other races when these ships appear in their system.

The term Dreadnought was given by the Dartrok race but may be a mistranslation. The ships are actually slightly smaller than a CAF battleship in reality. The ships are heavier armored than a CAF Battleship and carry equal shielding to the Battleship. The ship is in a shape similar to that of a fat manta-ray. The ships are not constructed in any traditional way and the equivalent of the ship's systems are biologic in design. These include computers, engines, weapons, and even the ship's hull. The computer is a powerful neural intelligent and capable of operation independently. The ship's hull has the ability to repair damage and to adapt to attacks directed at it given enough time. The ship's systems are all based on electric and gravitic manipulation. The ship propulsion is based on gravitic systems, the ship's shields are based on gravitics, and all of the ships weapon systems are based on one or the other as well. The FTL propulsion system is very similar are very similar to those operated on most ships in the Three Galaxies but as stated previously are biological. The ship has an acceleration as fast as many Phase World fighters. Because of this extraordinary speed, the large capital ships of the Three Galaxies cannot stay at missile range to fight the ships that way.

The ship's weapon systems are designed around close combat. This might allow other ships to use the intercept time to use missile launchers to destroy the ship before engaging in close combat but the ship has a gravity wake weapon that throws a wave of gravity out in all directions. This system is capable of destroying missiles quite easily but is also quite capable of doing fairly massive damage to larger targets as well if within range. Its limitation is that it is fairly short ranged and can only be used once per melee. The ship has four long range gravitic slicer cannons that are capable of doing massive damage to other ships and have a good change to hit vital systems on ships. The remaining weapon systems are electrical based but are just as lethal as the Gravitic weapons.

The Dartrok ship can carry up to 60 fighters and can carry slave race troopers for ground assault. The number appears to be in the range of 2000 or more

This writeup of the Dartrok Dreadnought uses modified Phase World starship rules. See Revised Starship Rules for Phase World for more details.

Model: Dartrok Star Dreadnought
Class: Battlecruiser
Crew: Unknown, needs one Dartrok to function but does need crew for maximum performance. Actual Crew size unknown (For game terms assume that the ships have a crew of around 1200 with 100 being Dartroks and the remainder are slave races. Boarding parties will have trouble due to the fact that each Dartrok is about as powerful as a low powered supernatural intelligence.)
Troops: 2000 Slave Troopers

Vehicle Compliment:

	60	Dartrok Fighters
	20	Dartrok Shuttles

M.D.C. by Location:

	Slicer Beams Cannons (4):	4,000 each
	Heavy Electrical Discharge Cannons (20):	1,000 each
	Point Defense Electrical Discharge Cannons (45):	400 each
	[1] Bridge:	65,000
	[1] Emergency Bridge:	65,000
	[2] Main Body:	325,000
	[3] Variable Force Field:	15,000 a side (90,000 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 also has an auxiliary bridge. Even if both bridges are 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 destroy the Dreadnaught, putting it out of commission. All internal systems will shut down, including life support and internal gravity. The ship itself will be an unsalvageable floating wreck. Both the hull and the ship's systems have the ability to repair themselves. The ships hull and ship's systems regenerate damage at the rate of 2D4x100 MDC per minute. The ship can only repair up to half the total MDC of a system or the main body.
[3] Shield positions are variable and can be combined into one shield. The shields regenerate at a rate of 5% (4500 MDC) per melee round.

Speed:
Driving on the Ground: Not Possible.
Sublight: Gravity drive allows the ship to travel up to 60 percent of the speed of light. The ship can accelerate/ decelerate at an incredible rate of 1.3 percent of light per melee.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is mach 10. Can enter atmosphere and leave the atmosphere of a planet easily.
Star Drive: Gravitonic drive; maximum speed: 8 light years per hour.
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either Drive system. Carries about four years worth of supplies on board and power system gives power for 20 years before the ship needs refueling.

Statistical Data
Height: 1200 feet (366 meters)
Length: 3000 feet (914 meters)
Width: 2000 feet (610 meters)
Weight / Mass: 16.5 million tons (15 million metric tons)
Power System: Unknown
Cargo: Cargo holds are scattered about the ship that allows for carrying up to 500,000 tons of Cargo in addition to a standard compliment of supplies and ammunition
Cost: Unknown, any culture in the Three Galaxies would pay hundreds of trillions of credits for an undamaged working model of this ship.

Weapon Systems:

1. Gravity Wake Generator: This weapon system outputs a series of gravitic waves in all directions. This weapon is quite effective for a variety of different purposes. It is useful to destroy missiles and do damage to larger ships. The weapon system prevents most forms of FTL from being used within the radius of weapon system when activated for one melee even though the system only lasts for about 4 seconds each time activated. Any ships with variable shields will have the damage applied to all shields at once but divide by six each penetration of an individual shield for damage applied to ship's hull. When this system is used, the Dreadnought's acceleration is reduced to 1/3 of normal or 0.5% of light per turn.
   Mega Damage:
   Missiles Scale Targets: 4D6x10
   Starfighter Scale Targets: 1D4x100
   Destroyers Scale Targets: 4D6x100
   Cruiser Scale Targets: 1D4x1000
   Battleship Size Targets: 4D6x1000
   Range: 10 miles (16 km) in an atmosphere and 1000 miles (1610 km) in space.
   Rate of Fire: Once per Melee.
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited
2. Gravity Slicer Beam Cannons (4): This weapon is incredibly powerful and can decimate most ships very quickly. The weapon uses controlled opposing gravimetric waves to create an energy beam weapon that shreds the target. Due to the deep penetration of the weapon, it has a much better chance to do critical damage to the target and ships dread the slicer beam hitting their fusion reactors. The weapons have standard penalties to hit fighters and other small targets. Each Gravity Slicer Beam Cannon fires individually and has a 60-degree arc of fire. The weapons do full damage to targets in magic rich universes with the spell impervious to energy.
   Mega Damage: 4D6x1,000 per Slicer beam strike (optional rule is that cannon gets a critical on a natural 18, 19, or 20 due to its high penetration)
   Range: 187 miles (300 km) in an atmosphere and 187,000 miles (300,000 km) in space.
   Rate of Fire: Once per Melee.
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited
3. Heavy Electrical Discharge Cannons (20): These weapon systems are in many ways similar to Phase World ion cannons but are very powerful. The weapons have standard penalties to hit fighters and other small targets. Each electrical beam cannon fires individually and has a 180-degree arc of fire.
   Mega Damage: 4D6x100 per blast
   Range: 16 miles (25.8 km) through atmosphere and 16,000 miles (25,800 km) in space.
   Rate of fire: Four Times per melee round per cannon.
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
4. Point Defense Electrical Discharge Cannons (45): These weapon systems are in many ways similar to Phase World ion cannons. They are very effective against fighters but are not as effective against larger ships. The weapon does more damage to organic targets because of the nature of the beam. Each mount has a 360-degree rotation and 180 degree arc of fire. Weapon has a bonus of +4 to strike
   Mega Damage: 4D6x10 per cannon (Double damage to organic targets)
   Range: 600 miles (960 km) in space and range is 6 miles (9.6 km) in atmosphere.
   Rate of fire: Equal to gunners hand to hand (Usually 4 or 5).
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited.

Special Equipment:

• Adaptive Hull: The Dreadnought has the ability to adapt to attacks on it. Once a specific attack has been used against the ship, it will adapt to that attack and any attack of that type that is encountered afterwards will only be at half effect in the next engagement. Magical attacks will continue to inflict full damage. Variable frequency weapons such as variable frequency lasers can be reset to do full damage once this is discovered. The adaption takes about 5 days to be completed.
• Sentient Ship: The Dreadnought is alive, and is quite aware of what it is and what its doing. It will not take orders from a non Dartrok. The computer is also telepathic and can communicate with Dartroks and other ships using this method.
  The ship should be considered to be a powerful neural intelligence in terms of Rifts. This computer can pilot the ship at 98%, can fire all weapons with half normal attacks, and has +10 to strike, +4 to dodge, and +4 to initiative (these include all bonuses). If a full crew is onboard, it will be able to fire all weapons at will and will have +12 to strike, +6 to dodge and +7 to initiative.

[ Phase World TM, Naruni TM, Kreeghor TM, UWW TM, and CAF TM are trademarks owned by Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books Inc. ]
[ Rifts® is a registered trademark owned by Kevin Siembieda and Palladium Books Inc.]

By Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune ).

Copyright © 1998 and 2000, Kitsune. All rights reserved.