HAFN Soyakaze class Heavy Assault Corvette:

When the CAF began building the new Cheetah class corvettes, it was clear to everyone that the ships were really for fighting the Kreeghor Berserker attack vessels. The leadership of the HAFN also expressed a clear interest in either purchasing the Cheetahs fully build, or producing the corvettes under license. This because the old Ferret corvettes of the HAFN need urgent replacement, with some having a expected service life of less than five years left in them, while the earliest examples of the Ferrets have already been sold for scrap.

The Cheetah corvette would have been a ideal replacement. However, the CAF was asking a price per ship in excess of double the production price, and the HAFN leaders, quite understandably, found this unacceptable. The CAF was politely told to stuff their Cheetahs, and a open contest was held to let several firms enter their designs for a corvette.

The design that ultimately won was not as close a relative of the Cheetah as everyone had thought it would be: with a much heavier armament than a Cheetah in a heavy, solid and tough hull, the Kuan-Yin space yards Soyakaze (Gentle Breeze....) MK XXI is only saved from being classified as a frigate because it does not carry either fighters or marines in its cramped hull.

Kuan-Yin space yards is a old firm, located on one of the planets that made up the original Human Alliance, and the firm was already active in those days. The Soyakaze series of light frigates has its roots back in those days, and although none of their designs are currently in use by major forces, they quickly redesigned their Soyakaze to fall within the parameters of the HAFN for their new corvette.

When they were done there was absolutely no place for fighters or marines left. Although earlier versions of the Soyakaze did carry marines and fighters, it was because of the requirement from the HAFN that a ship capable of keeping up with its new carriers in both sublight AND FTL flight was needed, that much heavier engines had to be placed in the ship. The placement of these engines raised the performance of the Soyakaze to more than acceptable levels, but there was no longer any place for the fighters and marines of a frigate onboard the ship.

And so the ship was changed into (very) heavy corvette.

The Soyakaze is very heavily armed, with a large Particle Beam cannon mounted along its spine. This cannon is better in power and range to the three cannons carried by the Hunter Class destroyer, but due to improved technology and a bigger capacitor array it is capable of firing twice as fast as a cannon in a Hunter. The Cannons placement in a recessed bay in the ships front makes the Soyakaze look as if it has a mouth in its bow. If so, it is certainly one lined with sharp teeth. Backing this up for point defense are four large rail-guns and, as requested by the HAFN, three tachyon scatter guns.

For its missile complement it carries one standard Cruise Missile launcher, but this has twice the reloads of the launcher in a Cheetah, giving the Soyakaze a rather better staying power than the Cheetah. Lastly the ship has six Mini-Missile launchers, whose main purpose is point defense.

All is not well though. The first crews to evaluate a Soyakaze found to their dismay that, although the ship is rather bigger than a Ferret, there is just as little space available for the crew as onboard the other ship. The ships armament and large engines take up most of its hull. Another setback is the price: A Soyakaze is slightly over one and a half times as expensive as a Cheetah corvette. Of course this still makes it rather cheaper than purchasing Cheetahs from the CAF....

There is no plan to give the ships names although some crews will probably give their ships names on their own. The leaders of the HAFN have already decided that a certain amount of aggressive paint schemes will also be allowed. Already some crews have painted shark mouths around the recessed bay of the particle beam cannon, and the general staff feels that a certain amount of customization will lead to a better morale among crews, offsetting the effect of the cramped quarters that the ships have.

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

Model Type: CSY MK XXIA
Vehicle Type: Heavy Assault Corvette
Crew: 23 (4 officers)

M.D.C. By Location:

	Heavy Particle Beam Cannon:	800
	GR-1000 Gravity Rail Gun turrets (4):	400 each
	Tachyon Scatter Gun Turret (3):	400 each
	Cruise Missile Battery:	1,000
	Mini-Missile Launchers (6):	120 each
	[1] Bridge:	1,100
	[2] Main Body:	4,200
	[3] Variable Force Field:	1,000 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 60 percent of the speed of light. Star Ship can accelerate/decelerate at the rate of 1.2 percent of light per melee.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is Mach 4, 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 6.0 light years per hour.
Maximum Range: Effectively Unlimited by either Drive system. Carries about nine months worth of supplies on board.

Statistical Data:
Length: 312 feet (93.6 meters)
Height: 215 feet (64.6 meters)
Width: 72 feet (21.6 meters)
Weight: 4800 tons (4352 metric tons)
Power System: Anti-matter with a 50 year life span.
Cargo: Small cargo hold that allows for carrying up to 40 tons of Cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition.
Market Cost: Ships cost 512 million credits to manufacture. Earlier versions are for sale, although the MK XXI is not.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

1. One (1) Heavy Particle Beam Cannon: The particle beam cannon is a redesigned version of the particle beams that are on a Hunter Destroyer with the same range and slightly better beam output. It uses as much power as the original particle beam and has a more efficient capacitor, allowing the particle beam to fire about twice as often as the system on a Hunter. The cannon is located in a recessed bay in the ships bow.
   Range: 12,000 miles (19,250 Km) in space and 24 miles (38.5 km) in an atmosphere.
   Mega-Damage: 2D6x100 M.D.
   Rate of Fire: Can be fired up to two times in one melee.
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited
2. Four (4) GR-1000 Large Gravity Rail Gun Turrets: 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 30 mm projectile.
   Range: 16 miles (26 km) through atmosphere and 1,600 miles (2,575 km) in space.
   Mega-Damage: 40 round burst does 4D6x10 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.
3. Three (3) Tachyon Scatter Guns: The main purpose of this system is as an anti-missile point defense. They do this by firing a wide blast that effects all targets in a cone 6.2 miles long and 3.1 miles wide in an atmosphere (Quadrupled in space) that can destroy whole volleys of missiles before the strike the ship. This system has an interesting property that the system can actually be used at FTL speeds because Tachyons travel faster than the speed of light. Each Tachyon Scatter Gun is in a Turret that can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire, with one turret on top of the corvette, and one on each lower side.
   Range: 24.8 miles (40 km) with a width of 12.4 miles (20 km), range and width is one quarter in atmosphere.
   Mega Damage: 2D4x10 MDC each.
   Rate of fire: Maximum of four (4) times per melee each.
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited.
4. 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. Battery 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. Launcher is reloaded on the same melee and can be fired again on the next.
   Payload: 32 cruise missiles with 4 reload of missiles (160 cruise missiles total)
5. Six (6) 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 768 mini-missiles. Cargo hold has an additional 768 mini-missiles. Reloading launchers from cargo hold takes 1D6 minutes.

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Image drawn and copyrighted by Roman Kochnev (r_kochnev@hotmail.com) .
More Roman Kochnev artwork at The Science Fiction Art and Design Portfolio of Roman Kochnev

By Mischa (E-Mail Mischa)
Minor revisions by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

Copyright © 1999, Mischa. All rights reserved.