Deepnight Alternative Secondary Vessels: Part Two - smallcraft

Deepnight Alternative Secondary Vessels: 

Part Two - smallcraft

Deepnight Revelation carries a total of three dozen smallcraft: 20 20-ton utility boats and 16 60-ton pinnaces.

I don't care for them much, so here are mine.

General comment: None of the original smallcraft were armed. I mean, I'm not expecting a fleet of fighters here, but we are going off in unexplored space facing a potential hostile entity, and that's just the main mission. So at least give them a fixed mount and put a laser on it.

First, the utility boat. I did a smallcraft for The Beyond called the Mule, an overly equipped do-it-all tiny craft that I thought was a lot of fun. For Deepnight, I've made a variation of that design, a little less extreme, but usable for all the odd jobs in and around the main ship.

My issues with the boat in the campaign are numerous: Aerofins are a 5% luxury it doesn't need; it doesn't have enough cargo capacity to carry any of the vehicles in the Campaign Guide; it likely doesn't need to waste an extra ton on fancy sensors- not it's job.

My version - I called it a Dzo (that's a yak-cow hybrid, sticking with the "mule" the theme). I gave it overpowered drives so it can tow or haul stuff outside atmosphere, not because I think it needed to be particularly speedy. I gave it a mining laser because, see above, and because it could come in useful for… mining, and its fairly cheap.

Dzo-class Utility Tug

(Note: Not included here is that I also replaced 4 of the 20 boats with a souped-up gig that has armor and stealth and a pop-up turret, so there is actually a bit of "combat ship" added.)

Next the 60-ton "pinnace"

Yeah, a lot of the same issues, really. This one needs the Advanced sensors so I kept that. I object to a 60-ton craft being a "pinnace" when it's bigger than a 50-ton cutter. So, I called it a cutter. Maybe it should be a runabout, though the tug fits that name better in my mind.

But speaking of cutter, I thought this ship needs to be modular too. One main reason: ocean refueling. Deepnight Revelation can't do it itself. So it's going to be smallcraft that have to do it for them. But as designed, running 24-hours a day, it takes more than a week to refill tanks using all the pinnaces and boats it has. I suppose the scouts could help too, but anyway. Long time, no rest.

So step one. We need a fuel module. Might as well make it a cargo-fuel modules, but why waste the 2 tons on equipment: make it a cargo module with a collapsible tank thrown in the tiny-tiny hold on the main ship. We can go up to 70% modular, so that's what I did: 60-ton ship of which 42 tons is module. Every cutter gets one of these as the default install.

But we need other modules to swap in (these could be carried in the hold or one of the hangers - there's a bit of room for moving things around and swapping in space and the tugs are designed to help with that)

So what's next... passenger. Need that. With some buffer for cargo and comfort, I can put 72 acceleration seats in a module. I could go to 144 passengers or even a little more with acceleration benches, but I didn't see the need - 7 modules could hold the entire crew, 6 would be the absolute most you would need for an evacuation if you take into account the other small craft and scouts.

Next- science. Need a lab module. I made it deployable with its own sensors, powerplant, lab and a garage/cargo bay. Plus a couple of staterooms. This module could take the place of, or supplement the forward base modules.

Finally. Say you're stuck in deep space and need to refuel off some rock. I could add a Deep Space Maneuvering System, but the way I designed the engines, it's not practical- unless you add an extra set of engines. So, I made a reaction drive module. 5g acceleration maximum and a total of 30-g hours (hey, anyone remember New Era and g-hours?). It might have made sense space-wise to add the extra drives, powerplant and DSM, but it would be a lot more expensive, so I'm sticking with this one for now. If you need more fuel or if you want to haul or retrieve cargo or fuel, well that's why the cutter has external cargo mounts.

So what does this thing look like? Pretty much a cross between a Space 1999 Eagle and a Firefly-class transport. More Eagle than Firefly, so I named it an… Eagle-class cutter.

(Note on external cargo mounts: the rules say that streamlined ships can't "use" external cargo mounts. I interpret that to mean you can't attach stuff and be considered streamlined. You could interpret it to see mean that you can't put them on a streamlined ship at all, but then I say they're removable. Put them on and you lose streamlining, but take them off and store them in the hanger and you're fine.)

Here are the deckplans for cutter and module, split into two parts:

And as a bonus, this one took me a long time to design the way I wanted, so I had to model it. In Bryce, because that's the 20-year old tool I own and know best. Did not spend any effort doing much with the texturing, but the engines and side and floor panels do swing.