TSS Excalibur
From Egs Mayhem
A famous warship from the Terran Alliance universe, called in by Teleros to help with the battles in space against the Evil Overlords United, the Excalibur is a heavily modified Sirius class carrier.
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Character Information
- Name: Captain John Gates
- Age: 640 (looks like he's in his early 30s though)
- Gender: Male
- Species: Human (genetically modified, see elsewhere)
- Height: 6ft
- Hair: Blonde, short
- Font Colour: Dark Red
Personality: Fond of the "old girl" as he calls the Excalibur, Gates is quite the sarcastic type: it was once said that if put in the room with the leaders of any two powers it would take only 5 minutes for a war to break out. That said, he's very reliable and has centuries of experience as a starship commander.
Command Crew
- Captain John Gates
- Commander Martin Vines (executive officer)
- Lt Tom Eisenhart (navigation)
- Lt Andrew Burton (sensors & coms)
- Lt Tim Anderson (head of internal security, the "Bluejackets")
- Lt Helena Jameson (tactical officer)
- Lt Barbara Dale (engineering)
- Lt Ian Simpson (quartermaster)
- Lt Walter Meyers (hangar crews)
- Doctor-Lt Sarah Farrow (medical bay)
- Father-Lt Bob Fisher (ship chaplain)
- 27 RAI computers are present aboard the Excalibur.
Ship Statistics
- Hull Length: 1136m (excludes weapons)
- Hull Width: 231m (excludes weapons, plasma drive nacelles)
- Hull Height: 107m (excludes plasma drive nacelles, bridge tower)
- Crew: 709
- Maximum Speed: 100,000km/s
- Maximum Acceleration: 5e6m/s^2
- Maximum FTL Speed: 88e6 lights
- Internal Space: Barracks for ~1000 infantrymen including equipment, APCs etc.
- Hangar Space: Empty upon arrival; normally room for 100 one-man fighters plus crew. Prow hangar contains 2 unarmed shuttles and 4 Viking Dropships capable of unloading a company (100 men) at a time, albeit without vehicles.
- Subspace Sensors: 5000pc maximum range.
- Realspace Sensors: Vary, 132AU maximum range for most.
Weaponry
Note that figures for pulse weapons are given per 0.1 second shot).
- Raven Star Missile Launchers (2e22J kinetic energy per missile, 0.95c top speed; 50MT anti-matter warhead).
- Pulse Cannons (5e24J per broadside).
- Gravitic Beams ("encase" pulse cannon beams, designed to punch through enemy gravitic fields and the like).
Defences
Note that figures for shields are given per 0.1 second incoming shot). Shields also "hug" the hull of the ship.
- Pulse Shields: 2.5e26J (blocks pulse weapons only).
- Meteorite Shields: 2.5e26J (blocks physical objects only).
- EM Field: 6.25e29J (blocks all forms of electromagnetic radiation, eg lasers).
- Lightning Field (expanding bubble of pulse energy, designed to destroy objects it comes into contact with, eg missiles)
- Gravitic Shield (bends light rays etc around the ship).
- Singularity Projector (creates miniature black holes for a fraction of a second).
- Scythe Pulse Cannons: 4.5e12J (per barrel; 4 barrels per cannon; 5,000rpm).
- Phase Shifter (Restores out-of-phase matter and energy to the normal phase, allowing it to be defeated by the defences.
Ship Tactics
- Most carriers are used only for patrols and escort duty, as the fighters they carry simply cannot compete against capital ships.
- Due to this, the Excalibur had the rear hangars replaced with pulse cannons, giving it five times its normal broadside firepower - although this is still weak compared to ships of the line of the same hull size.
- Ship battles usually take place at lightsecond ranges, but a peculiarity of pulse energy means that pulse beams do not lose coherency as quickly as lasers: sieges have been known to take place across hundreds of AU, with both sides waiting days for the first shots to reach their targets. The missiles of course can simply fly ballistic towards their targets, only manoeuvring when avoiding enemy point defence guns is needed.
- Most ships are also capable of withstanding a broadside from two sister ships: this means that the key to fleet battles is concentrating your own firepower whilst limiting your opponent's ability to do the same.
- Boarding is rarely seen: ships are coated in a material that disrupt wormholes, shields are a problem for teleporters, and the chance of getting a boarding shuttle across whilst the meteorite shields are down is minute.
Ship Comparison
- A Star Destroyer is 1.6km long.
- The sun emits 3.84e26J of EM radiation a second.
- The estimated kinetic energy of the asteriod that wiped out the dinosaurs is 5e23J.
Errata
- The TSS Excalibur, along with some of the statistics.
