When the HAFN adopted the new Soyakaze class corvette, they also asked Kuan-Yin Shipyards if several other variants could be developed. The first of these would be a escort corvette, which would serve as a highly mobile defensive vessel for the protection of other ships, be they military or civilian ships. The design was meant as an escort picket for larger warships and as a convoy escort for merchant vessels. It might also be required to operate with the attack version of the corvette.

Using a single hull for multiple roles allows for lower development costs, generally reduces development time, and usually lowers construction costs per hull. As well, due to repair parts being shared by more ships, logistics is reduced generally. In many ways, the Soyakaze class corvette is a tailor made design for the ability to use the hull for multiple roles.

The Soyakaze class heavy escort corvette fills a similar role to the ancient Chevalier class escort cruiser. The two ships are armed in a similar manner. The corvette is only a little over ten percent of the cruiser and has a crew of only around ten percent that of the much larger ship as well. In spite of this, the corvette is a good match up as far as firepower and is fast faster both in tactical acceleration and strategic speed. In fact, in faster than light travel, the corvette is over twice as fast as the cruiser. One of the few weaknesses is that the escort corvette does not have any fighter and troop compliment.

As the main defense would be focused towards defeating capital missiles and fighters, it was decided to replace the corvette's capital missile battery with a pair of long range missile batteries. This would give the ship the ability to cover a large area with its fire, and it would be able to put out volleys of missiles big enough to give pause to entire squadrons of fighters. Because the attack role was less important, the capacitors for the Particle beam cannon were replaced with smaller ones, lowering the rate of fire for this weapon, but allowing for more long range missiles to be carried. A total of three hundred and sixty long range missiles are carried. Otherwise, the particle beam is unmodified and has the same range and energy output as on the attack version of the corvette. If ever offered for sale to Independent Defense Force, there is the option to retain the larger capacitor for the particle beam and reduce missiles to three hundred and twenty.

Lighter weaponry is unmodified from the attack version of the corvette. The corvette mounts four heavy point defense gravity rail guns, three tachyon scatter guns, and six mini-missile batteries. When the final design was being completed, in fact the first keels had already been laid down, there was consideration of replacing the mini-missile launchers with a pair of medium range missile launchers. This was reluctantly dropped due to the fact that it would set production back by months if not up to a year.

The escort version is slightly more massive than the attack version with a 200 ton increase in mass. This is mainly due to small modifications for the twin long range missile batteries and the additional missile magazines. As a result, the sublight performance of the escort version is slightly lower than that of the attack version. The faster than light performance is unaffected with a maximum speed of six light years per hour.

The two versions look virtually identical with only a careful inspection missile launcher housing showing the two long range missile batteries mounted within instead of a single capital missile battery. The hull of the escort is just as well built as the attack version and can withstand a surprising amount of damage for the corvette's size. Shields between the two designs are identical.

Even though so far not offered for sale, several Independent Defense Forces have already shown an interest in the corvette. The corvette's low crew requirements combined with its firepower make it ideal for a smaller navy. Most would likely prefer the faster firing particle beam with a slightly reduce long range missile payload. The hope is that the Human Alliance will offer the design for a more reasonable price that the Consortium likely would offer a modified version of the Cheetah corvette.

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

Model Type: CSY MK XXIB
Vehicle Type: Heavy Escort Corvette
Crew: 23 (4 officers)

M.D.C. By Location:

	Heavy 10 cm Particle Beam Cannon:	800
	GR-1000 Gravity Point Defense Rail Gun Turrets (4):	400 each
	Tachyon Scatter Gun Turret (3):	400 each
	Long Range Missile Battery (2):	600 each
	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 M.D.C. 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 M.D.C.) 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 1.1 percent of light per melee.
Atmospheric Propulsion: Maximum speed is Mach 4 (2,965.8 mph / 4,773.0 kph), 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: 5,000 tons (4,536 metric tons)
Power System: Anti-matter with a 50 year life span. The ship normally only goes 10 years between refueling and refitting.
Cargo: Small cargo hold that allows for carrying up to 40 tons (36.3 metric tons) of cargo in addition to standard compliment of supplies and ammunition. Each enlisted crew member has a small locker for personal items and uniforms. Ships officers have more space for personal items. Most of the ships spaces are taken up by extra ammunition, armor, troops, weapons, engine, and other equipment.
Market Cost: Ships cost 500 million credits to manufacture. Earlier versions are for sale, although the MK XXIB is not.

WEAPON SYSTEMS:

1. One (1) Heavy 10 cm 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 smaller capacitor, allowing the particle beam to fire as often as the system on a Hunter. The cannon is located in a recessed bay in the ships bow. The weapon system cannot be used to engage targets while traveling at FTL velocities.
   Maximum Effective 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 once per melee (Can be upgraded to twice per melee at the cost of 20 long range missiles per battery / 40 total)
   Payload: Effectively Unlimited
   
2. Four (4) GR-1000 Large Gravity Point Defense Rail Gun Turrets: Each Rail Gun is in a Turret that can rotate 360 and has a 180 arc of fire. Rail gun projectiles are fired from mounts at a significant fraction of the speed of light. The weapon system cannot be used to engage targets while traveling at FTL velocities. Cannon uses a 30 mm projectile.
   Maximum Effective 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 affects all targets in a cone 12.4 miles long and 3.1 miles wide in an atmosphere that can destroy whole volleys of missiles before the strike the ship (Roll once against a volley and unless the missiles roll to dodge greater than strike roll, they are all destroyed.) The stream lasts for significant fraction of a second and missiles tend to run into the stream (Gives +4 bonus vs fast moving targets such as missiles.) 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.
   Maximum Effective Range: 49.6 miles (80 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. Two (2) Long Range Missile Batteries: Missile has a top speed of Mach 20 in an atmosphere and in space has an acceleration of 8% of light per turn (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, launcher, and missile. When drive goes dead, missile will still cruise unless set to self destruct 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.) Long range missiles do not have minuses to hit small targets unlike cruise missiles and are all considered smart missiles. Many of these missiles are of the multiple warhead configuration, for the engagement of many targets at the same time. Batteries can launch on multiple targets each at the same time.
   Maximum Effective Range: Missile range is 3400 miles (5470 km) in an atmosphere and 1,800,000 miles (2,897,000 km/9.7 light seconds) in space.
   Mega-Damage & Properties: See Phase World Missile Tables for details (Fusion inflicts 2D4x100 MDC).
   Rate of Fire: One at a time or in volleys of 2, 8, 16, or 32 per launcher, per melee attack.
   Payload: 360 total, 180 long range missiles per launcher. (Reduce payload to 320 total / 160 per launcher if larger capacitors for particle beam are carried.)
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). Batteries can launch on multiple targets each at the same time.
   Maximum Effective Range: Missile range is 2 miles (3.2 km) in an atmosphere and 100 miles (161 km) in space
   Mega-Damage: Varies with mini-missile type (See Phase World Missile Tables for details.)
   Rate of Fire: Can fire missiles one at a time or in volleys of four (4) or eight (8) mini-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)
Revisions by Kitsune (E-Mail Kitsune).

Copyright © 1999, 2008, & 2011, Mischa & Kitsune. All rights reserved.