So! Ever since I started creating TROs and such for Battletech Warships, mainly trying to convert Gundam ships into Battletech Warships using MegaMek Labs, I have been fascinated with the idea of the Subcompact Warship. An option that can be chosen in MML via the Vessel Type Dropdown Menu. However, this Vessel Type appears to have its own rules built into the MML Software. Mainly the K-F Drive is fifty percent of the ship's mass instead of the forty-five percent or so for a regular old Warship with its own Compact Core. Another rule is that Subcompact Warships have to be under 25,000 Tons which is a bit annoying in my mind, as I normally try to convert the much smaller Gundam Ships into such a vessel which means it can be quite annoying to try it that way. Though due to this the Subcompact Warships designs will not have any sort of Dropship Collar Hardpoint only allowing such ships to carry small craft and no Dropships at all. Still, I have decided to see about developing my own handful of Subcompact Warships mainly for regular old Battletech with no Gundam component.
(Grumble. One of these days I am going to do a Gundam Ship-to-Subcompact Warship Design mainly by hand so I can go above 25k tons and shrink the K-F Drive by a bit further allowing a better conversion. Grumble.)
Phantom Surveillance Ship (Royal Variant)
So okay, my first overall design I want to present to you all is a sort of replacement for what I would consider the progenitor for the entire concept of Subcompact Warship the Bug Eye Surveillance Ship. The Phantom Surveillance Ship which instead of being visually based on the likes of the Buccaneer Cargo Dropship like the Bug Eye is instead visually based on that of the Mule Class Dropship which does mean it sports a heavier mass of 11,200 Tons under twice the mass of the Bug Eye sports. This does allow a bit more mass to play with mainly giving it a somewhat decent weapon array of four Star League Era ER PPCs, four Large Lasers, and a pinpoint weapon array of nine Small Pulse Lasers spread across the ship's hull. I know it doesn't sport missile or autocannon weapons, or even Capital Scale Weapons, but figured a primary energy armament would be the best mass-wise for the ship. It also sports all First Class Cabins for its entire crew and a very small gravity deck of 20-meter diameter allowing them to be somewhat comfortable during the course of their mission. More so than the vastly tinier Bug Eye. Also since this is supposed to be some sort of spy ship I have added an infantry bay, of sorts, which I would have it carrying a team of fifteen special operations troops that can be landed on a planet, station, or deep space outpost via the ship's sole Small Craft, often a special stealth rated craft. Other equipment includes much of the same observation and surveillance equipment of the Bug Eye along with the addition of a Mobile Hyperpulse Generator and a large Naval Comm Scanner. To better get them and up out of a system faster during their mission, the Phantom comes equipped with a lithium-fusion battery system. It also sports a small light vehicle bay which would be used to carry a pair of zero-gee work pods, of a sort - I swear it is the Gundam fan in me -, which combined with regular zero-gee suited engineers could allow the crew to add various additions, like extra hull plates allowing a slight change to the ship's hull, fake weapon arrays, or even different paint schemes, to the ship's hull to make them look like a specific ship or even another sphereiod dropship design before the course of a mission. A typical Phantom would have somewhere around fifty tons of its cargo space set aside for these extra bits though some ships of the class would go below or above that threshold depending on its captain. Still, the Phantom Class is a very expensive craft to build, more so than the old Bug Eye, mainly to many of the more advanced equipment it sports, which does see only a handful of these ships constructed over the years of the Star League. Where they would often be used by the Star League Intelligence Command and a couple used by the "Blackhearts" during their operations in the Taurian Concordat. Though later on the Star League would try to introduce a cheaper variant of the Phantom which dropped much of the more advanced and expensive pieces of equipment like the Mobile HPG, LF Battery, and replaced the ER PPCs with regular PPCs. However, not many of these downgraded craft would be built before the Star League fell in the aftermath of the Amaris Civil War.
Phantom Surveillance Ship (Royal)
Mass: 11,200 tons
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Advanced)
Introduced: 2760
Mass: 11,200
Battle Value: 2,248
Tech Rating/Availability: E/F-X-F-F
Cost: 8,294,977,672 C-bills
Fuel: 259 tons (2,590)
Safe Thrust: 4
Maximum Thrust: 6
Sail Integrity: N/A
KF Drive Integrity: 3
Heat Sinks: 118 (236)
Structural Integrity: 40
Armor
Nose: 6
Fore Sides: 6/6
Aft Sides: 5/5
Aft: 4
Cargo
Bay 1: Small Craft (1) 1 Door
Bay 2: Infantry (Foot) (5) 0 Doors
Bay 3: Cargo (250.0 tons) 2 Doors
Bay 4: Light Vehicle (2) 1 Door
Ammunition:
None
Dropship Capacity: 0
Grav Decks: 1 (20 m)
Escape Pods: 0
Life Boats: 0
Crew: 16 officers, 74 enlisted/non-rated, 18 gunners, 30 bay personnel, 6 passengers
Notes: Equipped with
lithium-fusion battery system
1 Long Range Optical Telescope
1 Mobile Hyperpulse Generators (Mobile HPG)
1 Satellite Imager [Infrared Imager]
1 MASH Equipment (4 theaters)
1 Naval Comm-Scanner Suite (Small)
1 Satellite Imager [High-Resolution (Hi-Res) Imager]
1 Satellite Imager [Look-Down Radar]
8 tons of improved ferro-aluminum armor.
Weapons: Capital Attack Values (Standard)
Arc (Heat) Heat SRV MRV LRV ERV Class
Nose (30 Heat)
2 ER PPC 30 2(20) 2(20) 2(20) 0(0) PPC
RBS/LBS (22 Heat)
2 Large Laser 16 2(16) 2(16) 0(0) 0(0) Laser
3 Small Pulse Laser 6 1(9) 0(0) 0(0) 0(0) Point Defense
Aft (36 Heat)
3 Small Pulse Laser 6 1(9) 0(0) 0(0) 0(0) Point Defense
2 ER PPC 30 2(20) 2(20) 2(20) 0(0) PPC
And that is for this Subcompact Warship design! Hope you all liked it! Had some fun developing it. I have ideas for a couple of further ships of this type which I will post later, including the mentioned standard non-Royal if you will version of the Phantom. OH! And Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
EDIT: And yes I do know. That it would need some way of saying the reason why they can't land on a planet just like the Bug Eye does.