JumpShip of the Month (Hahahahahahahahahaha): Star Lord Class JumpShipNo, wait, that's not right.
Perfection.
Yes, folks, I'm still doing these and, this week, do I have a doozy for you! While I've been trying to keep to chronological order, I've also only been doing articles for ships where we have concrete stats. That means this week, we jump (heh) to the year 2590 for the Star Lord class JumpShip. Besides hanging out with a green woman, a sentient tree, and an uplifted raccoon, what do we know about the Star Lord?
Two things stand out about the Star Lord. First, at six docking collars, only the Monolith (9) and the Leviathan (at least 7) class JumpShips exceed its DropShip capacity. Even among WarShips, this much capacity is not common, making the Star Lord one of the heaviest haulers available. One additional feature of the Star Lord's docking collars are a series of grapples that can support and reel in ships of up to 10,000 tons. While it wasn't a thing when Tech Readout 3057 Revised was published, nowadays I'd treat this as the docking arms quirk, which gives you a benefit on docking rolls. In-universe, this ends up giving the Star Lord a secondary role as a resucue ship, since it's basically as close to a tug JumpShip as we ever really see.
At 274,000 tons, the Star Lord is a bit past the midpoint for JumpShip mass. While those docking collars take up a sizeable amount of the available mass, there's still plenty of room for 661 tons of cargo and 50 steerage passengers, something we rarely see on JumpShips. These passengers can enjoy more amenities than are usually found aboard your typical cargo dropper, such as the 110-meter grav deck, though in an emergency they may find themselves sharing the 10 life boats and 6 escape pods with the 30 crew (plus 20 shuttle crew). This too, though, is a bit of a rarity: the Star Lord has capacity for 96 people in its escape pods - with shuttles, it would have excess evac capability. Cargo is described as split into individual bays near each docking collar, though thr rules of corse abstract this as a single hold.
From a logistical standpoint, the Star Lord has 100 tons of internal fuel. While well short of the 395+ tons needed for a fusion-powered jump, it's enough for 25 days of slow transit thrust at 0.1 Gs, and should easily be adaquate for stationkeeping. With that healthy cargo hold, a Star Lord has some level of independence. Four small craft bays provide a handy number of shuttles.
What the Star Lord can't do is fight: with no weapons of any kind, and limited armor (79 tons, for 32 capital points spread across the ship), a Star Lord is a sitting duck on the battlefield. Like most JumpShips that survived the Succession Wars, the Star Lord did so by being inoffensive, and by the agreement that eventually fell into place not to target shipping. For those trying to target a Star Lord...well, it ain't difficult to do, and the only thing a Star Lord has to defend itself are any carried DropShips and small craft carried aboard.
Because of its value, and its vulnerability, if you have a Star Lord transporting your precious DropShips, and you're in an environment or era where targeting JumpShips is considered fair game, I cannot stress enough the need to protect your Star Lord. A couple fighters alone isn't going to cut it: you're going to need to devote a collar or two to heavier combat assets. Yes, this could reduce the quantity of ground forces you can cart along, but you have six docking collars: you're still ahead of the game giving up two.
This brings me to what may be the strangest way you could make a living with a Star Lord: mobile rescue and repair ship. First off, you're kind of a tug JumpShip, and you have docking collars to spare. Use one for a Model 96 Elephant or Model 97 Octopus to extend that capability, and double as an assault boat to help defend your JumpShip. A Mule with spare parts or even some production facilities aboard (akin to a small orbital factory) can help get a stranded JumpShip repaired for less catastrophic issues. Throw in a passenger ship like a Monarch or a Dove as a hospital ship, or maybe a Leopard CV if you want a bit more defense, and you still have three docking collars available - I'd probably go with a Dove or Leopard CV, since your Star Lord has passenger berths, too. The remaining three docking collars can carry the DropShips from the most common Inner Sphere JumpShip, the Invader.
So, that's the Star Lord. Thoughts, ideas, comments, suggestions?