Compact Core Transport

Type: Civilian Transport
Producer: Various
In class: 600 or more
In service: the first was launched in 2540

Mass: 500,000
Sail Integrity: 4
Thrust: 2/3
Fuel: 4000 tons
Structural Integrity: 40
Armor: 240 tons of standard armor (16+4 each facing)

Docking Collars: 0
Fighters: 0
Small Craft: 20
Crew: 200
Passengers: 0
Lifeboats: 0
Escape Pods: 10
Grav Decks: 1 65 meter
Cargo: 182,005

Bay 1: Small Craft (20) 6 doors
Bay 2: Cargo (182,005) 2 doors

Other equipment
none


Weapons:
Heatsinks: 391

Fore Left/ Fore Right
2 Large Lasers
2 PPCs
4 Autocannon 5s
4 LRM 20s

Aft Left/ Aft Right
2 Large Lasers
2 PPCs
4 Autocannon 5s
4 LRM 20s

Ammo Load
32 tons of AC 5 ammo
64 tons of LRM 20 ammo



Overview:

CCT, or Compact Core Transport, is the common name for a noncombatant ship fitted with a compact KF drive. The first CCTs were military vessels intended to carry the supplies necessary to keep military forces going, however, as technology marched on and the cost of constructing jump drives continued to fall, private companies began to see some value in these massive vessels. Though the cost of these ships was considerable, when compared to the cost of a large standard jumpship, not to mention its attached dropships, the CCT was actually quite a bargain considering its generally greater carrying capacity. In fact, as the cost of jump drives continued to fall during the golden age of the Star League, many began to claim that the old fashioned jumpship would eventually fade into oblivion.

[Editor's Note: Fortunately for the successor states during the succession wars, this was not the case. The compact drive core and transit drive used by the typical CCT are very complex pieces of technology, and the secrets of their manufacture were among the first technologies the great houses lost. Had the jumpship fleets been completely replaced with compact core vessels, it is entirely likely that interstellar travel could have collapsed completely as a result of the succession wars. As it was, the great houses all managed to squander their compact core transports during the course of the wars.]

Unlike a standard jumpship, most CCTs were not designed to transport dropships. Indeed, the very purpose of some CCTs was to eliminate the need for dropships. Instead, the CCT relied on shuttlecraft to transport cargo to the planetary surface. Furthermore, the CCT was capable of system transit, fitted with a propulsion system that gave it a full one G of acceleration capability. This alowed the CCT to sit in near orbit, giving its shuttles the shortest possible transit distance and greatly speeding up unloading.

For self defense, most CCTs had a good assortment of light weapons, able to fend off most dropships with relative ease. The hull was also lightly armored, though against anything but a handful of fighters or a small dropship, this provided very little protection.

Deployment:

Estimates of the number of CCTs in service during the height of the Star League run to somewhere around 600. It is worth noting, however, that only about a third of these were owned by civilian companies. The remainder were owned by the great houses, and many served in a military role as supply ships for the fleets.

It is not currently known how many of these ships have survived to present day. All of the great houses pressed every civilian CCT they could get their hands on into service when the succession wars began, arming them with naval weapons and throwing them into the battlelines as disposable warships, and as a result, none of the CCTs in service with the great houses survived to present day.

[Editor's note: Told ya. Squandered them all in a bid to be top dog.]

Kerensky, however, took several CCTs with him on the Exodus, and this is where things get fuzzy. The clans never kept meticulous records of these ships due to their status as noncombatants. As a result, we cannot be sure how many are still around. It is believed that most clans possess one or two in their merchant castes, however.


Variants:

The most common modification to the CCT was a combat conversion. Because the CCT is for all intents an purposes a warship lacking guns, throughout their nearly three hundred years of service, nations that have found themselves in a desperate need for combat vessels have armed their CCTs with naval weapons. This practice was first begun by the Taurian Concordat and Magistry of Canopus during the Reunification war, and was later used by the Rim Worlds Republic during the Amaris Coup (though Amaris kept his converted transports in Republic territory in order to delay Kerensky's conquest of the Republic), and by all of the Great Houses during the sucession wars. 

On a much smaller scale, several civilian parties, especially well to do pirate bands, have modified CCTs as combat vessels. Though very rarely a match for a real warship, these craft were a bane to shipping throughout the 27th and 28th centuries. The most famous victim of these converted CCTs was the Cameron class battlecruiser Saint Joan, which was destroyed in the year 2674 by an impressive force of six converted transports.



Designer's notes:

Okay, where the heck did I get the crazy idea for civilian ships with compact jump drives? TR2750, page 140, in reference to the destruction of the Cameron class battlecruiser Saint Joan. And I quote: "...while escorting a convoy headed for Placidia, the (Saint Joan) encountered six privateer vessels, destroyer-size transports fitted with weapons and more powerful engines."

Now the rules allow for the building of a "destroyer sized" jumpship, but in no stretch of the imagination will you be able to cram enough weapons and engine power on it to make it an effective combat vessel, not without a compact jump drive. Therefore these pirates had to have not only one, but six ships fitted with compact drives. Either that or they had to be stupid enough to charge a battlecruiser in six conventional jumpships (No, they didn't know the Saint Joan was going to break down when they attacked. They were as surprised as the Saint Joan.). Since I don't tend to think people who could accumulate that many ships are all that stupid...