Newgrange Type: Yardship Producer: Boeing Interstellar In class: 12 at its height In service: 2690 Mass: 750,000 Sail Integrity: 4 Thrust: 2/3 Fuel: 3000 tons Structural Integrity: 50 Armor: 750 tons of Lamellor Ferro Carbide (125+5 per facing) Docking Collars: 6 Fighters: 54 Small Craft: 10 Crew: 300 Passengers: 1000 Lifeboats: 50 Escape Pods: 50 Grav Decks: 2 250 meter Cargo: 116,091 Bay 1: Small Craft (10) 2 doors Bay 2: Fighters (54) 3 doors Bay 3: Cargo (116,091) 8 doors Bay 4: Unpressurized repair yard (2,000,000 ton capacity) 1 door Other equipment HPG Weapons: Heatsinks: 3880 (enough) Forward 4 Naval Autocannon 10 3 Medium Naval PPCs 2 Barracuda Launchers Fore Left/Fore Right 3 Medium Naval PPCs 2 Barracuda Launchers Left Broadside / Right Broadside 4 Naval Autocannon 10 3 Medium Naval PPCs 2 Barracuda Launchers Aft Left/Aft Right 3 Medium Naval PPCs 2 Barracuda Launchers Aft 4 Naval Autocannon 10 3 Medium Naval PPCs 2 Barracuda Launchers Ammo 100 tons of Naval Autocannon 10 ammo Designer's note: Okay, the explorer corps book dictated that a repair yard took up two bays, of course this was before AT2 came out and messed with how bays work. I wasn't entirely sure how it would work under current rules, so I just put it in one bay. It isn't that much work to change it if needs be. Overview: The Newgrange class repair ship was built for a singularly unique mission of conducting repairs on warships in hostile territory. In numerous instances during the history of the Terran Hegemony and the Star League, warships have found themselves with damage that could not be repaired in the field, and as a consequence had to be abandoned. Though salvage of such ships was possible, it was expensive and time consuming, and most important of all, impossible to do under the guns of an enemy, or even just a greedy friend. These problems were brought to the forefront of every naval officer's mind in late 2682 when the Mckenna class battleship Peter the Great suffered a catastrophic failure of its fusion reactor after an asteroid collision in Combine space. With no way to repair the damage in the field, the crew of the Peter the Great were forced to abandon their ship, being picked up by a Combine Destroyer that was happy to lend assistance and just as happy to claim one of the SLDF's mightiest battleships as legal salvage afterward (The SLDF was able to eventually recover the Peter the Great, but not until after the Combine managed to extort a great deal of compensation from the Hegemony for the ship). After that expensive incident, SLDF admirals decided that a means was needed to prevent such events from happening again. The SLDF therefore began soliciting bids from various shipyards for a mobile repair ship. Boeing Interstellar ultimately won through with its Newgrange class vessel. Capabilities: Though classified as a non-combatant warship, the Newgrange is well armed and protected. The reason for this is that the SLDF fully expected that their new vessle might find itself opperating alone in dangerous territory, and they wanted the ship to be able to handle itself. To this end they equipped the ship with a formidable arsenal of naval weapons, comperable to some frigates opperating at the time. Since the Newgrange cannot manuever while conducting repairs on another ship, the weaponry was evenly distributed to give the ship an excellent field of fire no matter what direction an enemy chose to attack from. Supporting these weapons are bays for a full regiment of aerofighters. Most SLDF admirals considered this large number of fighters to be vastly excessive, however, and it was very rare for a Newgrange to carry a full complement of fightercraft. Seven hundred and fifty tons of advanced lamellor ferro carbide armor provide excellent protection better than some cruisers, which combined with its weaponry makes the ship a tough target. Six docking collars were included in the design to allow the ship to transport several cargo carrying dropships to augment its own 116,000 ton cargo capacity. The ship also has space for a thousand passengers, including the workers needed to repair crippled ships. It has been said that a Newgrange carries enough spare parts and workers to build a new warship on its own, and though this is a falacy, it certainly gets the point across. The Newgrange's most spectacular feature is, of course, its cavernous repair bay. The massive bay can accomodate even the largest warships of the star league era, with the notable exception of another Newgrange. Ironically, though the Newgrange massed only seven hundred and fifty kilotons, it was at the same time the largest ship in the fleet. Deployment: The Newgrange was an expensive craft to build and opperate, and as a result only a dozen of the class was constructed. These were assigned in pairs to each of the member states of the Star League, where they served admirably, though rarely as intended. With the inner sphere largely at peace during the late 27th and early 28th century, there was little use for a so called "combat repair ship", and as a result, the Newgrange and her sisters generally opperated as rescue ships for crippled jumpships (extremely overpriced rescue ships as one burecrat described them). Even in this role the Newgrange was soon mostly supplanted when Mitchell Vehicles launched their first odly named Foundation Franklin class repair ships in 2713, which though only capable of handling small vessles massing no more than four hundred thousand tons, were much more economical for day to day work. This left the Newgrange in something of a state of limbo until the Periphery Uprising and the Amaris Coup. During the long march to Terra, the dozen Newgrange class ships proved essential in keeping the SLDF fleet fighting with so many of their static repair yards lost. They were also essential in operation Bluster, Kerensky's effort to modify Carrack class transports for use as gunboats, which provided a significant boost to the fleet's strength. Unfortunately, Kerensky's lack of naval expertise led to a number of costly blunders during the coup, one of them being the failure to adequately protect his repair ships. By the time the SLDF had made it to Terra, only four Newgrange's were still opperational, and one of these was so badly damaged that it was packed with explosives and rammed into one of the battle stations at Sol's Zenith point, the largest ship sacrificed in that manner during the battle for Terra. Another was destroyed during the run insystem by Caspar drones. The surviving pair of Newgranges, the Cosmos and Crescent City, accompanied the rest of the SLDF on the Exodus. They were decomissioned when the fleet reached the Pentagon cluster, and at least one has survived to present day. Though the clans have in general not felt the need for a repair ship for the last few centuries, recent naval engagements in the inner sphere have convinced each of the Invading Clans that possession of the last known surviving Newgrange, the Cosmos, would be worthwhile. The ship is currently the object of a number of trials of possession from several different clans, including the Jade Falcons, Wolves, Snow Ravens, Ghost Bears, Blood Spirits, Ice Hellions, and Star Adders. The fighting over the Cosmos is so confused right now that there is no real way to say accurately who has possession of the ship, or who will end up with it in the end. Curiously enough, there is no mention of the Crescent City, or her fate, in any of the Clans' records. It is almost as like it went on the exodus and ceased to exist. Variants The only existing variant of the Newgrange (if it can be called that) is Comstar's Faslane class repair ships. Comstar's version certainly reflects the differing naval situation of the Newgrange's era and the Faslane's era. Unlike the Newgrange, the Faslane is wholely unsuited for opperations in hostile territory, with minimal weapons and armor and no integral fighter defense. Even more so than the Newgrange, the smaller Faslane is a noncombatant warship.