AC-477 Mk I Valravn

Name:	Mk I Valravn-class
Model:	AC-477
Starship Type:	Federation Warp Fighter
Production Status:	Early Prototype Stage
Roles:	Space Superiority Craft Planetary Defence Carrier Based Attack Fast Response Deployment Territorial Threat Interception High-speed Long Range Defence Launch, Strike, Regroup
Constructed:	Luna Shipyards
Commissioned:	February 7th, 2381
Dimensions:	Length: 22,1 m Height: 3,7 m Width: 15,2 m
Mass (w. Standard Armament):	25 950 kg
Technical Specifications	Advantages High Warp, Impulse & Combat Speed High Manoeuvrability Eight Hard-Point Slots Available Disadvantages No Pulse Phaser Cannons (Emitters instead) Early Prototype Model
Standard Crew Complement:	Tactical CONN Pilot (x1) Optional: Rear Intercept Officer (x1)
Warp & Impulse Speeds:	Standard Speed: Warp 6.5 Maximum Speed: Warp 9.4 Maximum Cruise: 0.95 C Combat Speed: 1400 Km/s
Tactical Specs:	(x4) Type VII Phaser Arrays (2 forward & 2 aft) (x2) Mk 27 Micro Torpedo Launchers (24-round 50cm Microtorpedoes each) 8 Hard Point Slots
Defensive Specs:	Gamma 5/D Class 390 Isoton/s Shields Type XIII Deflector 11.1cm Type II Ablative Hull Armor (11.5cm OCP) Class 3 Structural Integrity Field
Engine Specs:	Twin-tandem Quantite Reactor Core LF-9X5 Warp Nacelles Scott-class 6/G Impulse Engine Pulsed Amoena Mk II RCS Thruster Assembly
Other Systems	Type B Bio-Neural Geldisk FTL Computer Core High Data Transfer Speed Nano Sub-processor Auxiliary Core (x1) Long Range Subspace Antennae (x2) Short Range Subspace Antennae (x1) Micro Transporter Cluster (x1) Short-Range Tractor Beam Emitter Standard Environmental System
Sensors	Advanced Tactical Sensor Suite Class 3/Beta Omni-directional Sensors Standard Navigational Sensor Suite High Resolution Sensor Range: 5.2 Ly Low Resolution Sensor Range: 26.2 Ly
Other Standard-issue Equipment (stored in cockpit)	Type III Phaser Assault Rifle Rations (14 days) Power cells (for the pilot's exosuit's hand phaser as well as the rifle stored in the cockpit)

This was the first iteration of the Valravn-class Warp Fighter. With origins in the Interceptor Program, this fighter was designed to make the interceptor role in Starfleet obsolete. This, because it was the perfect combination between an space superiority fighter and a fast response interceptor. The Valravn were capable of fast response, territorial defense, but also prolonged engagements. They could strike fast, hard and then regroup for another pass if so necessary, and like traditional space superiority fighters - like the Valkyries - their high maneuverability could also hold their own in a dogfight.

The Valravn-class Warp Fighters were the kind of crafts that were commissioned to USS Orcus, and the 20 crafts were the only ones assembled.

Fighter Demonstration

Production History

The formation of Starfleet Aerospace Command was heavily influenced by the successful deployment of Peregrine-class fighters aboard the starships serving as carriers in the fleet. The year 2375 - after the conclusion of the Dominion War - the AC-205 Mk I Valkyries were deployed. These fighters were assigned to the USS Typhon (TNG game: Star Trek: Invasion). They were initially designed as a carrier-based fleet engagement craft. Initially, the design proved successful, with a high survival rate matching the heavy fire power available to bring down larger ships. In learning that a full squadron of Valkyries would still require a lot of support from for engagements of a Dominion-War level threat, Starfleet deemed that the attack fighter needed an upgrade. By 2381, these fighters were still being deployed in fairly limited numbers - shuffled around the fleet.

Another development at the time was a group of influential admirals in the fleet demanded to form a new department that hand-picked the Conn officers with the most tactical training. It was the only way, they assumed, to ensure the fleet used the correct pilots for these fighters. The original score of 400 personnel - the fleets new Tactical CONN officers - served as the foundation for a new and more organised department for fighter pilots. They accepted only the highest scoring Conn or fight-trained Security or Tactical Cadets, and then dealt them another year of training in the fields they lacked from their Academy training. White became the chosen color for the department, and the admirals that rode this project into history became the core of the Aerospace Command.

While the Valkyrie program - mainly under Rennan Cooper's direction - was a success, there was a competing development program led by the Advanced Starship Design Bureau which focused on territorial defense and the interception deployment of small crafts. It was the Interceptor Program led by Lieutenant Commander James Knight. While the Valkyries held a Space Superiority Role and served their purpose in prolonged engagements, the the line of warp interceptors were built for speed and carried somewhat less ordnance. Their role was to get somewhere quickly and tie up the enemy ships in large numbers and hard, synchronized strikes. This was so starships and superiority fighters could get there slightly later but with more weapons and higher maneuverability. The Interceptors were first to engage if a territory was compromised, and they held their own by making deadly, quick passes.

The Knight-class Interceptors entered mass production in 2377, and since then, Director James Knight began working on a new project. Seeing the versatility of Rennan Cooper's Valkyrie Program, Knight knew that the interceptor concept would not stand the test of time. Instead, he opted for another solution, and that was to take the strengths of his interceptors and bestow them upon a space superiority fighter. He wanted to make a fighter that had the speed and fast intercept functionality as well as the maneuverability and weapon options to function in prolonged combat.

The trick was to find the right kind of fuselage solution, and after going through several testing platforms, Knight was able to fit the kind of warp nacelles required for the velocities he wanted the new craft to have, and give it a wide wing-span. The wings were not only important for stable atmospheric flight, but to grant additional hard-point slots. In the end, he added the armament rig for the micro torpedo launchers, which extended from the bottom of the nacelles and into two launchers in front of the cockpit. The launchers were fed with torpedoes through the arms, which allowed for a high number of torpedoes and a fast loading mechanism.

The only fighters that held dedicated Type VIII phaser emitters were these fighters, and those modified emitters were prototype technology as of 2381s. On these fighters, the warp drive plasma conduit ran through the primary phaser coupling to double the power of the beams. It is as of yet unknown how the emitters would last in a prolonged engagement.

The first 20 fighters were commissioned to the USS Orcus for field testing, denominated the White Wolves Squadron. As for the name of the fighters, Knight decided to give a nod to the Valkyrie Program by naming them Valravn, which some would think would be a snide thing to do, but it was truly given in honor of Rennan Cooper's work, which had made the Valravn possible. Without the Valkyrie Program, Knight's new fighters would never have seen the light of day.

External Hard-point Options

The Valravn-class Warp Fighters could hold up to eight external hard points, mounted below their wings and the micro torpedo launcher arms. The avaialbel hard-points are listed below.

ECM Pod/ECCM Emitter

Counter measures. ECM (Electric Counter Measure) was essentially is a micro torpedo full of shrapnel and debris with the given craft's transponder signature and sensor reading. It confused the enemy ordinance and caused it to think the cloud of debris was the target. ECCM (Electric Chemical Counter Measure) created a wake similar to a warp, impulse, or thruster engine's wake, fooling such a guided missile into a false lock.

Additional Torpedo Launchers

Additional torpedo launcher that could hold either 5 Mk XXVII photon torpedoes or 15 micro torpedoes. It was recommended to mount two of these in order to balance the fighter properly. This meant that the hard-point option of additional torpedo launchers either held 10 additional photon torpedoes in total when the valravn was deployed into battle, or 30 additional mirco-torpedoes.

Mk XXVII Photon Torpedo

Standard photon torpedo ordinance. Explosion was a matter-antimatter reaction producing large amounts of gamma waves as its primary means of destruction. While smaller in size, and harder to target mid-flight, each torpedo had the approximate yield of 70% compared to the Mk IV (the kind that Federation starships launched from their torpedo bays). This torpedo was deployed in the wing-mounted additional torpedo launchers (see above).

Mk Q-IV Quantum Torpedo

An improvement of the Mk XXVII photon torpedo with a higher yield, comparable to that of photon torpedo mounted on Federation Starships. This was a tactical quantum weapon, that utilized a plasma warhead and casings similar in shape to photon torpedoes. The explosion left an antimatter residue and although they were powerful weapons, even a direct hit from a quantum torpedo might not destroy neutronium alloyed targets.

Mk I Hellborne Torpedo

Photon torpedo type weapon that resulted in a nuclear fission reaction, named for its use of standard nuclear radioactive bomb materials (Uranium, Plutonium etc.) The nuclear bomb detonated and this compressed hydrogen into helium creating a fusion reaction. Within the hydrogen core was a core of neutronium which the fusion reaction detonated. This detonation was equivalent three photon torpedo that detonated only a few moments after it contacted its target rather than detonating near the target, because of the penetrate-and-detonate-package in its casing. This weapon was highly ineffective against targets with fully powered shields. Against heavily armored targets without any shielding left, this was often the only viable option that would punch through the heavy armor. The pilot could disable the penetrative package from the fighter to make one behave like a standard Tri-Nuclear Torpedo.

EMP Torpedo

Created the electromagnetic pulse similar to what was created from the high atmosphere detonation of a nuclear warhead. A well-shielded craft would withstand this easily but the weapon detonated in a burst of broadband, high-intensity electromagnetic energy, capable of disrupting magnetic fields and producing current or voltage surges in conductive materials via magnetic induction. Indirect damage to enemy hardware proved substantial, and while it had a greater chance of disabling a small craft, the plasma surges could wound or kill soft targets if they were directly exposed.

Hell-Hound Cluster Bomb

Similar to the nature of a photon torpedo. Essentially, this was a photon torpedo filled with several micro torpedoes. Once the torpedo comes in contact with an enemy or a surface, it detonated and fragmented into smaller torpedoes, which spread from the point of impact, also exploding on impact, resulting in a large pattern of torpedo detonations. Deployed right, this hard-point could cause severe damage when scattered upon enemy shield impact. The torpedo snapped open by spring-force, and both the arming and the fuse was pilot-controlled by either manual or automatic settings. It could be armed prior to discharge or scattered by manual command.

Twin Mount Turrets

Twin Dual Cannon guns utilizing an ammunition replicator to create 30mm Osmiridum shells. These shells were suspended in a small warp field bubble to render them nearly weightless before being electromagnetically propelled at a speed near mach 15 with a rate of up to 1000 rounds per minute assuming all 4 cannons are being fired. Devastating against soft targets as well as being effective against armors of nearly all types. However, it was ineffective against shields, and its projectiles could be easily reflected via standard deflector arrays. The weapon could be placed in a fixed forward position or could be set to automatically track subsonic targets for fire, though it proved to be ineffective at automatically tracking fast moving small targets. It could hit large targets moving at high speeds but not with the same precision as expected with slow or fixed targets. Designed for aerial and suborbital assault on non-shielded Terrestrial targets, deep space strikes against bases, and aerial support of ground operations (see below for more information).

M-142 RF Mass Driver Twin Mount Turrets

The M-142 RF Mass Driver Twin Mount was a set of two dual-mass driver semi-automated turrets. These lethal devices were hard-point mounted on the undersides of the Valravn's micro torpedo launcher arms, and in their default position they faced forward. The targeting sensors could track and follow targets in an almost hemispherical firing arc. While the tracking systems were unable to effectively track and hit small agile targets like Shuttles Fighters and small auxiliary craft, it was effective at striking large targets like starships and could strike with pinpoint accuracy on Stationary or slow moving targets such as Starbases, ground installations, or subsonic moving targets such as ground transports.

The nature of the weapon was less a conventional gun and, in fact, held far more in common with the tubes used to fire torpedoes on a starship, combined with the warp field bubble projectors used on the Valravn itself. By interfacing through the ship's power regulation systems the stardrive of the Valravn sent the necessary power to create a warp field bubble within the barrels of the weapon. This short lasting warp field formed around a 30 mm Osmiridium shell created via the weapon system's onboard replicator. Virtually weightless, even near high G environments like outer atmospheres of Gas giants, the shell was pushed through a magnetic field coil, reaching speeds of Mach 15. Capable of a rate of fire of 250 Rounds per minute per barrel (a little over 4 rounds per second), with all barrels firing this allowed for a total of 1000 rounds per minute.

Its primary role in combat was not for space superiority (fighter to fighter) warfare but as a means of aerial or orbital support for ground combatants. It was also quite suitable for pinpoint strikes on starbases or capital ships after their shields had been dealt with. With the correct sensor configurations this weapon could also target via remote detection of tetryon reflection. This allowed a ground operative with a tetryon targeting based weapon to be used as a remote targeting system. These pulses could then be interpreted as a target by the turrets systems allowing for ground units to effectively paint targets via tetryon pulse for a precision aerial strike. This added a 4th function to the Accipiter as its tetryon pulse systems could be used as a targeting system for the Twin mounts or any of the Valkyries other weapons systems.

Advantages

• Excellent at providing air support for ground operations.
• High rate of fire.
• Effective against conventional, energy reflecting, or ablative armors.
• Devastatingly effective against soft targets.
• Large targeting arc (360 degree rotational arc covering Forward, Aft, Port and Starboard) with 15 to 66 degree ventral targeting arc.
• Could be set to fixed forward position.
• Cannons could be set to staggered bursts (4 barrels each fire in a sequence one at a time in a burst of fire) or in a 4 cannon Blast (all 4 fire at once in a single blast)
• When in forward position it could be potentially devastating against other fighters if their shields had been taken down, providing the pilot could get a solid lock against their target. At close ranges or in atmosphere it could also be an effective close range dog-fighting weapons system similar to the use of guns on a real life jet fighter.

Disadvantages

• Maneuverability was slightly reduced
• These weapons were horribly ineffective against shielded targets.
• The Twin Mounts were rendered completely ineffective if fired in the arc of a ship's deflector array. Attacking the forward of a Starship with them was absolutely useless unless the deflector dish was inoperative.
• If damaged, there could be power loss from the engine systems.
• If severely damaged, there could be small scale localized warp core breach-like effects. Potentially sufficient to cause catastrophic failure of Impulse and stardrive systems up to and including a full scale warp core breech.
• The auto targeting systems were unable to effectively track agile small targets effectively.
• Twin Mounts had absolutely no ability to target above the fighter's "Horizon,” meaning there was no dorsal arc of fire.
• To be of use in a dog fighting scenario, the pilot had to be able to fly very well and get a manual target lock without any aiming corrections like with phasers or torpedoes.

Note

In the future that brought the Calamity-project to life, this system was improved on so heavily that the replicator, power supply, warp bubble generator, and rail gun firing system were scaled down into a large rifle. The culmination of this research and progress was the RG-M1506 PT-10 Accipiter. The Accipiter used a rail gun operation while the Twin Mount's propulsion was a gauss gun based system.

Ejection Systems

Escape Pod

All Valravn-class Warp Fighters were equipped with ejection modules or "pods". These allowed for rapid emergency egress from the vehicle in case of danger. Linked to dedicated high speed processors, automatic sensors could detect certain types of danger and initiate an eject sequence automatically. This was especially useful if the pilot had been rendered unconscious through a blackout or other injury and the vehicle was in danger of crashing.

Modules had self-righting mechanisms in their base to assure a correct orientation during landing. Landing was accomplished by a single use anti-grav module. Free falling until they were 3 meters from the ground, the ejection seat/pod activated the AG module, which burned out as it landed the unit (relatively) gently. The pod remained pressurized with approximately 20 minutes of air, allowing a pilot time to completely seal his suit and activate his personal survival equipment. Once ready, the pilot had the option of discarding the pod by activating a manual release.

ETS (Emergency Transport System)

By the late 24th century, emergency transport was further improved through Starfleet's development of a single-person, single-use, one-way emergency transport unit. The device was small enough to be hand-held and could transport to specified coordinates with a single touch. Because of its extreme limitations, this device was not widely deployed and was still considered a prototype in 2379 (see Star Trek: Nemesis).

The Valravn had built-in Emergency Transport Systems (ETS) in the cockpit - not the small prototype version - designated to the pilot and worn gear alone, with a one-way pre-set location for the USS Theurgy. The Emergency transporter could be reprogrammed to send the pilot to a new location (chosen by the pilot) because of the possibility of long-range missions, but this system was best utilized in the event of defending the Theurgy - being within Transporter range.