AC-347 Knight-class Interceptor
From Star Trek: Theurgy Wiki
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| Name: | Knight-class (Mk I) |
| Model: | AC-347 |
| Starship Type: | Federation Warp Interceptor |
| Production Status: | Mass Produced |
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| Constructed: | Luna Shipyards |
| Commissioned: | January 18th, 2377 |
| Dimensions: |
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| Mass (w. Standard Armament): | 27 300 kg |
| Technical Specifications | Advantages
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| Other Standard-issue Equipment (stored in cockpit) |
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| Design: |
Auctor Lucan |
| 3D Model: |
Kalashnikov 3D |
 
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This was the first iteration of the Knight-class Warp Interceptor. The Knight was designed for fast response, territorial defence. Albeit being at a disadvantage in a prolonged engagement, the Knight was made to strike fast, hard and then regroup for another pass if so necessary. With its heavy phaser cannons and ability to hold auxiliary armament, each pass that these interceptors made would count. They were not deployed alone either, but would attack in large numbers with synchronised strikes. They were, however, not Space Superiority Fighters, like the Valkyries, and were ill equipped for prolonged combat since they had a lesser manoeuvrability.
The Knight-class Interceptors were the kind of defence crafts that were commissioned to Starbase 84, among other starbases or planetary defence fleets in the Federation during the end of the 24th century.
Interceptor Demonstration
Production History
The formation of the Starfleet Astronautical Command is 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 survivability 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 are still being deployed in fairly limited numbers - shuffled around the fleet.
Another development at the time was that 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 reckoned, to ensure that the fleet used the right kind of 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 colour 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 defence 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, synchronised strikes. This, so starships and superiority fighters could get there slightly later but with more weapons and higher manoeuvrability. The Interceptors were first to engage if a territory was compromised, and they held their own by making deadly, quick passes.
Like the AC-409 Mk III Valkyrie's wing-mounted Type U+ Pulse Phaser Cannons, the first and only iteration of the Type I Rawley Heavy Pulse Phaser Cannon was also wing-mounted, and it demanded that the warp drive plasma conduit ran through the primary phaser coupling. Unlike the Type U+, the Rawley cannon had a tendency to overheat at during prolonged engagements, instead made for quick strikes and a mandatory cool-down period between such strikes. The benefit was that its yield was higher than the Mk III's phaser cannons, at the lower firing rate of 3 bolts per second. The Rawley cannons did not have a beam firing option available, but they were mounted as standard armament on the AC-347 Knight-class Interceptor.
External Hard-point Options
The Knight-class Inteceptors could hold up to 2 external hard points, mounted below their nacelles, listed below.
ECM Pod/ECCM Emitter
Counter measures. These were not a hard point options but loaded into the aft of the fuselage as standard. ECM (Electric Counter Measure) was essentially 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.
Torpedo Launchers
Additional, wing-mounted torpedo launchers that can hold 3 photon torpedoes, EMP torpedoes or Quantum Torpedoes in any kind of combination. 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 held 6 torpedoes when the Valkyrie was deployed into battle.
External Micro Torpedo Launchers
Additional, wing-mounted micro torpedo launchers that can hold either 56 Mk II micro photon 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 micro torpedo launchers held 112 additional micro photon torpedoes in total when the Valkyrie was deployed into battle to complement those that the Valkyrie itself already had as standard internal armament.
Mk XXVII Photon Torpedo
Standard photon torpedo ordinance. The 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).
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 would detonate 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 often 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.
Mk Q-II Quantum Torpedo
An improvement of the Mk XXV 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 Hellbore Torpedo
An experimental weapon that grew out of historic tandem-charge armour-penetrating designs. Attempting to achieve similar function from contemporary photon and quantum warheads was pointless; the detonation of the first would obliterate the second too early, and a submunition method was less effective than simply firing two torpedoes. Advances in material science led to a way to produce neutronium in small quantities - fashioned into a penetrator cap and coupled to a small subspace field generator, and driven by a single-burn impulse unit whose size belied its power, the nose of the missile could tear its way through alloys with even the strongest of structural integrity field enhancements, allowing the oversized antimatter warhead in the belly of the torpedo to detonate well inside the defensive screens of its target. Due to the projectile's large size and slower speed compared to the smaller conventional torpedoes, it was ineffective against shielded targets and had to be deployed against unprotected hulls to be useful.
Mk I Hellhound Cluster Bomb
Similar in nature to the photon torpedo, this was a photon torpedo filled with several micro torpedoes. Once the torpedo came 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 correctly, this hard-point had the potential to cause severe damage when scattered upon enemy shields on 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 utilising an ammunition replicator to create 30mm Osmiridum shells. These shells are 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 armours of nearly all types. However it is ineffective against shields, and its projectiles can be easily reflected via standard deflector arrays. The weapon can be placed in a fixed forward position or can be set to automatically track subsonic targets for fire, though it proves to be ineffective at automatically tracking fast moving small targets. It can 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).
3D Demo: Warp Fighter Weapon Systems
M-142 RF Mass Driver Twin Mount Turrets
The M-142 RF Mass Driver Twin Mount is a set of two dual-mass driver semi-automated turrets. These lethal devices are hard-point mounted on the undersides of the impulse drives, and in their default position they face forward. The targeting sensors can track and follow targets in an almost hemispherical firing arc. While the tracking systems are unable to effectively track and hit small agile targets like Shuttles Fighters and small auxiliary craft, it is effective at striking large targets like starships and can 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 is less a conventional gun and in fact holds far more in common with the tubes used to fire torpedoes on a starship, combined with the warp field bubble projectors used on the Knight itself. By interfacing through the ship's power regulation systems the stardrive of the Knight sends the necessary power to create a warp field bubble within the barrels of the weapon. This short lasting warp field forms around a 30 mm Osmiridium shell created via the weapon systems onboard replicator. Now virtually weightless, even near high G environments like outer atmospheres of Gas giants, the shell is 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 allows for a total of 1000 rounds per minute.
Its primary role in combat is not for space superiority (Fighter to fighter) warfare but as a means of aerial or orbital support for ground combatants. It is also quite suitable for pinpoint strikes on starbases or capital ships after their shields have been dealt with. With the correct sensor configurations this weapon can also target via remote detection of tetryon reflection. This allows a ground operative with a tetryon targeting based weapon to be used as a remote targeting system. These pulses can 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 adds a 4th function to the Accipiter as its tetryon pulse systems can 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 armours.
- 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.
- It can be set to fixed forward position.
- Cannons can 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 can be potentially devastating against other fighters if their shields have been taken down, providing the pilot can get a solid lock against their target. At close ranges or in atmosphere it can also be an effective close range dog-fighting weapons system similar to the use of guns on a real life jet fighter.
Disadvantages
- Manoeuvrability is slightly reduced
- These weapons are horribly ineffective against shielded targets.
- The Twin Mounts are rendered completely ineffective if fired in the arc of a ship's deflector array. Attacking the forward of a Starship with them is absolutely useless unless the deflector dish is inoperative.
- If damaged, their can be power loss from the engine systems.
- If severely damaged there can 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 are unable to effectively track agile small targets effectively.
- Twin Mounts have absolutely no ability to target above the fighter's "Horizon,” meaning there is no dorsal arc of fire.
- To be of use in a dog fighting scenario the pilot has to be able to fly very well and be able to 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 had been improved on so heavily that the replicator, power supply, warp bubble generator, and rail gun firing system were able to be 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 Knight-class Interceptors were equipped with ejection modules or "pods". This 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.
The Knight-class Interceptors didn't have an ETS (Emergency Transport System), unlike the Mk III Valkyrie Warp Fighter.
