Ingenium
Factory & Codex
- Intent: To create an armored transport to ferry military forces from sector to sector.
- Canon Link: Not Applicable
- Image Source: Col Price
- Permissions: Not Applicable
- Primary Source: Not Applicable
- Manufacturer: Federal Cooperative - [Built in Hosnian Prime and Raithal]
- Affiliation: Closed-Market - [Any character can use this via marketplace purchase]
- Model: SP-54 Snapper-class Armored Transport, also known as the Big Fish
- Production: Mass Production
- Material:
- Carbonite Coating
- Composite Hull
- Durasteel Blastdoors
- No Interior Paneling
- Transparisteel Viewports
- Faraday Cage Components
- Classification: Armored Transport
- Length:120 meters
- Primary Hull: 28 meters
- Secondary Hull: 92 meters
- Width: 36 meters
- Height: 28 meters
- Armament: None
- Defenses: High
- Carbonite Coating
- Composite Hull
- Deflector Shield
- Missile Deactivation Transmitter - [Warhead Countermeasure]
- Hangar Space: Very High
- Hangar Allocations:
- Starfighters: 1 squadron
- Support Craft: 0 squadrons
- Maneuverability Rating: Average
- Speed Rating: Average
- Hyperdrive: Yes
- Hyperdrive Class: 1.0
- Aft (Fish Body)
- Bow (Fish Head)
- Entire Ship
- Hull Separation — The Snapper-class contains two sections: the body (containing the cargo hold), and head (containing the main bridge and hangar bay) that can separate in space and rejoin in space. Further details in the Description.
- Bow (Fish Head)
- Durability — With it’s composite hull and deflector shields, the Snapper was built sturdy enough to endure some endure direct enemy fire.
- Anti-Missiles — The Snapper was equipped with a short-ranged Missile Deactivation Transmitter which provides the heavy transport the ability to deactivate some of the incoming missiles within a kilometer area.
- Heat-related Stealth — The Carbonite Coating dampens the ship's heat signature, and helps prevents some heat-seeking missiles from being able to track the Snapper.
- Carrier — The Snapper is equipped to carry to carry starfighters as an escort or to operate independently as a makeshift assault carrier.
- Adjustable Storage Space — The dimensions of the cargo hold is 90 meters in length, 34 meters in height, and 26 meters in width. A large amount of room to store vehicles and equipment. Additionally, the walls are fabricated with grooves which allow easy installment and removal of additional floors in the cargo hold, to expand the number of freestanding vehicles it can hold. With this simple feature, the Snapper can increase the number of Tactical Enforcers in its hold from 35 to 210 units, by adding five floors in addition to the ground floor of the cargo hold.
- Hull Separation — When one half of the Snapper gets critically damaged, the other half has the ability to separate.
- EMP Weapons — The Snapper does not have adequate resistance to natural phenomena or weapons that cause electrical disturbances.
- No Firepower — The Snapper was not equipped with any weapon emplacements. It lacks the ability to return fire on enemy targets.
- Escort Required — Because this armored transport lacks firepower, it requires a starfighter escort to safely move through enemy space.
- Hangar Bays — When the Snapper wants to launch its starfighter complement, it needs to open it's mouth, and the only thing separating the exposed flight decks from the vacuum of space are magnetic shields. These magnetic shields allow physical objects like starfighters and support craft to leave the hangar bay, but on the flipside, can also let concussion strikes in once the deflector shields are down.
- One Hyperdrive — Despite the Snapper having the ability to separate into two starships, the aft section, or Body as it's referred to, is not equipped with a hyperdrive system.
- Space Limitation, Hull Separation — When the two sections of the Snapper separate, they can only be rejoin the zero gravity environment of space.
- No Safety Measures, Hull Separation — The separation process can be initiated by either the secondary bridge in the body section or by the primary bridge in the head section. A person seeking to cause trouble could take advantage of this.
In 825 ABY, the leadership at the Federal Cooperative directed a design team on Nubia to work on a new transport. They wanted a new design that could compete as a strategic spacelift, and they wanted the design to break the mold of simple and reliable design, they wanted something more memorable. The design team at Nubia were excited by the opportunity.
Early on they decided they wanted to build a ship that could handle difficult situations. An early scenario that came-up was the idea of a dropship opening its cargo bay doors during atmospheric re-entry. This act could tear some starships apart immediately. So the design team wanted to reinforce the structural integrity of the future ship. They opted out of durasteel and instead chose to use a new composite material. Preliminary test results demonstrated the composite material would provide greater resilience to extreme heat and kinetic attacks than durasteel.
To further increase the operating life of the future ship, the design team would coat the whole thing in Carbonite, to slow down the incremental degradation that results from repeated planet re-entries over a ship’s lifespan.
After hashing out a general vision for what would eventually become the Snapper-class, the design team broke into two, than three teams:
Team A were charged with the designing the hull, and the idea they would come-up with, would be far from “simple and reliable.”
One designer presented a bold vision. The design would include two hull sections: a primary hull which contained the main bridge, and a secondary hull which contained the cargo hold, and the two hulls would be designed to be able to separate and operate independently. This could be used when a Snapper took critical damage on one end, and the other side needed to separate to avoid complete destruction. This bold idea was a pain to get right. The idea went through seventeen iterations until they got the prototype to successfully separate without a hitch. The same designer had another idea -- what if they could re-connect. This cute idea would take an additional thirty-nine iterations - or four years, to make work. But ultimately they were able to get the Snapper to separate, and most importantly, to reconnect.
One problem with the final design, the primary hull, also known as the, the Head, had no armaments, while the secondary hull, referred to as, the Body, had no hyperdrive system. But they had accomplished what they wanted. Each hull could operate independently as a subpar ship.
Team B was charged with the cargo hold and defense systems.
The cargo hold was a simpler matter. The Snapper was designed to load and transport vehicles and equipment from one conflict zone to the next. The cargo hold was designed to accommodate vehicles that weren’t necessarily stored away in neat boxes that could be stacked, so instead grooves were fabricated into the walls of the cargo hold, where additional plates of durasteel could be installed and removed as necessary, to adjust the number of floors in the cargo hold. With this simple feature, the Snapper can increase the number of Tactical Enforcers in its hold from 35 to 210 units, by adding five floors in addition to the ground floor of the cargo hold.
For defense systems, they installed four quad laser cannons on the surface of the cargo hold, one to cover each corner. Above the cargo hold was a floor which housed the backup bridge which also housed the four stations for each quad laser cannon.
Team C emerged from Team A when a group of designers wanted to install a hangar bay in the primary hull. After some debate they were able to convince the rest of the team to get onboard. The roof section can slide up two levels, self-contained behind magnetic shields, to reveal two flight decks where starfighters can launch from. To the chagrin of Team A, they were able to figure this out in three months. Team C would rejoin Team A, and assist them with their task for the duration of the project.
In 830 ABY during a trade show the Federal Cooperative would go on to impress the Republic high command with a concept demonstration of their prototype Snapper. A year later the Federal Cooperative would win a contract to design a new armed transport for the Republic. Technical details of the future Snap-class were refined, until it finally entered into limited-production in 836 ABY.
9-23-2020 - I removed a couple of ingredients from the composite hull.
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