Guide:Small Craft

Small Craft

Being assigned to a vessel belonging to ‘the lower tier of sub-starship vehicles’ sounds distinctly unappealing – yet craft in this category are actually coveted assignments in Starfleet, both as stepping stones towards command duties aboard larger vessels, and in offering the thrill of independent command without delay. The small craft in Starfleet service aren’t primarily intended for training duty, however, since modern simulator systems offer a much more versatile and economical training tool. Instead, the craft perform hard work in specific applications the larger vessels either cannot handle, or can only handle at needlessly high operating expenses.

Few of the craft are multipurpose machines; rather, they seek optimum performance via unique engineering solutions. It is thus often easy to recognize the type and mission of such a craft with a glance. This in mind, the entries in this chapter only give sporadic examples of craft in any given mission category, often concentrating on a single groundbreaking design. The reader should understand that other craft classes in the category have been in use in other time periods, and can be assumed to have generally similar appearances and characteristics. Since the active lifetime of a small craft design is typically a fraction of that offered by a larger vessel, there are likely to be dozens of small craft classes per century and mission class, rather than just a handful. On the other hand, a small craft design may still see a century of use, even when it no longer represents the state of the art.

Scoutcraft
The scouting mission, among the least specific in Starfleet, nevertheless often calls for special gear. Gathering of military intelligence may prove impossible unless extreme stealth is used, commonly dictating small profile for the reconnaissance craft. Certain military targets may still carry the risk of near-certain exposure and destruction, in which case smallest possible craft should be expended. Targets of scientific interest may place size limitations on reconnaissance craft as well, in terms of access or the amount of disturbance the presence of the scouting unit creates.

Although often sporting Fleet registries (possibly with O or I prefix) and performing independent instead of auxiliary missions, few of the craft at the lowest range of the scouting arsenal officially meet the classic criteria of starships. Armaments may be omitted altogether, as combat endurance cannot be built into the small spaceframes no matter what. Main onboard equipment consists of numerous sensors and recording devices, optimized for the mission. Online analysis systems are kept to a minimum, and skeleton crews of two to five typically fly the missions.

There is little need for crew comforts due to the low overall endurance. After all, scoutcraft do not use their speed to combat the vast distances of interstellar space. Instead, they face far more concrete opponents of battle, such as spaceborne defenses around hostile worlds or mortally dangerous radiation belts in areas of scientific interest.

Aerodynamic hull shapes and landing capacity are a must for most scoutcraft. Where even the scouts dare not go, an arsenal of probes can be sown from onboard dispensers. The crew is seldom risked on planetary forays, and transporters are reserved mainly for boarding and emergency use instead of away team deployment.

Couriers
Although courier services across interstellar ranges call for high speed and thus generally for large engines, the volume and mass of items to be carried is often low. This contradiction has prompted several cultures to develop specialized small craft that feature grossly oversized engines, often in a detachable warp sled configuration. Small size provides some obvious tactical and practical advantages, and some disadvantages. To simplify slightly, small couriercraft are the most useful in areas of the very highest or the very lowest risk: they can run the gauntlet of an alert enemy by their inherent stealthiness and unobtrusiveness, and are cheap to operate – yet when caught, are helpless to defend themselves.

Some couriercraft operate without the need for warp sleds, since there still remains a need for couriering across relatively short distances, and at the lowest possible cost. Propulsive advantages that would make small craft truly practical at longer ranges remain beyond the horizon, though.

Prospectors
Prospecting of resources has always been a prime motivator for interstellar flight. Governments mount resource-hunting missions for purposes of expansion, or in order to deny the resources from competing governments. Private enterprises seek to obtain resources to sell to their governments or in the open markets. Individual prospectors in turn offer their services to governments and enterprises alike. Our galaxy is full of star systems that have no habitable planets or other obvious targets of strategic interest; often, only the private prospector is ready to take the risks of checking out these uninteresting targets for possible hidden treasures.

Typical prospector vessels cater for the private enterprise or the individual risk-taker. They are high endurance modifications of small commercial or military designs, carrying specialized sensors pre-tuned to the signature of the coveted resource type. They usually require and support minimal crews only. Two primary types exist: landing-capable vessels with inboard warp engines, or larger vessels carrying surface-to-orbit auxiliaries. In any case, direct access to planetary surfaces is a necessary part of prospecting operations. On occasion, Starfleet has taken an active role in developing and fielding vessels of these types, in order to secure strategically vital resources like dilithium or topaline.

Fighters
Manned spatial fightercraft are rooted deep in UFP history, beginning with their introduction to the internal conflicts of Vulcans some 2,500 years ago. Even after adopting a less bellicose lifestyle, Vulcans have maintained a strong tradition of using tiny craft with just three or four crew for demanding missions of defense, reconnaissance and, when necessary, offensive action. However, it takes Vulcan discipline to successfully operate such craft on extended missions. Humans have tended to favor simpler craft of very limited mission duration, range and utility. Andorians believe in strength in numbers, and this applies to crew size as well; Tellarites abhor the idea of building simplistic minimum-cost craft when proper large combatants could be constructed instead. Yet many UFP opponents have used fightercraft with vehemence and skill, capitalizing on the low acquisition price, low observability, high maneuverability and the never to be underestimated glory of “single combat”.

Until the 2210s, fighters launched from starbases or dedicated carriers were an important anti-ship weapon on par with capital ship main guns. Transatmospheric designs were available even to the most primitive cultures, and could inflict considerable havoc if left unchecked. A warp-capable escort fighter could in turn be the only thing standing between destruction and escape for a mercantile convoy. For the past 150 years, however, the role of fightercraft has steered more and more towards independent defensive operations. Evolving technology has greatly reduced the effectiveness of fighter weaponry against capital ships or fortified fixed targets, yet boosted the performance of fighter propulsive systems and shielding. As a result, modern fighters principally serve as interceptors that are deployed in small numbers from austere forward bases or multipurpose starships, rather than operating en masse from dedicated support assets.

In times of intense conflict, modern interceptors can still take on a more aggressive role, providing saturation fire against large ships and ground installations, as well as preventing the enemy from responding in kind. Offensive use of interceptors places the pilots in considerable jeopardy, though, and is therefore a doctrine reserved only for dire military emergencies.

Typical fighter designs of all eras feature massive engines (be they warp, impulse or sub-impulse) and basic utilities for planetary operations (aerodynamic surfaces, gravitics, landing gear) combined with a small yet well protected cockpit and a selection of both onboard energy weapons and hardpoint-mounted missile weapons. Endurance is traditionally extremely limited, yet a niche has also always existed for craft that can perform interstellar journeys if required.

Runabouts
The smallest warp-capable Starfleet type -save for shuttlecraft- is the runabout, essentially an overgrown shuttle with increased independent operations capacity. Less volume is sacrificed to engines relatively than in the faster couriercraft or the more heavily armed fightercraft, and the runabouts feature a very balanced overall equipment fit. In addition to warp engines of medium performance, the craft in their modern incarnation carry moderate phaser armament, tractor beams, transporters, short and medium range sensors and various buoys and microprobes. The main operational realm for these craft is as starbase and outpost liaison vessels, especially in remote locations where distances are too great for simple medium shuttlecraft.

Apart from running errands for starbases, the craft can perform short-duration patrol and SAR missions in the local space. They require minimal maintenance, getting along just fine with a simple dirtside workbench and a low-power antimatter generator if starbase facilities are not available. A typical Class I-III starbase might house 1-6 runabouts, or a combination of runabouts and one or two heavier craft, like corvettes or couriers. Larger starbases may permanently support true starships for local use, but runabouts are likely to always be present as well.

Runabout-like craft have sometimes also been called cutters or gigs, or classified as heavy shuttlecraft, but only old starbase deckhands are likely to be able to follow through the convoluted logic of these designations. It is sufficient to know never to refer to a Starfleet runabout as a ‘yacht’ within earshot of a Starfleet officer or crewman, as this designation is solely reserved for pleasure craft of essentially similar characteristics.

The Craft

Updated to December 2016 version

Guide:Small Craft

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Small Craft

The Craft

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The Craft

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