Class: Atlantica Monitor
Operators: Atlantica Colonial Authority
Manufacturer:

Length: 160 Meters
Width: 80 Meters
Height: 45 Meters

Crew: 40

Propulsion: ULA Mark 15 Fusion Drive x2
Maximum Acceleration: 0.6g

Range:

Sensors:

Armament:

Cargo Capacity:

Support Craft:

In 2320 the New Years Revolution on Hawking saw ISOC's 6th fleet re-tasked with securing a foothold in the Hawking System. This would pull every Statesmen class ship from the Atlantica system, leaving it undefended until additional Statesmen from other systems could be brought into Atlantica. This would emphasize the Atlantica Colonial Authority's need for its own ships to patrol its own space. An existing long running program to construct a ship locally was made a top priority by the colonial government and the design was rapidly brought to completion using existing off the wall components from vendors that were available.

The first of the class would be rapidly produced in mid 2320 and rushed out, with the Atlantica Colonial Authority importing components from Earth and assembling them together with armor and scaffolding assembled in system. The first ship was pushed into service immediately, and and was often returning to port for repairs more often than it was being used for actual paroling.

Despite the problems with the design, the colonial authority is hoping to have the design widely deployed by 2322. For them, widely deployed means having enough, mature, ships to replace ISOC's statesmen class on their patrol routes in system.

Ships of this class are named after Harpooneers from Moby Dick. The first two ships of the class are the Tashtego and Daggoo


Produced

• AUS Tashtego
• AUS Daggoo

In Production

• AUS Queequeg
• AUS Fedallah

The Monitor carries a heavy slab of armor along one side, and weapons/sensors along the other. This allows for the armored side of the ship to be presented toward the enemy during combat while still being able to focus all of its weapon systems against the same threat. The armor is somewhat heavier than the weapon systems, and it makes the ship slightly unbalanced. This is corrected by operating the weapon-side engine at a lower power level so that the forces all even out. Weapon placement, sensors, and the various system integrations are similarly 'incomplete' requiring constant returns for repair and in flight tweaking.

Consolidated into one giant container in the front of the ship is the crew-compartment and launch bay. The top of the cylindrical pressure vessel has a large airlock for launching shuttles, missiles, and drones while the bottom is separately sealed off. This lower area has smaller airlocks that provide access, and houses the crew quarters, CIC, and creature comforts.

Heavy armor plates extend along the side of the ship, providing ample protection against lasers and projectiles from one direction.

Two reactors from the statesmen class ship design are used to power the monitor. This provides a high amount of acceleration, but also quickly burns through the ship's fuel supply. As the ship is only intended to patrol areas near Atlantica, it does not have enough fuel to maintain a chase for very long or to conduct major interplanetary operations.

Though frequently modernized, the statesmen is an older starship design, and lacks the large radiators to operate extremely heat-intensive weapons like large anti-ship lasers. Instead, numerous high-capacity physical weapons are setup around the ship to provide a high amount of redundancy, coverage, and long range bombardment capabilities. In turn this makes the statesmen well suited for the majority of operations conducted by the AU such as close orbit policing and long-range power projection.

For more see: UG-301

For more see: UG-324

Following the New Years Revolution, the local government of Atlantica found itself with a small stockpile of Magnetic Assembly produced equipment. Rather than develop their own life support system or try and procure one from a corporation like Stellar, they would decided to use existing ECLSS Life Support Containerized Component Modules. Each monitor houses two ECLSS Life Support systems, limiting the crew of the ship to 40 and providing nothing in the way of margin for emergency. As the Monitor was designed to always operate near planets, starbases, or other well stocked locations this was determined to not be an issue for the crew.