Marikov Starlifter Dropship

Overview

The starlifter is essentially the epitome of SSC’s military drop ship design. While popular fiction has theorized fanciful concepts of what a dropship should look like Marikov created, tested and built a working design that meets all requirements, and has such a durable design that only a small number have ever been lost by crew error. Of course the Starlifter itself is an odd vessel that operates in a strategic limbo between small craft and the smallest sized theoretical corvettes. That said these vessels serve the important role of being the means to deliver large numbers of ground troops anywhere efficiently and in relative safety. To that end the Starlifter from an external view point is a roughly spheroid shaped vessel. This shape actually serves a major design purpose as the actual working interior is literally contained within a area that is perfectly spherical while the additional outer hull layers distort the vessels overall shape into a sort of squashed sphere. The logic for such an internal design is simple enough; a sphere is the perfect geometric shape for moving larger quantities of something as no other shape can contain more internal volume with so little materials needed for construction. Also a sphere has the property of being able to withstand more damage before a rupture occurs because the force of any given damage is spread across the surface evenly or is reduced by the curvature of just such a hull. Another advantage to the unusual design is that the shape does aid in resisting the usual stresses of a long service life of repeated exits and entries in various sorts of atmospheres. It should be noted that the almost iconic shape of the Starlifter making reentry or running the blockade of enemy interception forces has meant dread for many a foe while it’s unique shape has also been a beacon of hope and morale to allies.

Capabilities

As noted earlier in this document the starlifter is a craft that operates between traditional classes of vessels. While not big enough to be a warship and not small enough to be a small craft its primary role is to deliver troops to the front wherever that might be. The first and most important feature of the starlifter design is its ability to move troops and the necessary cargo to support its passengers. The maximum cargo capacity of these craft is a even thousand tons which is literally enough to supply the crew and passengers for at least a year. Normal cargo amounts are about two hundred tons under normal combat load which ensures sixty days of operations for crew and passengers. The starlifter is best known for its numerous bays, where it is capable of carrying up to thirty fighters, two small craft, twenty-four land-mechs, and up to sixty vehicles. It should be noted that only one squadron of fighters and one of the small craft are ready for use during operations outside of a planet’s atmosphere while the rest are stowed. The large number of troops for a craft of this size effectively makes one Starlifter a threat and a pack of them an invasion force.
Backing up the cargo capacity of the craft are its six primary engines which propel the craft at exceptional speeds. The high speed of the starlifter during combat drops is often augmented by up to six additional outboard ionic engines which are often jettisoned during atmospheric entry. The effect of so much engine power even without the outboard engines is that the starlifter of its own volition can out run most warship threats barring the fastest corvettes and some forms of frigate. For what the vessel cannot outrun, it can certainly give as good as it gets. Starlifters are highly maneuverable, and possess a solid belt of armor as well as a full shield and sensor suite. Furthermore the starlifters tripe-hull design and thick armor belt coupled with its defensive anti fighter armament and primary guns can pose a threat to any unwitting warship captain who does not know any better.
The primary armament for the Starlifter consists of four hemispherical aligned 12mm NCCL energy weapons. The NCCL,s are of note because all of them can be aimed to fire forward at once and, they are all of warship grade construction. This means for any unlucky corvette the fight will not be fair, as it is common practice for Starlifter captains to swarm enemy warship targets during a combat drop operation with particularly demoralizing effects for the enemy.

The installation of warship grade weapons on the Starlifter brings to light the other ways that Marikov bent the rules with the design. Most dropships lack shielding or FTL capability where as the Starlifter has both and it’s shields, primary propulsion and sensor suite are all of warship grade as is the armor type installed. This obvious and blatant supercharging of the design has lead to a non-transport version of this vessel that trades out most of its cargo and bay space for additional weapons tonnage. Typically these vessels are used to escort combat drop operations where true warships are unavailable but also serve as a means to utterly slaughter enemy fighter assets as the up-gunned models can out run most fighters with terrifying ease. As a final note to this file, while starlifters are known for having FTL ability, they often hitch rides on warships to get to the action. This is mostly because the starlifter’s engines are a extremely compact version of those that belong on a warship and thus suffer a higher rate of coil burnouts and malfunctions due to the difficulty in conducting maintenance because of the cramped nature of the propulsion units.

Deployment
The starlifter currently has seen deployment on every combat front as a planetary or supporting element. The most recent engagement was at Port Asur where a number of these vessels were hidden within the cargo containers of a large civilian cargo hauler. The drop ships lay in wait within the ship’s cargo modules until it was close enough to allow the starlifters to launch and commence aggressive boarding actions versus the port. For note the boarding group was a mix of up-gunned and the infantry carrier sub-model.



Artist's Note
The starlifter is heavily influenced by the standard array dropship designs seen in the game Battletech. As per their standard of drawing dropships, that little guy on the lower right is an Archon type mech for scale comparison, in short the starlifter is freaking HUGE comparatively. This style came about as I researched designs for a dropship and found, that most scifi seems to focus more on flash then functioning principle. all that said I hope you all get a kick out of this! Oh and the little outboard engines are the ionic engines noted above in the 'capabilities' section.