Omega Mods for Knight Hawks 2000
SYSTEMS
Subspace radios are called warpdrive transceivers.
Subspace radars are called warpdrive lidar systems or, simply lidar.
WEAPONS
Listed below are the common starship weapons of the 22d century.
160 TJ Laser Cannon(HLC): These weapons are the ship-mounted versions of planetary laser cannon. They have a range of 1,800,000 kilometers(30,000,000 hexes), fire once per turn and inflict 4,000 points maximum structural damage(400D10 structural points damage).
40 TJ Laser Cannon(MLC): These smaller cannon are the most common weapons for scoutcraft, with a range of 1,800,000 kilometers(30,000,000 hexes), firing once per turn, and inflicting 800 points(80D10)of maximum structural damage.
5TJ Laser Cannon(LLC): These cannon are common warpfighter and vehicle-mounted weapons. They have a range of 1,800,000 kilometers(30,000,000 hexes), firing twice per turn, inflicting 400 points(40D10)of maximum structural damage per pulse which hits.
Each pulse is a separate to-hit roll.
500GJ Autolaser(AL): Called heavy lasers by AD/Zeb's, these are common secondary warpfighter and vehicle-mounted weapons. In space, they have a range of 1,800,000 kilometers(30,000,000 hexes), firing fifteen times per turn, inflicting 200 points(20D10)of maximum structural damage per pulse which hits.
Each pulse is a separate to-hit roll.
Medium Laser Battery(MLB): This is a turreted medium laser cannon; the turreted mounting allows it to fire into any arc.
Light Laser Battery(LLB): This is a turreted quad mount of light laser cannon; the turreted mounting allows it to fire into any arc.
Heavy Electron/Proton Cannon(HEC/HPC): A heavy weapon which fires either a beam of protons or a beam of electrons at a target. It has a range of 1,800,000 kilometers(30,000,000 hexes), firing once per turn and inflicting 3,000 points(30D10) of maximum structural damage.
Electron/Proton Cannon(EC/PC): A lighter proton weapon which is mounted aboard fightercraft. It has a range of 1,800,000 kilometers(30,000,000 hexes), firing once per turn, inflicting 200 points(20D10) of maximum structural damage.
Electron/Proton Battery(EB/PB): A turreted proton/electron cannon, able to fire once per turn into any arc.
Massdriver Cannon(MDC): A projectile weapon using a powerful magnetic field to propel solid metallic slugs into space at relativistic velocities(about 20 % of the speed of light). It has a range of 360,000 kilometers(6,000,000 hexes), firing twice per turn and inflicting 600 points(60D10)of maximum structural damage.
Heavy Massdriver Battery(HMDB): A turreted pair of medium-sized massdriver cannon, the heavy massdriver battery can fire into any arc, has a range of 360,000 kilometers(6,000,000 hexes), firing four times per turn and inflicting 400 points(40D10) of maximum structural damage.
Massdriver Battery(MDB): A turreted set of four small massdriver cannon, the massdriver battery can fire into any arc, has a range of 360,000 kilometers(6,000,000 hexes), firing eight times per turn and inflicting 200 points(20D10) of maximum structural damage.
Seeker Missiles(SM): Small guided missiles with a Level 3 robot brain, passive and active sensors, a plasma engine, and a one-kiloton antimatter warhead. These are dropped from hardpoints or internal bays, the onboard robot brain using its Missile Guidance(Level 3) program to seek out enemy targets and its Level 3 Vehicular Combat(Starship) program to evade interceptors(q.v.) .
A seeker missile has an ADF and MR of 30, and its plasma engine has enough fuel for ten turns' of acceleration, after which it automatically detonates.
Alternatively, a seeker can be dropped off and programmed to keep station, waiting until an enemy crosses its path, at which point it accelerates towards it.
A seeker missile does 460 points(46D10)of maximum structural damage, and a ship can launch a number of seekers equal to the amount of missiles on board per turn.
Missile Battery(MB): A missile battery is a four-tubed launcher firing smaller seeking micromissiles(see below) which otherwise act as seeker missiles. It fires at a rate of four salvos per turn, each missile having enough fuel to accelerate at ADF 30 for six turns before detonating.
Each salvo does 400 points(40D10) of maximum structural damage.
Torpedos(TT): A torpedo is twice as large as a regular seeker missile, with a Level 6 robot brain guiding its actions(with Missile Guidance and Vehicular Combat(Starship) programs at Level 6) and a one-megaton antimatter warhead doing 1000 points(100D10) of maximum structural damage. Its plasma engine has enough fuel to accelerate at ADF 30 for twenty turns before automatically detonating.
It otherwise acts like a seeker missile.
Micromissiles(MM): These are the missiles from the missile battery, carried externally and used by fighters and bombers for air-to-air(or space-to-space)combat.
In all respects micromissiles act like missile battery salvos; cost and volume are for four micromissiles.
Laser Pod(LP): The laser pod is a pair of five-terajoule laser cannon in a gunpod, designed to give warpfighters much-needed punch. It has the range and damage of a regular light laser cannon.
Drone Fighters(DF): These are remotely-piloted fightercraft with a Level 6 robot brain and a full array of Astrogation, Gunnery and Starship Pilot programs, all at Level 6 as well.
Armed with the standard array of fightercraft weapons, drone fighters inflict 400 points(40D10) of maximum structural damage per turn, making up to four attacks per turn.
Multi-Missile Drones(MMD): Seen on destroyer and dreadnaught-class starships, multi-missile drones are robotically-piloted bombers(with the same robot brain and programming as the drone fighter, above) armed with either 230 torpedos or 460 seeker missiles on board.
Assuming it releases its entire payload in one turn, a multi-missile drone can inflict 6900 points(690D10)of maximum structural damage per turn.
Grav Beam: Grav beam projectors project a short-range(120 meter)grav beam which otherwise acts as a set of grapples, using the canon Knight Hawks rules for grappling, save for the fact that a ship caught in a grav beam can make a successful Starship Pilot roll to escape the grav beam or use the same chance for grappling to sever the grav beam with the ship's own.
Ships caught in a grav beam can be pulled towards the grappling ship at a rate of one hex per turn.
Grav beams can also be used defensively to augment the ship's grav shielding, subtracting 25% from any incoming attack's chance to hit.
A grav beam used defensively cannot be used for grappling in the same turn and vice-versa.
Mines(M): Mines are antimatter warheads which can be emplaced in a volume of space by a ship equipped for minelaying. Mines are proximity-fused, with passive sensors which detect magnetic flux, heat and radiation(such as the heat and radiation pulse made when the density of local spacetime is changed by a drivefield intersecting it)and detonate.
Each mine does 1000 points(100D10)maximum structural damage per turn, and a ship can lay a number of mines per turn equal to its maximum load, for a maximum of 10 mines per hex.
SHIP's VEHICLES
If a ship is carrying space vehicles, it can launch them as an attack as well.
Starting Speed:Vehicles(and missiles) launched from a ship begin the game with the same speed as the platform which launched them.
Remote Piloting: Missiles and drones launched from a ship can be remotely piloted from the ship. The remote pilot uses his Vehicles: Remote or Gunner: Missiles skill and half of the missile/drone's robot brain's Vehicular Combat(Starship) skill to guide the missile/drone to its target.
DEFENSIVE SYSTEMS
Auto-Laser Quad Battery(ALQB): Four autolasers mounted in a robotically-controlled turret, designed for point-defense against missiles and fighters. Each ALQB fired in a turn subtracts 25% from any incoming missile's chance to hit.
Anti-Beam Missiles(ABM): Similar in structure to an ICM, an anti-beam missile has a warhead of water(which turns to ice vapor in space) and strips of gold foil which blanket an entire hex upon detonating, thus providing a defense against both laser and particle-beam weapons.
ABMs are launched in salvos of four, blanketing four hexes in a line up to sixty hexes(3,600 meters) away from the ship launching them, each salvo subtracting 25% from the chance to hit for each beam weapon which passes through the cloud it creates, the beam's damage being reduced by 25% even if it passes through the cloud successfully.
An ABM has an ADF and MR of 60, with an endurance of one turn, after which it detonates.
Grav Shielding(GS): Grav shielding generates a skin-tight field of artificial gravity around starships HS 2 or larger, deflecting beams and missiles away from the ship.
Grav shielding subtracts 50% from a missile or beam weapon's chance to hit, halving the damage of any beam or missile which hits.
Starships use warp engines to travel both interplanetary and interstellar distances.
A warp engine consists of two parts:
Antimatter Pion Drive
The antimatter pion drive annhilates matter and antimatter to generate power and thrust. Hydrogen is continously accelerated iinside the acceleration chamber at relativistic speeds, the acclerator benifiting from superconducting materials to generate anti-hydrogen from hydrogen more cheaply, quickly and efficently than was previously possible.
The hydrogen and anti-hydrogen are then annhilated upon anti-hydrogen creation inside the annhilation chamber, with a combination of thermopiles and gamma-particle collectors— fiber-optic filaments of lead crystal doped with lathanide filaments which convert the gamma particle's energy into usuable electricity—with the resulting pions being directed by the engine's gravitic containment coils through the exhaust chamber, where they are then expelled to provide thrust.
The Drivefield Generator
The generator is a powerful grav generator—driven by the antimatter reaction—which energizes lathanide thermopiles embedded into the skin of the ship to create a field which warps spacetime around a ship, creating a pocket continuum where the ship's relativistic mass is reduced to and maintained at zero, at the same time the engine is generating thrust, creating imaginary relativistic mass, allowing for faster-than-light travel.
When the generator goes online, the ship disappears in a pulse of heat and radiation—harmless in space, but making for a pretty light show*—the alternate spacetime created by the drivefield being called drivespace, subpsace, or more commonly, the redundant term warpdrive.
The largest warp engines manufactured generate 7.5 million terawatts(TW)of power per second(or terajoules), with 99% of the power generated going to thrust and the creation of the drivefield, the remaining one percent going to power the ship's energy weapons and other systems.
Warp Travel
Time-Dialation & Warpdrive
A ship in warpdrive expiriences time-dialation, roughly fifteen seconds passing in warpdrive for each day in normal space.
All ships in warpdrive travel at different rates, depending on how much power the warp engine is capable of generating and how big the ship is.
The equation in question is:
vt=
vt=Warp speed in light-years per day.
mi=Imaginary mass generated by the thrust from a warp engine's antimatter pion drive, equal to accleration in gravities(ADF) times 100 tons.
kB = Bergenholm constant, equal to 62.5 tons/light-years per day(an SI unit of measurement also known as a Bergenholm, abbreviated Bg).
Hazards Of Warp Travel
The drivefield still interacts with normal space, meaning that solid objects of sufficient density impacting with the outside or the inside of the drivefield interface(including another drivefield) can disrupt the drivefield and completely destroy the ship.
This allows for the mining of known interstellar routes or entire stellar systems, a tactic shunned by the Commonwealth as a hazard to navigation, and employed widely by the Terranovans, who deploy System-Wide Mine Fields(SWMFs) to deny access to entire star systems.
The mines in question have proximity fuses which detonate upon detection of the heat and radiation pulse resulting from ships in warpdrive changing the density of local space-time as their drivefields interact with normal space. Starships can use their cams detect the mines in time to emerge safely from warpdrive, leaving them vunerable to ambush.
It also means that a starship cannot use its weapons, warpdrive transceiver or warpdrive lidar system while in warpdrive, since solid objects or other drivefields striking the inside of the drivefield interface will destroy the ship.
When a starship emerges from warpdrive, it will retain the velocity it had when it entered warpdrive, requiring the ship to decelerate upon returning to normal space if it wishes to dock or make planetfall.
*In atmosphere, the heat and radiation pulse from a warpdrive event is devastating, causing (HS×750)points of damage to everything within a 1,000 kilometer radius of the ship entering/emerging from warpdrive.