The following material is an adaptation of the starship design from MACROSS 7, a sequel to the original Japanese MACROSS TV series (which became Robotech in the U.S.). Please feel free to use, copy, and distribute it as you see fit. All I ask is that you give proper credit to the author and do not claim that it is your own work. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

THREE STAR CLASS
FACTORY SHIP

RPG Stats by DANIEL HENWOOD (dhenwood@hotmail.com)
Background text by DAVE DEITRICH (deitrich@mcs.net)
Background info provided by the MACROSS ONLINE COMPENDIUM

BACKGROUND

Maintenance and repair is a major problem facing all UN Spacy long range colony missions. Typical colony missions are expected to last anywhere from 10 to 100 years, however the expected endurance of even the New Macross colony ships without refits is only 20 to 30 years. Carrying a large enough supply of spare parts for all mecha and starships in a colony mission was unfeasible, so the UN Spacy needed to come up with a way for fleets to manufacture their own parts and supplies on a continual basis while light years away from the nearest supply depot. The Three Star Factory Ship is designed specifically to fulfill this role in colony operations.

As the name implies the Three Star facilities are floating factories in space. The lower levels of the ship contain a complete refinery that can extract all necessary metals and raw materials from space debris such as asteroits and comets. These materials are then raised to the core of the starship, which contains a complete manufacturing facility based on technology recovered from the Protoculture factory satellite captured by the UN Spacy in October 2011. The automated factory can manufacture almost any component, from miniaturized microchips to complete mecha. The factory can even manufacture from scratch capital starships such as a New Macross battle carrier. However this process can take months depending on the complexity of the starship (a New Macross battle carrier will take almost a year to build from scratch while utilizing the complete resources of the platform during that time). The Three Star facility is of course capable of conducting routine repair and maintenance on starships as well to prolong their active lifespan. A large beam is mounted from the rear of the ship which serves as a drydock for starship repair, refit, and construction.

The Three Star facilities are also capable of developing new products and weapons. The crew complement of the ship includes a trained engineering staff of over 1,000 along with the most advanced CADAM (computer-aided design and manufacturing) systems available to the UN Spacy. In addition Three Stars maintain constant contact with other colony missions as well as UN Spacy headquarters via the Galaxy Network communications net, allowing new designs to be quickly disseminated across the UN Spacy fleet as they are developed. This permits even the most distant colony missions to keep their equipment and mecha up to date with the latest technology available.

The largest drawback to the Three Star platforms is their lack of defensive systems. Unlike other UN Spacy colony ships they can only mate with a single Bolognese class stealth frigate for protection. For this reason Three Stars are always escorted by a small fleet of Bolognese to protect them against attack. Three Stars have become a critical part of the UN Spacy colonization strategy, and every colony mission for the past 25 years has included 1 to 4 manufacturing platforms as part of their fleet.

RPG STATS

Government: New Unity Government (Earth)
Ship Type: Long Distance Factory Ship
Class: Three Star Class
Manufacturer: ORTEC Company/Three Star Heavy Industries/UN Spacy
Crew (not including Stealth Frigate): 233,000 total
Military Crew: 5,000
Civilian Crew: 50,000
Police/Civil Defense: 3,000
Permanent Civilian Populace: 175,000

MDC BY LOCATION: 

(1) Main Body                                       100,000
    Rear Boom/Drydock Section                        60,000
(2) Command Tower/Communications Center (middle)      5,000
    Connection Joint/Engineering Section              4,000
    Forward Refining Scoops (2)                       6,000 each

(3) Main Engines/Power Plant (2)                     30,000 each
(3) Auxiliary Engines (4)                             7,500 each

    Small Airlocks/Access Hatches (150)                 250 each
    Main Airlocks (4)                                   800
    Outer Hull (per 40ft area)                          120
    Interior walls (per 20ft)                            20

(4) Pin Point Barriers (4)                            5,000 each

NOTES:

  1. Depleting the MDC of the main body will essentially destroy the facility. All internal systems will shut down, including life support and internal gravity. The factory ship itself will be an unsalvageable floating wreck, and any surviving colonists must be rescued quickly or will die from asphyxiation as the remaining atmosphere drains into space. In addition, there is a 60% chance that the entire Three Star will explode due to the volatile chemicals and materials within, doing 1D6x1000 MD to everything in a 3 mile (4.8 km) radius from the ship.
  2. Depleting the MDC of the command tower will kill the bridge crew of the vessel and deprive it of long range/hyperspace communications, radar and subspace sensors. The vessel can be commanded either from an auxiliary bridge near the center of the ship or from the Bolognese stealth frigate attached to the platform.
  3. Depleting the MDC of the main engines will force the ship to rely on its auxiliary engines. Depleting the MDC of the main engines AND auxiliary engines will leave the factory ship adrift in space. If in an atmosphere, the colony will crash (destruction of the main engines will render the antigravity system useless due to loss of power).
  4. The Pinpoint Barriers regenerate at a rate of 1,250 MD per second (2,500 MD per melee round). If destroyed, a barrier will completely regenerate within four seconds (2 melee rounds). See the Pinpoint Barrier System entry for details.

SPEEDS:

Speed(sublight): 0.16 speed of light (25,600 miles per second)
Speed(Auxiliary Drives): Mach 3
Space Fold: Range Unlimited (1 light year every 6 minutes)
Planet bound:
Designed to land in a planetary ocean when necessary but not designed to maneuver in an atmosphere. Three Star vessels are NOT designed to land on the ground. If they do so the landing will inflict 3D6x1000 MD damage to the main body of the spacecraft (the Bolognese docked to the ship will also suffer 3D6x1000 MD damage unless it detatches prior to landing).
Maximum Range: Unlimited (estimated 30 year life span)

STATISTICAL DATA:

Length (main body, excluding boom): 6,560 ft (2,000 m)
Height (main body): 4,100 ft (1,250 m)
Length (rear boom/drydock): 18,700 ft (5,700 m) Length (overall, including Stealth Frigate): 26,080 ft (7,950 m)
Weight: Approximately 210,000,000 tons (empty)
Power System:
ORTEC/General Galaxy Main Reactor
Fold System:
ORTEC/Shinnakasu/General Galaxy Advanced Fold System Cluster
Sublight Drive:
ORTEC/Centinel Impulse Drive Cluster
Gravity Control System: Internal
Auxiliary Engines:
Shinnakasu/Shinsei Industries/Agar Nuclear Pulse Rocket Motor Clusters
Sensors: Standard plus Subspace Mass Detector

DEFENSE SYSTEMS:

  1. PINPOINT BARRIER DEFENSE SYSTEM: Originally developed by researchers onboard the SDF-01 Macross during Space War One, the Pinpoint Barrier System is a standard defense system on board all UN Spacy starships and colony vessels, including the Three Star ships. The system generates four small disc-shaped force fields that can be positioned anywhere along the ship to deflect missiles, energy beams or projectiles. Each pinpoint barrier is about 200 ft (61 m) in length and can absorb up to 5,000 MD in damage, which then regenerates within four seconds (2 melee rounds). The barriers can also be layered on top of each other to generate a field which provides 20,000 MDC and can even deflect heavy particle beams (usually).

    The four barriers are controlled by operators in the command tower of the carrier. These operators are instructed to defend (1) any breaks or weaknesses in the main hull, (2) the main and auxiliary engines, (3) the engineering section/stealth frigate docking section and (4) any starships under construction, in that order. The operators primarily concentrate on defending the ship against larger spacecraft and leave defense against attacking mecha to the VF pilots from the stealth frigate.

CONSTRUCTION CAPABILITIES:

As stated above, the main purpose of the Three Star manufacturing platforms is to produce all parts, supplies, and materials the colony mission needs to operate. In general it can be assumed that Three Star ships are constantly busy around the clock producing a wide range of standard products. However there are times when the GM will need to know approximately how long it takes a Three Star facility to manufacture critical pieces of equipment (usually military in nature, such as mecha and starships).

The numbers below are intended to give the GM a rough estimate of how fast construction takes place aboard the Three Star. For each entry two values are listed. The first is the amount of time it takes the automated factories aboard the vessel to produce the item from scratch, and the second lists how many can be produced in a given period of time. The factory aboard the Three Star operates in an assembly line fashion so that multiple items can be constructed at the same time. This data assumes that the Three Star has an ample supply of asteroids and space debris available to it for raw materials. These figures should be used for approximation only; GMs, feel free to change these values as you see fit.

ITEM MANUFACTURING TIME PRODUCTION RATE
Standard UN Spacy Combat Gear (Flight Suit plus Sidearm) 4 hours 2,500 per week
Standard Variable Fighter (e.g. VF-11 Thunderbolt) 3 days 36 per week
Custom Variable Fighter (e.g. VF-17T Kai Custom) 7 days 5 per week
Advanced Variable Fighter (e.g. VF-22 Sturmvogel) 14 days 2 per week
Small Starship (e.g. Bolognese Stealth Frigate) 2 months 10 per year
Large Starship (e.g. Uraga Escort Carrier) 6 months 2 per year
Transformable Starship (e.g. New Macross Battle Carrier) 12 months 1 per year

SYSTEMS OF NOTE:

MECHA COMPLEMENT (STANDARD):

NONE! However, the landing bays in Three Star vessels have enough room and resources to adequately support up to 4 squadrons (48 fighters) of VFs if necessary.

REFERENCES USED IN THIS DESIGN