Trade Federation Battleship

Name/Model# : | Trade Federation Battleship (Modified Trade Federation LH-3210 Container Ship) <<Stats taken from EP1G and WotC>>
Designer/Manufacturer : | Hoersh-Kessel Drive Incorporated (Primary Contractor)
Combat Designation : | Converted Battleship
Scale : | Capital
Length : | 3,170 Metres (Diameter)
Crew : | 175 25 Neimoidian (Command Staff) + 150 Droids
Skeleton Crew : | Unknown
Cost of Vessel : | Not available for sale
Nav Computer : | Most likely yes
Sublight Engines : | 3 Rendili StarDrive Proton 2 (Primary) / 4 (Or is it 6?) Rendili StarDrive Proton 12 (Secondary) Engines
Sublight Speed : | Cruising
Hyperdrive Rating : | Class 2
Hyperdrive Backup : | Class 10
Atmospheric Speed : | Most likely cannot enter atmosphere
Manoeuvrability : | Unknown
Cargo Capacity : | 5,000,000 Metric Tons
Consumables : | 500 Days
Weapons : | 42 Quad Laser Batteries (2 Batteries Forward, 1 Battery Left, 1 Battery Right, 2 Batteries Aft) [7 Quad Laser Batteries per Battery?] (Meant against starfighters) Configuration: Weapons are in groups of 3 Attack Bonus: +3 (-8 Size, +4 Crew, +4 Fire Control, +3 Battery Fire) Range Modifiers: Point Blank -6, Small -4, Medium -2, Large +0 Damage: 6d10+5 Multiple Tractor Beam Projectors
Sensors : | Passive : ? Scan : ? Search : ? Focus : ?
Broadcast Range : | For Droid Control Ship only. Maximum safe broadcast range is 16,500 km
Shield/Hull Rating : | [Defence 12 (-8 Size, + 10 Armour)] Shields 300 Points. Hull 600 Points; Damage Reduction 30 Points
Starfighter Squadrons : | 1,500 individual Droid Starfighters (Maximum Capacity)
Troop Capacity : | 139,000 Battle Droids 50 (25 per cargo arm) C-9979 Landing Ships (Maximum Capacity) 550 MTTs (Maximum Capacity) 6,250 AATs (Maximum Capacity) 1,500 Troop Carriers (Maximum Capacity)
Support Craft : | None

The Trade Federation Battleship is actually a converted Trade Federation LH-3210 Container Ship. From the very first stages of planning to build the secret Trade Federation Army, the Federation's armaments committee had in mind to use their large commercial fleet of Container Ships for transporting weapons of war. The Trade Federation Container Ships themselves are a design that have been constructed over many years. These ships are familiar to millions of officials and civilian personnel who dealt with them over many years, plying cargo across the Galaxy as part of the extensive market of the Trade Federation. There are few systems in the Galaxy who have never seen these tremendous vessels of the Trade Federation and fewer still even realized that these massive vessels were gradually being converted for the purpose of being "battleships". Steadily over time, the holds of these vessels were being filled with Landing Ships and Droid Starfighters instead of trade goods.

These seemingly harmless and slow-moving ships (in actuality they were heavily shielded and their hulls had been strengthened with irregular armour plating) would now be equipped with powerful quad laser batteries designed to destroy enemy starfighters launched to counter the Landing Ships. The weapons were designed to rotate inward while not in use, thus concealing their true nature until the Trade Federation wished to show their military intentions to unsuspecting "future customers". And thus the "future customers" were not be aware of an impending attack until it was too late. As an added bonus, attackers against these "battleships" are lulled into a false sense security, until it is too late for them realize that these "harmless freighters" actually can fight back. Originally, these vessels did maintain defence turrets, but the Trade Federation increased both the number and firepower of those weapons.

Most of the weapons are placed around the equatorial bands, as a result the weapon coverage is very limited and thus large areas of the "battleship" remain undefended. These coverage gaps could be exploited by starfighters or starships that could get very close to the Trade Federation Battleship. The other few significant vulnerabilities of the "battleship" are that some of the vital systems lie exposed at various areas. Thus the onboard Droid Starfighters are essential for the defence of the "battleship" from a starfighter attack. Usually a sufficient number of Droid Starfighters can be scrambled to handle threats against the "battleships". The conversion of these cargo transports did prove cost effective, however, they do possess notable vulnerabilities that conventional battleships do not suffer from. Although the Trade Federation cargo fleet was ideal for hiding the existence of the secret army and carrying it unobtrusively to points of deployment, the commercial origins of the "battleships" have left them with the shortcomings as "battleships".

For the most part, the hangers needed very little modification to carry the Trade Federation's secret army, although electrified ceiling racks designed to carry and recharge Droid Starfighters were installed in the outer hanger zones. While the cargo hangers and their ceiling racks in the inner hanger zones proved sufficient for the secret army ground forces who were built to change the rules of commerce. Droid Starfighters can be found dangling from ceiling racks in any of the hangers. All Trade Federation Battleships have a series of armoured hangers, of which most of them are designed to hold troop transports, tanks and other vehicles. These vessels sports two primary docking claws, which lock onto colossal freight barges for cargo transfers. Several types of secondary docking arms are used to support docking manoeuvres with a wide variety of cargo craft. The multiple tractor beam projectors are used to guide craft of various sizes safely landing into the outer hanger. The hanger landing target provides an automatic docking signal for visiting spacecraft. The hangers within the inner wall provide docking space for shuttles carrying officials, trade diplomats, merchants and bureaucrats. The armoured, sealed hangers within the inner wall hold shipments of highly toxic or dangerous materials and thus those hangers are located well away from the main hanger zones.

Outer Hanger (Zone 1) serves as a receiving area for arriving starships and it is also the staging for launching the Landing Ships. The Middle Hanger (Zone 2) is where Landing Ships are loaded and armed and the Inner Hanger (Zone 3) is where the Landing Ship components are assembled, with the help of cranes. Both of the cargo arms of the "battleship" have the three zone hangers. Each zone is separated by sliding bulkhead doors. Cargo bays line the hanger walls, they were originally built to hold shipments of galactic cargo. Under the hanger decks in Zone 2 are subfloor garages for ground armour that are in long-term storage. Zone 2 also contain massive ammunition dumps under its deck.

The centresphere contains the centresphere reactor and power generator assemblies, as well as an extensive deck structure to provide quarters and offices for the Neimoidian population and their trade partners. The control bridge tower which is located right behind the centersphere has two protruding segments which are scanner arrays. The "neck" to the centersphere contains a giant acceleration compensator which prevents acceleration damage to the ship and just above the "base" of the "neck" is the deflector shield generator.

Only about one in twenty of these massive vessels had been converted into Droid Control Ships. The reason besides as a cost-saving measure was a security precaution. Like other space navies, the Trade Federation does have as many ambitious bureaucrats and ship commanders. The Droid Control Ships stand out from the Trade Federation Battleships by their prominent transmission towers, receiving antennas, monitoring sensors and other communications equipment. Contained inside these vessels is the Central Control Computer (Control Brain Network), which generates and broadcasts commands to all of the droids serving the Trade Federation's secret army.

The Central Control Computer, its support systems and its great computer banks, along with other systems and power generators occupy the interior of the centresphere. The Droid Control Ships themselves are equipped with extra (and numerous) reactors and power substations designed to power the transmission equipment. An array of 16 droid signal receiver stations pick up the many thousands of signals sent by the Trade Federation droids for processing to the main droid control computer. On either side of the signal receiver stations on the cargo arms of the Droid Control Ship are signal boost panels which squelch noise and interference from received transmissions.

Above the main reactors is located a transmitter platform which hold the multiple high-energy transmission towers which tap the main reactors for broadcast power. The transmission antennas themselves are constructed out of exotic composite alloys to allow them to withstand their extremely high signal strength. Also contained on the transmission platform is the backup control signal transmission towers, the primary sensor rectenna and the auxiliary sensor rectennas. Located in front of the control bridge tower on the Droid Control Ship is the forward control tower. The rectennas located on the centresphere are backup sensors.

As these vessels control the droid armies of the Trade Federation, they also prove to be its weakness and a key target. Without the control signal from these single critically important vessels, the droids themselves shut down. Without the constant signal and stabilization carrier wave being transmitted by the Droid Control Ship, the Trade Federation's battle droids would be useless "terminals" incapable of independent action or self-control. Thus the destruction of a Droid Control Ship could eliminate the entire invasion force that was sent by the Trade Federation.

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