Dreadnought class space battleship

The Dreadnought class space battleship is a class of manned combat spacecraft in service with the Central Galactic Navy. The lead ship of her class was named after an ancient Earth oceangoing combat ship, whose name is a contraction of "Dread nought but God," referring to the ship's perceived invulnerability and strength. At a length of 1600 meters, a beam and draft of 239 meters, and a fully-loaded mass of up to ten million tons, it is among the largest class of mobile, manned combat spacecraft in service, surpassed only by the Lohengrin class supercarriers. Instead of the magneto-plasma-dynamic fusion reactors used by most other military spacecraft, the Dreadnought class introduced and uses the state-of-the-art RR-385 Aneutronic Fusion/Solar Furnace Reactor. This powerplant affords it power generation and usage an order of magnitude higher than previous spacecraft, allowing the Dreadnought to maintain an "all-big gun" armament of multi-frequency large laser turrets, powerful antimatter beam-core thrusters, high-power energy shields, and a rapid-recharge Alcubierre jump drive.
All craft of its class are built by a consortium of Voss Shipyards, the McGrady Corporation, and North American Aerospace, at several orbital and deep space construction yards.
== Overview ==
The Dreadnought was designed as a multirole heavy space combat craft, fulfilling several fleet requirements in a "one stop shop" package. Its modular design allows for more or fewer sections of a given type to be placed based on mission requirements, including propellant modules, storage sections, troop and vehicle sections, and crew compartments. Its size allows for a great variety of loadouts, including planetary assault, orbital bombardment, piracy interdiction, and fleet battle. While it is classed as a battleship, it can easily act in the role of a light carrier, cruiser, bomber, and fleet controller.
Design work began in late 2669, at the midpoint of the Great War, following recommendations made to the Imperial Admiralty that the current space heavy battleships were too slow and their armament was insufficient. A reliance on magnetic accelerator weaponry and a suboptimal amount of anti-missile laser grids and anti-ship laser batteries was deemed a major reason for significant fleet losses during the campaigns in the Soviet Front. The Excalibur class space battleship, which served as the mainstay of the Imperial Fleet, had numerous design flaws and had difficulty engaging opponents at extremely close or far range. When a battleship had exhausted its missile banks and mass accelerator ammunition, it was a colloquial "flying brick", vulnerable to enemy missiles and laser weaponry.
As a result, design began on an "all big-gun" ship using laser weapons that could operate at varying ranges and laser frequencies, along with a high propellant capacity and powerful antimatter-catalyzed fusion rockets for propulsion. A military and civilian research project was already underway for designing a new type of high-power fusion reactor; as this was deemed necessary for the ship's extensive laser armament and high speed, the Next Generation Battleship project undertook some commanding interest in this new technology research. By 2671, the reactor design had been completed and the ship design was finalized. The first Dreadnought keel was laid down in 2673, and was constructed in great secrecy; it was launched in 2675, and went through a shakedown run followed by testing and evaluation. It was formally commissioned in 2676 and began service. After that, mass production commenced, with several shipyards operating simultaneously. So far, roughly 6,480 Dreadnought class spacecraft have been built.
== Characteristics ==
The Dreadnought class spacecraft is shaped like a cylinder, with a slight dome at the prow. It is radially symmetrical, with each quadrant including numerous laser and missile emplacements as well as loading docks and single-craft hangars. The ship's structure is composed of three primary components: the spaceframe, the interior pressurized hull, and the external armor shell.
The spaceframe is composed of a structural baseplate from which projects the axial keel and a truss structure. The keel uses an internal honeycomb truss lattice constructed of durable composites and structural titanium alloy, encased in a structural composite shock-absorbing foam. This superstructure is capable of handling the extreme stresses and acceleration forces of the ship in combat, and provides a support frame for the other modules. Freight elevator shafts are structured around the keel.
The exterior is made up of molded panels of layered defensive armor; each panel is roughly a meter in thickness, and is composed of layers of ablative ceramics, structural titanium alloy, vapor-deposited carbon nanotube sheets, and shock-absorbent gel. When layered repeatedly, these provide considerable protection against the intense heat of laser weapons, particle beams, and "glancing" nuclear blasts. This layer is attached to the interior pressure hull by a lattice of high-strength titanium scaffolds. The resulting 300 centimeter space between the outer and inner hulls is then filled with liquid, typically a sodium- or lithium-enriched water, which is vented and collected by a droplet recycling system as a heat sink, and utilized as a radiation shield or "liquid buffer" between the crewed compartments and the outer hull. Some sections protrude from the inner hull through slots in the outer hull, such as airlocks and weapon emplacements. The hull armor is often treated with a radar-absorbent material to impair its sensor profile, forcing an opponent to rely on unreliable heat signatures and visual sighting to detect and identify a Dreadnought.
Most of the interior of the ship is composed of pressurized modules of varying purposes, arranged along a central keels running over half the length of the ship. In its normal configuration, most are crew accommodations, living modules, servicing modules, and munitions stores. Other options include cargo storage, vehicle garages, troop barracks, medical bays, science labs, workshops, flight decks, and hydroponic greenhouses. The sections are all generally designed to be radially-symmetric circular modules, which can be "threaded" or assembled onto the ship's keel and within its truss superstructure, with the modules stacked on top of each other along the axis. As the spacecraft is designed to operate at continual thrust during its mission transit time, the decks are laid out like the floor of a skyscraper. The modules are able to be individually pressurized and sealed off from one another, but typically they are connected to other modules with open access ports by way of ladders and service elevators and entire sections of the ship are pressurized equally. This prevents delays in traversing from one deck to another, especially in a combat situation.
The reactor core and powerplant is located in the nose of the craft, in a specially-constructed module that can be jettisoned in an emergency. Aft of the reactor is the crew section, including the ship's CIC, crew cabins, acceleration beds, mess decks, kitchens, life support modules, service modules, storerooms, workshops, medical bays, and other sections as needed. Aft of this is the main airlock section, EVA pod launch deck, and cargo dock. If the craft is in an assault carrier configuration, a series of flight and loading decks along with a Marine barracks are located aft of this, with double-walled blast doors at each quadrant providing dropship/shuttle launch capability. Each flight deck is pressurized and separate from the other, and connected via service elevators to a cargo section. In a fleet combat configuration, this is replaced with a weapons tower block containing a turreted particle cannon or magnetic accelerator cannon. Aft of this is the weapons block, containing numerous laser turrets and missile silos. Further aft is the propulsion section, including propellant tanks and the main engines, which can be expanded with further propellant tank bundles based on mission requirements.
The Dreadnought in its typical configuration has a "dry" mass, i.e. the mass of the structure, powerplant, life support supplies, reactor fuel, munitions, and crew, of 2.5 million tons. When loaded with propellant, the full mass is between 4.8 and 9.7 million tons, depending on the propellant used.
=== Energy ===
The Dreadnought's primary power system is an array of RR-385 Aneutronic Fusion/Solar Furnace Reactors. The reactor design combines several existing fusion power technologies to most efficiently draw power from the core. The reactor uses a muon-catalyzed fusion of deuterium and helium-3 to create the initial hot plasma, with helium-4 and proton byproducts that are magnetically captured for recycling. The second stage uses the hot plasma to produce the necessary temperatures for a more energetic lithium-hydrogen fusion. A fine powder of lithium hydride is fed into the reactor chamber as a slurry, where the hot plasma and the electromagnetic compressors initiate the reaction to create a sustained aneutronic fusion plasma. The resulting helium-4 byproducts are treated with an electron laser to strip it of a proton and convert into helium-3 for later use. The initial stage consumes a few micrograms of deuterium and helium-3 to catalyze the main fusion stage; the second, sustained stage consumes about 1 gram of fusion fuel per second per reactor. The powerplant, including the reactors, capacitors, steam turbines, converters, and power conduits, take up largest fraction of the craft's dry mass. All told, the system sustainably generates 1.84 terawatts-electrical.
The reactor chamber is lined with multi-spectrum photovoltaic panels which convert the visible-spectrum, infrared, and ultraviolet radiation directly into electrical power. A system of heat-exchangers pumps a working fluid through the hot chamber, creating steam that drives several turbines for additional power generation. In this way, the reactor achieves close to 99% efficiency: around 31% as direct electric capture, 34% is obtained photovoltaically, and 35% is captured thermally with 64 steam turbine generators. This power is held in several thousand 18-ton capacitors, each one capable of holding up to 49.7 MWh of usable energy, or 178.9 gigajoules.
In an emergency, the reactor section can be jettisoned before damage to the reactor causes an explosion.
=== Propulsion ===
As with most capital ships, the Dreadnought class employs a dual drive method for space travel: reaction mass engines for maneuvering in normal space, and an Alcubierre jump drive for faster-than-light travel.
For sub-light speeds, it is equipped with clusters of antimatter-catalyzed pulsed fusion torch thrusters, each thruster unit providing up to 100 meganewtons of thrust. The engines are gimballed for thrust-vectoring. It has a maximum thrust capability of 50,000 meganewtons, and a normal exhaust velocity of 10,000 kilometers per second, though thrust is reduced over time to maintain 1 G cruising acceleration, and its antimatter-afterburner system can increase exhaust velocity at the expense of thrust. If thrust were maintained without regard to propellant flow, a Dreadnought could reach maximum acceleration of 2.16 G. 
A typical patrol mission might carry a Dreadnought on a transfer flight to a point 5 AU into middle of a star system, typically a gas giant or an asteroid belt colony, and docking at an orbital station. Such a cruise would take roughly 6 days and 9½ hours, with the spacecraft reaching a top velocity of 0.9% of light speed at the midpoint, and shedding just under 46,555 tons of propellant in the process. Very long journeys are extremely rare; the Dreadnought is primarily designed for patrols within a system at less than relativistic speeds, or contingency operations within the jump radius of a docking station, and generally is not equipped to accelerate to relativistic speeds for travel between star systems.
The propellant is flexible by design; its propellant tank can hold solid hydrogen or helium pellets, liquid hydrogen-2, or liquid helium-3, each with a different mass ratio, though with similar performance. The propellant is fed into a fusion reaction chamber; rather than fusion being inertially or magnetically confined, metallic hydrogen and antihydrogen pellets are fired into the chamber, which catalyzes a highly energetic fusion reaction. This reaction is too intense to be reliably used for power generation, though some electrical current is captured to power the magnetic coils that control the antiproton flow, and reduce the main reactor's power load. Instead, the energetic reaction is magnetically directed through the rocket nozzles as exhaust, driving the spacecraft's thrust. Further antimatter can be fed into the chamber as an "afterburner". As a result, the Dreadnought can be "geared" per thruster in addition to selectively burning each thruster, which allows it to throttle its thrust to maintain a cruising acceleration outside of combat. On a typical mission, in standard configuration, a Dreadnought is laden with 2.5 million tons of pelletized solid hydrogen propellant. The engines operate at high mass-flow efficiencies, roughly 10 kilograms of propellant per second of burn time for each rocket, or 5 tons per second total.
For superluminal travel, the Dreadnought uses an Alcubierre drive to perform a tachyon shunt, annihilating tachyonic matter to create a "bubble" of warped space-time around the craft, which is directed to a specified location within 1,000 light years of the craft; the bubble to the fore of the craft "pulls" space between it and the target location, contracting spacetime to enable near-instantaneous translight jumps. Making such a jump requires a 1-hour warm-up period for the tachyonic fluid to charge and be expended; likewise, after making a jump, the spacecraft has to "cool down" and cannot simply instantly make another jump. It has some of the same limitations of wormhole tunnel travel, in that large gravitational masses (such as stars, planets, and some moons) are hazardous; falling within the gravity well of a large mass interacts with the repellant effect of the warp bubble, violently shunting a spacecraft out of its warp bubble and into realspace. The tachyonic dark energy "bubble" is "popped", shedding all of its energy in the form of lethal radiation that permeates the spacecraft hull. Generally, an Alcubierre drive can only safely operate a certain distance from a large gravity well, proportional to its mass, which is similar to constraints imposed by jump gates; consequently, military starships like the Dreadnought still require use of their reaction drives to advance to a planet in crisis. As an example, if a Dreadnought were to respond to a crisis on an Earth-sized planet, it would conduct a warp insertion located just under two million kilometers away from the planet. At 1 G acceleration after insertion, a Dreadnought would take just under 8 hours to arrive in the planetary orbit.
Dreadnoughts, like most military space vessels, use an Alcubierre drive instead of a traditional tunnel drive because of its strategic advantages. While slipspace/hyperspace tunnels can dramatically cut down superluminal travel time, a spacecraft can move at a maximum of 0.5 lightyears per minute with current jump technology; a thousand-lightyear hyperjump might take 33 hours to traverse. For spacecraft responding to military situations, this is far too long; an Alcubierre warp jump enables rapid-reaction forces to respond to a situation within an hour. The Spacy tends to station reaction forces at the "hub" of a 1,000 lightyear radius area of responsibility, often led by a Dreadnought. In a situation where the Alcubierre drive is inoperable, a Dreadnought can traverse a normal hyperspace gate network to reach its destination.
To conduct rapid superluminal maneuvers, the Dreadnought can hold up to 60,000 tons of tachyonic matter, stored in 24 tanks in the jump drive assembly. Each tank holds 2,500 tons of exotic matter, at a density of 796 kilograms per cubic meter, about the density of metastable metallic hydrogen.
=== Operations ===
Under normal operations, a Dreadnought has a crew complement of 735 enlisted rates and 65 officers. To reduce crew requirements and to assist in both combat and normal operations, every Dreadnought is staffed by a full Turing-grade artificial intelligence, with the AI core installed in the Combat Information Center. Like all sapient AI, its core mainframe is a 3 petabyte, carbon-60 based quantum computing cell, taking up roughly 1.2 cubic meters of space and weighing 2.1 kilograms. This is roughly analogous in size to a human brain, but has higher memory capacity and considerably faster processing performance (usually 1015 floating point operations per second). Most functions on the ship, from door locks to maneuvering to weapon systems, can be computer-controlled and remotely operated from the CIC. The ship can pilot itself and fight a battle even if all of her crew is dead or in cryostasis. The AI core has remote access terminals dispersed throughout the ship, allowing crew interaction. The ship's AI is considered a line officer with the rank of Commander, and acts as the deputy navigation officer. However, the AI's decisions can be overridden by the ship's Commanding Officer.
Normally, under cruising or patrol conditions, the crew functions just as in any large vessel. The crew is divided into numerous departments based on their naval rating, including Command, Operations, Engineering, Supply, Medical, Weapons, Flight, and Deck departments. In addition, a Dreadnought usually carries a 65-person Marine detachment for shipboard security and limited ground operations, though it can be modified to hold a full 2,200-person Marine Task Force, including armored vehicles, dropships, and a composite aircraft squadron; in such a configuration, the ship's Marine detachment is repurposed as the Marine Task Force's military police company.
The ship is designed for stores and life support for a 245-day cruise. This typically contains 1,012 tons of potable water, 2,783 tons of filtered water for food preparation, 6,445 tons of reusable water for hygiene use by the crew, and 36,000 tons of water for the hydroponic gardens, stored in water tanks distributed throughout the crew service modules and . These water stores may be supplemented by recycle processes built into the spacecraft's life support design. Typical ration stores are for up to 270 tons of food, around 14% of which is fresh food, either from initial replenishment or from vegetables grown in the ship's hydroponics module. While the ship does include an additional 2,200 passengers when it is in its assault carrier configuration, these are almost all in a state of suspended animation and do not require the extensive supplies of water and food they would if they were all active like the spacecraft's crew; sufficient stores of food, water, and fuel are carried for groundside operations of up to 48 days, with expectation of marginal in-situ resource utilization.
The Dreadnought generates enormous amounts of waste heat, even with hyper-efficient superconductors in its electronics and magnetic equipment. To mitigate this, the ship contains 3,200 tons of liquid lithium that is cycled through a droplet radiator system. This ably manages the heat load, especially in a combat situation. Its most power-intensive and thermally-inefficient component, its laser weapons, have their own stores of coolant which can be supplemented by the main coolant tanks. Ordinarily, the system vents lithium coolant from a series of nozzles, which is captured amidships by magnetic collectors, and is then recycled through pumps into the main coolant tanks.
=== Armament ===
The Dreadnought is one the most heavily-armed combat spacecraft in the Central Galactic Navy. Its weaponry is housed in a weapons module aft of the crew modules, and is subdivided into several weapon blocks. Each "block" contains a laser turret and a 100-cell missile launcher arranged around the circumference of the spacecraft at every quarter and cross-quarter point. A typical arrangement includes ten such blocks, resulting in 80 laser turrets and 8,000 missile silos (each containing 10 missiles, for a total of 80,000 missiles).
Each laser turret is a free-electron laser capable of operating within a wide spectrum of light frequencies, from infrared, through the visible spectrum, to ultraviolet. These have an aperture diameter of 850 cm, and integrated power capacitors and heat sink equipment to sustain continuous firing. Its capacitors can hold up to 4.5 megajoules at a time, and discharge at a rate of 4 gigawatts, unleashing 4 megajoules of energy over the course of 1 millisecond onto an opponent's surface. These large lasers have a combat range dependent on the frequency utilized, though in ship-to-ship combat the most common is UV-A, with a normal combat range of 900 kilometers. Each laser turret assembly is 300 tons, consisting of an 80-ton laser turret, 20-ton hydraulic mechanism, 180 tons of capacitors, and 20 tons of expendable lithium coolant, along with maintenance and diagnostics areas for gunnery crew. The turret's coolant tank is connected by pipes to the ship's main coolant tanks, which can pump coolant to it as needed. However, this reduces the ship's capability to manage heat from other sources, and is used only in extreme combat situations.
Missiles are the SIM-201 Orca multirole guided missile; each missile masses 11,000 kg, with metastable metallic hydrogen as the propellant. Each missile has a delta V of 41,656 m/s, enabling it to rapidly close with enemy spacecraft over extreme distances on intercept trajectories, or to track maneuvering spacecraft in the heat of combat. They carry a 1-ton payload, typically either a nuclear shaped-charge warhead or a KKV cluster munition. Each missile cell comes pre-loaded with an inert gas mixture, under pressure to enable a "cold launch" mechanism. When a missile is fired and its gas expended, the missile cell behind it is loaded forward into the launcher, expelling the fragments of the expended missile container.
Optionally, the cargo segment can be removed and replaced with a weapons tower assembly. In its place are four tower-like turrets each massing 48,000 tons, connected to a 334,000-ton centralized module containing rotation machinery, capacitors, and ammunition feed. Each tower includes a 8,000-ton turret, and differing assemblages depending on the weapon mounting. The most common are magnetic accelerator cannons firing 167-kg iron slugs at a velocity of 50 km/s, at a rate of one every 2 seconds; each slug impacts with the kinetic energy equal to detonating 49 tons of TNT. This requires extremely powerful field coils conducted by RTSC materials. Such mass accelerators are significantly smaller in size and yield than the spinal-mount magnetic accelerator cannons of previous generations of battleships, but offer some flexibility in shore bombardment and close combat. The other predominant weapon assembly is a particle beam cannon, firing a stream of proton particles at relativistic velocities to disable but not destroy a close-ranged opposing craft through damaging systems and imparting deadly radiation on the crew.
=== Payload ===
Typical payload for a Dreadnought in assault carrier configuration includes a full Marine Assault Unit and enough supplies for 48 days of continual operations. This includes 2,750 tons of vehicles, 1,350 tons of aircraft, 1,200 tons of pre-fab buildings, 1,000 tons of munitions, 700 tons of vehicle fuel, 400 tons of Marines, 300 tons of aviation fuel, 60 tons of firearms, 120 tons of food, 10 tons of power supply, and 10 of tons specialty equipment.
However, the cargo and hangar bays can be converted to hold solely containerized cargo units, with appropriate load-moving equipment such as cranes and forklift trucks. In this cargo configuration, it can carry 520,000 additional tons of materiel.
== Specifications ==
* Length: 1600 meters
**Engineering module: 122 meters
**Crew/service module: 201.4 meters
**Cargo module: 79.8 meters
**Weapons module: 400 meters
**Reaction mass module: 771.8 meters
**Thrust module: 25 meters
* Beam: 239 meters
* Draught: 239 meters
*Total surface area: 1,246,208 square meters
*Armor: Layered composite armor
**Armored surface area: 1 m at 573,154 square meters; 150 cm at 598,270 square meters
**Armor thickness: 150 cm to 1 m
**Armor composition: 5 cm layers of vapor-deposited carbon nanotube, boron carbide, and titanium, interspersed with 5 cm layers of silica aerogel, in the arrangement of CNT-AG-BC-AG-Ti-AG-BC-AG-CNT-AG. The lightly armored areas of the ship are layered with CNT-AG-BC.
**Armor volume: 573,154 cubic meters for main armored area; 89,740.5 cubic meters for lightly armored area
**Armor density: 1.15 tons/cubic meter
* Dry mass: 2,503,200 tons (typical); 3,023,200 tons (maximum)
**Weapons mass: 904,000 tons (1,430,000 tons with tower block)
***Laser system mass: 24,000 tons (2,400 tons per block)
***Missile system mass: 880,000 tons (88,000 tons per block) (35,200 tons per block)
***Optional weapons tower block: 526,000 tons
**Structural mass: 824,850 tons
***Armor mass: 762,328 103,200
***Keel mass: 30,400 tons
***Shell mass: 15,473 tons
***Truss mass: 16,650 tons
**Powerplant mass: 322,695 tons
***Turbine mass: 256,000 tons
***Capacitor mass: 46,660 tons
***Reactor mass: 14,000 tons
***Powerplant fuel mass: 5,525 tons
***Power distribution mass: 520 tons
**Thruster mass: 250,000 tons
**Payload mass: 201,655 tons (typical); 721,655 (maximum)
***Jump system mass: 75,000 tons (includes 60,000 tons of jump fluid)
***Liquid buffer mass: 63,200 tons
***Hydroponic water mass: 36,000 tons
***Consumable water mass: 10,240 tons
***Cargo mass: 6,800 tons normally (up to 526,800 tons if in cargo configuration)
***Heat management mass: 4,500 tons (includes 3,200 tons of liquid lithium coolant)
***Energy shield system mass: 2,400 tons
***Emergency system/supply mass: 1,100 tons (includes 800 tons of spare parts)
***Life support atmosphere mass: 850 tons
***Life support systems mass: 540 tons
***Hydroponic system mass: 450 tons
***Consumable food mass: 300 tons
***Crew mass: 225 tons (maximum)
***Medical supply mass: 50 tons
*Reaction mass: 2,380,152 tons (liquid H2), 2,591,709 tons (solid H2); 5,402,386 tons (liquid He3); 7,215,725 tons (solid He3)
**Metallic Antiproton mass: 14,763 tons
**Metallic Hydrogen mass: 14,763 tons
**Propellant mass: 2,350,626 tons (liquid H2), 2,562,185 tons (solid H2); 5,372,861 tons (liquid He3); 7,186,200 tons (solid He3)
*Wet mass: 4,883,352 tons (liquid H2), 5,065,385 tons (solid H2); 7,876,060 tons (liquid He3); 9,689,400 tons (solid He3)
*Propellant mass ratio: 1.95 (liquid H2), 2.03 (solid H2), 4.12 (liquid He3), or 4.84 (solid He3)
*Natural logarithmae of mass ratio: 0.667829, 0.708036, 1.41585, or 1.57691
* Volume: 71,780,365.6 cubic meters
**Engineering volume: 54,73,252.88 cubic meters
**Crew habitat volume: 8,907,716 cubic meters 
***Habitat volume: 4,094,891 cubic meters; per floor 194,995 cubic meters
***Service volume: 1,169,968.8 cubic meters
***Hydroponics volume: 597,571.5 cubic meters
***Hospital volume: 389,989.6 cubic meters
***Airlock volume: 97,498.4 cubic meters
**Cargo/hangar volume: 3,540,874 cubic meters
**Optional weapon tower volume: 761,600 cubic meters; per tower 190,400 cubic meters
**Weapons block volume: 17,945,091.4 cubic meters
**Liquid buffer volume: 61,606 cubic meters
**Coolant volume: 7,192 cubic meters
**Structural volume: 779,486 cubic meters
***Keel volume: 6,700 cubic meters
***Thrust frame volume: 89,726 cubic meters
**Reaction module volume: 35,226,212.5 cubic meters
***Fuel tank volume: 38,746.4 cubic meters 
***Propellant tank volume: 33,580,383 cubic meters 
*Density: 68.6 kg/cubic meter
**Propellant density: 76.3 kg/cubic meter (solid H); 116 kg/cubic meter (liquid He); 214 kg/cubic meter (solid He);
*Powerplant: 7 x RR-385 Aneutronic Fusion/Solar Furnace Reactor
**Powerplant output: total 1.463 TWe; per reactor 209 GWe.
**Powerplant energy: 174.1 petawatt-hours (lifetime); 6.96 petawatt-hours (annual)
**Powerplant efficiency: 99% (combined thermal, photovoltaic, and direct-capture)
**Powerplant fuel: first stage, D+3He gas-plasma; second stage, LiH dry slurry
**Powerplant mass flow: first stage, 2.83 nanograms/second; second stage, 7 grams/second
**Powerplant lifecycle: 25 years
**Specific power: 5.41 kW/kg (plant)
**Capacitors: 3,232 x Westinghouse 18-ton RTSC capacitor
**Capacitor specific power: each 6.94 kWh/kg (safe limit)
**Capacitor specific energy: each 25 MJ/kg (safe limit), 50 MJ/kg (maximum)
**Capacitance: total 403.74 TWh
*Thrusters: 500 x F100A Fusion Pulse Torch Drive
** Reaction conversion rate: 0.98
**Nozzle efficiency: 99.9%
** Maximum thrust: per thruster 100,000,000 N; total 50,000,000,000 N
** Thruster mass flow: per thruster 10 kg/s; total 5,000 kg/s
** Thruster exhaust velocity: 10,000 km/s
** Thrust power: per thruster 50 terawatts (maximum); total 25 petawatts (maximum)
** Specific power: 4.93 MW/kg
** Specific impulse: variable; 1,019,783 seconds at maximum thrust
*Performance:
**Initial acceleration: 1 G (solid H), 0.65 G (liquid He), 0.52 G (solid He)
**Cruising acceleration: 1 G
**Maximum acceleration: 2.16 G
**Delta V capacity: 3,074,960, 6,148,972, or 6,848,453 m/s
*Armament:
**80 x SKL-85 Free Electron Capital Laser (aperture 850cm, beam power 1 GW, duty cycle 0.5, firing time 0.1 s, efficiency 98%)
**8,000 x missile cells (10 missiles each, typically SIM-201 Orca Multirole Guided Missile); total 80,000 missiles
**Optional: up to 4 x SKC-108 Magnetic Accelerator Cannon (caliber 300mm, munition 167-kg iron slugs, muzzle velocity 50 km/s, impact energy 208.75 GJ, fire rate 30 rpm).
**Optional: up to 4 x SKN-4 Proton Beam Cannon (beam power 1 GW)