Star Trek Starship Specialized Hulls

## **Specialized Hulls**

Some ships have hulls which are modified to perform some special function or allow the ship to do something it otherwise could not. Several types are discussed below. Generally, these hulls must be built into the ship when it's constructed; they cannot be installed thereafter.

### **Atmospheric Capability**

Most starships cannot enter atmospheres; they're not built for it, so the stress of entering and flying in an atmosphere tears them apart (or at least causes substantial damage, though shield modifications can affect this). However, it is possible to build a ship with specially designed and reinforced hull which allows for atmospheric movement. The necessary modifications occupy space equal to the ship's Size in SUs. Ships with atmospheric capability take no damage when entering or fly in an atmosphere.

### **Energy Sheath**

An energy sheath is a special type of hull which, thanks to its materials and shape, makes detecting the ship with long-range sensors, or reading what's inside it with any sensors, very difficult.

An energy sheath makes it a Very Difficult (26) task to detect the ship with Sensors Tests using long-range sensors. A ship can remodulate its long-range sensors to make them sensitive enough to detect a ship with a sheath (this takes about an hour), but only if the sheath's composition is known (that way the sensors will have the correct remodulation sequence).

A ship cannot have both an energy sheath and a sensor-reflective hull.

### **Planetfall Capability**

This represents a starship which can land on a planet under controlled conditions and take off again. Only ships with Atmospheric Capability can have it.

### **Ramming Hull**

Some ships (typically small ones, like scouts and fighters) have hulls which are reinforced or built in such a way that they do extra damage when ramming a target. A ship with a Ramming Hull is considered one scale category larger for purposes of calculating damage.

### **Sensor-Reflective Hull**

A sensor-reflective hull prevents the interior of a ship from being scanned with sensors. The ship itself can be picked up on sensors like any other ship. But any attempt to use sensors to determine what the ship's carrying in its cargo holds, who's on board, or how its wholly internal systems are configured will fail, regardless of the proximity of the ship performing the scan.

A ship cannot have both a sensor-reflective hull and an energy sheath.

### **Cloak-Enhancing Hull**

The Romulans construct some of their vessels, such as the D-deridex-class Heavy Warbird, with special hulls whose shape and composition enhance the effectiveness of a cloaking device. Generally such hulls have a curvilinear shape, with relatively few straight lines or sharp corners to reflect an enemy vessel's sensor waves back to it. Typically the body of the vessel sort of encloses the warp nacelles within this curvilinear framework, though the nacelles do not thereby qualify as embedded.

A ship with a cloak-enhancing hull increases the effectiveness of its cloaking device by +2. For example, a ship with a Class 6 cloak and a cloak-enhancing hull impose a +2D+2 difficulty on attempts to detect it, rather than the usual +2D.

A ship with a cloak-enhancing hull cannot also have ablative armor, an energy sheath, or a ramming hull.

### **Borg Ship Regeneration**

The Borg build their ships with regenerative technology which repairs the hull and internal systems automatically when they suffer damage. Every 10 rounds after taking damage, a Borg vessel regenerates 1 point worth of damage. The Game Master (or player operating the Borg ship) decides in what order damaged systems regenerate.

## **Source**

* Spacedock: The Advanced Starship and Construction Manual (pages 21-22)
* thedemonapostle