Comet

The Comet is born of one need: the need for speed. Designed on the theory that as long as a starship gets to the emergency things usually work themselves out, this was reinforced by Federation experiences in the Gabriel Campaign pointing to the value of a high-mobility and long-endurance skirmisher for future battles.

The design consequently diverges from common Starfleet patterns, placing emphasis on extensive sensors and Explorer-grade communications for early detection and advanced adaptive life support to ease challenging environment operations. The Comet devotes more tonnage- 300kt- to its sensor suite than any other ship in Starfleet, including Explorers and the contemporary Kepler Science Frigate. The overall approach echoes that attempted with the original Centaur, pre-refit program, but two decades of technological advancement allow a far more sophisticated implementation of the Rodgers Admiralty’ vision of a fast-response frigate.

Other aspects of the ship have not been neglected however; the Comet is at least as capable as the refit Centaur-B in every field, and actually improves upon tactical capability, hull strength and shielding, making it more survivable. Starfleet has ambitious plans for future Comet production, intending to use the class as the backbone of border fleets and in regional reserve groups to respond to larger emergencies while the Kepler handles safer internal sectors.

Components & Construction
As with the earlier Kepler, the Comet is based off of the Starfleet 900kt concept frigate pattern, but with a distinctly different arrangement. The large engineering sub-frame means that the Comet is one of the relatively few frigates with a secondary hull and saucer, as opposed to a single enlarged saucer appearance. This has allowed an unusually large navigational deflector to be installed, which protects the ship during its frequent high-warp sprints.

Warp Core
The mighty Type-III Block-B Warp Core Reaction Assembly is the beating heart of the Comet project. A vertical-mount warp core fit through the neck of the starship, it provides an astounding amount of power to allow the ship to maintain a combination of high-sprint speed and long endurance, carrying along tankage that would normally be at home on a heavy explorer. The Yoyodyne Assembly Plant will be producing this warp core, with their three main assembly lines retooling for the Type-III Block B core design. The core in the prototype, however, was assembled in the Venus Warp Core Assembly Plant's bespoke bay. This warp core shares the same injector and coolant system as the Kepler; the Luna-VI High-Efficiency injectors, and the Mark VIII Mod L Yoyodyne Coolant System. As with most injectors, these are designed by Luna Commune at Sol III-1, while being produced by Exotic Matter Systems at Ord Grind Duk. The coolants are produced by Yoyodyne at their main assembly plant at Andor, and will be delivered to shipyards packaged with the matter injector cap pre-installed.

The crews on the prototype Comet have already lodged a few complaints regarding the surprisingly cramped warp core compartment and the lack of automation requiring an extended engineering team to operate. This is somewhat unavoidable, as the somewhat volatile III-B core requires experienced engineering crews and is ill-suited to automated work.

Nacelles
The Comet uses 2318-pattern high-performance nacelles, a purpose-designed development of a long-running Yoyodyne line developed and used across the Centaur and Kepler frigates. The Comet evolution is shorter and stockier than is typically expected from a high-speed ship, but the Yoyodyne-XIII pattern coils belie the outward appearances. The normally maintenance-heavy warp matrix from the Kepler has been somewhat refined, with the eight distribution valves consolidated into six valves providing twelve-phase plasma power through the nacelles, allowing for minute course-corrections.

Impulse
Like the Centaur-B, which moved away from the venerable SDB-65 system that has powered ships back to the Constitution-A class, the Comet has embraced one of the most potent drive systems available in known space: the SDB-09 High-Power. However, the Comet employs two SDB-09 systems, with each four-plant generator battery in the aft-frames of the saucer, at 140 and 220 degrees from the bridge. These are advanced generator designs that can provide enormous sublight acceleration, and inertia dampening dumps. Apiatan designers had considerable input into the system, and although nominally it is the same system as the one used on the Centaur-B, the Comet's implementation is noticeably divergent. In many ways, it owes a lot to the most recent blocks of Apiatan Stinger swarm frigates, with the single-ducts making use of vectorable cochrane coils to manage the output and provide the Comet with incredible evasion for a ship of its size.

EPS Layout
In a divergence from normal Starfleet design practices and a nod toward the Apinae influences, the Comet does not employ long radial trunk runs for its EPS conduits. Instead most of the power delivery comes in the form of long "fingers", which are loops that run out with a smaller capacity to specific areas and then switchback. This allows more dynamic power load management, and with the conduit return loops typically along the same trunking, they assist in preventing heat loss. The main fingers through the saucer are the Port Deflector Trunk, the Starboard Deflector Trunk, the Central Core Trunk, and General Duty Trunks A, B, and C. The secondary hull operates a Navigational EPS Trunk, Antimatter Tankage Trunk, and General Duty Trunks D and E.

Navigational Deflector
With its large secondary hull powering such a high-speed, high-endurance ship, the Comet naturally requires a great deal from its deflector dish. In a departure for Starfleet, the Hagelan-III-L is provided by Hagelan Gravimetrics. This Comet (and well as the Carbon and Greenleaf) deflector is in a new Response-pattern, incorporating warp-endurance principles developed for the Ambassador, but with further tuning for maximum warp over absolute endurance. The design thus forgoes some tactical capability in pursuit of sustained high warp, and a refinement of this design is found on the Miranda-B Escort refit.

The underlying principle is the Graviton Wavefront system, employing a bow-shock of altered space-time conditions to smoothly forge a path through both realspace and subspace environments. A cutting edge design, but quite power-hungry, drawing more energy per ton than the Modulated Graviton deflector of the Ambassador-class. It is fed by a dedicated EPS trunk.

Sensors & Sciences
The Comet devotes more tonnage to it's comprehensive, modern sensor suite than any other ship in Starfleet, including Explorers and the contemporary Kepler Science Frigate. Long-range detection is handled by a set of Mk VII long-range and navigational sensors provided by Stellar Tomographics in Kadann, mounted in a 'sensor Module'. Within the hull proper is a powerful Mark VII lateral tactical sensor array, which has a single mounting arranged behind the phaser banks.

In line with modern Starfleet practise for frigates, the Comet features a highly sophisticated millicochrane band MkIII High Fidelity Sensor Array, a run also found on the Kepler and Centaur-B. Tuned to detect the subspace signatures of cloaked ships, the HF Array is also sensitive to the faint signatures of active and passive minefields, aiding survivability in fleet combat situations.

Laboratory support is provided by a single K3 compact lab, which is modest by most Starfleet standards. However, this can be extended by the many attached medical labs of the extensive Sickbay system when required. The modern Majel 3.5 OS also provides considerable support for science experiments, and chemical components are plentifully available thanks to the high endurance protein synthesiser systems.

Computing
The Comet operates on the advanced Type-IV-B duotronic informatics core, in use in the 2310s Kepler and Miranda-A frigate designs to manage and integrate the multiple sensory systems. These are produced by Tellar Processors and will be shipped throughout the Federation to handle the wave of Comet builds. The Type-IV-B employs a six discrete processing loops, each consisting of a chain of twelve Daystrom Mk10 Logic Units, spaced one to each deck through the "meat" of the saucer-section. The core is served by a separate Yoyodyne coolant system that cycles through the inner core and heat sinks out to ventral spaces.

The core is paired with the Majel 3.5 Operating system, which is a substantial development on the Majel 3.0, though running on the same architecture and code-base. This helps it cover for the lack of a TCU, as well as only operating a single phaser bank versus three burst-launching torpedo batteries.

Emergency Support
The Comet class will be a very capable rapid responder to any mass-casualty event before the Comfort-class - which is no slouch in a sprint - can arrive on scene. Three sick-bay facilities are in place, located rear-port, and rear-starboard on the saucer, and one in the secondary hull. These sickbays are built to the new T'Koren-B pattern large sickbay, providing them with an arguably more extensive facilities than an Ambassador, though they will require additional medical personnel to extract full use. This makes them ideal for establishing an on-orbit medical hub for planetside doctors to move to when addressing medical crisis.

Diplomacy
The Comet retains a reasonable diplomatic facility, courtesy of meeting, conference, and broad-spectrum life support facilities contained within the Lwaxana-04 pattern diplomatic facilities. However, by and large the best way for the Comet to engage in diplomacy is by finding room for direct field actions to take, rather than organising meetings.

Deflectors
Andor Shield Systems furnish a total of seven independent Mk V-E escort-grade deflector shield systems, with a further seven backup units. This is the most extensive array of deflector shielding ever placed on a Starfleet frigate, and is only surpassed by the dedicated Anacail combat frigate employed by the Amarki. These are employed four to the saucer section, three to the secondary section.

Torpedoes
As is the somewhat growing trend for frigates, the Comet derives its tactical punch not from phasers, but from torpedo batteries. The Comet employs three burst launchers, two fore, one aft. The fore launchers are located ventrally on the saucer section rather than the more customary neck, placed at the 300 and 60 degree marks from the bridge. These Mark-IV Light-Weight Burst launchers are bleeding edge technology, capable of dumping a quintet of photon torpedoes each into the local tactical environment in one great volley. Like all Starfleet torpedo launchers, these are produced and delivered by Tellar Prime Tactical Plant.

Phasers
Despite the reliance on Torpedoes, the Comet still retains a phaser capacity in the form of a brand new Type V phaser bank, a new development of Saturn Tactical Manufacturing. The is mounted dorsally at 0 degrees, halfway between bridge and rim, and provides a powerful multi-directional defensive capability. Its extensive power requirements are handled by a trunk that piggy-backs on the Central Core trunk, keeping the more dangerous power conduit safely through the densest part of the ship. There are concerns, however, that a feedback caused by the loss of the phaser mount could in some circumstances inflict secondary damage on the core.

Shipboard Security and Damage Control
With a large shipboard complement by the standards of a frigate, the Comet is able to carry a significant cadre of damage control specialists and security specialists, which train to protect away teams. A number of away team specialists are trained and recruited from within the crew, as well as members of the Underway Intelligence team.