I was messing around today with the Iverson Class Starship. I modernized her with Type X and VII phaser arrays, point defense capabilities and Flachette Torpedo launchers.
Flachette Torpedo Launcher
The Flachette Torpedo is a standard torpedo with 35 individual cells or flachettes. In theory, when the flachette impacts the shields of another vessel, the area covered by the dispersing photons causes the shield of the target to take more damage over a larger area compared to a centralized impact point of a standard torpedo. The primary use of the rear firing Flachette Torpedo is more defensive than offensive. The detonation of the torpedo will send high energy photon packets in all directions in front of small craft attacking the rear of the ship. The Flachette launcher can also fire standard torpedoes that have to be manually transported from the torpedo storage racks first however. Once launched the Flachette Torpedo can be directed to 'strafe' a larger target if need be. The range of the Flachette Torpedo however is limited and has a maximum range of 100,000 km before the mechanism triggers the release of the flachettes inside of the casing. The Flachette launcher is also capable of firing Anti-Matter Spread Torpedoes. The AMST releases an anti-matter spread behind the ship upon detonation. The anti-matter spread, covering an area of 7,500 km, attempts to counter threat force vessels computers attempting to lock onto the ship or other ships in the vicinity of the anti-matter spread. The AMST is used much in the same way that the NCC-1701-D under Captain Riker used an anti-matter spread to confuse the targeting computers of the Borg Cube while Data and Worf made their way to the Borg Cube while on a mission to rescue Captain Picard.
The Type VII Phaser Banks
Four banks of two emitters each located on the dorsal and ventral sides of the Primary Hull provide additional close-in defensive systems designed to auto-target hostile threats from small attack craft and shuttles. When set in automatic mode, the targeting computer cycles through a list of small craft assigned by the Tactical Officer. If any threat force ships matching the data base come within range of the phaser banks, the emitters discharge a Type VII beam in the attempts to destroy or disable the attacking ship. Advanced computer algorithms taken from hundreds of thousands of encounters with small threat force ships over the years allows the Tactical Officer to assign either Destroy or Disable using a verbal command. Once the verbal command has been given the computer will adjust the phaser beam intensity to the assigned command. The close-in defense system is a new system that allows the Tactical Officer to remain focused on larger targets while the computer assesses and deals with the smaller targets. The close-in defense system can also be assigned to defend against projectile based weapons, such as the photo torpedo. During combat there are a lot of projectile weapons flying around. The computer reads the engine signature of the torpedo and if the torpedo registers as a hostile signature the phaser banks lock onto the torpedo and attempt to destroy it.
Wrapped Hull Phaser Array
After watching thousands of hours of combat footage as well as running simulations, most Federation starships lack Wrapped Hull Phaser Arrays. The WHPA are basically the dorsal and ventral Primary Hull phaser strips that have been wrapped vertically around the dorsal, mid and ventral sections of the Primary Hull. There are a few seconds when a starship is maneuvering that neither the dorsal or ventral phaser arrays are able to be fired, thus effectively creating a phaser array blind spot. If the threat force vessel is able to maintain its attack causing the Tactical Officer to maneuver in such a manner that the ventral and dorsal arrays cannot be fired, then the threat force vessel will ultimately defeat the starship. The WHPA gives the Tactical Officer more leverage in continuing to fire phasers while maneuvering in what is called The Five. The Five is an amount of time, five seconds, between the maneuvering of a starship where the ventral and dorsal arrays are not able to be fired. The only draw back to the WHPA is that the phaser beam energy passing through the emitters is rated at a Type VII phaser discharge. A lower power setting on the WHPA however allows the ventral and dorsal arrays to remain fully charged while protecting The Five at the same time. Another advantage to the WHPA is that it stores its phaser energy in separate capacitors, so that while the ventral and dorsal arrays are being fired, the WHPA can fired independently at threat force vessels paralleling the starship.
Last edited:
