Lorath “Harvester” TASV-0001/0002 Salvage Vessel

The “Harvester” class salvage vessel is intended to be used to salvage debris from wreckage that would be found drifting through space. Harvester vessels are designed around their capability to store cargo, and their ability to gather wreckage in a swift and efficient manner.

The Harvester class salvage vessel was deemed necessary when the Lorath Matriarchy found themselves using “Demon” type power armor to attempt to salvage wreckage from the “Moon fall” incident. The Harvester is designed to get maximum efficiency out of the lower end of the technological scale. The Harvester is designed to allow a moderately trained Lorath crew to be able to salvage an area of wreckage with minimal risk, and optimal ease.

Organizations Using This Vessel: Lorath Occhesta House, Lorath Salvage Corps.

Type: Salvage vessel.

Class: Harvester – TASV (Trans atmospheric salvage vessel) - 0001. Harvester - TASV (Trans Atmospheric Salvage Vessel) - 0002 (YE 37 Refit)

Designer: Lorath Occhesta House, Refit by New Tur'listia.

Manufacturer: Lorath Shipyards

Production: Mass Production.

Crew: 10 - 15.

Maximum Capacity: 30. (2500 if cargo areas are converted to have proper services for passengers such as toilets, water, air, food, etc. 5000 if passengers in cargo areas are put into cryogenic storage.)

Appearance: The Harvester has an appearance of being a long vessel with six large engines placed on the rear end of the vessel, and two in the front. Four large detachable containers are located on the upper, lower, starboard, and port sides of the ship. Attached beside each container is a robotic arm, each arm is equipped with a large hand like device, and a two shot net launcher, which would be about the same size as a pair of large refrigerators.

Length: 95 Meters

Width: 45 Meters (Not including cargo containers.)

Height: 60 Meters (Not including cargo containers.)

Decks: 5.

Mass: 145,395~ Approx. kilograms (Without cargo)

Speed (STL): .375

Speed (FTL): 5000 C

Speed (Fold): 0.15 Ly/m

Speed (Aerial): 575 MPH

Range (Distance): 30,000 LY Before scheduled check up.

Range (Support): 3 Months of preserved food, 1 year of rations.

Lifespan: 20 Years, added onto their original 10 year lifespan, due to refit.

Refit Cycle:

ships are upgraded whenever possible. Last major refit, YE 37

Structural Points: 15 Shield Points: 12 (Threshold 2)

The bridge is located in the forward section of the vessel on the third deck. The bridge is fifteen meters length, eight meters in width. The forward area of the bridge is dominated by the view screen, the left side of the bridge is dedicated to book keeping, the right side of the bridge is dedicated to operations of the vessel. The ship’s Commander is located in the middle of the bridge, along with the first mate. Furniture on the bridge can be selected by the crew, but the standard issue seats are rolling “office” style chairs that include a four point seat-belt/harness, the chairs are also equipped with magnetic wheels in-case of gravity regulator failure. The seats can also be locked into a set of locking brackets, intended to secure the seats into place, preventing them from being tossed about by inertial effects or a spontaneous decompression, or sudden collision.

The crew quarters are located to the left and right of the bridge, seven crew members are able to bunk inside of each bunk room. Bunk rooms are complemented with a communications panel, desk, a folding table, and four chairs. The bunk areas are twenty meters long, and ten meters wide. Directly connected to the two bunk areas are the latrines (Each bunk area has their own three toilet latrine). Each bunk area also has a single stall shower connected to it.

The ship’s commander’s quarters are located between the third and second decks of the vessel, just forward of the cargo hold. The ship commander’s quarters provide an excellent overhead view of the main cargo hold of the Harvester, and are quite spacious. The length of the room is 15 meters, the width of the room is thirty. The commander’s quarters are often outfitted with two beds, a bath, toilet, and a small galley.

There are five engineering rooms located throughout the Harvester. Four of these rooms are located in the far aft section of the vessel. Each of the rooms are dedicated to the monitoring of that quarter of the ship (Upper monitors the upper area, starboard monitors starboard, etc). In each room, there is also a fusion reactor intended to power the external drive system connected to that side of the ship. The forward engineering section is the main engineering room, it is located underneath the bridge. The forward engineering room houses the main computer core, FTL drive system, forward engine fusion reactors, and handles most engineering coordination, including monitoring the ship’s cargo containers and robotic arm stress levels.

The ship’s galley is located on the second deck of the vessel, above the bridge, crew quarters, and connected to the commander’s quarters. The Harvester’s galley is fully stocked with meat, veggies, fruits, drink, and even more drink. The kitchen area also includes a separate room intended for the slaughtering of animals that may be stored in one of the cargo containers of the vessel. The kitchen is not separated from the dining area, thus allowing the crew to observe the ship’s cook while the meal is being prepared, thus allowing for the crew to appreciate the cook’s efforts.

Most ship’s hearts are the engineering or bridge areas… for the Harvester, the heart of the vessel is the cargo hold, which also doubles as a sorting and processing center. The Cargo hold spans four decks, each deck is equipped with a lift system, which allows cargo to be moved between decks. The lift platforms can all be lowered into the bottom deck, thus merging the four decks of the cargo hold into one. Each deck is equipped with a conveyor belt, small cargo crane, and a compact graviton beam projector, intended to move salvaged materials onto the conveyor belt for sorting. The cargo crane and conveyor belt can be stored inside of the bulkhead of that deck of the cargo bay if space is needed. Each cargo deck is also complemented with a weapons locker room, tool closet, and decontamination shower and locker room. The central cargo hold which has the main space door (This door is opened when pulling cargo into the vessel), is also equipped with four 'Deviance' Shotgun Gatling, and two Lorath Plasma Arc Disruptor weapons, intended to dispose of any attempted stowaways. On the 1st, 3rd, and 5th decks of the vessel there are airlocks which allow passage to the optional cargo containers which can be attached to the outside of the vessel.

As a YE 37 refit feature, the Harvester has been designed to include a shuttle launch bay designed to accommodate a single shuttle, and a pair of work pods.

Brought on by a push to make Harvester-Class ships a safer work environment, modern YE 37 refitted Harvester class ships have been built to include a medical aid station. While this feature is lackluster at best, it is a considerable upgrade from the total lack of medical facilities in previous models of the Harvester.

Due to the large size of the cargo hold of the vessel, and the intent of the designers to make as minimal of curves of possible on the outer hull of the vessel, there have been a large number of rooms left on the ship which have no use, except for, you guessed it, cargo. These extra rooms are often converted into spare crew quarters, personal storage areas, and even recreation rooms.

This ship's armor is composed of layer of boron carbide for the inner hull, and Durandium Alloy for the outer hull. Wedged between these two layers is a layer of compressed stone thread fiber, intended to hold heat inside of the vessel, and serve as additional armor in case of outer hull penetration. Spaceframe structures have been brought to a standard as of YE 37, incorporating a combination of Nerimium and durandium construction. This standardization has been put in place to prevent hull failure due to gravitational stress or inertial stress while hauling significant cargo payloads.

The Harvester is equipped with six airlocks, one on the upper section, one on the port, one on the starboard, one on the lower, one on the aft, and one on the forward. There is also an exit and unloading ramp which can be extended from the rear airlock. The airlocks are also able to support a hard attachment the older model Lorath Cargo Vessels, allowing them to piggy back on the Harvester, thus making it possible to have four vessels attached to the Harvester at a single time.

The entire forward section of the vessel is intended to be used as an escape capsule, in the event of an emergency, the forward section can detach from the cargo storage section of the vessel and be able to escape from the danger area under its own power. In a recent refit, the Harvester has been fitted with a single Harbinger-Series Drop Pod located in the aft section of the vessel to allow for personnel at the rear of the vessel to be able to evacuate in the event of being isolated from the forward section of the ship.

On the lower, upper, starboard, and port sides of the vessel, a robotic arm is located, these robotic arms are able to grab onto objects ranging in size from .5 meters to 25 Meters in width through the use of extending supports for each digit of the arm. Each arm is able to move 50 tons of mass with the digits of the arm, but the harvester arms are mainly used to pull in the nets which can be fired from the launch ports attached to the arm. In a refit conducted in YE37, each arm has been outfitted with a focused plasma cutter, as well as having the digits at the end of the arm be modified to include an increased torque output, to allow for the arms to be used as a hull-cutting or separating tool.

Each Harvester Arm is equipped with a net launcher which houses a pair of reusable nets which are rocket deployed. These nets when fully spread are 200 x 200 meters. They are constructed from stone thread fiber ropes. These nets are able to harvest objects ranging from pistols, to full size shuttles. Multiple nets can be used to pull larger bounty. Each net is also equipped with electromagnetic coils wound around the stone thread fiber, these electromagnetic coils are intended to attract metallic objects into the net, and if set on overload, can cause a ship disabling EMP. (This is to be used to stop “run away” abandoned vessels. Not for pirate use, never for pirate use, ever.). Harvester net launchers have been modified in YE 37 to include mounting braces and cable launchers, designed to allow the Harvester to launch tow-cables to ships and objects.

As an add-on placed in YE 37 as a standard feature for the class, graviton projectors have been installed on the exterior of the Harvester. Eight projectors in total have been installed, and have been mounted securely for the purpose of allowing the Harvester to function as a tug-ship if necessary.

The Harvester is equipped with a recent Lorath innovation, a space distortion drive system. This allows the Harvester to reduce her mass, and to travel at super luminal velocities.

A benefit of innovation, cost-reduction, and availability, the Harvester has been outfitted with a low-end hyper fold system as of YE 37.

The Harvester is equipped with six large fusion engines, these engines are meant to put out many times the thrust intended to move the Harvester itself, the overpowered state of the engines is meant to allow the Harvester to tow vessels, and to move obscene amounts of cargo while in atmosphere, and to escape a planet’s atmosphere.

The Harvester is equipped with temperature control, air pressure regulator, air recycling, water recycling, organic matter re-composition and recovery, and stasis condition activation device (Ship wide freezer). Each deck has their own environmental systems package, allowing for each deck to remain isolated from the other decks of the vessel.

Each section of the Harvester is able to be isolated from the rest of the vessel when proper authorization is given. This feature is intended to allow crew members to isolate themselves from potential threats which may be brought aboard during the salvage process. The forward engineering and bridge sections can also be separately isolated. Isolation is accomplished by the use of solid Nerimium material blast shutters which block corridors and vents, and separating the section's environmental, power, water, and computer systems from the rest of the ship. The only connection that is maintained between the isolated section and the neighboring section are two cables, one for isolation override, an override which can only be given by the commander or a combination of the third and second in command, and a cable for audio and visual communication with the isolated section.

a five meter by five meter chamber is located beneath the main engineering room, this chamber is located underneath the ship’s FTL drive engines, the hatch to the chamber is labeled “Antimatter Storage Tank Access – Tanks Must Be Empty Prior To Entry, Explosion Hazard”. The chamber is equipped with an EM field generator intended to produce large amounts of sensor static within the room, wall refrigeration to conceal heat signatures, ambient room temperature refrigeration to preserve perishable goods, a subspace channeling crystal, intended to produce subspace and quantum interference to block out most subspace and quantum sensor packages, and give the impression that the area is being masked by the ship’s drive core. The chamber can also be equipped with an emergency cargo vaporizing gamma ray emitter, this emitter can be set to activate when the chamber is being tampered with, or at the commander’s digression. These chambers have been brought up to modern specification, allowing for installation of third-party jamming equipment, and stasis equipment.

Data storage of the Harvester is accomplished by use of a brain like “neuro-gel” pack system. These devices are designed to work like a living creature’s protein based memory and thought process. The gel packs are used to store a bulk of the vessel’s data and conduct the operation processes of most of the ship’s functions. Interaction with the computer is done by telepathic communication with the ship’s systems through the Neural Interface System, voice commands, or tactile controls when time is not an issue. Back up devices are conventional computer systems, using enhanced vacuum tube transistor technology, solid-state data storage, and an assortment of additional low-cost components, which would be just as likely to be found in a museum.

Harvester class ships use Lorath Sensor Packages and Lorath Communications Systems

This vessel is equipped with a Lorath-made Psionics Scrambling unit, this device is meant to prevent or weaken psionic assaults within the area influenced by the device.

The rail gun turret is intended to serve as a sort of machine gun turret. The turret is able to rotate a full 360 on one axis, and 180 on it’s other. The rail gun turret is a miniature version of the larger “Artillery” variant.

• Location: Turrets are located on the forward upper, forward lower, forward starboard, and forward port areas.

• Primary Purpose: Anti-mecha, anti-personnel, wreckage break up.

• Secondary Purpose: anti-light starship.

• Damage: Varies by ammunition

• Area of Effect: Impact area.

• Range: 20 miles Atmospheric, unlimited in space.

• Rate of Fire: 120 Rounds per minute.

• Payload 3000 slugs in ship storage adjacent to turret.

As a YE 37 add-on, a series of laser emitters have been added to the Harvester class. These laser emitters are relatively weak, and are designed for the purpose of being used as a cutting tool, a laser drill for mining operations, and as a point-defense system in a pinch. These emitters are each integrated into a robotic arm, which doubles as a turret.

• Location: Four emitters are located in the fore of the ship, while four are located in the aft.

• Primary Purpose: Wreckage break up, mining.

• Secondary Purpose: anti-ordinance.

• Damage: Tier 3, Heavy Anti-Personnel

• Area of Effect: Impact area.

• Range: 200Km in vacuum, 5km atmospheric.

Three shot missile pods are located in the forward lower section, forward upper, aft upper, and aft lower sections of the vessel.

These missile launchers are capable of firing M size missile ordinance.

As of YE 37, Harvester-Class ships have been marketed and produced to include;

2 Paa-Zem Advanced Construction Pod 1 Journey-Class Shuttle

This ship is able to be customized by the individual commander heavily, thus not every Harvester encountered may be the same as the others of its class.

This article was created by DocTomoe. It was approved by Wes on November 2, 2006: Approval Thread