Ashin Varanin
Professional Enabler
Image Source: Here
Intent: A modern production version of ancient towed array tech, which just isn't used often enough.
Development Thread: None. This is 100% canon tech, minus its most powerful sensor, with a metric fethton of weaknesses. I'm betting I'm in the clear.
Manufacturer: Theed Palace Space Vessel Engineering Corps
Model: Nass-type Towed Sensor Array
Affiliation: Select customers
Modularity: This is a component. Also, Crystal Gravfield Traps can be fitted to the array, as with the canon version, but the submitted ship must list them separately and handle any CGT-related dev requirements independently of the Nass. Otherwise, no modularity.
Production: Mass-produced
Material: Sensor net, sensor arrays, durasteel and transparisteel gondola.
Strengths:
- Sees virtually everything within four light-hours, which some sources consider the functional extreme limit of most military-grade sensor technologies. (A non-transmitting enemy ship, outfitted with a cloaking device and thrust trace damper, will still evade detection, except at very close ranges. If CGTs are added according to the restrictions listed above under Modularity, the enemy ship must have gravitic modulators to avoid detection.)
- Length allows precise triangulation of sensor intercepts.
- Length allows immensely increased sensitivity compared to virtually all ship sensors. 3,000m of sensor grid is just plain going to be more sensitive than anything crammed into a starship hull, and presumably armored, etc.
- Contains just about every kind of sensor known to man. (We're not talking about exotic stuff like gemcutters, though.)
- Takes a long time (a few hours, depending on skill of ship's crew) to deploy and retract.
- Must be retracted or abandoned for the ship to jump to hyperspace. Abandoning the net means abandoning the gondola's crew.
- Virtually impossible to defend side-on without a few wings of fighters; it's just too long.
- Net strands can be cut relatively easily; a single TIE fighter would wreak havoc.
- Aggressive acceleration or maneuvers can add slack and cause a whiplash that might snap the net. (Effectively adds +3 to the mothership's speed and maneuver ratings when deployed.)
- Can only be fitted to specially designed or extensively modified ships of Frigate class or larger.
Description: The Nass-type Towed Sensor Array is a close approximation of the ancient KDY Imperial Patrol Frigate's towed array. A gondola and a 3,000m sensor net are unspooled from the stern of a specially outfitted starship. The net is studded with a multitude of sensors, including DERs and HSIs, patterned after the ancient IPF's array. The Nass can pinpoint most stealth ships, hyperspace reversions, hypercomm and subspace transmissions, and nearby hyperspace transits without reversion (the latter for ships 100m or larger). It does not, however, have decryption capabilities; those functions must be handled separately.
Notably, and unlike the IPF's array, the Nass does not include Crystal Gravfield Traps by default, as not all customers can afford CGTs. However, separately-purchased CGTs can be plugged into the sensor net at various points (according to the restrictions mentioned above under Modularity: in essence, CGTs must be negotiated separately from the Nass in ship submissions, and are not included in this submission).
Also unlike the IPF's array, the Nass gondola is very lightly armed. It contains rudimentary maneuvering systems, one laser turret for emergency purposes, and life support for three persons. In no sense does it constitute a functioning spaceship. Think of it more like a diving bell at the end of a three-kilometre spiderweb.
Primary Source: Patterned after the towed array of an Imperial Patrol Frigate.
