Argued either as 'the ship that won the CS-Spartan War' or 'an outrageous boondoggle draining money, resources and crew from more beneficial tasks,' the Artemis-class reconnaissance frigate is a new addition to the Core Systems Scout Service's fleet and is currently the hottest assignment possible in the CSSS's Recon Corps. Using state-of-the-art electronics and emissions-absorbing hull material, the Artemis is exceptionally difficult to spot in normal-space - but the centerpiece of the Artemis, and the source of its truly outrageous price tag (over a billion credits per vessel), is its attenuating jump drive. Advances in computer technology and jump theory allow fine manipulation of the jumpwave extinction rate, so that the Artemis' measurable jump signature is extremely difficult to detect unless a ship is right in the vicinity of the jump-out.
All these factors combined to make the Artemis frigate the secret weapon in the CSSS's pocket during the CS-Spartan War - jumping into Spartan systems ahead of an attack wave, scouting out the enemy force and transmitting that data to the inbound fleets as they arrived.
Standard Scout Service Configuration
| Artemis Recon Frigate | d-Tons | Cost (MCr) | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hull | 500 tons | Hull 10 | 32 | |
| Streamlined | Structure 10 | 3.2 | ||
| Stealth | -4 Sensors DM to detect | 50 | ||
| Armor | Ceramol | Protection 8 | 50 | 12.8 |
| Jump Drive K | Jump 4 | Stealthed Drive | 55 | 1000 |
| Maneuver Drive H | Thrust 3 | 15 | 32 | |
| Power Plant K | 31 | 80 | ||
| Solar Panels | 3.1 | 0.31 | ||
| Bridge | Holographic Controls (+1 DM) | 20 | 2.5 | |
| Computer | Model 3/bis | Rating 15 (J/C 20) | 3 | |
| Electronics | Countermeasures System | +4 Jamming DM | 7 | 6 |
| Enhanced Signal Processing | +4 Sensors DM | 2 | 8 | |
| Extended Arrays | 18 | 28 | ||
| Weapons | Hardpoint #1 | |||
| Hardpoint #2 | ||||
| Hardpoint #3 | ||||
| Hardpoint #4 | ||||
| Hardpoint #5 | ||||
| Fuel | 240 tons | One Jump-4 and four weeks | 240 | |
| Cargo | 26.9 tons | 26.9 | ||
| 5 Staterooms | 10 personnel (max) | 20 | 2 MCr | |
| Extras | Fuel Scoops | |||
| 10 Probe Drones | 2 | 1 | ||
| ATV | 10 | 0.05 | ||
| Ship's Locker | ||||
| Software | Maneuver/0 | |||
| Intelligent Interface | 100 Cr | |||
| Expert (Astronavigation)/3 | 0.1 | |||
| Expert (Sensors)/3 | 0.1 | |||
| Security/3 | 0.02 | |||
| Jump Control/4 | 0.4 | |||
| Library | ||||
| Total | 500 | 1,261,480,100 Cr | ||
| Maintenance Cost (monthly) | 105,123 Cr | |||
| Life Support Cost (monthly) at full occupancy | 15,000 Cr | |||
Variants
Lavigne-class explorer
see also main article at Lavigne-class Explorer
In the waning part of the 2480s, the Scout Service decided to take a second look at the Artemis-class frigate, which - in serving for the Recon Corps - had served as a testbed for many costly, controversial, experimental technologies. The underlying hull, however, was quite conservative and the unusual stresses placed on it by the Recon Corps' treatment of their vessels proved it as a sound design. This led the Exploration Corps to take the basic design of the Artemis-class frigate, strip out the dedicated reconnaissance gear and convert it to a general-purpose scout vessel named after one of their sterling figureheads, Ishrat Lavigne.
