[Imges]

The Zeke class of ships are fairly old now. They were used around the time that the League of Planets started. They are not very fast, pretty, or useful now. They mainly operated as short range troop transports of infantry and some light equipment as well as landing craft in a pinch. Their primary use now (if you can find one) is that of rust growth or stationary practice target.

The goal was to be cheap and disposable... and the Zeke class did just that. Once they started to have a few years on them, it was common for them to make a landing and never be retrieved with just the reactor and engines being salvaged. Some can still be found rusting on planets involved in the earlier conflicts. The great strengths of this class was the numbers in which it could be built and how fast they would come off the line. These ships became even less useful once infantry powersuits came into common usage as powersuited troops could not fit onto the Zeke ships easily. Refits were more expensive than the ship itself, and were deemed pointless.

This is a fact sheet that has been assembled for the Scooterville Library. This is for historical purposes only and these plans should not be used to create any vehicle. If you choose to build a ship, the Library will not be held liable in any way, especially when you blow yourself up or crash into a moon.

Stats

• Length: 77M
• Displacement: 1000 tonnes
• Crew: 3
• Capacity (troops): 200 ground infantry

  Reactor

This class of ship featured a Mark-11 exposed ion collision reactor. While it had poor protection it was fairly well designed and did not require lots of maintenance. The Mark-11 series (and most other ion collision reactors) were eventually abandoned in favor of higher output and more compact technologies. Out of the ion collision reactor types the Mark-11 was the largest. Even with low consumption engines the Mark-11 barely covered the needs of the ship. It was not uncommon for the lights and secondary systems to experience a brown out upon planetary landing.

Storage

For the cost, the Zeke's offered a large amount of carrying capacity. Before the adoption of power suits, the main hull could hold 200 ground infantry. Unfortunatly, after the invention of power suits the Zeke's were too small to accomodate troopers. Some Zeke's had the lowest deck separating troopers removed and would carry some light equipment. Armored vehicles of any kind were too large for this vessel.

Hull

The leading edge of the upper and lower hull was reinforced for planetary landings. The idea was to have the lower hull dig into the dirt anchoring the vessel (and keeping it from tipping over). Needless to say, landings were often very rough.

Engines

The Zeke's had six main planetary landing engines of various types (depending upon availability at construction) mounted on gimbals. Shown here are a set of Peterson EO-424's. The drive engines were a set of three low consumption Peterson EL-a49's. The design of this ship is old enough that gravplates were not yet an option for propulsion.