The Imperial Mobile Repair Ship is a modfication of the well-known container ship, built by Kuat Drive Yards, the Super Transport XI. The container ship's hull was left intact, but the ship's immense cargo bays have been converted into hangar space. The Repair Ship's hangar is not a real hangar like in other combat starships. This hangar has more the function of a drydock. This can also be converted into up to three smaller sections or remains a single, larger drydock. Its drydock has capacities for a single capital ship up to 500 meters or several mid-sized starships. Of course, the ship has also capacities for small vessels, such as light freighters. The huge hangar gateway covers the entire front of the ship.
The Imperial Repair Ship is only lightly armed, as it is not intended to enter combat scenes, rather to take care for battle damage. Therefore, the ships' captains always try to avoid combat sceneries. Usually, the Repair Ship is stationed some distance away from the battle, accompanied by a small escort fleet. There, the damaged ship joins the Repair Ship to get repaired. The ship only enters the combat scene, if the damaged ship is no longer able to use its own engines to reach the Repiar Ship.
The Repair ship was created because the Empire realized its efficiency during battles lasting longer than expected (for example a siege). It was more practicable to repair damaged fleet vessels immediately than sending them to the next supply and repair station. So, the Repair Ship is often part of the supply line of large fleets. Further modifications are: the hyperspace capabilities were slighly improved, as well as the sublight speed. additionally, a shield generator was installed to safe the ship from collisions with other starships or space debris.
The ship also features ten tractor beam projectors for the case a damaged ship was hit too badly to enter the drydock by its own engines. But there were not much Repair Ships converted, as the Empire's main fleet vessel, the common Imperial Star Destroyers has twice the size of the Repair Ship and so doesn't fit in its hangar. That means that there were less Repair ships needed as there were expected. But nevertheless, the Imperial Repair Ship is a profitable ship, most of all for the maintenance or repair of older starships, during longtime missions.
The Imperial Repair Ship cannot perform miracles. It has not the capacities to fully repair a seriously damaged starship. However most important starship systems can be fixed to an acceptable degree (See list below for possible repairs). There are 510 highly trained mechanics aboard the ship. The drydock of the ship can be divided in up to three parts, depending on how many ships do need a repair. The maximum length of the drydock, if it remains in one part, is 510 meters. If two parts are needed, one section is 170 meters long and the second section 340 meters. If the dock is converted into three parts, these have 170 meters in length each. So it's not possible to repair, for example, three Strike-class Cruisers at the same time, as this would require a drydcok of 1,350 meters. The sections of the drydock depend on the size of the ship which is to be repaired (see list below).
Of course, it is possible that the mechanics aboard have a bad day and so the repairs cannot be done. But it's also possible that the needed replacemnet parts are not available. To avoid this cases, roll a D6 before the repairs begin. Here's a list of what happens if the dice shows a ...
1 - Essential replacement parts are not availabe. The repairs cannot be done.
2, 3, 4, 5 - The repairs can be done as scheduled.
6 - The mechanics have a very good day: The repairs receive an extra bonus (see below).
The following repairs can be done by the reapir crew (510 mechanics) of the ship:
The duration of the repairs which is listed below in the table is for large repairs. You can combine two small repairs to a large repair, that means that the duartion of a large repair is equivalent to the duration of two small repairs. Example: A hull repair for a large ship that needs all three sections of the drydock is a large repair and thus needs the full 3 days to be repaired. A shield repair and a sensor repair, which are both small repairs, would only need 3 days to be reapired, as well, although they are repaired at the same time.
| First Case: 1 ship in the docks | ||
| Sections needed | Mechanics assigned | Duration of repairs (in days) |
| Ship #1 | Ship #1 | Ship #1 |
| 3 | 510 | 3 |
| 2 | 510 | 2 |
| 1 | 510 | 1 |
| Second Case: 2 ships in the docks | |||||
| Sections needed | Mechanics assigned | Duration of repairs (in days) | |||
| Ship #1 | Ship #2 | Ship #1 | Ship #2 | Ship #1 | Ship #2 |
| 2 | 1 | 340 | 170 | 3 | 3 |
| 1 | 1 | 255 | 255 | 2 | 2 |
| Third Case: 3 ships in the docks | ||||||||
| Sections needed | Mechanics assigned | Duration of repairs (in days) | ||||||
| Ship #1 | Ship #2 | Ship #3 | Ship #1 | Ship #2 | Ship #3 | Ship #1 | Ship #2 | Ship #3 |
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 170 | 170 | 170 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| Source | |
|---|---|
| Stats: | Christopher Deck |
| Illustration: | John Paul Lona in Wanted by Cracken, West End Games. |