The Skinner-class Survey Cutter

The Skinner class was commissioned by the Drinaxi Ministry of Security to fill two roles. In peacetime they operated under the Pilotage Division of Survey charting navigational hazards and providing periodic updates to the astrographic rutters for use by Drinaxi-flagged merchant vessels; in times of war, they were mobilised as fleet auxilliaries and assigned to Star-Guard naval flotillas to serve as sensor pickets and electronic warfare platforms.


To fulfil these two roles, an advanced sensor package with improved signal processing and a military countermeasures suite was fitted as standard, the design was specified to use hardened components throughout and had an engineering department sized for fleet manoeuvers (per Drinaxi naval doctrine, Thrust 6 and Jump 2). Although rated for a wartime crew of four (Pilot/Commander, Engineer, 2 x Sensor Technicians) the design includes Intellect and Virtual Crew software as well as Repair Drones, allowing it to be operated for extended periods by a single individual.

There were complaints that the design was both gold-plated (costing nearly three times to build compared to other vessels of a similar size and role) and a compromise design which was unable to meet both missions adequately, particularly that it was underarmored for the E/W role in a general fleet engagement. The Ministry of Security was reluctant to commission two different more specialised designs however, so they persisted with this class and when some of the criticisms were validated by the high losses suffered by the class during its first shooting war (the 2nd Goertal Incident) it was redesigned to be more survivable, with improved armour and radiation shielding.

The Drinaxi Survey commissioned hundreds of hulls over the years meaning that many Survey Cutters survived the Fall and have gone on to form a substantial fraction of the Star Guard's operational hulls over the past hundred standard years. Decommissioned hulls had also been made extensively available to the civilian market in and near Drinaxi space and a common modification was to repurpose it as a prospecting vessel by fitting a workshop into the crew accommodation volume, upgrading the sensors with a Mineral Detection Suite, removing the collapsible fuel tanks and installing mining drones into the cargo volume; there are several dozen such models in private hands across the Outrim Void. There was also a J4 courier variant, which sacrificed cargo volume for additional fuel tankage and replaced half of the accommodation volume with data storage but none of these courier variants survived the Fall.

Drinaxi Survey Cutter(100 dTon, TL15)

Cost: MCr80.81, Monthly Maintenance: Cr6734,
Life Support: Cr3000 (single owner operator) – 6000 (full crew)

Component	Description	dTon	Cost (MCr)
Hull	100 tons, streamlined Radiation shielding		6 2.5
Armour	Bonded superdense, 4 points	3.2	1.92
M-Drive	Thrust 6, size reduction x3	4.2	18
J-Drive	Jump 2, decreased fuel x3	10	22.5
Power Plant	Fusion, reduced size x3 Power: 90 Solar-panels	4.2 0.5	10 0.05
Power Requirements	Basic systems: 21 Manoeuvre drive: 60 Jump drive: 20 Sensors 8 Weapons: 1
Fuel Tanks	12 weeks operation, J-2 Collapsible tankage (17 dT) Fuel processor (20 dT/day)	20 0.17 1	0.017 0.05
Bridge	Small bridge Holographic controls (+2 init) +1 sensor station	7 1	0.25 0.062 0.5
Computer	Computer/15 fib		3
Software	Jump control/2 Manoeuvre Intellect Virtual crew/1		0.2 1 1
Sensors	Advanced sensors (+2 DM) TL13 countermeasures suite (+4 DM e/w) Improved signal processing (+2 DM)	5 2 1	7.95 6 6
Weapons	Double turret Beam laser x1 (accurate, easy repair) Sandcaster x1 (resilient, easy repair)	1	0.5 1.125 0.312
Systems	Advanced probe drones x15 Repair drones Low berth x2	3 1 1	0.25 0.2 0.15
Accommodation	2 x standard stateroom Common areas	8 2	1 0.2
Cargo		24.83