Forager Class

Class History

The Forager-class tanker vessels were built as fast Fleet auxiliaries during the Krynar war. Designed from the keel up to serve in the Fleet train to keep battle groups well supplied and armed at the front, a single Forager-class carries sufficient fuel, replicator material, and ready-made ordnance to completely reload and refuel a moderate-sized task force's fuel bunkers and magazines, not to mention a limited store of fresh food that most Starfleet crews salivate over after weeks on replicated food. Built with mostly off-the-shelf components and technology to minimize the design to deployment sequence, they are lean ships that borrow systems from across the Fleet.

The ship's two high-set nacelles sit over the massive cargo decks, while a small saucer section sits up forward. The narrow saucer section forward provides living space, recreation, and the Bridge, with the thin spine running down her back housing Engineering and specialized cargo-handling control stations. Below this spine sit the large cargo decks, with the forward most position occupied by a pair of large shuttlebays carrying specialized cargo-handling shuttlecraft for underway replenishment operations, as well as a number of one-man work pods for the same. Dedicated cargo-handling tractor beam emitters are mounted port and starboard at 4 points down the side of the cargo decks, along with fuel transfer lines to hook up and feed another starship's tanks. Her shielding is comparable to that of a Berlin-class frigate, and for self-defense she carries dual-mount Type 3 Phaser Banks in the saucer and at the stern, with a dual-mount Type 1 Phaser bank forward to provide coverage against the light ships favored by pirates and raiders.

Despite these ships massing almost as much as an Avenger-class heavy cruiser, the lack of necessity for a Science department, a minimal Tactical department, and significantly lower crew manning and redundancy requirements when compared to a ship intended for Tactical situations permit them to operate with a small, tight-knit crew of Engineering and Support specialists. While they are designed specifically to be able to cruise with the Fleet and can sustain a cruise of Warp 8 comfortably, exceeding that threshold puts much more strain on her systems than it would on a comparable starship.

Underway Replenishment (UNREP) operations are accomplished by bringing the starship to be supplied alongside at close range, locking her relative position down with the main tractor beams, and then sending fuel lines across, transporting across most goods, and using the shuttles and work pods to move anything that isn't transporter-safe.

There aren't many of these dedicated replenishment vessels in the Fleet, but those that there are often prove invaluable to the Flag officer looking to keep his group on station well away from the support of starbases and planetary resupply.