Regarding Surak's Razor - Supplemental
Stopping briefly in the Oort cloud of an unoccupied neighboring system, Lothar, Khan, and I have quickly replaced the decades-old civilian-grade warp core in Surak's Razor with the much more powerful one Lothar stole from the Norway-class USS Suida Viarum. As Lothar had predicted, we lost approximately 10% of the cargo space in Surak's Razor accommodating the new warp core.
This concludes the upgrades we'd planned to Surak's Razor, raising its capabilites greatly from how it was when Lothar originally stole it from the other Storvik. We had previously added Excelsior-class nacelles, which provided a ship this small with incredible speed and maneuverability (but were a strain on the existing warp core, thus necessitating its replacement). Lothar also hollowed out a large asteroid rich in actinides and thalium (naturally-occurring compounds which interfere with sensors) to act as armor and camoflague -- and the additional mass actually improves the efficiency and handling of the new warp system. The only problem with the new warp core is that the phasers are channeled through it to increase their power -- and the old phaser arrays on Surak's Razor are not capable of handling the level of power which can now be provided to them. If we were to fire the phasers on full power, we would get a single extremely powerful shot -- and then the entire phaser array would burn out. However, as a great deal of time and effort would be required to upgrade the phaser arrays, we are not planning to do so. It is our intention that they will not be needed in any case.
Lothar tells me that the original hull of Surak's Razor is an ancient Klingon Raptor-class ship, approximately two centuries old. A Raptor required a crew of twelve to operate. At some point, however, the Raptor was decommissioned and taken over by civilian interests (traders who operated both above and below the law). All of the internal systems were ripped out and replaced with newer, more efficient, and much more compact systems (by my estimate, the systems inside Surak's Razor vary in age, being no less than a decade old and no more then forty years) -- Surak's Razor now can be operated by a single person, although two would be more optimal. The ship has quarters for four; the remaining surplus space (gained by eliminating the remaining quarters and by using smaller components for the internal systems) was converted into a cargo hold. For the melange of parts which comprise it, Surak's Razor operates remarkably well. My inspection of some of the systems show telltime signs of recent maintenance and optimization; most likely by the other Storvik, since much of it looks like the same sort of changes that I would have made.
This concludes the upgrades we'd planned to Surak's Razor, raising its capabilites greatly from how it was when Lothar originally stole it from the other Storvik. We had previously added Excelsior-class nacelles, which provided a ship this small with incredible speed and maneuverability (but were a strain on the existing warp core, thus necessitating its replacement). Lothar also hollowed out a large asteroid rich in actinides and thalium (naturally-occurring compounds which interfere with sensors) to act as armor and camoflague -- and the additional mass actually improves the efficiency and handling of the new warp system. The only problem with the new warp core is that the phasers are channeled through it to increase their power -- and the old phaser arrays on Surak's Razor are not capable of handling the level of power which can now be provided to them. If we were to fire the phasers on full power, we would get a single extremely powerful shot -- and then the entire phaser array would burn out. However, as a great deal of time and effort would be required to upgrade the phaser arrays, we are not planning to do so. It is our intention that they will not be needed in any case.
Lothar tells me that the original hull of Surak's Razor is an ancient Klingon Raptor-class ship, approximately two centuries old. A Raptor required a crew of twelve to operate. At some point, however, the Raptor was decommissioned and taken over by civilian interests (traders who operated both above and below the law). All of the internal systems were ripped out and replaced with newer, more efficient, and much more compact systems (by my estimate, the systems inside Surak's Razor vary in age, being no less than a decade old and no more then forty years) -- Surak's Razor now can be operated by a single person, although two would be more optimal. The ship has quarters for four; the remaining surplus space (gained by eliminating the remaining quarters and by using smaller components for the internal systems) was converted into a cargo hold. For the melange of parts which comprise it, Surak's Razor operates remarkably well. My inspection of some of the systems show telltime signs of recent maintenance and optimization; most likely by the other Storvik, since much of it looks like the same sort of changes that I would have made.