Earth Alliance Orestes Class Variants ## ## Orestes Class Variants Orestes System Missile Monitor (Rare): After the EA civil war, Earthforce needed some new ships to replace losses. In the resulting bidding frenzy a small arms manufacturer, who had until this point only made ground weapons, decided that they wanted to open a new space division. So, Martin-Zoila Space Systems (MZSS on your local exchange) contacted the friendly local senator and got the ball rolling. The 'old boy' network worked just as well in 2261 as it had in previous centuries and an upgrade program was tacked onto the bill authorizing new ship construction. MZSS's pet senator (his retirement consultant position was nice) fought hard for juicy contracts, but the company's space inexperience worked against them once the IA tech contribution was kicked into the equation. MZSS was stuc/..um graced with a contract to upgrade the Orestes monitor. Relegated to the strictly defensive mobile satellite role, the Orestes would be used strictly for temporary defensive duties until more permanent defenses could be constructed/rebuilt. Since the Orestes is slow, relatively unmaneuverable, and has poor sensors MZSS decided to give it some long range firepower that would enable them to reallocate reactor power elsewhere. So the railguns were removed and replaced with 2 LH-class missile racks in the same arcs. The 4 medium pulse cannons were replaced with L-class missile racks and the aft firing medium lasers were replaced with 2 of the medium pulse cannons. Just less than half the excess power was steered into a revamped sensor suite and the power grid was prepared for 'on demand power allocation' of the rest of the power surplus. since the Orestes was reported to be expensive to support, any part of the ship that could support newer more efficient equipment was so outfitted. The resulting (more support friendly) Orestes Missile monitor still ended up as basically punishment duty (in slightly nicer surroundings) for their crews, especially former Clark supporters. (Note: This design was created by Kizarvexis on the B5 Online forums) Orestes Class System Missile Monitor (Zeta Model) SCS