Earth Alliance Artemis Class Variants Artemis Class Variants Artemis Fire support frigate (uncommon): The Artemis Fire support frigate was designed to give long range support to battles. Armed with six MLC in place of the standard Railguns, the ship excelled at providing covering fire with its weapons. This ship reached uncommon status when the Earth-Minbari War broke out. All Artemis class, save a few in the reserve fleets and breakers, were destroyed. Artemis Fire Support Frigate (Eta Model) SCS Artemis Escort Carrier (uncommon): Another relatively uncommon variant of the Artemis was the Escort Carrier version launched six months into the E-M war. Designed to ferry Starfuries into battle, and to escort convoys, the Artemis Escort Carrier boasted three flights of fighters. The hangar was located in the forward section, all heavy weapons were removed and replaced with SPBs. The standard two shuttle hangar was still in the primary section. Artemis Escort Carrier (Iota Model) SCS Artemis Missile Frigate (Rare): The Missile Frigate was based on the idea of a smaller, cheaper to produce Sagittarius. The ship was a moderate success, until logistics problems caused the variant to fall into disuse. With the railguns replaced with Class-S missile racks, the ship was fearsome from a distance, until the limited number of missiles removed the ship from battle. Artemis Missile Frigate (Epsilon Model) SCS Artemis Battle Frigate (rare): The Artemis Battle Frigate was an experiment late in the Earth Minbari War to see if heavy weapons could effectively be fielded on board an EA heavy combat vessel. The project two of the last three Artemis class ever built and converted them into this new configuration. Both ships were considered failures. They didn't have the necessary power to arm and effectively use all their weapons at once. Both were lost prior to the Battle of the Line. The were armed with one HLC, 4 SPBs, 4 LPC's, and 2 Railguns. Artemis Battle Frigate (Kappa Model) SCS Artemis AEGIS Frigate (rare): During the Earth / Minbari war, the Narn sold the EA modified Centauri weapons. These included the infamous Twin Array, something which intrigued the scientists who were examaning it. After the war, they looked at combining the rate of fire of the Twin Array and the range of the SPB. Thus the Dual Particle Beam was born. Unfortunately, it did not perform exactly as well at the TA. It's fire control systems were not as advanced as the TA's, and it was a somewhat tempermental weapon. As such, for the second shot of the turn, it can only engage a target within 3 hexes of the one previously fired upon. Also, when rolling a critical hit, add a +2 modifier to any roll made. Note that this is NOT cumulative. While not as good a weapon as was hoped for, it was still a decent anti-fighter weapon. As such, it was decided to make use of it on a new escort ship. A gutted Artemis was found during one of the post-war battlefield cleanup operations. This was an ideal starting point. First, the Railgun mounts were filled with the new DPBs. A new reactor was installed, making room for a new hangar with a flight of Starfuries. Ironically, it was the failure of another project that gave this one it's final touch. The AEGIS sensor pods used in the Hyperion Lambada were not a success. Instead of abandoning them, however, they were reevaluated. Instead of using a large, expensive hull like the Hyperion, a cheaper and more expendable hull could take the substandard equipment. A hull like the Artemis. As such, the hull being used had it's 4 original SPB's removed, and replaced with an AEGIS pod on each side. And this the Artemis Gamma Aegis Frigate was born. This variant was suggested by "Nyles" on the Babylon 5 Wars online forum some time ago. Artemis AEGIS Frigate (Gamma Model) SCS