| abstract
| - When the Megaroad Colony Ships where first being constructed many in the United Nations Government would believe that these colony fleets would need dedicated factory and support ships thanks to the thought that these colony fleets would be traveling for decades they need a way to replace combat losses as well as producing equipment for the colony itself. While some early Megaraod Fleets would use modified captured Quiltra Queleual Class ships for support ships. Later fleets would need a better capable ship to do this. Therefore the Vulcan Class Long-Range Factory Ships would be introduced to serve this role in a colony fleet starting with the Megaroad-04. The Vulcan Class starting in 2018 would be constructed alongside their assigned Colony Ship and once launched serve as the main core of the colony fleet. It would be noted during an early planning session for the Megaroad-04 Colony Mission that it would be better if the fleet sported two factory ships. This would prevent a fleet losing its main factory ship if one of them was destroyed. It would for this reason both ships would be kept apart in the fleet, with one usually trailing behind the main colony fleet. Once finished the Vulcan Class would be packed with various factories, forges, factory shops, machine shops and assembly lines allowing it to supply the colony with whatever it needs. All of these factories and such allow a colony to be pretty-much self-sufficient. The new factory ship would also sport two extra-large interior docks allowing the factory ship to repair, refit, or even build entirely new ships for the colony fleet either for civilian purposes or the defense of the colony. These docks could take in ships up to three-hundred meters and two hundred meters wide which would be too small to build or repair larger ARMD Carriers. They could also construct or repair numerous smaller vessels up to three per dock with temporary bulkheads separating the dock into three equal smaller docks. What would really make it a great support ship for the Megaroad Colony Fleets would be the large center extendable scaffolding that allowed the ship to repair ships up to eighteen hundred meters long and seventeen hundred meters in width. This was a feature included in the design so it could repair the Megaroad Colony Ship when needed. When it is needed the ship extends its main six pods, away from the center while extending its scaffolding, and then a ship would easily slide into newly created dock to be repaired. However thanks to this the ship is not able to move at all during repair operations, though in a real emergency it can fold but it is not advised. An interesting feature of this center dock is that it can be used to construct ships from scratch with the support of all six of the ship’s pods. Like the larger Megaroad Colony ship the Vulcan Class Factory Ships would sport light close-in defense for anti-fighter/anti-mecha defense. However the factory ship can not carry its own defense fighters thanks to cramped nature of the ship with all of its various factories and such stuffed into the ship. Therefore a Factory Ship is often escorted by a large escort group, mainly several Oberth-II Class Destroyers, later Northampton Class Frigates. It should noted however that while the ship doesn’t sport its own organic fighter compliment its sport the ability to carry twenty-four work pods and four light work shuttles for supporting the ship itself. The UNG would continue to build new Vulcan Class ships for every Megaroad Colony Fleet and would finally be replaced in the UN Colony Fleets in 2027 by the far-larger Three-Star class Super-Long Range Factory Ships which would be assigned to the last five Megaroad Fleets and the New Macross Colony Fleets. However like the Megaroad Colony Ships there are still several Vulcan Class ships traveling along the stars looking for a new home.
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