Archer-class

Spacecraft Registry

Archer-class scout
Spacecraft Characteristics
Base Hull	Custom hull
Length	50m
Drive Type	2x impulse engines 1x warp drive
Drive Rating	Peak velocity 0.05c
Armament	point-defence laser array multi-mission launcher
Primary Manufacturer	Utopia Planitia Shipyards
Owner	Starfleet Command
Faction	United Federation of Planets
Registry Number	Variable
Launched	10 October 2013
Purpose	Multi-mission scoutship
Primary Crew	14 (standard operating) 6 (minimum req.)
Operational Status	In Production

The Archer-class is the first of Starfleet's custom-designed scout ships. Since it was designed by Masao Okazaki for the "Vanguard" series of Star Trek novels and visualized as a 3D computer model by Mark Azevedo, the shipwrights at Utopia Planitia thought they could use the existing plans to reduce development time, getting a mass-produced ship into space before anyone else could.

It didn't work out that way. While the hull of the fictional Archer-class was designed with real-world physics in mind, the ship's drives and weaponry were based firmly in its source fiction, and attempts to duplicate those systems in Fenspace were remarkably unsuccessful. The design sat in development hell for years, while other groups and factions released mass-produced ships ahead of the Trekkies.

Then the Soviet Air Force approached the Utopia Planitia Shipyard about building Gagarin-class ships for the VVS. The Trekkies' ship designers quickly realized that the Gagarin's systems would work well as replacements for the systems they were having trouble creating for the Archer. They accepted the Soviets' offer on the condition that they could also use the technology in their own ships. Two months after the first Gagarin-class ship was launched, the first Archer left the drydocks.

Design

“	I was an exchange officer aboard the Archer for two weeks, just before the end of the Boskone War. That made me realize how roomy the Stingray is.	”
—Lt. Emily Lake, USN, April 2014.

The Archer-class is a small ship, even by Fenspace standards. There are only two decks - one in the saucer and one in the engineering hull - and the compartments near the edges of the decks are not tall enough to stand upright in. The captain and XO have small cabins, while the other twelve crew hot-bunk in four beds. There in no room aboard for landing craft, although this class ship can land on any VTOL pad large enough for its bulk.

Ships of the Class

As of the end of 2016, Archer-class ships have only been built for the United Federation of Planets. The class ship was christened Archer, while its sister ships are named after archers of reality and fiction: Artemis, Howard Hill, Sagittarius, Lü Bu, Arjuna, William Tell, and Locksley.