Ortiz Class
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The Ortiz-class corvette is a compact multi-mission starship that serves a variety of patrol, courier, scientific, and scouting functions for Starfleet. Inspired by and evocative of the Earth Starfleet NP-class frigate, the Ortiz is extremely fast for its size—with a warp core and impulse engines that could easily power a cruiser, the interior leaves little room for creature comforts or unnecessary systems. Maintenance-intensive and temperamental, these vessels are nevertheless a pilot’s dream assignment. They are also favored by small mission teams from the Starfleet Corps of Engineers, Starfleet Diplomatic Corps, Starfleet Intelligence, and the Starfleet Judge Advocate General’s Corps as discreet, swift transports. The capabilities of an Ortiz depend primarily on the crew or team assigned to them.
Science and Exploration
While not intended for sustained, independent exploratory operations, Ortiz-class starships are used by scientific teams that need speed and discretion more than they need raw computing power or lab space. These vessels have two generalist science labs that can be configured for most scientific disciplines, along with an astrometrics lab that doubles as a mission operations center for coordinating away-team work. A typical mission might take an Ortiz to the edge of known space to allow a science team to study alien ruins or investigate unknown fauna; they’re too small, however, to adequately survey an entire planet or star system on their own.
Starfleet Social Sciences has found that the Ortiz is well-suited to cultural observation missions, as its small size makes it difficult for pre-warp civilizations to detect. It can also launch probes and observation drones from the twin launchers above the bridge, which are useful for both scientific and intelligence-gathering purposes.
Diplomacy
Ortiz-class starships are limited to diplomatic courier roles only. While their high speed is a factor in these assignments, they are spartan in terms of creature comforts that an ambassador or other VIP might expect. As space is at such a premium aboard, the principal VIP is often given one of the ship’s two holosuites to use as quarters while aboard—usually to the chagrin of the ship’s crew. Attachés and members of a diplomat’s entourage may find themselves in bunk beds as well.
Engineering
Perhaps even more overpowered than the Defiant, the Ortiz is built around its warp and impulse propulsion systems in such a way that the rest of the ship almost seems like an afterthought. The warp core is of a similar model developed for the Rhode Island class and spans the height of the ship, while the three impulse engines and their fusion reactors take up a significant portion of the aft quarter. Fuel- and maintenance-hungry, these systems allow the Ortiz to achieve phenomenal speeds at the expense of requiring regular starbase overhauls to stay in peak working condition. For courier missions, they can sustain high warp speeds for up to 6 months, but their scouting range is limited to 3 months out and 3 months back.
The unibody delta-shaped hull is highly maneuverable at impulse speeds, allowing the Ortiz to operate safely through asteroid fields and planetary ring systems, even with deflectors on low power for stealth missions. The deflector itself is a smaller version of the unit found aboard Sovereign-class vessels, optimized for high warp flight.
The Ortiz has a single combination cargo and shuttle bay in the lower portion of the stern. A single shuttle is carried, though some ships of this class are outfitted with a vehicle replicator and only build shuttles as necessary. This cargo hold can be configured for a variety of climate types and stasis modes, allowing sensitive goods such as fragile medicines or equipment to be transported.
Of the thirty crewmembers on a ship of this class, ten of them are typically engineers. This is often a challenging assignment, not because things break so often, but because maintenance is required so often to keep them from breaking. Components that last for years on larger ships are burned out after a single long warp flight on an Ortiz from the sheer amount of power being transmitted through such a small vessel.
Tactical
The Ortiz was considered an alternative for a light escort role that ultimately fell to the Aquarius, and it retains many of its heavy armaments from that phase of its existence. Phaser arrays port and starboard of the bow offer 360-degree coverage forward, while an array on the keel and its partner on the dorsal aft section provide rear coverage. In addition to the arrays, there are two pulse phaser cannons flanking the main deflector. Derived from those used aboard the Defiant, these cannons are a second-generation model with lower total firepower but better maintenance characteristics. The power systems on the Ortiz have been optimized for speed, so using all of these arrays simultaneously comes at the cost of reduced engine power. As such, most Ortiz captains will focus on keeping their targets in the forward arc. This tactic is further rewarded by the position of the Ortiz’s four torpedo launchers—two main launchers in pods beneath the main hull and two secondary launchers behind the bridge. The main launchers are the smallest burst-fire launchers in production, capable of launching salvos of four, while the secondary launchers are single-fire launchers optimized for probe deployment. The Ortiz carries a limited number of torpedoes, however, and they could quickly exhaust their stocks within a few volleys.
Defenses consist of a moderate layer of aa moderate layer of ablative armor on the hull, similar to that found on the Sovereign, as well as regenerative shields. As with the phasers, the shields can only operate at full strength if power is diverted from the engines. Given the hull armor and the ship’s tight maneuvering capabilities, many captains are willing to take a few hits to use their ships’ speed to their full potential. With that being said, the ship’s oversized warp core could sustain a very powerful shield if an Ortiz were to be put in a situation where it needed to harden its defense and wait for rescue rather than run.
This class of ship is a good choice for patrol missions near outlying starbases and along established star lanes. Some of them are used as search-and-rescue cutters flying on relatively fixed routes between starbases. Others are the sole defensive vessel for smaller outposts that can’t support a larger ship. In fleet combat situations, they’re adept at leading groups of fighters and runabouts to screen larger starships and at slipping in behind enemy vessels to target their vulnerable arcs with torpedoes.
Shipboard Life
Ortiz-class starships are a very different assignment for most Starfleet officers than serving aboard other vessels, not only because of their small size but also because of their variable-duration missions. For someone assigned to a sector JAG office, for instance, they may only live aboard a ship of this class for a few weeks while it delivers them to another starbase. For a scientist studying Promelian ruins, they may live in the field for months. There is also a different experience for members of these ships’ core crews and for mission teams. At a minimum, the ship needs 20 crew members to operate its systems and keep things running. With ten to fifteen people on a mission team, some of these ships experience a third or more turnover every few months. Some crew members enjoy the constant opportunity to meet new people, while others find it difficult to maintain and establish relationships.
In addition to the crew turnover issue, the crew quarters and support facilities aboard an Ortiz are very tight. There are ten single cabins for the ship’s senior officers, and everyone else is either in doubles or quads. Very few quarters have windows. There are two holosuites that can handle pairs or up to four people together in a pinch, but they’re less capable than full-scale holodecks. As mentioned above, one of these is sometimes even given to a VIP to serve as quarters. This arrangement makes the ship’s combination mess hall and lounge the center of all social activities, but it also means that crew fatigue is a real risk on the Ortiz.
Ortiz-class starships are one of the few full-fledged starships that are cleared to operate without a physician aboard. For missions near starbases lasting less than six weeks, the medical staff consists of a nurse and an EMH. The sickbay facilities are compact and are designed to stabilize patients before returning to a starbase. While they are used to deliver supplies and equipment to humanitarian disasters such as medical emergencies, they cannot provide meaningful medical support on their own.
Though it is increasingly common in San Francisco School designs in the early 25th century, the Ortiz is one of the few Antares School designs that has a large viewport on the main bridge. Indeed, the bridge feels more like a cockpit than a starship bridge in its layout. When necessary, the viewport can be polarized to block out harmful light or other radiation, but many pilots claim that being able to see the space around the ship without it being mediated through a viewscreen helps them “feel” the ship better.
The Ortiz-class History
Following the Dominion War, Starfleet entertained a number of proposals for new starship classes as the fleet began to rebuild. While most of the attention was focused on new explorer and cruiser prototypes, Starfleet was also interested in potential escort vessels, particularly ones that could be integrated into the forthcoming Odyssey-class heavy explorer. A design was pitched by a team at the Beta Antares Fleet Yards as a modern revamp of the NP-class frigate designed by United Earth in the 22nd century, though the actual similarities are limited to the ship’s overall shape and crew size. In a word, the project was over-engineered. While Starfleet was impressed by the high top speed and bleeding-edge capabilities, it didn’t meet the requirements for the embarked escort project, such as landing capabilities or retractable nacelles. Still, Starfleet authorized a production run for this class starting in 2380. Dubbed the Ortiz, after H. Ortiz, an early ASDB member, the class was found to be highly effective but temperamental in service.
The following year, when Starfleet’s main yards pivoted towards vessels for the evacuation of the Romulus, Beta Antares kept churning out Ortiz-class vessels for use as escorts during that mission, but these ships were routinely diverted for other tasks, especially transporting focused mission teams on their assignments when other vessels were no longer available. In this role, the class found its main niche, in addition to generalist patrol assignments. While Beta Antares had hoped this class could eventually supplant the Saber in Starfleet’s inventory, their maintenance-intensive nature and limited crew endurance kept them to a limited production schedule.
Still considered a capable, albeit dated, design, Ortiz-class starships remain in Starfleet’s production catalog and are still occasionally built, either customized to the needs of a specific agency or to replace vessels lost on the frontier.
The Ortiz-class In-Play
- As corvettes, Ortiz-class vessels are an excellent choice for stories you want to tell involving a very small cast of characters, either the scrappy crew of a vessel patrolling a sketchy frontier or a mission team that needs a ride from planet to planet. They’re just big enough not to need a mothership, but they’re small enough not to feel like that much of a step up from a large runabout.
- A little bit larger than the contemporary Protostar, the Ortiz can reasonably be portrayed with a completely fixed crew, a crew that’s different every mission, or a mix of some regulars and some visitors.
- When considering options for a starbase support vessel, an Ortiz can be a good choice, as it's very credible to have it waiting around in the hangar, either undergoing maintenance or simply remaining on standby for your station’s crew to need her. At the same time, her performance is high enough that you could, for instance, have a reasonable way to get from your starbase to the location of a Fleet Action or Campaign.