The O'Donnell Class trawler is part of a long line of dust and gas trawling space vessels that date back to the chemical, ion and plasma propelled robotic trawlers launched by various nation during the mid 21st century to harvest the asteroid belt in the Sol star system.
The NAR-2800 Rosie O'Donnell was launched in the mid 2200's to replace older Cabot Class trawlers (refer to Rick Sternbeck's Space Flight Chronology book). It featured the biggest ever maw than had ever been seen before and could intake more at a faster rate because of this.
The Cabot Class was only capable of warp 4.5 and this severely limited its radius of operations between star systems and refinery stations. By contrast the O'Donnell Class was capable of warp 7 and warp 6.6 with a pod attached.
Having the ability to attach, fill and discard pods for collection was the major difference between the O'Donnell Class and all the preceeding trawlers. The Cabot Class and its predessesors required docking with a facility in order to off load a trawl. By adopting the use of Federation standard ore and tanker pods the O'Donnell Class trawlers were able to spend more time actually trawling than their predessors. Pod rotation was handled by pod shunting vessels to be collected by barges and tugs at pre-determined collection areas outside an asteroid field or clear of the gravitiational influences of a large gas giant planet.
Trawlers operate by the use of discriminating magnetic or tractor scoops that are tied in with the trawler's sensor array and navigation computer. In this way the trawler can navigate its way through a dust or gas cloud seeking out the more bountious deposits of what it is intending to collect.
Trawlers can collect anything from minerals and metals, from dust clouds inside asteroid belts and fields, to gases either in clouds or atmospheres.
Topic: Federation O'Donnell Class Trawler For SFC 1 (Read 3736 times)