Unreviewed B78 "Harmony" Thermobaric Plasma Howitzer (v1.1)

[Helix]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To create a long-ranged siege cannon for Helix's forces
• Image Source: Link
• Canon Link: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Primary Source: N/A

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

• Manufacturer: Helix Privateers
• Affiliation: Helix Privateers / The Dzara
• Market Status: Closed-Market
• Model: B78 Harmony
• Modularity: No
• Production: Minor
• Material:
  
  • General Construction: Helsteel
  • Organic Components: Formgel
  • Self-Repair Lattice: Blightsteel
  • Exterior Finish: Helglass
  • Primary Payload: Otherplasma / X19

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Classification: Plasma, Chemical, Rad
• Size: Very Large
• Weight: Very Heavy
• Ammunition Type: X19-infused Otherplasma
• Ammunition Capacity: Very Large
• Effective Range: Battlefield
• Rate of Fire: High
• Damage Output: Very High
• Recoil: Very High

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Exceptional range and terminal effect.
• Leaves lingering patches of corrosive elements within the blast radius.

STRENGTHS

• Hammer Down: The Harmony strikes with singular violence in a very wide area, threatening all but the heaviest of vehicles or emplacements should it connect.
• Trench Drum: The B78 fires at a decently high rate, owing to its triple-barreled design.
• Night of the Comet: The Harmony possesses exceptionally long range, able to deliver indirect saturation fire from enormous distances.

WEAKNESSES

• Inaccurate: The B78's launched plasma-phosphor globes experience significant projectile deviation, and cannot be relied on to strike a target infallibly.
• Unstable: Like many weapons of this sort, damaging the weapon's plasma containment modules will almost certainly destroy it.

DESCRIPTION

A new and unpleasant artillery weapon, the ironically-named Harmony is Helix's answer to the classic indirect fire niche.

The weapon operates by pre-igniting a small, self-sustaining fusion reaction, infusing the resultant miniature star with X19 and Helsteel residue, and wrapping the entire sizzling package in an unstable magnetic field. The quasi-solid plasma shell visibly oscillates, as if the ravening anti-star within is only barely constrained into so tiny an area. The glowing mass is then ejected from the barrel of the weapon at a fairly low speed.

The purple-black plasmoid-chemical blob that results travels slowly, enough so that its movements can be observed with the naked eye. Some observers might note that the projectiles themselves look like tiny versions of Otherspace's black stars.

Upon striking a shield or a solid object, the pressurized star-stuff blob destabilizes, causing a sizeable megathermal explosion. Possessing something of the properties of thermobaric munitions, the burst feeds on its own scattered vapors, propelling itself outward with ever-escalating violence and subjecting a massive area to an earthshaking shockwave. Inside this is a smaller thermal radius where temperatures can momentarily reach incredible levels, but rapidly begin to die down as the explosion fades.

Even outside the explosion's radius, the intense overpressure effects can potentially inflict permanent hearing damage, possibly even damaging inner ear structures and inflicting debilitating dizziness and nausea. This is worsened still more by the explosion's scattering of toxic fallout, blanketing a wider tertiary area in long-lasting contaminants for an added area-denial utility.

The result is an excellent siege weapon, if a wildly inaccurate one. The unstable blobs fired are impossible to land with pinpoint accuracy, and only land somewhere in the vague area of where they are aimed. Random ballistic deviation is significant, meaning that saturation fire is almost always necessary.

The weapon itself is playing with fire, and should the magnetic fields keeping the weapon's plasma ammunition in check be damaged or destroyed, the result can be a devastating munitions cookoff that can destroy the emplacement (and often anyone manning it for good measure).

OOC Changelog:

Link to v1
Added a new div and in general polished the sub's presentation.
Added affiliation perms for the Dzara.
Expanded the materials section to bring it more in line with my other subs, and organized it in a neat manner.
Changed production to Minor to match up with most of my other subs.​