Unreviewed DPH-771 "Dank Ferrik" Macrotorpedo Pod

[Helix]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To create a long-ranged shipboard siege weapon for the Dzara
• Image Source: Isolated from the image here via ChatGPT editing
• Canon Link: N/A
• Permissions: N/A
• Primary Source: N/A

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

• Manufacturer: The Dzara
• Affiliation: The Dzara
• Market Status: Closed-Market
• Model: DPH-771 "Dank Ferrik"
• Modularity: Yes
• Production: Minor
• Material:
  • General Construction: Blightsteel
  • Electronic Components: Helglass
  • Primary Damaging Payload: Otherplasma
  • Torpedo Coating: Storm Iron

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Classification: Torpedo Launcher
• Size: Very Large
• Weight: Very Heavy
• Ammunition Type: Oversized Otherplasma Torpedos
• Ammunition Capacity: Small
• Effective Range: Battlefield
• Rate of Fire: Low
• Damage Output: Very High
• Recoil: High

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Individually Repulsor-Shielded Torpedos
• Modular Payloads
• Aftershock-Capable Torpedo Guidance

STRENGTHS

• Bigger Gun: The Ferrik delivers oversized Otherplasma-fusion warheads over enormous distances. It possesses excellent range, accuracy, and damaging potential.
• Poisoned Blade: The Ferrik's munitions carry long-term radioactive contamination, and excel at extended bombardments of orbital or surface-oriented positions.
• Surefire: The Ferrik's torpedos are individually shielded, decreasing the likelihood that they can be successfully shot down or intercepted.
• Looting Crew: The torpedos' payloads can be removed, allowing particularly courageous crewmen to use them as large-capacity boarding pods.

WEAKNESSES

• Forward Gun: Ferrik assemblies are too bulky (in most cases) to be put on rotating housings, and cannot turn to track moving vessels (though of course, the torpedos themselves still can).
• Cookout: Ferrik pods create a serious vulnerability on their accompanying vessel, and damage to the weapon itself can be catastrophic.
• Oversized: The Ferrik's torpedos are too large to be carried in significant numbers, harshly limiting the launcher's ammunition capacity.
• Noodle Arms: It should go without saying, but the Ferrik is far too large to be carried on any vessel smaller than a cruiser, limiting its use to larger warships.

DESCRIPTION

An enormously oversized torpedo launcher, the DPH-771 is largely utilized on the Dzara's pirate vessels.

Supposedly, this weapon derives its rather expletive-laden nickname from the panicked reactions of its victims. Whatever the truth, it cannot be denied that the so-called "Dank Ferrik" is as bizarre as it is terrifyingly destructive.

By itself, this weapon measures some 800 meters in length, and launches munitions that are themselves some 110 meters in length. This enormous size and bulk usually mandates that it be built or attached directly to the hull of a ship, rather than set in a rotating or turreted housing. Only the very largest and mightiest vessels can hope to carry these launchers in a more traditional weapons battery.

Due to this significant size, these weapons enjoy a range, accuracy, and hitting power that has few (if any) other equivalents in the galaxy. Smaller ships are likely to be snapped in two by even a single direct impact, if not destroyed in their entirety.

Typically, individual torpedos possess unstable Otherplasma warheads, achieved by the simple expedient of fusing multiple thousands of KBR reactors together within the projectile's housing. Upon impact, the resultant meltdown produces a self-sustaining, night-black Otherplasma storm that can easily span twenty kilometers or more in radius, and produce explosive force signatures into the dozens of gigatons.

What's more, each and every one of these torpedos carries its own shield generator, allowing it to push through all but the worst of point-defense fire.

It need hardly be said that this weapon is best utilized at a distance, and preferably a very long one. Its mere presence on a vessel creates a significant weak point, and the possibility of an ammunitions cookoff will put caution into the heart of even the most treasure-crazed corsair.

Unfortunately, this weapon is sometimes used to perform orbital bombardments, and when so doing can create planetside devastation even worse than the infamous Flicker munitions. Surface impacts from these weapons can flash-vaporize kilometers of topsoil, immediately moltenize bedrock, and in numbers, destabilize or destroy planetary surfaces entirely. Their impact points are usually easily visible from orbit.

As is the nature of Otherplasma-based weaponry, these munitions virtually always render their ground-zero impact points uninhabitable and unusable. Many such locations can be irreparably poisoned, displaying flesh-liquefying radiation levels for centuries or even millennia after detonation.

Pirates being pirates, some crews are insane enough to remove these weapons' explosive plasmoid payloads and utilize them as makeshift boarding pods. In this capacity, they can perform surprisingly well. Though their sheer size renders their use impractical against smaller vessels, this same size enables these torpedos to deliver dozens or potentially even hundreds of boarders with a single shot.