Rusty
Purveyor of Fine Weaponry
Image Source
Intent: To create a suite of armor for [member="Goran"] in keeping with Mandalorian tradition.
Development Thread: Manipulating Basic Vernacular (Songsteel Challenge)
Manufacturer: Rusty's Custom Firearms and Cutlery
Affiliation: [member="Goran"]
Modularity: No
Production: Unique
Material: Songsteel/durasteel blast welded armor plating with ceramic backing that channels thermal energy into heat sinks, ablative coating, durasteel frame, hydraulic components, astromech socket adapted from a starfighter, ammo storage and feeding assemblies, power plant, microprocessors, gyroscope-based stabilization system, sensor suit, IR laser rangefinders
Classification: Multipurpose
Weight: 3,523 kilograms
Quality:
- Kinetic Impact- 9
- Projected Energy (blaster and similar)- 10
- Lightsaber- 9
- Explosives (traditional)- 7
- Explosives (shaped charges)- 3
- Force Attacks- 3
Strengths:
- Highly resistant to most forms of attack. The blast-welded durasteel/songsteel plating provides excellent protection against a variety of weapons, though master smiths the galaxy over are likely to look on in disgust at the idea. In addition to the armor plating, the armor is coated with a ceramic-based ablative coating that burns away when struck by high energy attacks, channeling the thermal energy away from the armor's internals. Though the ablative is only partially effective at channeling away energy and loses effectiveness immediately after being struck, a ceramic backing on the armored plating channels any energy that makes it past to heat sinks that disperse it harmlessly, up to a certain point.
- Enormous physical strength allows the armor to wield weapons that would prove challenging for a normal organic. Because it's very large, very heavy, and well stabilized, it can handle the extra recoil well. When combined with the sensor suite, rangefinder, and the Shard's natural processing capabilities, it's capable of laying down accurate, sustained fire.
- Extremely slow, and extremely heavy. Requires stable ground to walk effectively. Cannot run, cannot jump, and it can't even walk particularly fast. Maximum speed of about 7 kph.
- Power hog. Requires three disposable power cores to operate, and it will run through them in about five hours. The depleted cores are radioactive, which isn't much of a problem for Goran, but can be for others.
- Vulnerable to shaped charges. Though the armor is well resistant to most normal attacks, its construction makes it vulnerable to nearly any sort of shaped charge.
- Vulnerable to landmines. Because of the large footprint, they've got a higher chance of triggering them. On top of that, the force of the blast has nowhere to go but directly into the armor, and while the feet offer some protection, they necessarily can't have the same level of protection as, say, the chest.
- Will not actually fit inside the corridors of most starships, or inside most buildings for that matter.
- If this thing blows, it will kill the user. No loldodging, no last minute saves, just death.
Because, essentially, this is Goran's little black cocktail dress. It serves no purpose other than to make it feel pretty and to turn heads. And for that, it is exquisitely well suited.
The heart of this set of armor, if it can truly be called that, is the power plant: a high output reactor style device that uses disposable power cores to provide the energy necessary to move the bulk along and power its subsystems. It uses three disposable cores that must be changed out every five hours. The cores are related to the same ones used in the T.U.R.K.E.E. series of weapons, and require all the same precautions when being handled, as they can be extremely hazardous if the protective seals are broken.
The power plant is also the most vulnerable part of the armor, or at least the part most prone to catastrophic failure. Should a round breach the plating and breach the plant, it will explode in spectacular fashion, killing the user dead. Naturally, it's stored inside the heavily armored lower torso, along with the ammunition magazines.
The magazines are essentially cavities into which 2 boxes of 17mm linked ammunition are stored. It has a total capacity of 500 rounds, and feeds those rounds to whatever weapons are mounted on the suit via a feeding mechanism. For weapons that are belt fed, they can feed directly from the suit. For magazine fed weapons, a special magazine adapter was designed. The adapter functions much like the innards of a belt fed machine gun, in that it separates the links and spits them back out, but instead of firing them directly, it feeds them into the weapon. Though the magazine is heavily protected, a penetrating shot will cause it to explode, resulting in the death of the user.
On top of all this sits an aftermarket droid socket of the variety found in starfighters. The socket will both hold Goran's body in place and allows it to interface with and control the armor.
All of this rides in a heavy duty durasteel frame. The frame is, by necessity, constructed from high strength/high density durasteel, as lesser materials would be unable to stand up to the stress of combat. Much like a human skeleton, it achieves locomotion through the use of muscles, in this case a customized hydraulic system that is both extremely powerful and extremely precise. The hydraulics are controlled via a specially designed processor that allows them to be manipulated with millimeter precision. The processor woks in tandem with a series of gyroscopes and accelerometers to stabilize the suit.
Because of the suit's heavy weight, movement speed is limited. The arms are capable of moving with a fair amount of speed, but walking speed is limited to no more than 7 kilometers per hour in order to prevent undue stress on the system. Because of the extreme stability afforded by the stabilizing system, along with the weight, it's extremely difficult to knock it over with Force based attacks.
For the armor portion of the armor, plates of armor grade durasteel were blast welded together with songsteel and shaped to fit. Blast welding is a process by which sheets of dissimilar metal are welded together through the careful use of high explosives. The sheets of material are separated by the use of spacers that are completely obliterated in the blast. A carefully calculated layer of high explosives is placed evenly over the top plate. When the explosives are detonated, the two sheets of metal are hurled into each other with tremendous energy, fusing them together into one solid plate.
The songsteel forms the outer layer of the armor, primarily due to its resistance to lightsabers. This durability makes it an excellent choice for defense against energy weapons. The durasteel on the inside is better suited to stopping physical projectiles. The plates are then backed by a layer of ceramic that serves as a heat conductor. it channels any excess heat into heat sinks, which disperse the thermal energy into the atmosphere harmlessly. This serves to augment the armor's resistance to energy attacks. On top of that, an ablative coating is used in the place of traditional paint. When the coating is struck by energy weapons, it burns away, channeling the thermal energy away from the suit. The ablative coating is a single use only thing. Once a patch has been burned away, it can provide no further protection.
The construction of the armor has rendered it somewhat hollow, which means that shaped charges can play havoc with the internals. Penetrating the formidable armored plating is no easy task, but if a shaped charge, with its self-forging copper penetrator breaks through, the resulting spalling will bounce around, shredding the delicate innards. A loss of either hydraulic pressure or the stabilization system will irrevocably cripple the suit, leaving it immobile. Penetrate either the reactor or the magazine and Goran dies.
To assist in not dying, the armor is fitting with a sensor suite and IR rangefinders. When used in conjuction with Goran's natural processing capabilities, they allow the Shard to accurately place sustained fire on targets. Between its ability to put holes in things at a distance and its durability, the Little Black Dress should, in theory, allow Goran to be a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield.
Primary Source: N/A
