John Locke
V U L K A N
SPECIAL FEATURES
Loricium was developed around a deceptively simple premise: no single material can provide the ideal defence against every threat on the modern battlefield. Metals capable of enduring enormous physical stresses struggle against concentrated thermal loads; ceramics capable of surviving extreme temperatures can fracture under sufficient kinetic force; and even the strongest exotic materials eventually fail when enough energy is concentrated into a small enough area. Rather than searching for a miraculous substance without weaknesses, Loricium takes an engineering approach, combining several specialized materials into a precisely architected composite in which each component protects the others and compensates for their limitations.
The outermost defence consists of three staggered layers of sacrificial ultra-high-temperature ceramic scales. Rather than forming a single continuous plate, the ceramic is divided into individual cells, with each successive layer offset from the one above it. An attack that happens to strike the seam between two scales therefore encounters the centre of the scale beneath them, preventing the joins from becoming obvious weak points. Small voids separate the three layers, ensuring that a scale driven backwards or shattered by an impact does not simply transfer that damage directly into the ceramic beneath it.
These ceramic scales provide Loricium with its first line of defence against both energy and kinetic weapons. Their exceptional thermal stability allows them to absorb the sudden thermal shock produced by blasters and other energy weapons without immediately deforming or melting. Rather than attempting to retain all that energy within the impacted scale, however, Loricium uses the underlying Diamatrix structure to conduct heat laterally away from the point of impact, spreading it through a much larger volume of armour where it can be safely dissipated.
Against energy loads too great to dissipate, the ceramic's failure becomes another defensive mechanism. Instead of transmitting the entire attack into the armour beneath it, the exposed surface can oxidise, spall and ablate, sacrificing portions of itself while carrying energy away from the protected structure. Weapons such as disruptors can therefore burn through Loricium, but must first strip away the ceramic layer protecting it. Should an attack completely shatter a scale, the damaged cell simply exposes the staggered ceramic layer beneath it. Loricium is designed around the assumption that armour will eventually be damaged; its purpose is to make an attacker defeat it repeatedly.
The tremendous hardness and compressive strength of the ceramics provide similar benefits against physical attacks. Projectiles and impacts encounter a surface considerably harder than conventional structural metals, forcing them to break, deform or expend substantial energy damaging the ceramic. The individual scale construction also helps localize catastrophic fractures. Rather than a crack propagating freely through a monolithic ceramic plate, damage can destroy one scale while leaving neighbouring cells intact.
Beneath and around those scales lies the component that allows the entire system to function: an Alusteel-Diamatrix composite matrix. A rigid Diamatrix lattice forms the structural skeleton of the material, extending around the ceramic cells and between their layers. Diamatrix's combination of exceptional strength and thermal conductivity allows this lattice to collect both heat and mechanical stresses from an impact and distribute them laterally through the surrounding armour. A blaster strike that would otherwise concentrate its energy into a few centimetres of material is therefore forced to expend itself across a substantially larger area.
The Diamatrix is itself encased within Alusteel, providing the tough, comparatively ductile component that the extremely hard ceramics and Diamatrix lack. Where the outer layers resist and distribute an attack, the Alusteel backing is intended to absorb whatever remains. Microscopic voids deliberately incorporated into the metal provide controlled space into which the Alusteel can deform under sufficiently powerful impacts. Instead of forcing the rear surface of the armour inward toward whatever it protects, some of that deformation can be consumed internally as the microvoids collapse.
This layered construction makes Loricium particularly effective against repeated and mixed battlefield threats. A kinetic projectile might shatter an outer ceramic scale only to expend much of its remaining energy against the composite backing and encounter another ceramic layer beneath it. An energy weapon might ablate the first layer while the Diamatrix conducts heat away from the impact. Neither the ceramic, Diamatrix nor Alusteel is expected to stop every attack independently; Loricium's strength comes from forcing an incoming attack to overcome several materials through several different mechanisms before it can reach the protected structure.
There are, however, hard limits to that protection. Loricium is sacrificial rather than regenerative. It contains only three layers of ceramic scales, and every scale destroyed represents protection that cannot be recovered in the field. Concentrated or repeated attacks against the same location can progressively strip those layers away until only the underlying composite remains. Damaged sections must eventually be removed and replaced if the armour is to return to its original specifications.
It is not indestructible armour, because its designers never attempted to create such a thing. It is armour designed to be burned, cracked, crushed and broken so that whatever lies behind it isn't.
- Next-gen composite matrix
- Engineered to structurally deal with a number of attacks.
- Offset ceramic scales provide ablative layers of protections.
- A Diamatrix matrix provides strength and hardness to the armour.
- Alusteel provides toughness and durability
- Microvoids allow the armour to absorb significant impacts without warping.
- Get Architected:
- Loricium is an engineered composite matrix, using a variety of different materials in a precisely architected matrix to build a next generation armour material capable of withstanding the worst the galaxy had to throw at it.
- Scales of Protection:
- The first layer of protection Loricium provides is a series of offset ceramic "scales". The offset scales prevent any attack from slipping through the seams between the scales.
- Layer 1: [ A ][ B ][ C ][ D ]
Layer 2: [ E ][ F ][ G ]
Layer 3: [ H ][ I ][ J ][ K ]
- Layer 1: [ A ][ B ][ C ][ D ]
- Each scale is made of an Ultra High Temperature Ceramic (UHTC) and the armour takes advantage of the ceramic's properties. The ceramics have an extremely high tolerance to heat, and particularly to thermal shock (sudden extreme changes in heat and energy, such as when a blaster bolt or turbolaser impacts). This means when the armour is struck by a blasterbolt, the ceramics can absorb the energy of the blaster bolt without deforming, and then use it's thermal conductivity to transfer that energy to the rest of the armour via the Diamatrix lattice, dissipating the heat.
- UHTCs have a unique characteristic which will prove to be extremely useful when dealing with powerful energy weapons. Under extreme energy loads that exceed their capacity to absorb they have a tendency to oxidise and spall, the surface of the ceramic breaking down and coming loose leaving fresh ceramic underneath. This means extremely powerful weapons like a disruptor will cause the ceramic to ablate layers before it breaks down completely, providing additional defensive protection.
- UHTCs, are also extremely hard, with a Vickers hardness of 20-35 GPa (Titanium for example has a Vickers hardness of 3 to 4 GPa). This makes the ceramics extremely hard and difficult to damage, allowing them to shrug off physical attacks. The UHTCs also have an incredible compressive strength of over 2 times that of Titanium, making it incredibly resistant to impact damage.
- In the event that an attack does damage the ceramic beyond it's ability to absorb it will shatter or breakdown, leaving a fresh layer of ceramic scales beneath to face new attacks.
- Each layer of the ceramic is slightly separated by a void which will prevent the plates from impacting one another when they're hit.
- The first layer of protection Loricium provides is a series of offset ceramic "scales". The offset scales prevent any attack from slipping through the seams between the scales.
- Diamonds are an engineers best friend:
- Beneath the ceramic layer of the Loricium is a composite matrix made up of Alusteel wrapped around a Diamatrix lattice. A thin layer of the composite matrix is wrapped between the ceramic cells and between the layers.
- The matrix is built around a structure of Diamatrix which provides the Loricium additional toughness and strength. The Diamatrix's heat conductivity and solid structure is particularly important since it takes the heat and kinetic energy from impacts and spreads it through the armour, dissipating the energy to a point where it can't damage anything.
- Heavy-metal...rock on:
- The Alusteel wrapped around the Diamatrix provide the Loricium with stability and durability, the tough metal is able to absorb any blows and energy while protecting the diamond structure and providing a secure backing to the ceramic surface layers.
- Empty spaces:
- The Alusteel contains microvoids hidden within its mass, the microvoids are designed to give the Alusteel somewhere to fill if it ends up being hit with a physical impact strong enough to deform the metal. In this way, whatever is inside is protected from the physical impact.
- Limited Layers:
- Loricium only contains three layers of ceramics, once they are destroyed, the additional defensive capability they offer also is removed.
- Passive:
- While Loricium is a next-gen armour material, it is just that, a material and contains no active defensive capability.
- Non-regenerative
- Once damaged the armour has no regenerative abilities and will need to be replaced to return to full functionality.
Loricium was developed around a deceptively simple premise: no single material can provide the ideal defence against every threat on the modern battlefield. Metals capable of enduring enormous physical stresses struggle against concentrated thermal loads; ceramics capable of surviving extreme temperatures can fracture under sufficient kinetic force; and even the strongest exotic materials eventually fail when enough energy is concentrated into a small enough area. Rather than searching for a miraculous substance without weaknesses, Loricium takes an engineering approach, combining several specialized materials into a precisely architected composite in which each component protects the others and compensates for their limitations.
The outermost defence consists of three staggered layers of sacrificial ultra-high-temperature ceramic scales. Rather than forming a single continuous plate, the ceramic is divided into individual cells, with each successive layer offset from the one above it. An attack that happens to strike the seam between two scales therefore encounters the centre of the scale beneath them, preventing the joins from becoming obvious weak points. Small voids separate the three layers, ensuring that a scale driven backwards or shattered by an impact does not simply transfer that damage directly into the ceramic beneath it.
These ceramic scales provide Loricium with its first line of defence against both energy and kinetic weapons. Their exceptional thermal stability allows them to absorb the sudden thermal shock produced by blasters and other energy weapons without immediately deforming or melting. Rather than attempting to retain all that energy within the impacted scale, however, Loricium uses the underlying Diamatrix structure to conduct heat laterally away from the point of impact, spreading it through a much larger volume of armour where it can be safely dissipated.
Against energy loads too great to dissipate, the ceramic's failure becomes another defensive mechanism. Instead of transmitting the entire attack into the armour beneath it, the exposed surface can oxidise, spall and ablate, sacrificing portions of itself while carrying energy away from the protected structure. Weapons such as disruptors can therefore burn through Loricium, but must first strip away the ceramic layer protecting it. Should an attack completely shatter a scale, the damaged cell simply exposes the staggered ceramic layer beneath it. Loricium is designed around the assumption that armour will eventually be damaged; its purpose is to make an attacker defeat it repeatedly.
The tremendous hardness and compressive strength of the ceramics provide similar benefits against physical attacks. Projectiles and impacts encounter a surface considerably harder than conventional structural metals, forcing them to break, deform or expend substantial energy damaging the ceramic. The individual scale construction also helps localize catastrophic fractures. Rather than a crack propagating freely through a monolithic ceramic plate, damage can destroy one scale while leaving neighbouring cells intact.
Beneath and around those scales lies the component that allows the entire system to function: an Alusteel-Diamatrix composite matrix. A rigid Diamatrix lattice forms the structural skeleton of the material, extending around the ceramic cells and between their layers. Diamatrix's combination of exceptional strength and thermal conductivity allows this lattice to collect both heat and mechanical stresses from an impact and distribute them laterally through the surrounding armour. A blaster strike that would otherwise concentrate its energy into a few centimetres of material is therefore forced to expend itself across a substantially larger area.
The Diamatrix is itself encased within Alusteel, providing the tough, comparatively ductile component that the extremely hard ceramics and Diamatrix lack. Where the outer layers resist and distribute an attack, the Alusteel backing is intended to absorb whatever remains. Microscopic voids deliberately incorporated into the metal provide controlled space into which the Alusteel can deform under sufficiently powerful impacts. Instead of forcing the rear surface of the armour inward toward whatever it protects, some of that deformation can be consumed internally as the microvoids collapse.
This layered construction makes Loricium particularly effective against repeated and mixed battlefield threats. A kinetic projectile might shatter an outer ceramic scale only to expend much of its remaining energy against the composite backing and encounter another ceramic layer beneath it. An energy weapon might ablate the first layer while the Diamatrix conducts heat away from the impact. Neither the ceramic, Diamatrix nor Alusteel is expected to stop every attack independently; Loricium's strength comes from forcing an incoming attack to overcome several materials through several different mechanisms before it can reach the protected structure.
There are, however, hard limits to that protection. Loricium is sacrificial rather than regenerative. It contains only three layers of ceramic scales, and every scale destroyed represents protection that cannot be recovered in the field. Concentrated or repeated attacks against the same location can progressively strip those layers away until only the underlying composite remains. Damaged sections must eventually be removed and replaced if the armour is to return to its original specifications.
It is not indestructible armour, because its designers never attempted to create such a thing. It is armour designed to be burned, cracked, crushed and broken so that whatever lies behind it isn't.
Out Of Character Info
Intent:
To create a new armour material for use in future submissions and for sale by Locke and Key Mechanics
Canon Link:
N/A
Technical Information
Affiliation:
Locke and Key Mechanics
Model:
Loricium
Modular:
No
Material:
Alusteel, Ceramics, Diamatrix