Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: To provide a thermal detonator in Lucerne Personal Defense's inventory
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Canon Link: N/A
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PRODUCTION INFORMATION
Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi, Closed Market
Model: LPD-30 Flameblossom Cluster Thermal Detonator
Modularity: fuse/detonation device
Production: Mass-Produced
Material: Durasteel shell, Baradium core , micro repulsorlift coil, typical grenade components
TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS
Classification: Thermal Detonator
Size: Large
Weight: Heavy
Ammunition Type: explosive
Ammunition Capacity: 8 micro thermal charges
Reload Speed: Average
Effective Range: Average
Rate of Fire: Average
Stopping Power: Very High
Recoil: None
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Cluster Bomb: The Flameblossom is designed to use to separate into a cluster of smaller thermal charges once thrown thanks to an embedded micro repulsor coil, which actively pushes the charges away from each other in an equidistant pattern, allowing it to cover a small area with concentrated explosions. This mode can be turned off with a switch, effectively turning the Flameblossom into a large and powerful thermal detonator.
- Magnetic: Each microcharge has a strong magnetic strip which is activated once thrown, allowing the micro charges to leap to and cling to metallic objects in their immediate vicinity on their own accord.
- Oversized Controls: The Flameblossom is built with slightly oversized controls in order to allow larger species and Arrichit series Synthetic Soldiers to use them without any difficulty. A single switch on the top of the detonator allows it be detonated as a single unit or dispersed into submunitions which then explode individually after deployment.
- Replaceable Fuse: The Flameblossom comes at default with a seven second timed fuse, allowing it to be barely thrown or placed by the user before they're caught in its cascading set of explosions. However, the fuse can be easily be replaced with other detonation mechanisms by simply unscrewing the default fuse and screwing in a replacement fuse or detonation adaptor. The most common replacement is wireless remote control, allowing the Flameblossom to be detonated by a set broadcasted comlink signal. The other common fuse is a ten minute chemical delay fuse, which is typically used for demolition tasks.
- Precise Area of Effect: The LPD-30 can effectively spread an area with high, concentrated firepower that can home onto individual targets with precision thanks to its powerful magnetic strips. This is useful in such circumstances as clearing out armored soldiers taking refuge in thick foliage.
- Heavy Firepower: Like most thermal detonators, the LPD-30 is exceptionally powerful. With all of its micro-charges combined, it is roughly equivalent to a Class-A Thermal Detonator.
- Bulky: The LPD-30 is a fairly large and heavy grenade, meaning that not only can most people carry fewer of them, but they also are harder to throw effectively for most people.
- Fractricide: As an area of effect weapon, LPD-30s can cause a lot of collateral damage, to include attacking friendlies. The magnetized nature of the microcharges makes it quite possible to get stuck on friendly personnel or equipment if not carefully employed.
While the Lucerne Personal Defense was largely happy with its multipurpose LPD-24 Fireblast Grenade, that weapon proved to be too light to effectively deal with heavy targets on the battlefield such as troopers wearing heavy battle armor or armored fighting vehicles. To rectify that deficiency, the company turned to a favorite standby of soldiers and bounty hunters across the galaxy: the thermal detonator. Eager to set their product apart from the myriad of already existing thermal detonators on the market, the company decided to focus their attention on rectifying one of the traditional thermal detonator's greatest weakness: its large blast radius.
While the explosive power is often necessary to defeat such heavy targets, the indiscriminate blast radius of a traditional thermal detonator also limits its use in the field, especially in close quarters or around potential collateral damage. To that end, while the Flameblossom can be used as a large thermal detonator, it more commonly is used in a 'smart' cluster detonator mode. Shortly after being thrown, a micro-repulsor coil in the center of the detonator activates, spreading out eight baradium-based fusion cores. As the outer cases of these submunitions are magnetized by a trigger based interacting with the repulsor field, these submunitions automatically draw themselves to the closest metallic object in its immediate vicinity. Ideally, this is an armored soldier, vehicle, or a crew-served weapon, but the detonators are nondiscriminate and will just as easily cling to any ferric debris, buildings, garbage cans, or other ferric object. Three seconds after making contact with that metallic object (or falling on the ground if there isn't any nearby metal object), it detonates, producing a small blast radius approximately 1.5 meters in diameter that is ever bit as powerful inside this radius as that of a standard thermal detonator.
Lucerne Personal Defense has banked most of the detonator's success on the market based on this smart, homing cluster submunition feature. However, it remains to be seen if this is a successful ploy. Many of the other thermal detonators on the market are more easily thrown by their users due to their ball shape, a flaw which is compounded by the Flameblossom's somewhat larger mass than many of its competitors. However, with oversized controls made for larger species and its parent company's Arrichit series Synthetic Soldiers, it does have a small, almost guaranteed production run with at least these targeted demographic groups. Thus far, sales have not been as successful as the Fireblast Grenade, but the company does expect sales to rise higher as more Arrichit series Synthetic Soldiers become more proven on the battlefield.