Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide a jet/rocket pack analogue in Lucerne Personal Defense's catalog
- Image Source: here
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi, Closed-Market
- Model: Mailoc Photonic Rocket Pack
- Modularity: No
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material:Duranex fabric harness, polyweave fabric reinforcement and straps, polycarbonate harness reinforcing and frame, gription panels, miscellaneous electronics, Micrel Power Supplies, photonic drive components including Tobal Lens, Argentum-series Matrix Armor Plating
- Photonic Drive: Not unlike Renatta Racing Systems old racing ships, the Mailoc uses a photonic drive. Emitting photons allows the user to rocket around in atmospheres, space, and even underwater (to a limited degree).
- Autostabilizing: The Mailoc uses a built-in gyroscope and thrust vector nozzles to automatically keep the user in an upright or horizontal position in flight, based on the user's preference. This allows the user to concentrate on performing other tasks, such as combat functions or more gross piloting through obstacles and the like.
- HUD-based controls: Mailoc is built exclusively to be controlled through a HUD system and does not have any external controls that can be used, unlike other models like the Hush-about. This was intended to cut down on weight. While Mailoc is backwards compatible with most HUD systems in combat helmets, it can also be sold with a standard civilian flight helmet (as pictured) to allow it to be used.
- Compact: The Mailoc is a fairly compact and light rocketpack at around 15 kilograms. This makes it less encumbering to those who need to move quickly on their feet.
- Inert: Unlike conventional rocket packs which use highly explosive fuels, the Mailoc's use of a photonic drive means that it instead uses a series of micrel power supplies, which aren't nearly as dangerous to the wearer.
- Limited Performance: Being a small unit means that the Mailoc has smaller thrusters and fuel than many of its competitors, such as the AJP-400. A Mailoc can provide enough energy in a single charge to take a person up 100 meters vertically or 250 meters horizontally on a standard gravity setting.
- Easily Seen:The Mailoc's photonic drive, as the name suggests, has an exceptionally bright exhaust, making it easily spotted from a distance.
Jet and rocket packs have been a staple of enterprising bounty hunters, fearless soldiers, and countless adventurers over the years. While few question the almost unparalleled vertical maneuverability these devices can provide to the individual, they can also be extremely dangerous to the user. Conventional packs relied on notoriously volatile fuels which were less than ideal for combat situations. Some were dificult to control or easily to accidentally set off (and their user sent flying into the proverbial sarlacc's mouth). Lucerne Personal Defense set out to rectify these problems with their own version, and ended up turning to an obscure technology to solve these issues: photonic drive.
Using photons to provide the thrust eliminated the dangerous and temperamental combustion fuels found in conventional units. Instead, the Mailoc using simple energy power in the form of rechargeable microcells. This energy is then relayed through a small power conduit into the photonic drive itself, providing the thrust needed to sail through the skies or leap up buildings. In another effort to improve safety, LPD designers tried to make the device as intuitive to use as possible by building in auto-stabilizing functions and helmet HUD-based controls into the design, allowing the user to focus on performing more general actions rather than focusing on the fine details of flying. While this has made it easier to multi-task while flying, some more daredevilish users complain that it limits their acrobatic maneuvers, and simply turn these features off. Lucerne Personal Defense does not recommend this.
Lucerne Personal Defense markets the Mailoc Rocket Pack primarily to respectable militaries and space-oriented outfits (for use with space suits). While it has some almost revolutionary aspects, it has encountered break-in difficulties related to its exceptionally bright exhaust (in military applications) and limited duration (in civilian applications). Nonetheless, the company's connections with the Directorate have ensured that it will be a mainstay rocket pack within that organization's forces, whose marines are often airborne for only limited amounts of time. Lucerne Personal Defense expects to supplement the steady income from this contract with smaller sales of individual units to the public. Much to Tresk's chargrin, this includes some notable Core World daredevils.
