Well-Known Member
O B S C U R A
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
Intent: To create a sneaky new countermeasures package for future submissions and role-playing.
Image Source: N/A
Canon Link: N/A
Permissions: N/A
Primary Source: N/A
PRODUCTION INFORMATION
Manufacturer: Visanj T’shkali
Affiliation: Closed-Market
Model: Obscura Countermeasures System
Modularity: None
Production: Semi-Unique Production
Material / Components:
SPECIAL FEATURES:
- Able to resist less powerful interdictor field emitters/tractor beams up to and including those commonly found on smaller-sized capital ships (i.e. corvettes), or those used in interdiction missiles, mines, etc. Also has limited effectiveness with artificial and naturally-occurring gravity wells.
- Anti-Gravity Unit allows users to negate their vessel’s gravity signature during atmospheric flight on worlds where gravity is notably high, enabling them to navigate and maneuver amid such conditions freely.
- Noise inhibitors, sound baffling, and auditory dampeners make ships virtually silent, preventing detection and enabling enhanced stealth.
- Counterdetective notifies users of active scanners, while ST Box alters ships’ signatures, assisting in evasion and avoidance of ground and air targeting systems and early-warning scanners.
- Charlatan Chaff System and missile deactivation transmitter aids in counteracting attacking missiles, targeting, and in weakening incoming fire against users.
STRENGTHS:
- Are You Sure? I Don’t See (or Hear) Anything: Offers significant stealth advantages, confounding enemies’ ability to detect, target, and attack ships using this system. Excellent effectiveness against smaller-scale sensors and detection systems, targeting systems, etc. the possibility of knowing a ship using this system is present is pretty low until it’s practically right on top of you in most cases.
- What Quicksand: Savvy pilots who want to gain advantage in combat will find that the anti-gravity component used in the Obscura makes maneuvering and flight within gravities greater than standard much easier, giving them an edge and reducing strain on propulsion systems.
- Missed Me: Able to confound and evade enemy attacks and incoming fire using various technologies which – as long as operational – can grant pilots significant security against those with hostile intent.
- Can’t Catch Me: Enables pilots to ignore and break free from lower-grade interdiction traps and weapons, and even to escape tractor beams fired by ships such as heavy freighters and corvettes, and while stronger weapons, gravity wells, and tractor beam systems can still have great effect against them, smaller ships like blockaders, picket ships, security patrol vessels, and the like will find considerable difficulty using these sorts of traps and weapons on ships using the Obscura.
WEAKNESSES:
- When They’re Gone, They’re Gone: Chaff launchers, once expended, cannot be replenished apart from total replacement conducted at dedicated repair facilities, making field-expedient renewal impossible.
- Get Over Here: Interdiction-resistance and resilience against tractor beams is lessened, due to scaled-down size, meaning more powerful systems, like those found on space stations, large capital ships, or particularly powerful interdiction weapons can still have notable effectiveness against it. This includes only limited effectiveness of this system when encountering both artificial and natural gravity wells.
- Compensation Is Not Immunity: Anti-Grav Unit, while providing users the ability to operate within the gravity fields of worlds with other than standard gravity does not mean that all effects of increased gravity go ignored, and those worlds where gravity is especially strong will have notable effect, making aerial maneuvers and flight increasingly difficult the stronger those gravitational fields are. In effect, this mitigates gravity by a factor of one, meaning, for example, operating in a twice-standard gravity will act like standard, while at triple-standard gravity, the effects felt would be twice-standard, and so on.
- Can’t You Just Shut Up: Noise inhibitors and other auditory dampening technologies may muffle sounds within an atmosphere, it does not negate these entirely. The closer an observer is, the greater the likelihood they may hear ships using the Obscura. Watching it approach at a kilometer away it will seem totally silent, but a flyby over a conning tower will very definitely be heard.
- Oh Come On: Scaled-down size of components means that larger, more powerful sensors, such as those aboard military-grade capital ships and heavy fortifications with very large dedicated advanced sensor arrays will still have a good likelihood (roughly 40-50%) of detecting and targeting ships using this system at close-range. Thus, while it may be great for fooling/avoiding individual surface-to-air artillery and weapons, vehicles, others starfighters, or similar smaller-scaled systems, having high probability of confounding these, a large, integrated, and powerful defense grid may fare much better against it.
DESCRIPTION:
Originally designed for stealth bombers, the Obscura System is meant to aid pilots operating within atmospheric conditions, enabling them to avoid detection and mitigate extreme gravity and deter targeting and incoming attacks. Intended to allow bombers and other ships to make precision bombing / strafing runs at low altitudes and amid varying atmospheric conditions, the plan was later scrapped due to budget cutbacks. When it was resurrected, it was produced as a semi-unique countermeasures package instead.
Visanj found that the Obscura was the ideal system for smugglers, criminals, and those who simply want to go about their business without being caught. Obscura makes slipping past security patrols, avoiding early-warning systems, and evading enemy weapons and gravity wells considerably easier. It’s the ultimate toy for those who want to get in and get out as fast as possible and don’t want anyone to know they’re there. Able to better evade detection and targeting, and to operate silently and covertly inside a planet’s atmosphere, the Obscura allows ships to slip past enemy perimeter defenses, avoid being noticed, and make it to clandestine appointments intact and on time. The technological equivalent of a burglar who wears soft-soled shoes and remembers to bring a steak to distract the guard dog, the Obscura was practically made with nefariousness in mind. As for getting away, it can do that too. The Obscura has several technologies to make targeting it much more difficult, and can confound enemy missiles, weapons fire, and even break free from interdiction fields and weapons like tractor beams or interdiction mines, provided they’re not too powerful.
A skilled and savvy pilot who wants to shake pursuing craft will discover that dipping into the gravity fields of worlds and moons where other ships might grow sluggish and experience limited maneuverability is just the ‘trick’, as the Obscura’s anti-grav technology helps to mitigate these effects somewhat, giving them a tactical edge in these conditions.
Yet, no caper goes according to plan, and there are conditions and situations where the Obscura will just find itself over-matched and under-powered. Very powerful tractor beams, like those found on larger military-grade ships, are just too strong to break free from, and interdiction fields, gravity wells, and gravity fields which are very strong will still have serious effects against it. Powerful advanced sensors and integrated defense grids will still detect ships using it in most cases, and when the chaff is expended and hostiles using targeting data from massive central arrays instead of relying on their own smaller-scale systems get a lock, the odds of a bad day for pilots using Obscura turn decidedly against them. This makes the Obscura less of a long-term engagement advantage and more suited instead for reconnaissance missions, clandestine operations, and covert actions than direct military applications. It’s just not made for use on worlds or in situations where the odds are stacked against you already. In short, using it against backwater security patrols, escaping forward listening posts and perimeter defenses, shaking pursuing fighters, and slipping in and out of remote worlds, stations, and areas are all fine, but the pilot who thinks he’s gonna go headlong into the heart of a fortified enemy world and come out unscathed is about to have the worst last day of his life!
But if you’re looking for a system that can let a single craft get in and out unnoticed, avoiding detection, and making a clean getaway to get home alive and in one piece, the Obscura can help you do that, possibly better than anything else out there.
Last edited:
