[Shadow Tech Industries] Developing the Shadow Raven

[Ice]

Ice had made a couple ships designs so far. But no matter what he did, he just couldn't seem to fit everything he was after into the design. So finally, he was done with frigates. He was tired of trying to cram everything into small spaces and always coming up short. Sticking to his normal fashion, he opened up a new project. One that he would go all out on. A heavy support cruiser. This vessel would be STI's command ship. All they would ever need to house and protect those people, items, designs and whatever else that was most important to Ice.

It wouldn't be a fighting vessel, he knew. But Ice was determined to make this ship a fortress. He'd bring in all the top scientists and engineers he could find. he would go over every detail meticulously until the ship was exactly what he wanted. The first thing he would start with would be the ships armor. Without waiting another second, he called in his armor engineers...

 

[Ice]

Developing the Shadow Raven's Armor

Three engineers soon made their way to Ice's office. They looked around the large space with curiosity as to why they had been summoned specifically. "Please, have a seat the three of you." Ice welcomed in a friendly manner. After they did so, he offered them a drink, which they smartly declined. "Ok now the reason I have brought you in is I have a special project for the company. I am trying to design a super command ship. It won't be designed to fight. I want it designed to be unseen and indestructible. As such the first thing I wanted to do was get your ideas on what we can do to make the armor all but completely impenetrable. First I'd like to go over possible metal suggestions. And as a note, I do have about 1,000 tons of Ultrachrome in stock that we can use as well. So let's hear some ideas."

He pulled out his datapad so he could take notes of everything they said.

 

[Ice]

The engineer's eyes actually widened in surprise when they heard he had that much Ultrachrome for the project. They quickly focused back onto the task at hand though and started to think. "Well Durasteel is the standard armor for just about everything. We should probably add that. But what about Beskar? That is a significantly tougher steel." Suggested Bob.

Ice shook his head. "No. I'd love to have it, but it is too difficult to get a hold off. I don't have the kind of funds that would be required to deck this ship out with that much Beskar. Is there an equivalent metal out there that I am unaware of that has similar properties?"

"Titanium is an excellent armor." Offered Rob. "Its also half the weight of steel. But I'll admit it still pale's in comparison to Beskar."

It was then the third engineer Steve chimed in. "What about Echani Graphite?"

"Bah! You can't use that stuff. It's only good in cylindrical form. Hammer it out into plates and it might as well be pencil lead." Challenged Rob.

"Aye, but if you you layer the poles, combined they'd still form a protective layer! Then you'd have your "Beskar" armor without nearly as much weight. It's also not nearly as expensive, and much more readily available." Came Steve's quick defense of his suggestion.

 

[Ice]

Bob began nodding in agreement. "We could use the echani graphite almost like re-bar in duracrete, except here it will be used to reinforce the outer hull of ultrachrome. We could even do the same thing on the inner hull with whatever metal we decided to use there. Speaking of which, have we decided what metal we want to use for the inner hull? I'm thinking durasteel or titanium."

Rob turned toward Ice. "What kind of a budget are we working with? That is definitely going to play a factor into how we answer these questions."

Ice gave the man a quick nod. "Don't worry about the funds. I want a top of the line cruiser. The ultrachrome and good bit of the funding I have been saving for a while. So budget is not a factor. Just give me the best!"

Rob turned back toward Bob. "Titanium it is. Durasteel and titanium are roughly the same strength, but titanium as mentioned is much lighter. It'll offset the thick armor it sounds like we will be installing in this vessel."

Ice actually jumped back in with a question of his own. "Why is the inner hull titanium? Aren't there other my energy resistant metals you can use? Remember. I'm willing to spend the credits if it will make the design better."

Steve shook his head. "No it wouldn't really help. The ultrachrome is going to be more than enough to deter any energy based weapons. Even a lot of projectile weapons will actually have a difficult time. Still, if anything is going to get bast the outer hull, it is more than likely going to be a projectile type weapon. So titanium with echani graphite reiforcement would give a good line of defense specifically against those types of weapons."

 

[Ice]

Ice gave a quick nod of understanding before Rob posed another concern. "How do we want to handle the overheating issue for the ultrachrome? That and ion cannon attacks?"

Bob quickly replied in answer to the last question. "With the way ultrachrome disperses the heat over its entire surface, it is doubtful the ship would ever come under enough fire for overheating of the entire outer hull to really be a concern."

"Right, but the concern is still there no matter how small." Defended Rob.

"How about we form the inside of the outer hull to have ridges." Suggested Steve. "We call fill the space in between the ridges with tubes that can carry a coolant through. Perhaps liquid hydrogen. That way, whenever sensors warn of overheating, we can pump in the coolant and bring the temps back down to safe levels."

"I like it! Good idea. But that still doesn't solve the ion cannon attack problem." Said Rob in an obvious manner.

"No. No it doesn't. But one problem at a time Rob." Lightly chastised Bob. "With that one solved, the ion cannon issue is an easy one to deal will. We can simply line the space in between the inner and outer hulls with large resisters. These resistors would be connected to grounding wires which would in turn be connected to the outer hull. We could use Steve's suggestion with the liquid hydrogen tubes to be pressed up against the resistors as well. That way, if the ship is pounded with ion cannon fire. The resistors soak up all the energy, and the hydrogen can keep them cool as well."

 

[Ice]

"Question." Ice said inquisitively again. "How much of my ultrachrome is this design going to require? Because if it doesn't use up too much, I might be able to still work out a deal to get some beskar into the design as well?"

The engineers looked at eachother for a moment and started working out some rough figures on their datapad. After a minute or so, they compared notes and Steve spoke up. "Well sir, A ship this size is going to be about 5,000 metric tons. You can figure about half of that will be just for the armor. Now the armor is divided into 3 different materials. 50% is going to be echani graphite. So 1,250 metric tons there. The other 50% is divided in half once again between the titanium and ultrachrome. So you can figure about 625 metric tons of ultrachrome and the same amount in titanium."

Ice sat back and thought on the answer for a moment. "And what of the skeletal structure and framework of the ship. If I wanted to make that out of beskar, roughly how much would you need. And how much of a benefit do you think that would give me?"

Bob was the one to answer this time. "Creating the skeletal structure and framework out of beskar would do wonders for the ships resiliency in battle. It would mean that even if the ships armor were to fail, the vessel would be able to still take quite a pounding before it began to break up. Armor is all well and good, but it is the bones of a ship that really keep it together."

 

[Ice]

It was Rob who raised an eyebrow as he realized the question had only been partially answered. "I'd say you could plan on needing roughly 500 metric tons of beskar for what you were thinking sir. That should allow us to design an slightly more sturdy superstructure for the vessel than a normal ship would receive. And then the fact that it is made with beskar will only enhance the strength further as mentioned."

Ice nodded again as he began to work on a few figures himself. "Hmmm. I think that I should be able to acquire that much material from Larraq at Mandal Hypernautics. We had already agreed to an amount slightly higher than that originally. So I don't see why the smaller amount should be an issue. Per our old agreement, I'll simply trade him 550 metric tons of ultrachrome in exchange for 500 metric tons of beskar. Anyway, is there anything else that we can do armor wise to make this ship even more durable?"

The engineers shook their heads after a time, and Bob answered again. "Not really sir. I mean there are plenty of other technologies that can further protect the vessel of course. But from a purely armor stand point, I believe this is going to be about the best we can do. Even without shielding, it should be quite resilient to the effects of ion cannon fire, turbolaser fire, ballistic weapons, and even completely immune to metal eating fungus that could possibly be deployed by the likes of the Yuuzhan Vong."

Ice once again smiled when he heard what would be the results of these ideas. "Very well. Then let's get you three started on drawing up an official armor design. Thanks again for your good work."

The engineers nodded and gave their thanks, then made their way back to their work stations. Eventually they would come up with this concept to be installed over the whole of the entire vessel.

 

[Ice]

Developing the Shadow Raven's Shield Systems​

With the shell of his new ship worked out, Ice set out to work on the next layer of defense for his vessel. With that in mind, it was time to give shielding a fresh look and see what he could develop and introduce to help his vessel survive a fight. It was after all, it was now meant to be more of a command ship and transportable vault. Not the raiding vessel his original designs had been worked around. And since it wasn't going to be putting up much of a fight, he knew it would have to be able to take a great deal of punishment so it could have time to escape a sticky situation if things ever went bad. So he called in a couple of his shield experts.

It didn't take long for Dillon and Alexis to arrive. Again, he had them sit down and explained to them what he was after. "Welcome!" He said in a friendly manner. "First off, I'll tell you now that you aren't in trouble." A smirk crossed his face as he noted the relieved expressions on their faces. "In short, I am creating a new ship. A heavy support cruiser. I have an armor design concept, but I need to flush out the defenses to make sure this thing is kept safe from dang near anything anyone can conjour up. So that brings me now to shields, and the reason for your being here."

Pulling up his datapad, he prepared to take notes on their ideas just like he had done with his armor engineers. "Also don't worry about budget. This is going to be STI's flagship so to speak. I just want the best. So let's hear what ideas you guys have."

 

[Ice]

They thought for a moment, slightly taken off guard by the sudden brainstorming session. They soon recovered though and responded. Dillon was the first to speak. "Well there honestly isn't too much in the way of shields that we can do to really make this ship a cut above the rest. I mean fortunately due to the size of the ship we can put multiple shield generators. But keep in mind, without a good power source....or multiple power sources you'll have a difficult time running all those shields and any extra technology you may desire."

Alexis shook her head. "That's not entirely true. There is one bit of shielding technology that I have been dieing to get my hands on for study for ages. It's called an anti concussion field generator. Now there is a really effective unit that I heard was used to protective a high security prison from break out attempts. Essentially what it does, is it uses multiple projectors across an installation or vehicle to wrap its host in a dual-layer electromagnetic field consisting of one field that is positively charged, and another which is negatively charged. These electrical field will either repel or attract an oncoming object to them depending on the object's overall charge. If the object is of the same charge as one of the fields, it will be repelled, or rather slow down its velocity to the point where normal particle shields can handle the impact. If it is of a different charge, the object will be drawn to the entire field and thus break apart as a variety of forces pull it individual pieces of the object into certain areas of the field itself, and then will slow the projectile(s) down if it pierces through that magnetic layer by being drawn back to the location of the field, not the ship. Again, any impacts will be much weaker to the point where normal particle shields can handle it because velocity has been markedly decreased."

"In objects which supposedly have an overall neutral charge, the fields pull apart, repel, and attract the charged subatomic particles out of the object because electric charge is a conserved property of all atoms. This leads to the destruction of the projectile into many smaller projectiles travelling at a lesser velocity that will impact the ship's particle shields just as if it were an object that was of a different charge to one of those fields."

 

[Ice]

Ice was following her description so far, but was more amused at the enthusiasm emanating from the woman. As she paused to take a breath, he seized the moment to interject a question. "Now what is the effectiveness of this device? I mean will it stop everything dead in its tracks? It also sounds like this device would require a rather large amount of power, yes?"

Alexis nodded her head in agreement. "Oh yes, it's a major power hog. That's why models like the one I mentioned at that prison have never seen widespread use. The power requirements are enormous. But the benefits are equally so. It won't stop energy based weapons like ion cannon or turbolaser cannons. But the big model will stop any and every type of current ballistic weapon, missile or other high velocity round "dead in its tracks". It would even protect the ship from damage if other ships collided with it, from what I hear. But unfortunately, I don't know of any company that currently makes a device that powerful anymore."

She noted the disappointed look in Ice's face and quickly continued. "However! There is a company that does make a less powerful version. Lucerne Labs. They have a model called the...." She stalled as she pulled up her datapad and quickly searched for it. "...the LLT-4 Aegis-Class Anti Concussion Field Generator. Perhaps we could purchase one and see what we could do to beef up its systems to more along the lines of what we are wanting?"

 

[Ice]

Ice nodded in agreement. "Well let me see what basic information I can get on this product. You two can take a look at it. Then let me know if you think you can improve on the design at all. If yes, then we will go ahead and purchase it." With that, he went to work on a quick letter to Lucerne Labs inquiring about information on the device while his engineers went to discussing amongst themselves other possible options they might be able to look into.

"[member="Gir Quee"] - Lucerne Labs,

Hello. My name is Ice. I am looking at possibly purchasing your LLT-4 Aegis-Class Anti Concussion Field Generator for a custom ship I am having built in my shipyard. Would you be able to forward relevant specs on the device so I can have my engineers take a look at it and see if it would be suitable for my project please? Obviously not full design schematics or manufacturing processes, just the brochure on the device as it were. Also, a few other questions in regards your device.

What is the cost of the item?
Can it be shipped to Libertalia Space Station at the end of the Corellian Run trade route?
How much time will be required before it can be delivered?

Thanks in advance for your help, and I look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Ice
CEO and Owner of Shadow Tech Industries, SolaraTron Industries, Libertalia, T&S Fleet Solutions"

 

[Salmakk]

Lucerne Labs, Gyndine

"There is a message for President Quee," announced T4, "my quick preliminary scan suggests that it be forwarded to you in his absence."

Salmakk managed to suppress a sigh and glanced at the other desk in the executive suite. But it was empty; Gir was not there. There are times when I wonder if it was best that I brought him onboard, and this is one of them. The man's unreachable whenever they drag off on some expedition. Still, he does do his best to keep up on messages when he gets them.

"Forward it to me, T4," decided the mon calamari.

"Yes sir."

Before Salmakk could even get to his inbox, the droid had already rerouted the message to alien engineer. The mon calamari quickly scanned the message over and began to open up various documents to help better inform him to better inform [member="Ice"]. Salmakk began to speak out aloud as he typed up his response.

"Dear Mister Ice,

Thank you for your inquiry about the LLT-4 Aegis-class Anti-Concussion Field Generator.

1. The individual cost of the item depends on the size and the shape of vessel being shielded. As a rough ballpark estimate, it will generally cost 6,500 credits per 20 meters of craft to shield, which is roughly equivalent in cost to standard deflector shielding.

2. The item is not restricted by any governments, and thus should be able to easily be shipped to Libertalia station.

3. The time required for delivery will be dependent on how many individual projectors will be required for use with the generator. Consequently, the exact time would be dependent on the size and nature of the vessel designed. As a general rule of thumb, we do have a handful of generators kept on stock which can be shipped immediately, along with enough projectors to cover a three hundred meter long vessel. Several additional weeks may be required for additional individual projectors to be shipped, but this is dependent on the business of our yards and thus, our outstanding orders.

Feel free to contact me with any future technical questions that you may have.

V / R,


Salmakk
Chief Engineering Officer
Lucerne Labs"

 

[Ice]

Ice hear his comm ping an incoming message. "Ah, that was fast." He said quietly to himself then forwarded the information for his engineers to read the message.

They quickly did so and soon had some ideas. "First of all, if we can give this device its own dedicated reactor we should be able to boost it's ability significantly to the point that a couple of these drawback can be either eliminated or at least toned down." Said Alexis.

"Aye. What I would suggest is get 25% more projectors than what he says would be required. With a dedicated power source, we would be able to power more projectors. With the increased coverage, missile protection should no longer be an issue at all." Concurred Dillon.

"Or." Alexis quickly jumped in again. "We could simply beef up the power regulators and a few other items within the projectors themselves to handle more powerful and make the smaller amount do the same thing as more projectors."

Ice raised his hand to quell the almost competing engineers. "Why not both? I mean the extra projectors would be good to have in case some go offline for whatever reason.And then as there are fewer left to handle the load, the beefed regulators and other systems will allow for the same amount of protection. Yes?"

The two engineers looked at each other and soon nodded their heads. "Yes sir." They both said in unison.

 

[Ice]

With a quick nod of his head, he got to work writing a response.

"Mr. Salmakk,

Thank you for your quick response and information. After looking it over with my engineers, I have decided I would indeed like to purchase the system. I am sending a rough drawing of what the ship will look like with this transmission so you can get a better idea on what the ship will need. She'll be 1,000 meters long x 1,000 meters wide (at the widest point) x 150-325 meters tall (depending on the section of the vessel).

By my calculations based on your figures. That would be a 325,000 credit system. However, We would like to increase the amount of projectors by 25% to make it a 406,205 credit system. Don't worry about the power supply. We plan to install a secondary reactor dedicated just to the anti concussion system.

As this order is more than 4x what you currently have in stock, do you have a rough guesstimate on how long it will take to produce the rest of the projectors? Based on your current production rates, projects, and other misc factors that is.

Sincerely,

Ice
CEO and Owner of Shadow Tech Industries, SolaraTron Industries, Libertalia, T&S Fleet Solutions"

[member="Salmakk"] | [member="Gir Quee"]

 

[Salmakk]

Dear Mister [member="Ice"],


Such an order will take Lucerne Labs anti-concussion field generator line roughly two months to meet such a quota at our current pace. However, such an order can be expedited with a premium if we have certainty of your order. Such a transaction could guarantee the arrival of the parts in well under month as production is shifted solely towards building projectors instead of the main generator. Lucerne Labs cannot guarantee that undertaking will be successful even if such proprietary parts are proprerly installed.

V / R,


Salmakk
Chief Engineering Officer
Lucerne Labs

 

[Ice]

Ice quickly typed up a message and sent it back.

"Mr. Salmakk,

Consider the order guaranteed. I am sending the funds to you now. Also, your concern is noted. And STI assumes full responsibility for any alterations in the design. I look forward to receiving your product soon. Have a pleasant day.

Sincerely,

Ice
CEO and Owner of Shadow Tech Industries, SolaraTron Industries, Libertalia, T&S Fleet Solutions"

[member="Salmakk"] | [member="Gir Quee"]

With that message away, he turned back to his two engineers. "Well, it looks like we'll have those projectors you were so wanting to get your hands on within three to four weeks." The looks on their faces brought a smile to his face. He always appreciated when others enjoyed technology and working to make new things as much as he did. "In the meantime, I want you both to start working on how to boost up the power of these projectors. With extra projectors as well as simply boosting the power. Also I'd like you to figure a way out to help the system last longer before it burns out."

 

[Ice]

Upon hearing this comment though. Alexis frowned and even tilted her head almost in a look of shock, while Dillon simply nodded in understanding. Speaking up, Alexis asked, "Wait what? What do you mean it burns out? The anti concussion field generator system I am aware of last indefinitely no matter what is thrown at it. As long as the reactor is safe, you should be protected as well."

Dillon shook, his head. "No you are thinking of the Rampart Class. The smaller Aegis Class only has power enough to hold back so many items before it burns out more like a traditional shield system."

Alexis thought on it for a moment. "That could be a simple problem with either not enough capacitors, or we simply need to boost up the flow regulator to allow the capacitor to charge more quickly."

Dillon again agreed, but added. "Honestly, with the increase in projectors, I think we should add capacitors anyway. It'll alleviate any problems that would occur if the only capacitor was knocked offline somehow. And we'd be able to store extra energy in case of prolonged bombardments."

Alexis smiled. It wasn't often the two were able to agree so easily with one another. "We should also look into other possible ways of being able to recharge the capacitors so that if the reactors went offline for some reason, there would still be a way to try and keep energy levels high..."