Directorate Officer
- Intent: To provide a droid starbomber in Lucerne Labs product line-up
- Image Source: “Fleet” by Timothy Rodriguez
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi, Closed-Market
- Model: Sirocco-class Assault Fighter
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Durasteel frame, Argentum-series Matrix Armor plating, Transparisteel canopy, standard starship components
- Classification: Droid Bomber
- Length: 7 meters
- Width: 2.9 meters
- Height: 2 meters
- Armament: Low
- 2 Stormflash Ion Encumbrance Systems
- 1 Ordinance Hardpoint Rail with one of the following loadouts or other equivalent
- Defenses: Average
- Squadron Count: Very High: 20
- Maneuverability Rating: Average
- Speed Rating: High
- Hyperdrive Class: None
STANDARD FEATURES
- MD-FA Directional Shield
- Standard Communications Array
- Powerhouse Ion Engines
- Substandard Life Support Systems
- Standard Navigational Systems
- Standard Repulsorlift Engines
- Standard Sensor Array
- Can Enter Atmosphere and Land
Strengths:
- Puppeteer: Siroccos are designed to be employed in a top-down method, where any manned Siroccos are automatically set to be (sacrificially) defended by unmanned Siroccos in the same group. Each Sirocco similarly employs sensor decoys, which are controlled by the droid fighter itself, typically to closely follow the ship's flight path to confuse enemy sensors or to physically intercept incoming ordinance.
- Assault: Siroccos excel at destroying relatively large and static targets such as capital ships and ground installations due to their modular, heavy ordinance, large squadron sizes, and ability to strip shielding through their ion encumbrance systems. Siroccos are also useful against small ground targets such as infantry squads due to their Stormflash's light laser cannon mode.
- Strength in Numbers: Siroccos are relatively small craft and typically don't have organic crew, allowing them to be carried and deployed in relatively large numbers.
- Afterthought Cockpit: The Sirocco was originally designed as a droid-only starship, and the cockpit is very lacking in almost all aspects being cramped, providing only rudimentary controls and data, and only enough breatheable atmosphere for several hours.
- Short Range: Siroccos do not have hyperdrives, which limits their deployment from groundside bases and starships.
- Limited Dogfighter: The Siroccos main guns, Stormflash Ion Encumbrance Systems, do not deal any physical damage except in light laser cannon mode, meaning that the fighter only has the direct firepower of a single laser cannon. While the Sirocco's munition's payload can be used to house anti-fighter weapons, such as cluster missile, this is almost always a one-shot use against another fighter.
Technical Descriptions
Flight Control Systems: Siroccos were initially designed to be droid fighters. To this end, each fighter has a single Psykhe Droid brain which is equipped with a quartet of the following knowledge cartridges: piloting, starfighter tactics, organizational information, and environmental information (local areas of space, planetary maps, etc). While not exceptionally skillful or creative dogfighters, the Sirocco droid brains do have excellent reaction times and can execute precise bombing runs. As the craft entered early trials, President Quee meddled into the design's development, requesting that the option to allow the craft to be organically pilotable as well. With some internal rearranging, the design team at Lucerne Labs managed to squeeze in a cramped cockpit with basic controls and limited life support. While the controls are basic, Salmakk also designed them to be very intuitive. The team also made subroutines in the Psykhe droid brain allowing it to act as a co-pilot to make up for any organic pilot shortcomings. This makes Siroccos extremely easy to fly by even novices or those without flight training. These capabilities combined with the ship's small size and agility have encouraged some people and and organizations to use Siroccos as basic flight trainers or even as fleet 'gigs' for lower ranking personnel.
Sublight Engines: The Sirocco has a pair of power house ion engines that can take the starbomber up to slightly above average speeds for a starfighter. These engines are particularly optimized for dives in the atmosphere, allowing the Sirocco to act as an effective dive bomber for precision attack runs. A large part of its flight performance is due to the ship's small mass rather than exceptionally powerful engines. This arrangement is also responsible for the Sirocco's relatively easy handling.
Hyperdrive: The Sirocco is not equipped with a hyperdrive.
Hull: The Sirocco uses a fairly conventional aerodynamic frame designed with an eye in mind for atmospheric performance. This aerodynamic form is constructed of a durasteel frame covered covered in Chimera Composite armor panels. This provides the Sirocco with average armor defense for a starfighter. Rather than rely on armor though, the Sirocco most often relies on its small size to help avoid enemy fire.
Shields: The Sirocco is equipped with a MD-FA Directional Shield, which provides the Sirocco with average shielding power for its size. Sirocco's typically use this shielding to double up shielding in their forward arcs when making attack runs on defended targets, making them more likely to survive and deliver their payloads.
Weapons: The Sirocco is primarily designed as an assault starfighter and light bomber, which is reflected in the vessel's armament. The Sirocco's only guns are a pair of Stormflash Ion Encumbrance Systems, which are mostly often used to weaken a target's shields before delivering their ordinance. These guns can also be used as light laser cannons, which are effective at targeting enemy ordinance and strafing lightly armored targets like infantry on the ground. But most of the Sirocco's power lays in its ventral ordinance hardpoint, which contains the warhead firepower of a typical starfighter. Unlike those craft though, the Sirocco's capacity has been optimized for delivering a small number of heavy weapons. Many of these are bombs that rely on inertia to move, which allows the Sirocco to perform precision strikes through dive bombing. However, the Sirocco can be equipped with weapons like cluster missiles, seismic charges, and other self-propelled warheads that can make it a long-range threat. While each individual Sirocco's payload is not extremely powerful, an entire squadron of them packs as much punch as many other conventional bomber squadrons.
Countermeasures: Unlike most of Lucerne Labs recent starfighters, Siroccos do not carry either MAST or traditional countermeasures like chaff or flares. Instead, the Sirocco has a single Mimic Sensor Decoy launcher complete with 3 decoys. Each decoy is automatically programmed to take the appearance of the host Sirocco and fall under the guidance of the Sirocco's droid brain. This can allow Sirocco's to act as puppeteers, deftly moving decoys with all of the patterns and mannerisms of the fighter itself, fly in formations, or even to guide the decoy to physically intercept other weapons. Another favorite tactic of Siroccos is to automatically deploy one decoy when launching, making the squadron appear to be much larger than it actually is from the start of a battle.
Updates: 4/3/2020
-Production changed from "Minor" to "Mass" in order to fit new production parameters
-Armor material changed from Chimera Composite to Argentum series Matrix Armor in order to match new production value
-Ratings & template altered to meet current factory standards
-Broken links fixed from board change
-Armor material changed from Chimera Composite to Argentum series Matrix Armor in order to match new production value
-Ratings & template altered to meet current factory standards
-Broken links fixed from board change
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