Grand Shepherd Burtch
Fleet Commander For The Nomadic Peoples Coalition
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: Give gunnery-type weapons a counter to ECM defences and avoidance software.
- Image Source: N/A
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- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Dar'Manda Industries
- Affiliation: Customers of Dar’manda Industries.
- Market Status: Open-Market
- Model: T.E.C.M.I.S. (Targeting & ECM Integration Software)
- Modularity: Yes,
- it can be used on weapons that are either automated, or operated by a living gunner.
- Being a form of software, it can be used to optimize anything that utilizes some kind of fire control, ECM suites, and sensor data. This includes things such as:
- droids
- ships
- bases
- stations
- A fairly sophisticated personal firearm (see: SPECIAL FEATURES for details)
- etc.
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material:
- Binary Code
- Trinary Code
- ECM assist - Designed to use ECM projections to spoof false-positive weapons discharges and ordnance trajectories (solid or energy based) in an effort to overwhelm and corral enemy avoidance systems.
- Systems Integration - this software ties weapons’ fire-control, ECM suites, and sensors together to amplify a weapon’s (or many weapons) effective accuracy.
- Generates Firing Solutions - T.E.C.M.I.S. is intended to take collected data from the target’s reactions, such as ECM response, and evasive patters and generates firing solutions that are intended to counter those.
- Personal Firearms Compatible - this software can be used to enhance personal-combat firearms by showing the gunman where to aim, but only as long as certain criteria are met:
- The firearm must be equipped with some sort of aim assist display, whether it be a computerized scope, or an aim assist HUD uplink. This, in the hands of a practiced gunman, qualifies as a makeshift “fire control”.
- The gunman must have some sort of ECM suite at their disposal, whether it is a nearby device, part of a droid companion, installed in the firearm itself, or part of their armour kit.
- The gunman must have some sort of sensor suite that can feed data into the TECMIS program. Again, this can be an external modular device, a function of the armour they are wearing, a linked droid with its own sensor suite, or installed in the weapon itself.
- There must be a way to tie all five assets together: the “fire control”, the ECM suite, the sensor suite, the TECMIS software and the firearm itself. A generic wireless or hardwired uplink is sufficient.
- Counters ECM defences - by analyzing the ECM patterns of a target, this software is designed to write sub-routines and firing solutions that are intended to cancel out ECM defences and increase the effective accuracy of the guns that are being used with this system.
- Manipulates Evasive Patterns - like most fire control software systems, this program is designed to analyze and predict evasive patterns of agile moving targets. But TECMIS takes it one step further, in that it is also designed to task an available ECM suite with spoofing false positive weapons’ discharges (solid or energy) in an effort to corral targets into a kill-box.
- Multiple Targets - T.E.C.M.I.S. can process multiple targets at once with ease.
- Data Collection - at least a couple of “bracketing” shots are usually required to analyze a target’s habits, such as avoidance responses or ECM reaction patterns. Only after this is done, can the software algorithms can start to counter those systems. Because the bracketing fire has not yet adapted to the target, the element of surprise can often be lost. This can buy the target a precious moment or two of warning at the point of contact if they have their own ECM or evasive defences active.
- Close Encounters - When a target is acquired at point-blank range, this software does not have enough time to become effective
- Reliance On Other Systems - this software requires access to 3 things in order to be effective: fire control (or a living gunner with target assist), ECM suites, and sensor data. If any of those three things are disrupted, this system is unusable.
- Works for guns only - this system cannot enhance missile tracking or targeting. Guns only. No missiles. End of story.
- Stealth - because T.E.C.M.I.S. needs sensor data to perform it’s purpose, it is un-equipped to counter stealth technology.
- “Still Need To Practice” - when this this software is used on personal firearms, it is not capable of accounting for lousy marksmanship. It can show you where to shoot, but you still have to hit it.
For years, the Elysium Empire attempted to tie their military fire control computers to ECM suites for additional accuracy. With ships like the Makashi Class Light Cruisers, the Rectifier Class Heavy Cruisers, and the Val Khaar Class Corvettes, limited success was achieved. But the software was never fully fleshed out, or made ubiquitous. It was always slap-dash, ill-defined, and inconsistent in it’s implementation.
The old software was always inconsistent, and always slapped together at the last minute to get the ships out on the front lines as fast as possible. Whenever there was a fault, which was often, the old software was so poorly written that the technicians charged with fixing it would often have to learn the code from scratch just to understand it. Sometimes it was just easier to give up and write a new code of their own. For this reason, there was never any interchangeability between ships when it came to the integration software.
These problems persisted for many years, even after Mandal-Elysium Arms rebranded itself as Dar‘Manda Industries. Viken Dobson eventually took notice of all the complaints rolling in and got to work. He and a crack team of computer engineers hammered out a consistent and efficient line of software to replace the poorly constructed old software. This new program was interchangeable between all the ships, bases, and other gun platforms in the built by Dar’Manda Industries, making it easier for units to trade expertise between tech crews.
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