Approved Vehicle Viper Zero Speeder Bike

[Yula Perl]

OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION

• Intent: To create a quick bike for getaways and other situations where speed is paramount.
• Image Source: St-Pete on DeviantArt
• Canon Link: Speeder bike
• Permissions: N/A
• Primary Source: N/A

PRODUCTION INFORMATION

• Manufacturer: Horizon Tech
• Affiliation: Open-Market
• Model: Viper Zero
• Modularity: Yes, guns additional features including blasters and better defensive shielding can be added, at the cost of speed and maneuverability.
• Production: Minor
• Material: Durasteel, duranium, electrical components

TECHNICAL SPECIFICATIONS

• Classification: Speeder bike
• Role: Personal Transport
• Size: Small
• Weight: Light
• Armaments: None
• Defenses: Average
• Maneuverability Rating: Extreme
• Speed Rating: Extreme
• Propulsion: Repulsorlift
• Minimum Crew: 1
• Optimal Crew: 1
• Passenger Capacity: 1 additional average-sized passenger
• Cargo Capacity: None

SPECIAL FEATURES

• Baffler
• Optical shield
• Surveillance tagger
• Deflector shield

STRENGTHS

• Need for Speed: One of the fastest bikes on the market, the Viper Zero boasts incredible speed and maneuverability with quick acceleration.
• Where am I?: Designed as a getaway vehicle, the Viper Zero is equipped with an optical shield and baffler to reduce the bike’s energy signature and physical presence. Although neither of these pieces of technology can completely conceal the bike, it makes continuous tracking more difficult.

WEAKNESSES

• Overboard: As quickly as the Viper Zero can accelerate to incredible speeds, an untrained rider can be easily thrown over the handles. Experienced riders only.
• No Guns: Bring your own.
• Not for the Big ‘n Tall: The Viper Zero can handle two average-humanoid-sized riders at it’s maximum. Any more than that will sacrifice speed and maneuverability, and potentially cause the bike to overheat.

DESCRIPTION

The Viper Zero Speeder Bike was designed with two aspects in mind: speed and maneuverability. Constructed with a mix of duranium and durasteel, this bike’s light frame enables it to travel incredibly quick and accelerate rapidly, easily outpacing most ariel traffic in busy city skies. A built-in deflector shield offers protection from a flew blaster bolts and slugs, but not much else. Activating the deflector shield puts a drain on the bike’s power, temporarily lowering its speed. The addition of a surveillance tagger enables the rider to track the range, direction, and speed of a target.

A stripped-down baffler helps to scramble the bike’s location and make it harder to pinpoint on scanners by reducing the bike's energy signature. While the bike may still be detectable on standard scanning equipment, it's signal is weak and often drops out periodically. The pre-installed optical shield helps to obscure the bike's visual presence, but at most can simply distort the bike's image to appear grainy or blurry, rather than conceal it completely. While these two pieces of technology can make the bike more difficult to track, they can never entirely camouflage the bike’s presence. Use of the optical shield will temporarily reduce the bike's maximum speed.

A smaller bike, the Viper Zero can carry up to two passengers at a time, and can only maintain high speeds if the riders are around the size of an average humanoid. One larger rider, or two smaller/average riders are ideal. Larger races akin to Wookie or Beorni will likely not be able to use the bike to its full potential. Excess weight on the bike can lead to overheating, which can potentially cause the bike to stall or catch on fire.

 

[Gir Quee]

Yula Perl , this balances out perfectly in terms of ratings.

The optical shield and baffler (if at full canon potential) in combination is a powerful enough stealth that I do not think that we could have this as a mass produced. Typically, it's fine to have a stealth feature or two that only provides minor benefits in specific situations (a common example in the starship forum is something like "reduces the sensor signature of the ship to almost being unnoticeable at long ranges).

I think that you're trying to address this issue by saying it doesn't offer complete concealment, which I think could work if you provide us with explicit limitations of these devices compared to their canon examples, or in ways in which this bike could be tracked without using rare and unusual technologies.

 

[Yula Perl]

Gir Quee I fleshed out the baffler and optical shield limitations a bit more in the description. Let me know if it needs further reworking!

A stripped-down baffler helps to scramble the bike’s location and make it harder to pinpoint on scanners by reducing the bike's energy signature. While the bike may still be detectable on standard scanning equipment, it's signal is weak and often drops out periodically. The pre-installed optical shield helps to obscure the bike's visual presence, but at most can simply distort the bike's image, rather than conceal it completely. While these two pieces of technology can make the bike more difficult to track, they can never entirely camouflage the bike’s presence. Use of the optical shield will temporarily reduce the bike's maximum speed.

 

[Gir Quee]

Yula Perl , looks better. I think we could be a bit more specific about what the distortion looks like. This is how it is described in canon (referencing a ship called the SkyBlind using an optical shield (Galaxy Guide 8, page 38)):

"To a ground observer, the SkyBlind will appear as a discoloration of the atmosphere or a shimmering patch, easily confused with natural phenomena".

Obviously, a ground environment is going to be a little different than the upper atmosphere. I think that if we describe this distortion as being something like a blur or a grainy silhouette, this will be good to go.

 

[Yula Perl]

Gotcha Gir Quee , thank you for the suggestion on how to describe the effect. Is this sufficient?

The pre-installed optical shield helps to obscure the bike's visual presence, but at most can simply distort the bike's image to appear grainy or blurry, rather than conceal it completely.

 

[Gir Quee]

Yula Perl approved!