Popo
I'm Sexy and I Know It
Intent: To create a powerful, but balanced starfighter cannon
Development Thread: N/A
Manufacturer: Tenloss Corporation
Model: XLB-S-1
Affiliation: Tenloss Corporation
Modularity: None
Production: Minor
Material: Polymers, Plastics, and other energy weapon construction materials. Alusteel is used for components requiring metal materials such as the barrel itself.
Classification: Blaster
Size: Starfighter Weapon
Length: 1.5m
Weight: 30kg
Ammunition Type: Linked to main power source of craft.
Ammunition Capacity: Ammunition dependent on linked power source.
Effective Range: 2km
Rate of Fire: Automatic
Special Features:
- Heavily damaging
- Lightweight
- Low mass
- Rapid fire
- Predominantly non-metal design
- Heat governor
- Computer draining
The XLB-S-1 is Tenloss' latest foray into the weapons market. The XLB-S-1, standing for Experimental Large Blaster - Starfighter, takes on a new challenge in the industry. With half the galaxy in flames and metal and mineral resources sometimes seeing delays from choked or damaged supply lines, the concept of swapping to non-mineral dependent designs came to the fore. The XLB with it's primarily plastic and polymer construction met such a challenge head on.
The weapon is a starfighter grade blaster cannon designed to be mounted on appropriately prepared ships. The cannon's only metal components are the alusteel barrels and a few high stress parts within the machine itself leading the weapon to feature a low mass compared to any equivalent weapon on the market currently. This means that physically installing the weapon can often be done relatively quickly with light machinery or even by hand if needed. It also means that the weapon is a bit harder to scan with mass detection or density scanners, giving it a slight favor for those desiring less than legal weaponry on any civilian craft they may or may not have upgraded.
The weapon system itself is fairly basic. The cannons are essentially a form of modified and upgraded heavy blaster cannons that have had their power and rate of fire increased. This gives the weapon a heavy hitting and highly damaging round with an appreciable rate of fire and decent shot spread to ensure higher hit and kill rates against targets. Tenloss R&D predicts that skilled starfighter aces properly utilizing the XLB-S-1 at proper engagement ranges will often see a higher ratio of targets hit and downed to targets hit and still flight capable compared to most other equivalent weapons on the market.
The weapon's downsides are fairly easily picked out, though are considered acceptable for the weapon's tradeoffs.
First, due to the weapon's primarily non-metal construction, the XLB-S-1 is susceptible to overheating if used inappropriately. This comes in the form of long bursts over a roughly 10-12 second period. When firing lasts longer than said period, the weapon's internals threaten to melt or catch fire. To solve this problem, Tenloss R&D decided not to address the heat issue, but rather how to control the problem. Installed in the weapon is a 'heat governor' or thermal failsafe designed to shut down the weapon for a brief time to prevent serious damage to the weapon itself. When the weapon's internal components reach a dangerous temperature (approximately an 8 second burst of fire), the weapon shuts down for a few moments (approximately 2-3 seconds) to bleed excess heat. This limits the weapon from producing long, streamers of strafing fire, but protects the weapon from thermal damage or outright destruction.
The other main drawback is that the weapon is highly computerized due to its construction and thermal protection and taxes or 'drains' the targeting computer linked to it. Because of this, the weapon system cannot be linked with any other direct fire weapons requiring computer tracking or targeting or else the computer linked will suffer catastrophic failure and irretrievably crash. In addition, standard or substandard targeting computers are unable to handle the weapon's 'drain', requiring any craft mounting the weapon to feature an installed targeting computer of a more advanced design capable of handling the amount of 'drain' the weapon produces.
In short, the weapon can only be mounted to an advanced targeting computer and cannot share that computer with any other direct fire weapon (this excludes missile tubes and bombs).
For further clarification, each weapon system features two of the XLB-S-1 cannons linked together and to the targeting computer.
(For gun math, the weapons count as a pair of heavy, repeating blaster cannons with a round up of 2 to account for a wee bit more punch to make them a tiny bit more unique without breaking things overly much: 2x2x2+2=10)
