Darth Voracitos
Chaos-God of Gluttony
Flight of bomber configuration DAS "Spore" Starfighters preparing their composite-beam cannons...
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To update and pretty up the droid starfighter submission intended to be carried by the Girth of Gluttony, and perhaps make it more reasonable.
- Image Source: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/eX65Z
- Canon Link: N/a
- Restricted Missions: N/a
- Primary Source: http://starwarsrp.net/topic/18616-spore-class-droid-starfighter/
- Manufacturer: The original Sith Empire (835 BBY)
- Model: Droid Adaptive Swarm (DAS) Starfighter
- Affiliation: The Girth of Gluttony, The Sith Empire
Production: Limited- Material: Quadranium Steel
- Classification: Bomber
- Length: 8m
- Width: 4m
- Height: 4 meters
- Armament: Very High (Composite-Beam Laser, One Ion Cannon, Two Concussion Missile Launchers [4 Concussion Missiles Each])
- Defenses: High (Quadranium Steel Hull, Deflector Shield, Anti-Ordinance, Sensor Scrambler)
- Squadron Count: Moderate 14
- Maneuverability Rating: Very Low (Insufficient maneuvering thrusters)
- Speed Rating: Average (Small mass)
- Hyperdrive Class: N/a
- Quadranium Armor
- Droid brain
- Navigation system
- Targeting systems
- Seeker Mine friendly transponder code
- Composite-Beam Laser - Although the frame of the ship's bomber variant is rather small for an ordinary starfighter, it holds enough vertices to hold a weapon of magnificent power. Unfortunately, such a weapon has a rather large power draw, and without a hyperdrive to draw from, the next largest source of energy is the ships deflector shields. Thus when it fires, this is when the bomber's shields are at its most vulnerable, or otherwise absent while it fires. This is another reason why the bomber variant almost requires an escort, as it would not survive long enough to do substantial damage without it due to this drawback in design.
- Highly Modular - Each ship is essentially the same as the Interceptor, except with extra ship components attached to it in increasing layers, by the Girth of Gluttony, equipped to modify the DAS Starfighter mid-battle. It can serve a variety of roles in a relatively short period of time, starting as an starfighter with its modest armament, serve most of the battle as a Defense Platform, and finish the battle as a bomber. The process of exchanging chassis mid-battle mostly depends on how its docking, and how far down "the chain" of upgrades it is going. For example, it will take a while (approx. 5-7 minutes) for a Defense Platform to dock via tractor beam as opposed to an interceptor (between 1-4 minutes depending on position). It will also take longer to turn an Interceptor into a Defense Platform, with an average of 5 minutes per layer that needs to be added (15-20 minutes), although it is slightly shorter at 3 minutes per layer that would need to be removed from a Defense Platform, into an interceptor (9-12 minutes). Any sort of battlefield damage will extend the process further, meaning it could potentially take as long as half an hour to change a damaged Defense Platform into another configuration.
- Seeker Mine Transponder Codes - Transmitting these codes, this vessel will not be targeted by friendly Seeker Mines, allowing it to traverse the defensive aura of Defense Platforms, giving the other configurations of the DAS Starfighter cover to pass through unharmed that prevents enemy pursuit.
- Powerful Bomber - With a Composite-Beam Laser, the bomber variant of the DAS Starfighter is a formidable opponent against cruisers, and well defended from retaliation from starfighters and larger ships alike.
- Sluggish Bomber - While it may field impressive defenses and countermeasures, this is to compensate for the bombers modest speed and dreadful maneuverability. Without a protective escort, this bomber may as well be bait for starfighters and larger vessels.
- Weakest on Attack - Due to the nature of the Composite-Beam Laser's power source, whenever the bomber is about to fire, its shields are at its weakest or non-existent, leaving it open and vulnerable to retaliation.
- No Hyperdrive - If the host ship of the DAS Starfighter ever needs to retreat, all ships deployed will immediately be left for dead, as there is no way for any of the ships to jump to Hyperspace. Additionally, it is a strictly space-borne craft, and is unable to enter atmosphere.
With multiple form-factors with vastly different roles, and a ship that could change them relatively quickly on the fly, one became unlikely to see the same fleet composition twice, and what worked once to counter it may not counter it a second time. With multiple chassis that could be added on top of old ones, or easily removed, the DAS Starfighter is the ultimate proprietary starship, allowing a fleet full of them to change and adapt on the fly as the needs of a battle changes.
If the enemy is fielding formidable capital ships with little starfighter compliment, there will be many more bombers than is typical with fewer escorts. If the enemy fields a great deal of starfighters or powerful starfighter squadrons, more starfighters, interceptors, and defense platforms will be present. Perhaps the enemy started out with a healthy compliment of starfighters, which dwindled as time went on, allowing the bulk of the DAS Starfighter forces to take the opportunity to risk more bombers to take out the bigger fish. Or perhaps the Girth of Gluttony is looking to retreat from a battle but is not yet ready to withdraw, it could "hunker down" with a great number of Defense Platforms and hopefully mitigate any daring pilots from approaching for risk of overwhelming destruction.
The changes of course, despite their easier modularity, still take some amount of time, which may take longer if a starfighter docks with considerable damage. Such damage may penetrate through multiple chassis types, and would be forced scrap nearly all of them before applying a new desired chassis type. Since this is subject to time, not all starfighters can be deployed at once all of the time, and their numbers may be reduced due to a need for repairs or chassis changes, or by casualties that could not make it back to a hangar. The loss of casualties is slightly mitigate by the Girth of Gluttony's large host of Tractor Beams dragging debris into its cargo holds for molecular processing, but on any other vessel without similar support it may struggle to field a full compliment for long.
The DAS Starfighters are more known more colloquially as "Spores", considering their appearance flooding out of the Girth of Gluttony's spherical hull and spreading out around it like a web of stellar mycellium.
Author's Notes:
- This is not "exactly" a new ship. This submission is intended to be an update to the original submission found here: starwarsrp.net/topic/18616-spore-class-droid-starfighter/. I've kept to the spirit of the submission, but I have taken some major liberty to make changes to this that I did not like about the original, and added some unique changes that make the design more useful.
- I've added some pretty unique and likely unprecedented features to this modular starfighter, so I understand completely if work needs to be done to acquire them, though I do think this is fairly balanced on its own with the drawbacks I've created.
