Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a heavy walker in the Lucerne Labs product line-up
- Image Source: here
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Lucerne Labs customers
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: Kimogila-class Heavy Walker
- Modularity: Ammunition, MAST Turret
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Argentum-series Matrix Armor Plating, Beskar frame, ceraglass viewports, standard vehicle components
- Classification: Heavy Walker
- Role: Heavy Assault
- Size: Very Large
- Weight: Very Heavy
- Armaments: Very High
- 1 Tyrvald II Variable Charge Turbolaser (main turret gun)
- 1 Rhongomyniad-class Mass Driver Cannon (secondary turret gun)
- 2 Quad barreled Rainburst Flak Cannon Turrets
- 2 Twin Vaapad-class Laser Cannons (on either side of 'head')
- 4 swiveling Juyo-class Ripper Cannons (1 dorsal head, 1 rear, 1 above each forward leg)
- Defenses: Very High
- Argentum-series Matrix Armor Plating
- Modular Auxiliary Systems Turrets (x5)
- Buckler-class Shield Generator Networks (x2)
- Ion Shield Generator
- Maneuverability Rating: Very Low
- Speed Rating: Very Low
- Propulsion: Hexapod
- Minimum Crew: 2
- Optimal Crew: 14
- Passenger Capacity: 40
- Cargo Capacity: Average
- Partially Automated: Kimogilas contain a droid brain used to process sensor and targeting information, communicate with other Lucerne Labs military vehicles, and provide diagnostic information to the vehicle's crew.
- Environmentally Sealed: Kimogilas have environmental sealing and full internal life-support for three days of continual operation, allowing the walkers to be deployed in hazardous environments such as vacuum or toxic atmospheres and to enable limited submersion in water.
- Groundsweeper-3 (Rear Sensor Dome): This sensor provides the Kimogila to make magnetic and gravitational field scans of the area, most often to find and track repulsorlift vehicles that are hidden by line of sight.
- GlobeScan (Front Sensor Dome): This sensor provides the Kimogila with general information about the environment and largely tags any objects entering this field for further study by other sensors which are more capable of providing exact information. In this capacity, it is best thought of as an early warning sensor.
- Heavy Firepower: Designed to take on the heaviest of ground vehicles and fortresses created in the galaxy, the Kimogila is unsurprisingly extremely heavily armed, packing almost the firepower of a frigate on a vehicle half the size. Its main weapon is a single Tyrvald II Variable Charge Turbolaser, which rivals the MegaCaliber Six turbolaser found on the unsurprisingly named All Terrian MegaCaliber Six. Like that walker, the Kimogila is designed to bulldoze through enemy armies and outright destroy strongholds.
- Heavy Defenses: As its role as a super heavy assault walker, the Kimoglia is expected to endure a lot of punishment, largely passively through its overlapping shield network and its thick armor plating. But the vehicle also has a fairly good active suite of defenses, including MAST Turrets and a variety of defensive weapons.
- Low Speed: The Kimogila is a very large and heavy vehicle because of its heavy main cannon and thick armor, which in turn means that the Kimogila tends to move at a plodding pace that's even slower than an AT-AT.
- Poor Maneuverability: The Kimogila's drive train is designed to support its massive weight and provide a stable firing platform. Design priorities to meet these requirements meant that the heavily built joints are not very fast nor are they positioned for the Kimogila to make tight turns or quick maneuvers.
Distantly descended from the famous AT-TE, the Kimogila is a massive walker designed to dominate battlefields through heavy firepower and resilient defenses. Typically, the Kimogila will batter away at its primary target with its variable charge turbolaser, which is usually sufficient to crack through reinforced fortress walls and defensive shielding (with enough time), while its supporting host of weaponry keeps smaller opponents at bay. Once the defenses are down, the Kimogila plods forward to breach the defenses completely before unloading a platoons of soldiers directly into the objective itself. While powerful vehicles, Kimogilas are also fairly unwieldy in speed, maneuverability, and size which means that their deployment and supporting logistics must be carefully planned. Still, when they are present, they tend to become an unignorable force on the battlefield.
Technical Explanations:
Crew: Kimogilas have a pretty typical crew for a battle walker, with a pair of drivers needed to operate the walker at a bare minimum to have any sort of combat value. But to obtain normal combat performance, the Kimogila needs a full crew to operate its many weapons and control supporting systems. Most crew stations have small ceraglass viewports, normally covered by retractable plating, which provide the crew with very limited vision. Because the field of view from these is actually quite poor in order to better protect the crew, miniature photoreceptors located across the hull provide the visual feed for driving the vehicle and firing its weapons.
Engine Systems: The Kimogilas moves about on six articulated legs, which are both powered by a hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell engine derived from the Lab's previous Myrmidon-class APC. The legs themselves are actually based on the locomotion systems of the venerable AT-TE, though significantly reinforced in order to support the much greater bulk of the Kimogila. This design provides the Kimogila with excellent stability and redundancy in case one limb is damaged.
Defensive Systems: The Kimogila's most basic defense its beskar frame, which is then covered in a thick carapace of Argentum Matrix Armor plating that is designed to act as sloped armor from most attack angles. Thus the actual arrangement of plates combined with its frame is designed to resist kinetic weaponry, while the plating composition itself is designed to resist a wider variety of attack types. This protection is then overlaid with overlapping shield systems. A pair of Buckler deflector shield generator networks provide most of the vehicle's protection. But because a vehicle this size without electronics is near useless, the Kimogila unusually has a dedicated ion shield generator to protect it from ion and EMP weapons too. The Kimogila also sports a quartet of MAST turrets, which are typically operated by the vehicle's droid brains. These are typically outfitted with a sensor jammer or directional particle shield, providing the Kimogila with a more active means of defense.
Hull: A few traces of the AT-TE can be seen in the Kimogila's hull, but there is a fair amount that seems more derived from the AT-AT itself, such as the flexible neck. The Kimogila's hull is roughly insectoidal, with a head containing a forward sensor mount as well as the driver cockpit. The thorax contains the powerplant as well as the propulsion systems while the abdomen contains troops and cargo. Each of these sections along with the turret is independently environmentally sealed. This allows the walker to deploy troops into hazardous environments without forcing the rest of the vehicle's crew to suit up.
Weapons Systems: A key design requirement for the Kimogila was the inclusion of a powerful weapon system to destroy other large enemy vehicles and destroy enemy fortifications. Unsurprisingly, much of the walker's chassis was designed to accommodate one of the largest energy weapons available to Lucerne Labs: the Tyrvald II Variable Charge Turbolaser. A massive and powerful weapon, the Tyrvald is surprisingly versatile thanks to its ability to use different fire modes. Standard mode is typically used to duel other vehicles at range, while the Pulse Mode is used to inflict massive damage to heavy targets at close range while the stutter-fire mode is frequently used to bombard spread out formations of light targets such as infantry. Coaxial to the Tyrvald is a single Rhongomyniad Mass Driver Cannon, which is used to range-find for the turbolaser (especially in areas with heavy sensor jamming) or against targets deemed too light to use the pulse turbolaser against. Other weaponry on the Kimogila is significantly lighter, and while rarely a threat to other very heavy armored vehicles, tends to be very dangerous to smaller ground vehicles, aircraft, infantry, and other soft opponents. The foremost among these are a pair of quad flak turrets, which despite the name, don't just fire flak shells, giving the Kimogila a versatile weapon against light opponents - flak is just as apt at cutting up aircraft as men, while ion grenade cluster munitions are reasonably effective against droids and many vehicles. "Wings" mounted on either side of the head each host a pair of variable charge laser cannons, which are effective against a variety of vehicles and incoming ordnance. Lastly, a number of Juyo Ripper Cannons ring the vehicle, providing a means of close defense against small targets that might try to attack the craft at short range, such as infantry and fast repulsorlift vehicles. These last weapons are usually controlled by the vehicle's droid brain in solely a defensive manner, allowing it to quickly respond to possible threats at the cost of thoughtful, offensive operations.
Carrying Capacity: Unsurprisingly for an enlarged successor of the AT-TE, Kimogilas carry a fair amount of troops in their armored abdomen - up to 40 people or other equivalent, typically up to a trio of medium sized armored vehicles like the company's own Kaadu-class Mobile Defense Units or dozens of ultralight vehicles like speeder bikes. The designers were also keen to utilize any extra space inside for internal storage, meaning that there are a myriad of awkwardly shaped storage lockers within the vehicle. Combined with more typical cargo netting and overhead storage bins in the abdomen, the Kimogila actually carries a fair amount of cargo - enough to support its troop complement for a week of basic operations.
Electronics: Kimogila use a series of networked droids not unlike those found in many tramp freighters. Like those brains, the Kimogila's brain is primarily used for basic diagnostic and information processing. Taking a cue from the IX-6, the droid brains between Kimogilas communicate and interact with each other to form a shared, collective understanding of the environment and tactical situation around them. They most notably pool information gathered by their sensors to collectively map out their surroundings and keep track of targets in a form of a Target Identification Network. Perhaps also somewhat unusually for a manned vehicle, the Kimogila's droid brain usually also controls the MAST and defensive Juyo Ripper Cannons, allowing collective groups of Kimogilas to not only react individually to emerging threats, but to collectively produce an area of active defense around other vehicles with similar droid brains, which includes most of the company's current military vehicle fleet.
