Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide a terraforming / biological warfare response vehicle in Lucerne Labs's product line
- Image Source: concept art for APC by Spartan Games (company & its website now defunct)
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Closed-Market
- Model: Kybuck-class Chemical Response Vehicle
- Modularity: MAST Turrets
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Argentum-series Matrix Armor Plating, Beskar frame, ceraglass viewports, standard vehicle components
- Classification: Mobile Terraforming Vehicle / NBC Response Vehicle
- Role: Mobile Terraforming Vehicle / NBC Response Vehicle
- Size: Average
- Weight: Average
- Armaments: Low
- 4 remote-controlled Flamestorm Assault Blaster Cannons
- Defenses: Extreme
- LV-F Deflector Shield x2
- KL-44 Commander Shield Projector x1
- Aegis II-class Anti-Concussion Field Generator
- Argentum-series Matrix Armor Plating
- reinforced Beskar frame
- 3 MAST turrets
- Maneuverability Rating: Low
- Speed Rating: Average
- Propulsion: Tracks
- Minimum Crew: 1 (driver)
- Optimal Crew: 8 (1 driver, 1 shield operator, 2 mechanic droids, 6 technicians)
- Passenger Capacity: none
- Cargo Capacity: Small
- Partially Automated: Kybucks have a droid brain used to process sensor and targeting information, communicate with (partially) automated units, and provide diagnostic information to the vehicle's crew.
- Environmental Sensor Suite: Kybuck has a Planetary Sensor Array into which a signal-boosted EnhanceScan general purpose scanner, Chem-receptor, and a seismic sensor have been spliced into, providing the vehicle's crew with an excellent understanding of the world which they are trying to help terraform or otherwise alter.
- Air Scrubbers / Asepsis Field Generator: Kybucks are capable of rapidly filtering air to remove toxic gases and harmful particles thanks to extensive miniaturized air scrubbing systems. Antisepsis field generators destroy most pathogens that survive this filtering process before the now refined air is pumped back into the atmosphere.
- Molecular Furnace: Kybucks are built around a miniaturized molecular furnace, which allows it to run into physical material or draw in atmosphere to convert it into different materials. This is most commonly used to convert toxic atmospheric gases into clean, Type 1 atmospheres, but it can also be used as a weapon to produce aerosolized Cyroban to cool down a local area or produce clouds of any number of weaponized gases. Thanks to the rapidity of molecular furnace technology, this allows the Kybuck to quickly produce large amounts of needed gases.
- Gas Dispensers: Little more than a series of vents with one-way valves, these gas dispensers indiscriminately flood the area around the Kybuck with gases produced through the vehicle’s air scrubbers or molecular furnaces, for other beneficial uses (creating habitable atmospheres) or detrimental ones (creating massive clouds of toxic gases).
- Environmentally Sealed: Kybucks have environmental sealing and full internal life-support for weeks of continual operation, allowing the Kybuck to be deployed in hazardous environments such as vacuum or toxic atmospheres and work extensively alone on hostile, otherwise inhabitable worlds and atmospheres. It also enables limited submersion in water at depths typical of continental sea shelf.
- Atmosphere Transformer: Kybucks are designed to rapidly condition and alter atmospheres to make them habitable to living creatures, making the vehicles invaluable to colonists on otherwise unhabitable worlds and those seeking to recondition worlds from environmental destruction.
- Chemical Warfare Asset: Kybucks are capable of converting solid material and existing atmospheres into weaponized gases and mists. A sustained cryoban-based mist is capable of steadily reducing the ambient warmth of a local area to the point of frigid temperatures reminiscent of the world of Hoth. More conventionally, the Kybuck can produce billowing clouds of knockout gas to nonlethally subdue nearby opponents or plank gas to gradually break down metals and electronics.
- Low Performance Vehicle: The Kybuck is an armored, tracked vehicle and consequently is sluggish when maneuvering compared to most vehicles.
- Lightly Armed: The Kybuck is fairly lightly armed for a military vehicle of its size – despite being the size of many heavy tanks, the Kybuck only has light weapons capable of dealing with soft targets and light vehicles.
- Limited Hauler: The Kybuck devotes much of its interior to its sophisticated atmospheric transforming technology, leaving little in terms of internal space to carry either passengers or cargo. What little cargo space it has is dedicated to carrying a crew’s personal weapons and equipment as well as supplies for several weeks of operations.
The Bryn’adul invasion of Yurb brought to the galaxy’s light the existence of the Nimscall terraformer, a starfighter-sized creature capable of rapidly changing an atmosphere around it to the point of toxicity for most of the galaxy’s peoples. Seeing a clear threat not only to combatants, but many helpless civilians as well, Lucerne Labs made it a priority to build a machine that could sustain people under attack from that beast as well as to help rehabilitate worlds already devastated by the Bryn’adul for recolonization. To that end, Lucerne Labs adapted most of its existing ground vehicle technology and married it to a sophisticated combination of air scrubbers and a miniaturized molecular furnace. This unusual combination allows the resulting Kybuck to rapidly clean atmospheres and/or produce weaponized gases.
Technical Explanations
Crew: Kybucks are partially automated through a droid brain, allowing much of the vehicle to function at every level to some degree as long as at least one crewmember is present. In actual practice, the vehicle’s entire is almost present in order to ensure maximum performance by all systems. The vehicle’s dedicated operations crew sits in a forward cab: this consists of the driver and the shield operator. Technicians work in a separate compartment in the vehicle’s midsection, observing sensor readouts and carefully tailoring the output of the vehicle’s devices to create the perfect mixture of gases. Lastly, the pair of mechanic droids usually stand ready in docking stations, ready to deploy to rapidly damaged areas of the vehicle as necessary. All 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 Kybuck moves about on four separate continuous tracks like many older style conventional tanks. Each track is powered by a separate hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell engine derived from the Lab's previous Myrmidon-class APC. This drive system provides the Kybuck with a robust drive system that is capable of navigating through many terrains, though it is not as fast nor as capable of maneuvering around objects as many repulsorlift vehicles. The tradeoff is that the Kybuck's drive system is more resistant to electromagnetic fluctuations, making it more resistant to EMP attacks and allowing it to work on worlds with unusual magnetic fields, such as Jabiim. Additionally, with its sealed hull, this allows the Kybuck to crawl underwater at the depths of a typical continental sea shelf.
Defensive Systems: The Kybuck’s most basic defense its reinforced beskar frame, which is then covered in a substantially thick layer of Argentum Matrix Armor plating that is carefully 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 supplemented by a pair of LV-F deflector shield generators, whose low power is typically used to reduce damage before it hits the vehicle's dispersive armor. However, when the vehicle is stationary, it can reroute its engine power to activate this shield systems' fortress mode, making it significantly stronger and ideal for withstanding heavy and sustained attacks. The Kybuck also sports a KL-44 Commander Shield, which is typically used as an adjunct shield to the Fortress shield, allowing the Kybuck to rapidly absorb quick-firing light weaponry effectively and to project an encapsulating shield on nearby organic and inorganic targets. Like some of Lucerne Labs other heavier vehicles, the Kybuck also sports an Aegis II Anti-Concussion Field Generator, making it fairly effective at withstanding kinetic attacks such as artillery shells or the melee attacks of large creatures. The Kybuck also sports a pair of MAST turrets mounted on its topside. These are typically outfitted with sensor jammers or directional particle shields, providing the Kybuck with more active means of defense.
Hull: The Kybuck has a pretty conventional layout for a tracked armored vehicle, taking clear inspiration from many armored personnel carriers. Like many Lucerne Labs vehiclesolder Baktoid Armor Workshop products, the Kybuck has most of its more vulnerable components placed in the rear, including the power generator, in order to better protect them against incoming fire. Internally, the Kybuck has a three connected, environmentally sealed working spaces: the crew cab (driver & shield operator), atmospheric tech bay (technicians), and mechanical bay (mechanic droids). While the droids don’t need an atmosphere in their area to work, it does allow other crewmembers to join them as necessary. This also means that a penetration in one compartment doesn’t necessarily mean that the other compartments will be affected.
Weapons Systems: Kybucks aren’t designed to act as front-line combatants, though it seems unavoidable that at least some of these vehicles will encounter enemies even when working in the second line. To that end, the vehicle’s onboard droid brain has been given control of four personal-scale blaster cannons useful for dispatching groups of enemy infantry and projectiles, or being supercharged in order to defend itself from many combat ground vehicles and aircraft. The droid brain programming prioritizes immediate threats to the vehicle, making it more reactive than proactive in most instances, meaning that for practical protection, the Kybuck relies on friendly forces to proactively engage enemies and keep them away from the crawler. The Kybuck’s gas dispenser may be used as a weapon sometimes depending on the circumstances. With the Bryn’adul threat inspiring the vehicle’s design, it should come as little surprise that the one of the main weaponized products of the Kybuck is aerosolized Cryoban, which disperses as a mist to gradually lower temperatures surrounding the vehicle, theoretically having a range measured in kilometers given enough time. The Kybuck can also produce other more common weaponized gases, including Nytinite gas, plank gas, and vertigon gas. As with most gas weapons, Kybuck’s are area of effect weapons, meaning that they affect by friend and foe alike unless they are wearing proper protective gear.
Carrying Capacity: Kybucks have little internal cargo space and no space onboard for passengers. What cargo space is available is mostly devoted to spare parts for the vehicle and the mechanic droids along with extended rations and back-up power packs. Each crew member has a locker onboard though, allowing them to store personal effects such as sidearms, rations, and other like items.
Gas Transfomer: Most of a Kybuck’s not inconsiderable amount of internal space is dedicated to atmospheric processing systems in the form of air scrubbers and a molecular furnace. Highly energy efficient air scrubbers occupy most of the outermost compartments, using filters to quickly separate toxins and other unwanted gases and particles which are then fed to the molecular furnace for processing into more beneficial products. Asepsis field generators located throughout these filtering systems promptly trap and/or destroy pathogens. The Kybuck’s molecular furnace has several intakes, with most of them sucking in atmosphere to feed to the furnace, though there is a small, roughly person-sized opening at the vehicle’s front, allowing it to devour solid material that sits on the ground. This opening is typically covered by armor plating that is as thick as the rest of the vehicle during combat, but is often used afterwards to help clear battlefield debris and convert it to useful products. Because of the Kybuck’s relatively small size, the Kybuck’s molecular furnace is small and specialized, only allowing it to produce gas products which it then can immediately disperse around the vehicle. The Kybuck does not have any storage capability for the gases it produces.
