Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide drop-capable auto-turret droid in 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, Closed-Market
- Model: L4 Vele-series Orbit Deployable Autoturret
- Modularity: different grenades can be used in its grenade launcher
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Psyhke-series Droid Brain, Bia series portable fusion generator, Duraplast armor plating, Durasteel and condensed matter composite skeletal frame, thermal-gel internal fluid suspension, repulsorlift, typical battle droid components
- Classification: Fourth Degree
- Weight: Heavy
- Height: Average
- Movement: Repulsorlift
- Armaments:
- Misc. Equipment:
- Resistances (Optional):
- Energy (And other Blaster type weapons): High
- Kinetic: High
- Lightsabers: Low
- Ion/EMP: Average
- Concentric Frame Construction: Veles effectively has two skeletal frames, both of which have their own separate armor plating. The first consists of the droid’s stabilizing legs which attach to a cylindrical chassis. This cylindrical chassis in turn uses a thermal gel bath to suspend a second cylindrical frame which holds most of the droid’s systems.
- Orbital Insertion: Veles is designed to be dropped from a starship or flying vehicle to be directly deployed onto the ground. To that end, the droid can simply be dropped out of hangar bay or it can be jettisoned through an escape pod adapter. The onboard repulsorlift acts to slow the droid’s descent or steer it towards its designated landing spot. The concentric frame construction as described above is designed to the absorb the shock of landing itself.
- Density Projector: Veles has a density projector, which allows it to better anchor onto the surfaces beneath it to help prevent it from being toppled, whether it’s by an enemy’s Force Push or the repeated recoil of firing its own weapon.
- Resilient (Energy weapons): Veles is reasonably durable against common energy weapons such as blasters and disruptors due to its duraplast armor. The built-in Myntor shield generator provides another barrier which typically intercepts energy-based attacks.
- Resilient (Kinetic weapons): Veles is reasonably durable against many kinetic weapons, largely due to its duraplast armor and durasteel frame which can outright absorb some of the direct damage and can act as spaced armor against explosive weapons, while the thermal gel internal suspension provides a further buffer for internal components against projectiles which manage to penetrate through the armor plating.
- Fast Tracking: Veles uses exceptionally powerful servos in its turret, which combined with the TIN, allows the Veles to quickly rotate its weapons to effectively attack small and fast targets, such as inbound enemy warheads or small, swarming creatures.
- Orbit Deployable: Veles can be directly deployed from an orbiting starship or aerial vehicle to land on a set point on a surface, allowing it to be quickly thrown into action as needed.
- Simple minded: Veles is fairly simple-minded in its programming, being fairly uncreative and taking almost no initiative on its own. Depending on its instructions, it will either attack designated priority targets or attempt to attack whichever is closest. The droid must be directed almost each time to do anything else besides this, aside from reflexively activating its shield generator.
- Slow: While Veles suborbital insertions are fairly fast, once the droid deployed on the ground, it is very slow. The repulsorlift, really designed to better control the droid’s descent to the ground, can move the droid at speeds up to a leisurely walking person
- Vulnerable (Lightsabers): Veles isn’t designed to afford particular protection against lightsabers, and while the droids armor and shield generator can sometimes provide some protection against these weapons, they do not stand up well to concentrated lightsaber attacks.
- Limited ammunition: Veles only uses projectile weapons, and its relatively small size means that the ammunition for such weapons is fairly limited. It’s not uncommon for the droid to entirely run out of ammunition in high intensity fights in less than ten minutes long, necessitating the droid to be reloaded by a person or other droid before it can once again be an effective combatant.
Veles is one of Lucerne Labs’s versions of the ancient auto-turret concept. Like previous auto-turrets, Veles primarily acts as a stationary and automated weapons emplacement to provide withering automatic fire to directly attack nearby enemies. This makes it ideal as a stationary guard droid or as a source of supplemental firepower in the field. The Veles’s fast-tracking Reaper Mag Cannon is quite capable of taking most organic infantrymen down with a single shot, while a few steady bursts of fire from the weapon can destroy many ground vehicles and small starships. A MM-s3 Grenade Launcher set just beneath the mag cannon provides supplemental firepower, making it more effective at destroying clusters of enemies and providing the Veles with the ability to provide indirect firepower to strike at enemies that may have direct cover from the Veles’s mag cannon. While effectively against a variety of targets due to the combination of its weaponry, Veles tends to struggle against heavily armed vehicles and heavily fortified ground positions such as extensive, hardened bunkers. Unlike many droids or autoturrets, Veles is designed to be directly deployed from high altitudes, allowing it flung directly onto the ground and immediately into the thick of a battle. This makes Veles invaluable in acting as a fast-response unit on friendly worlds towards enemy incursions and to help immediately claim and hold landing sites during invasions.
Lucerne Personal Defense expects this unit to sell fairly well because it has immediately and easily applicable benefits for both defensive and offensive operations. Unsurprisingly, the sale of this droid is almost exclusively restricted to governments and well-defined groups that have similar values to Lucerne Labs, notably the Silver Jedi Concord and the Directorate. The Directorate, having little terrestrial territory of its own, often uses these turrets defensively to protect company properties and expeditionary sites. The Silver Jedi Concord’s military, on the other hand, makes far greater use of the Veles in a more offensive role, providing large numbers of the droid not only to its planetary defense forces, but also to its airborne units. Unsurprisingly then, it seems likely that the Veles will remain in production for a long time to come.
