Directorate Officer
Intent: To provide Lucerne Personal Defense's variant of the Imperial Heavy Repeater
Image Source: Destiny's MIDA Multi-tool
Canon Link: N/A
Restricted Missions: N/A
Primary Source: Inspired by the Imperial Heavy Repeater
Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
Model: LPD-15 Stormfire Heavy Repeater
Affiliation: Silver Jedi, Galactic Alliance, Directorate, Closed-Market
Modularity: scope, rail attachments
Production: Mass-Produced.
Material: Permex-durasteel furniture, Dallorian alloy barrel, receiver and internals, electronics
Classification: Mag-rifle / Concussion Rifle hybrid
Size: Average
Weight: Average
Ammunition Type: Mag-pellets / power packs
Ammunition Capacity: 200 mag-pellets / Power pack(enough for 100 mag-pellet shots on repeating mode, 50 mag-pellet shots on sniper mode, 25 concussive blasts, or equivalent combination)
Reload Speed: Average
Hybrid Repeater Mode Mag-Rifle Mode Concussion Rifle Mode Effective Range Average Battlefield Personal (60 meters) Rate of Fire High Low Low Stopping Power Average High Very High Recoil Average High Very High
Multiple Fire Modes: The Stormfire uses a combination of electromagnetic accelerator technology and ionized air gun technology to launch projectiles by both pushing and pulling the mag-pellet. Each of these mechanisms can also be fired and enhanced separately, leading to vastly different effects: Solely using the magnetic rails turns the weapon into a slow-firing sniper rifle while enhancing the air gun portion turns it into a concussion rifle.
Adaptable: The Stormfire can utilize its dual firing mechanisms in different ways, allowing to fulfill several different roles, much like its conceptual predecessor, the Imperial Heavy Repeater.
Repeater Mode – Rate of Fire: As its name suggests, the Stormfire has an exceptional rate of fire which allows it lay down a volume of fire useful for cutting down large swathes of targets or providing covering/suppressive fire.
Sniper Mode – Battlefield Range: “Overcharging” the rails allows the Stormfire to accelerate Mag-pellets at incredible velocities, leading to be fairly flat-shooting projectile with a long range that makes it useful as a sniper rifle.
Concussion Rifle Mode – Powerful Concussive Blasts: Like other concussion rifles, the ionized air fired by the Stormfire explodes upon impact with a very damaging 4 meter radius, making it particularly useful against Force-users or at pushing back groups of opponents with its blast.
Heavy: The Stormfire is a fairly heavy weapon compared to most conventional blasters, which makes it harder to move quickly to aim at close distances as well as tiring to carry over long distances.
Repeater Mode – Inaccurate: In repeating mode, the electromagnetic rails and concussion propulsion are rarely synchronized exactly the same each shot, meaning that each shot is somewhat inconsistent in its acceleration and thus exit velocity. This means that even an expert marksman has difficulty getting obtaining good accuracy in this mode.
Sniper Mode – Slow Rate of Fire: Building up the proper charge in the rails to accelerate the projectile leads to a low rate of fire
Concussion Rifle Mode – Short Range: Like other concussion rifles,the concussion mode on the Stormfire is relatively short-ranged with an effective range of 60 meters, which is usually much lower than most blaster rifles.
DESCRIPTION
The Stormfire Heavy Repeater is Lucerne Labs' version of the classic Imperial Heavy Repeater. Like that weapon, it is typically a rapidly firing machine gun with secondary concussive blast fire mode. However, the Stormfire achieves these capabilities in a different matter, using a unique blend of magrifle and concussion rifle technology to make a hybrid weapon. Rather than solely relying on one these methods to propel a projectile, they are used simultaneously in conjunction with each other: the mag rifle components use magnetic acceleration to pull the mag-pellet down the barrel while a small burst of ionized air from the concussion rifle components pushes from the behind the bullet. This allows the Stormfire to achieve a higher rate of fire than typical for most magnetically accelerated weapons while firing bullets at a higher velocity than most airguns. In this typical repeating mode, Stormfire isn't particularly distinguishable in performance from its conceptual predecessor or many other slugthrower machine guns. It can, however, fully shunt power from either component weapon to its opposite number, allowing it to gain the full powers and traits of those weapon types.
When power is fully shifted to the mag rifle components, it becomes very similar to a Quietsnipe, accelerating mag-pellets at extremely high velocities (and thus at long-ranges), making it an excellent sniping weapon. However, it takes time for the proper charge to build up to obtain these high velocities, giving it a much slower rate of fire. When power is fully shifted to the concussion rifle components, the the ionized air is significantly stronger in magnitude, capable of being a weapon in its own right rather than just being a propellant. Like other concussion rifles, this ionized air explodes violently on contact, forming a volatile, concussive blast radius approximately 4 meters in diameter. The shockwave from this blast frequently tosses and/or pushes people away from its center of impact. Unfortunately, as powerful as this mode is, it also suffers from a high power draw, heavy recoil, and a lowered range compared to most conventional longarms.
Stormfire Heavy Repeaters are expected to take a similar role as the old Imperial Heavy Repeater. Most will see use as fire-team or squad level repeating weapon in conventional units. Some elite troops and individuals may chose to use this as their primary weapons. This choice will largely be a question of if the users need a nonlethal mode, as unlike most blasters and some other slugthrowers, there is no stun or nonlethal ammunition available for it.
