Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a slugthrower assault rifle in Lucerne Personal Defense's catalogue
- Image Source: here
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Personal Defense
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Lucerne Personal Defense Customers
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: LPD-64 SteelStrike Assault Rifle
- Modularity: sights/scopes; ammunition
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: durasteel frame with condensed-matter composite reinforcement, permex furniture, Magnatomic Grip Panel, typical slugthrower components
- Classification: slugthrower assault rifle
- Size: Average
- Weight: Average
- Ammunition Type: slugs
- Ammunition Capacity: Average (~30 rounds)
- Effective Range: Average
- Rate of Fire: Average
- Damage Output: Average
- Recoil: Average
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Slugthrower: The Steelstrike is a fairly conventional slugthrower, using a long-stroke gas piston with a seven lugged rotating bolt to fire intermediate caliber rifle rounds downrange. n order to make it more compact for close-quarters fighting, it does use a bullpup configuration. This relatively simple design makes it exceptionally reliable in the field and unaffected by ion or EMP weapons. This simplicity allows it to be easily manufactured through the extensive use of durasteel stampings and 3D-printed Permex. Not only does this make the Steelstrike relatively cheap to produce for LPD, but it also makes it an attractive firearm to license for production elsewhere. Several resistance groups have acquired the design schematics through either theft or covert corporate support, making it a relatively common weapon in the hands of lightside-oriented resistance groups.
- Adaptable: By using highly mature and basic slugthrower technology, the Steelstrike is exceptionally adaptable. It can fire a wide variety of ammunition and host a wide variety of accessories to include silencers, other muzzle attachments, sights, scopes, and bayonets.
- Picatinny Rails: The Steelstrike has a full-length of Picatinny rails on the top, with optional attachable rails to both sides and the bottom, which allow it to accept aftermarket attachments such as scopes, sights, underbarrel weapons, and tactical lights.
- Modular Slugs: As with many other conventional slugthrowers, there is a wide variety of ammunitions available for it, ranging from simple hollow-point ammunition and armor-piercing bullets to exotic explosive tipped rounds and acid-filled bullets. It is also backwards compatible with many other ammunition types offered by third party vendors.
- Jack of All Trades: The Steelstrike can function in most roles, being reasonably competent in both close-quarters fighting or precise sniping several hundreds of meters away on the battlefield.
- Modular: The Steelstrike is a very adaptable weapon, capable of taking a wide variety of accessories or different ammunition types to make it more effective in certain roles or against different foes.
- ...Master of None: The Steelstrike doesn't excel in any role either, being an entirely average weapon. Most weapons specialized to a certain role, such as a sniper rifle or a shotgun, will outperform it in their niche.
- Heavy Ammo: Slugs, while highly adaptable and resilient to different countermeasures, tend to weigh more than a blaster rifle's gas cylinders and power pack in relation to the number of shots.
While most soldiers and warriors prefer blaster weaponry for their light recoil and large ammunition capacity, there are some who prefer the power, modular ammunition, and utter reliability under adverse conditions that slugthrowers can provide. The Steelstrike is designed to be a basic slugthrower rifle for those with that preference in mind. To that end, it's a fairly conventional gas-operated weapon designed to be cheap and easy to make. Its biggest innovation is probably its new proprietary cartridge: 5.5mm Steelstrike. This intermediate rifle cartridge is designed to hit the sweet spot of having more power and range than a pistol round, but less recoil and weight than a full-power rifle cartridge. The resulting round uses fairly small bullets but with a good amount of propellant, making it a flat-shooting cartridge that relies more on speed than bullet weight to deal damage. The following are some of the more common loadings of 5.5mm Steelstrike:
Full Metal Jacket: A simple solid slug of lead or other dense material covered in a thin jacket of copper, plasteel, or another gilding agent. This is probably the most common and cheapest ammunition available for the Steelstrike. It is reasonably effective against most person-sized targets.
Hollow-Point: Another common variety, the hollow-point is designed to rapidly expand in diameter when it hits a target. While this makes it inefficient at penetrating through personal armor, it also ensures peak performance in unarmored targets with a very little chance of overpenetration. This often favored by police, counterterrorist agents, and others concerned with quickly taking down threats with a minimal chance of collateral damage from overpenetration.
Armor Piercing Explosive: This is basically a hollow-point bullet whose internal cavity filled with detonite. When the bullet collides with the target or object, the kinetic impact detonates the detonite. Because of the shape of the metallic portion of this bullet, it actually acts as a micro-shaped charge, with the detonite being focused forward into the target. This ammunition, like its Galactic Civil War counterpart, is well-suited for penetrating through many body armors.
Silent: This unusual ammunition consists of an unusually heavy bullet combined with a greased, captive gas piston that pushes the said bullet out. The gas piston seals the propellant gas from escaping once fired (and thus making a sound), while the heavy nature of the bullet ensures that it remains subsonic and does not make a characteristic ballistic 'crack'. While much more difficult to detect and thus making it ideal for more covert operations, its accuracy tends to be poor over longer ranges because its heavy projectile wobbles more the longer it travels.
Poisoned: Officially marketed only for use against dangerous apex predators, this round consists of mirrsteel barbed bullet liberally coated in Cyanoxis D-570. Upon impact, the barbs irregularity carve up deep channels into the wound and then act to make bullet removal more difficult and damaging, while the poison furthers blood loss, frequently leading to deep internal bleeds and blood trails that can be easily followed.
Stun Bullet: This round consists of lightly-constructed plastic shell that contains bothan stun spores. Upon impact, the spores either enter the body or can be inhaled by the target. Depending on the target, the effect can range from mild nausea and vomiting to unconsciousness.
Acid-Filled: At a glance, this appears to be a typical full metal jacket cartridge. However, the jacket of this round actually acts as a reservoir for Trifaraleen gas. If the bullet penetrates into the target, the gas will be released into the target itself to rapidly eat at tissue. Against impact against armor and other hard objects, the gas will rapidly corrode a portion of the impacted target before dissipating away.
Incendiary: This round contains a small detonite tip which acts as an impact primer for plasticene thermite gel contained within a plasteel jacket. Upon impact, the detonite ignites the gel, heating up the immediate impact area to almost 5000 degrees Celsius, which is more than capable enough of starting fires and burning through many armor materials. Combined with the round's high velocity, it tends to create deep, tunneling burns in organic targets that more difficult to heal.
It's not uncommon to hear of other custom loads for 5.5mm Steelstrike that are hand-loaded by individual users and smaller vendors. While officially silent on the use of such third party ammunition, it's not uncommon to hear LPD salesmen reference such ammunition when a potential client or buyer is mulling over their options. LPD has primarily marketed the weapon to Outer Rim governments and organizations who are looking to be as self-sufficient as possible - sales of weapons and ammunition along with licensing agreements for governments to produce their own copies. Law enforcement agencies, security personnel and some hunters are also common purchasers, who frequently prefer the ability to easily customize their weapons.
