OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
With the proliferation of stealth ships and cloaking technology throughout the modern day galaxy, the Galactic Alliance began a program to develop weapons systems capable of combatting these dangerous and hidden foes. Through many trials and errors these scientists and engineers, working with Rendili Stardrive, were able to develop one of the pieces of this puzzle - as ancient as it was advanced, as deadly as it was elegant. Through this process came the Mk 50 tracking torpedo
Reading through the history books of ancient battles and through what intelligence they could pull about the stealth and cloaking ships proliferated through out the galaxy, they also poured through the data until they could find one or two common flaws in cloaking technology - and this they were able to find. Most cloaking technology, almost all of it even, was incapable of hiding the basest of magnetic signatures - and this was a flaw that had been present as far back as before the Clone Wars, being recorded in the biographies of one arachnid admiral - the Harch known as Admiral Trench.
Equipped with this knowledge, they outfitted the Mk 50 with advanced magnetic tracking sensors, capable of picking up even the faintest of magnetic and electromagnetic sensors, with the onboard brain sorting very quickly through common signatures to differentiate between a large asteroid, a flying piece of debris, and a possible starship. Coupled with this capability is a Laser/Subspace receiver, capable of receiving both tight beam and wide-beam transmissions, allowing the firing ship to relay new information, sensor data, or guidance to the torpedo mid-flight, allowing its tracking features to be augmented with advanced sensors or anti-stealth features aboard the launching ship.
Allowing for even a near-miss or glancing it to deal a devastating blow to a cloaked ship, the torpedo is armed with a small baradium-collapsium warhead, essentially a scaled-down seismic charge, stabilized with Ytterbium to give its implosion a focused and predictable character, compared to the more unpredictable and omnidirectional blast of its larger cousins. Though scaled down this warhead still packs a massive punch, which can even be dangerous to its own firing ship if deployed in close range.
Though its expensive price tag and complicated construction preclude it from being deployed across the navy, the Mk 50 is more than capable of providing a much-needed capability to a military beset on all sides and desperately needing advantages wherever it can get them.
- Intent: Create an Anti-Stealth Tracking Torpedo
- Image Source: The Expanse
- Canon Link: Tracking Torpedoes
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Rendili StarDrive
- Affiliation: Galactic Alliance
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: Mk 50 Advance Capability Remote-Operable Search Torpedo (ACROST)
- Modularity: No
- Production: Semi-Unique
- Material:
- Torpedo Components
- Durasteel
- Classification: Tracking Torpedo
- Size: Average
- Weight: Heavy
- Explosive Type: small shaped seismic warhead (Baradium-Ytterbium-Collapsium)
- Delivery Method: Self-Propelled
- Effective Range: Battlefield
- Area Of Effect: Large
- Damage Output: High
- Magnetic Sensors capable of tracking the magnetic signature of cloaked and low-observable vessels
- Advanced Tight/Wide beam datalink receiver
- Come out, Come out: The torpedoes are equipped with advanced magnetic sensors which are capable of tracking the signatures of stealthy and even cloaked ships. Coupled with a datalink receiver to receive real-time intelligence from the launching ship, this gives it excellent capabilities in tracking and combatting stealth ships.
- Here Comes the Boom: Using a Collapsium-Baradium Warhead with Ytterbium to stabilize and direct the resulting implosion, the Howlrunner torpedo has a very strong payload. Though only about 1/3 to 2/5 of the implosion caused by a standard seismic charge, the focused nature of the implosion allows for predictable and strong explosive power.
- Countermeasures!: While the magnetic trackers on the torpedo itself are highly advanced, that doesn't mean that they're perfect, and without a datalink from the firing ship - either because of its incapacitation or because it is maintaining EMCON - things such as a large cloud of magnetized chaff or a well-built decoy can fool the torpedoes
- Minimum Range: The torpedo is ineffective and even dangerous at short ranges for varied reasons. Perhaps the most important one is that even the weaker and focused blast of the seismic warhead is capable of doing serious damage to the host ship if it is fired within an unsafe range. Less important is the fact that due to the size and weight of the warhead, at close ranges it has no time to reach speeds allowing it to evade point defenses and interceptor missiles
With the proliferation of stealth ships and cloaking technology throughout the modern day galaxy, the Galactic Alliance began a program to develop weapons systems capable of combatting these dangerous and hidden foes. Through many trials and errors these scientists and engineers, working with Rendili Stardrive, were able to develop one of the pieces of this puzzle - as ancient as it was advanced, as deadly as it was elegant. Through this process came the Mk 50 tracking torpedo
Reading through the history books of ancient battles and through what intelligence they could pull about the stealth and cloaking ships proliferated through out the galaxy, they also poured through the data until they could find one or two common flaws in cloaking technology - and this they were able to find. Most cloaking technology, almost all of it even, was incapable of hiding the basest of magnetic signatures - and this was a flaw that had been present as far back as before the Clone Wars, being recorded in the biographies of one arachnid admiral - the Harch known as Admiral Trench.
Equipped with this knowledge, they outfitted the Mk 50 with advanced magnetic tracking sensors, capable of picking up even the faintest of magnetic and electromagnetic sensors, with the onboard brain sorting very quickly through common signatures to differentiate between a large asteroid, a flying piece of debris, and a possible starship. Coupled with this capability is a Laser/Subspace receiver, capable of receiving both tight beam and wide-beam transmissions, allowing the firing ship to relay new information, sensor data, or guidance to the torpedo mid-flight, allowing its tracking features to be augmented with advanced sensors or anti-stealth features aboard the launching ship.
Allowing for even a near-miss or glancing it to deal a devastating blow to a cloaked ship, the torpedo is armed with a small baradium-collapsium warhead, essentially a scaled-down seismic charge, stabilized with Ytterbium to give its implosion a focused and predictable character, compared to the more unpredictable and omnidirectional blast of its larger cousins. Though scaled down this warhead still packs a massive punch, which can even be dangerous to its own firing ship if deployed in close range.
Though its expensive price tag and complicated construction preclude it from being deployed across the navy, the Mk 50 is more than capable of providing a much-needed capability to a military beset on all sides and desperately needing advantages wherever it can get them.
Last edited by a moderator:
