Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
-500 meter long rail cylinders (restricts it to large cruisers and above)
-Variable ammunition (plasma / slugs) (can only carry up to three types of munitions at a time)
-Equivalent to 200 turbolasers for shipbuilding purposes and rough terms of power
Strengths
Weaknesses
DESCRIPTION
Seeing emergence of larger and larger warships on the battlefield, Lucerne Labs began to design their own massive “ship-killer” weapon. This research process was only accelerated when it was revealed that their political enemies in the First Order and Galactic Empire were already beginning to field similarly massive weapons. In some respects, Lucerne Labs's response to such weapons seems surprisingly brute force and bland.
A massive railgun over five hundred meters long doesn't exactly conjure images of refinement and subtly typically associated with most of its products.
But appearances are deceptive, and the Onager actually contains Lucerne Lab's almost characteristic touch of refinement and adaptability. Rather than only accelerating massive hunks of metal, the Onager actually builds off of Lucerne Lab's previous work with the Firestorm-class Plasma Turbolaser, which is actually as a plasma railgun in a similar vein to the ancient Incinerator-class Railgun. Like its predecessors, the Onager is actually designed to primarily to hurl bolts of superheated plasma. To this end, it composed off two primary components: a massive railgun and a plasma rotor.
The Onager utilizes a twin set of rail cylinders composed of rotating tubes of Conductor X-112-coated Dallorian alloy. After each shot is fired, each cylinder rotates like a revolver, replacing both the bottom and upper set of rails with a fresh set of rails. This provides time for the previously used rails to cool off and build up a charge for later use. This does not improve the practical and immediate rate of fire compared to many of its peers, but it does improve sustained rate of fire over lengthy engagements as the rails are less eroded and better cooled. A similar set of inner revolving rails at the breach allows the Onager to switch munition types in the middle of the battle, though it is not an instantaneous process. But like most railguns, it takes time to build up a proper charge even using the most advanced compulsators available to Lucerne Labs, leading to the characteristic low firing rate found frequently in many hypervelocity cannons and most large-scale electromagnetic accelerators. But like those weapons, the damage wrought by the Onager is significant, making it easily comparable to large-scale energy weapons. But unlike its peers, the Onager relies almost as heavily on velocity as does on the composition of its payload.
Payloads for the Onager are most often synthesized from various gases by the plasma rotor, which excites the gases into searing hot and volatile plasma. While already inherent dangerous, the sudden impact of the plasma against a target only excites the particles even more, typically leading to a massive thermal swelling that can overwhelm ray shielding and corrosively seep through and eat hull plating and exposed, external subsystems. While a combination of heat and kinetic energy is almost always present, the individual plasma types vary widely in their other effects based on their internal, chemical structures. While it is nearly impossible to classify the effect of each individual gas that could be used by the plasma rotors, gases can roughly be categorized by their secondary effects.
Pure thermal: Or no secondary effect. The molecules in these plasmas are highly excited, either kinetically or thermally, which causes them to quickly release heat upon impact, making it useful for quickly overwhelming defenses. This is probably the most common reaction of gases used as the Onager's ammunition. Many gunners compare it to a supervised version of the FlakBlaster Ten's bolts.
Corrosive: The molecules in these plasmas are excited, though not initially as much as in the pure thermal variants. They tend to release energy at a slower rate, slowly corroding through the target in the same manner as the plasma used by the Onager's starfighter predecessor, the Incinerator-class plasma railgun.
Explosive: These bolts explode on impact because of the molecular, imparting almost equal amounts of kinetic and thermal damage. Most gunners compare such plasmas to the plasma bolts used by plasma throwers.
Electromagnetic: These plasmas can cause massive electrical disturbances on their targets, much like the massive M-68 magnapulse cannon. Ionic shielding and ionic surge shielding can lessen this payload's effectiveness, but this in turn cause the radiation to briefly flare out from t he ship, like a miniature ion storm, afflicting small nearby craft.
Biohazard: These plasmas are exceptionally unstable at the molecular level. They produce large amounts of Bremsstrahlung radiation, which can cause radiation sickness or even death of organic or the destruction of organic-based technology.
The basic thermal damage dealt by the Onager's plasma is affected by both standard ray shields, which can absorb some of heat from the plasma, and by particle shields, which protect against the actual physical aspects of the plasma itself. Against unshielded targets, the large amount of plasma combined with its high acceleration can superheat and penetrate through a hull before it tends to rapidly disperse within the hull itself. Oddly enough, this can actually make heavily-armored warships more vulnerable, as their thick hull plating tends to contain this destructive heat rather than breaking to vent it out into space.
As exotic and flexible as all of these plasmas are, sometimes it is difficult to procure satisfactory gases, or there is more of a need for a purely kinetic solution. To that end, the breach can accept massive, simple slugs of ferromagnetic metal. These are typically formed of fused ferrocarbon or Iridium, but other materials can be used. In these instances, the plasma rotors are not utilized, and the Onager acts purely as a massive, conventional railgun.
Regardless if the projectile is composed of plasma or metal, as it exits the cannon's "barrel", an octet of miniaturized tractor beams can slightly alter the projectile's trajectory, much like the miniature tractor beams on the Nantex-class starfighter can alter a laser cannon's bolt. This allows the gunners to make small ballistic corrections if the target slightly alters course or position as the cannon is aimed or fired.
Onagers are extremely massive weapons, and their long rail length limits this weapon to being emplaced on bigger cruisers and larger warships. Because of this, Onagers will mostly likely be seen on larger artillery cruisers or as the primarily spinal weapons of star destroyers and battlecruisers.
Intent: To create a massive railgun
Image Source: N/A
Canon Link: N/A
Restricted Missions: N/A
Primary Source: Firestorm-class Plasma Railgun
Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
Model: Onager-class Plasma Rail Cannon
Affiliation: Closed Market
Modularity: Munitions
Production: Minor
Material: Railgun components, Dallorian Alloy, Conductor X-112, plasma rotor, compulsators, tractor beam projectors(x8)
Classification: Ship-to-Ship Railgun
Size: Extreme
Weight: Extreme
Ammunition Type: Power, Plasma/Slugs
Ammunition Capacity: Effectively unlimited.
Reload Speed: Low
Effective Range: Battlefield
Rate of Fire: Low
Stopping Power: Extreme
Recoil: Extreme
-500 meter long rail cylinders (restricts it to large cruisers and above)
-Variable ammunition (plasma / slugs) (can only carry up to three types of munitions at a time)
-Equivalent to 200 turbolasers for shipbuilding purposes and rough terms of power
Strengths
- Killshot: Onagers are truly massive weapons, each one equivalent in power to roughly 200 turbolasers, which makes them capable of inflicting devastating amounts of damage on most capital ships.
- Battlefield Range: Onagers accelerate their slugs or plasma projectiles so quickly that they have little trouble crossing vast distances of space in matter of seconds.
- Variable Damage: Onagers can utilize a variety of different plasma types, in addition to basic, solid slugs, which makes them highly adaptable in the type of damage that they can potentially inflict.
Weaknesses
- Low Rate of Fire: Onagers have a slow rate of fire, as it takes time to build up the charge needed to accelerate their massive slugs or plasma bolts, even while using the innovative rail cylinders.
- Spinal-mounted: Onagers must be spinal-mounted because of the length of their rail, and the need to reinforce the immediate structure around it to cope with the recoil. These means that the ship itself most move to roughly aim at the target.
DESCRIPTION
Seeing emergence of larger and larger warships on the battlefield, Lucerne Labs began to design their own massive “ship-killer” weapon. This research process was only accelerated when it was revealed that their political enemies in the First Order and Galactic Empire were already beginning to field similarly massive weapons. In some respects, Lucerne Labs's response to such weapons seems surprisingly brute force and bland.
A massive railgun over five hundred meters long doesn't exactly conjure images of refinement and subtly typically associated with most of its products.
But appearances are deceptive, and the Onager actually contains Lucerne Lab's almost characteristic touch of refinement and adaptability. Rather than only accelerating massive hunks of metal, the Onager actually builds off of Lucerne Lab's previous work with the Firestorm-class Plasma Turbolaser, which is actually as a plasma railgun in a similar vein to the ancient Incinerator-class Railgun. Like its predecessors, the Onager is actually designed to primarily to hurl bolts of superheated plasma. To this end, it composed off two primary components: a massive railgun and a plasma rotor.
The Onager utilizes a twin set of rail cylinders composed of rotating tubes of Conductor X-112-coated Dallorian alloy. After each shot is fired, each cylinder rotates like a revolver, replacing both the bottom and upper set of rails with a fresh set of rails. This provides time for the previously used rails to cool off and build up a charge for later use. This does not improve the practical and immediate rate of fire compared to many of its peers, but it does improve sustained rate of fire over lengthy engagements as the rails are less eroded and better cooled. A similar set of inner revolving rails at the breach allows the Onager to switch munition types in the middle of the battle, though it is not an instantaneous process. But like most railguns, it takes time to build up a proper charge even using the most advanced compulsators available to Lucerne Labs, leading to the characteristic low firing rate found frequently in many hypervelocity cannons and most large-scale electromagnetic accelerators. But like those weapons, the damage wrought by the Onager is significant, making it easily comparable to large-scale energy weapons. But unlike its peers, the Onager relies almost as heavily on velocity as does on the composition of its payload.
Payloads for the Onager are most often synthesized from various gases by the plasma rotor, which excites the gases into searing hot and volatile plasma. While already inherent dangerous, the sudden impact of the plasma against a target only excites the particles even more, typically leading to a massive thermal swelling that can overwhelm ray shielding and corrosively seep through and eat hull plating and exposed, external subsystems. While a combination of heat and kinetic energy is almost always present, the individual plasma types vary widely in their other effects based on their internal, chemical structures. While it is nearly impossible to classify the effect of each individual gas that could be used by the plasma rotors, gases can roughly be categorized by their secondary effects.
Pure thermal: Or no secondary effect. The molecules in these plasmas are highly excited, either kinetically or thermally, which causes them to quickly release heat upon impact, making it useful for quickly overwhelming defenses. This is probably the most common reaction of gases used as the Onager's ammunition. Many gunners compare it to a supervised version of the FlakBlaster Ten's bolts.
Corrosive: The molecules in these plasmas are excited, though not initially as much as in the pure thermal variants. They tend to release energy at a slower rate, slowly corroding through the target in the same manner as the plasma used by the Onager's starfighter predecessor, the Incinerator-class plasma railgun.
Explosive: These bolts explode on impact because of the molecular, imparting almost equal amounts of kinetic and thermal damage. Most gunners compare such plasmas to the plasma bolts used by plasma throwers.
Electromagnetic: These plasmas can cause massive electrical disturbances on their targets, much like the massive M-68 magnapulse cannon. Ionic shielding and ionic surge shielding can lessen this payload's effectiveness, but this in turn cause the radiation to briefly flare out from t he ship, like a miniature ion storm, afflicting small nearby craft.
Biohazard: These plasmas are exceptionally unstable at the molecular level. They produce large amounts of Bremsstrahlung radiation, which can cause radiation sickness or even death of organic or the destruction of organic-based technology.
The basic thermal damage dealt by the Onager's plasma is affected by both standard ray shields, which can absorb some of heat from the plasma, and by particle shields, which protect against the actual physical aspects of the plasma itself. Against unshielded targets, the large amount of plasma combined with its high acceleration can superheat and penetrate through a hull before it tends to rapidly disperse within the hull itself. Oddly enough, this can actually make heavily-armored warships more vulnerable, as their thick hull plating tends to contain this destructive heat rather than breaking to vent it out into space.
As exotic and flexible as all of these plasmas are, sometimes it is difficult to procure satisfactory gases, or there is more of a need for a purely kinetic solution. To that end, the breach can accept massive, simple slugs of ferromagnetic metal. These are typically formed of fused ferrocarbon or Iridium, but other materials can be used. In these instances, the plasma rotors are not utilized, and the Onager acts purely as a massive, conventional railgun.
Regardless if the projectile is composed of plasma or metal, as it exits the cannon's "barrel", an octet of miniaturized tractor beams can slightly alter the projectile's trajectory, much like the miniature tractor beams on the Nantex-class starfighter can alter a laser cannon's bolt. This allows the gunners to make small ballistic corrections if the target slightly alters course or position as the cannon is aimed or fired.
Onagers are extremely massive weapons, and their long rail length limits this weapon to being emplaced on bigger cruisers and larger warships. Because of this, Onagers will mostly likely be seen on larger artillery cruisers or as the primarily spinal weapons of star destroyers and battlecruisers.
