Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a heavy warship missile
- Image Source: here
- Canon Link: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi, Closed-Market
- Model: Starlance Assault Missile
- Modularity: No
Production: Mass-Produced.
- Material: Mirrsteel fuselage and kinetic penetrator, shockwave generator rods, Psykhe Droid Brain, Biolux Organoform Circuitry, Electro photo receptors, Heat Detector, dataport, typical missile components
- Classification: Heavy Capital Ship Warhead
- Size: Very Large
- Weight: Very Heavy
- Ammunition Type: Kinetic penetrator, shockwave generators
- Ammunition Capacity: 1 kinetic penetrator, 1 plasma-based shockwaves
Reload Speed: None
- Effective Range: Battlefield
- Rate of Fire: Very Low
- Stopping Power: Very High
- Recoil: Very High
- Kinetic Penetrator: The 'bullet tip'of the Starlances is actually a massive, solid mirrsteel penetrator. This is designed to allow it to punch through heavy defenses and better weather defensive fire. The fuselage itself is also made up out of thick, mirrsteel armor, giving the penetrator a lot of inertia behind it.
- Shockwave Generators: The rear of the Starlance contains a ring of eight shockwave generator rods set just ahead of the plasma VSAMIR drive. During normal flight, these generators continuously create a low-power stream of plasma that travels up through tubes in the missile to coalesce in just in front of the missile's penetrator to act as a rudimentary plasma sheathe. However, when the Starlance hits a target it triggers the missile's ultracapacitor to immediately dump all energy into the generators. This creates a massive plasma burst at the base of the missile that rips apart its fuselage to explode much like a fragmentation grenade, and perhaps more importantly, creates a massive sonic wave that can shake a large target to pieces or tear apart smaller targets like other sonic demolitions, such as a seismic charge.
- Plasma Sheathe: The shockwave generators are used to generate a plasma sheathe that coalesces about one meter in front of the missile. During flight, this sheathe acts as a rudimentary shield providing some protection against defensive weapons like point defense cannons. This shield also allows the missile to better withstand atmospheric reentry. Perhaps just as importantly, this sheathe aids the Starlance in penetrating through physical defenses such as starship armor and earth.
- Droid Brain: Like Tidefall Torpedoes, each Starlance is piloted by a Psykhe droid brain using a combination of a heat detector and electrophotoreceptors. This allows the Starlance to think and react to threats on the battlefield, whether its a hostile starfighter or electronic sensor jamming.
- Etheric Flaps: Starlances have a ring of etheric flaps at the base of the missile just around the engine nozzles. This allows the Starlance to adjust its trajectory, especially when travelling through the atmosphere. This allows the Starlance to accurately freefall towards targets before reigniting its engines.
- Extended Range: Starlances have extended fuel tanks, allowing them to travel across the battlefield
- Defense in Principle: Much like the Statet Grav Missile or the Starcore-class Concussion Missile, the Starlance is designed to survive many of the new electronic-based anti-missile technologies being employed through principles of design. This includes extensively using Biolux series organoform circuitry to make it resistant to EMP/Ion weapons and using an isolated droid brain for guidance purposes to make it resistant to sensor jamming and generally immune to missile deactivator transmitters.
Protected Assault: The Starlance's shockwave generators produce a plasma sheathe that surrounds the tip of the warhead, which both provides the warhead additional protection against both passive and active defenses. Additionally, most of the fuselage is essentially made out of solid Mirrsteel, making it exceptionally durable against many defensive weapons.
Large Size: Starlances are about the same size as many small starfighters, and require special launchers such as the heavy ordinance bays on the Pelagic Star Cruiser to properly launch. The Starlance is too large for Lucerne Labs Harpoon General Purpose Warhead Launcher and standard warhead launchers. Their relatively large size also makes Starlances easier to hit than many warheads.
Inertia: Starlances's heavy construction of almost solid Mirrsteel makes it exceptionally durable with good penetration, but it also means that the missile does not easily change course. This means that small or exceptionally maneuverable ships have the potential to make last minute adjustments to their course to completely dodge the missile.
Isolated Telemetry: Starlances lack any ability to accept new input once launched. While this means that they are not easily deactivated, this also means that they cannot received new orders in flight or accept additional sensor feed or intelligence that might better allow them to hit their target.
The Starlance Assault Missile is a heavy bombardment weapon designed to shatter fortifications and tear capital ships asunder. Almost as large as an A-wing, the Starlance is a partially hollowed-out Mirrsteel slug into which the components of a warhead had been inserted. Many of the components are developments of other recent Lucerne Labs warheads. The Starlance is guided and piloted by a Psykhe droid brain utilizing visual sensors much like the Tidefall Brilliant Torpedo, while the warhead itself uses an extended chemical fuel drive based on that of the Starcore Concussion Missile. These refinements better allow Starlances to better survive battlefields in which increasingly sophisticated ECMs are being fielded. But while the avionics of the Starlance are only mere copies and adaptations of previous warheads, the Starlance's payload is more unique.
At the core of the Starlance's idea is the basic use of kinetic energy. Rather than use explosives or exotic payloads, most of the Starlance's offensive force is the simple, dense fuselage of the missile itself. This high mass makes it more difficult to destroy than many other warheads and increases its ability to penetrate through physical defenses. This kinetic energy is augmented by including eight shockwave generators in the base of the missile. This generators produce a plasma sheath just in front of the missile's tip while it's in flight, allowing it better withstand enemy weapon's fire and increasing its ability to penetrate through armor and physical objects. Collapsing or disintegrating the penetrator causes the missile's ultracapacitor to dump all of its available energy into these shockwave generators, causing them to form an intense plasma wave that then breaks apart the remainder of the warhead like a fragmentation grenade and cause intense, damaging vibrations in the target itself. Starlances are often used to as coup de main in close quarters combat against damaged opponents, as they often capable of penetrating through already weakened active and passive defenses. The other main use for Starlances is as an orbital bombardment weapon, as the missiles generally can cruise towards a planet before entering the atmosphere to precisely pound a target.
Starlances are somewhat limited in deployment because few ships have the launchers necessarily to deploy them. Those ships that do deploy them tend to use them as weapons that borderline between the tactical and strategic. While a single Starlance is a tactical threat to a capital ship, dozens of Starlances can cross a battlefield and wipe out strategic installations, such as defensive forts and space stations. The largest concentration of Starlance-equipped ships to date lies with the Silver Jedi's 4th Fleet under Admiral Quee.
