Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To create a large, kinetic missile in Lucerne Labs product line up
- Image Source: here modified by yours truly
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: N/A
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Lucerne Personal Defense Customers
- Market Status: Closed-Market
- Model: Thorn-class Kinetic Interceptor
- Modularity: none
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: ferrocarbon nose cone kinetic penetrator and fuselage, mirrsteel ball bearings, plasma bomb, solid fuel rocket motor, Energy envelope projector, various electronics
- Classification: heavy ball bearing missile
- Size: Large
- Weight: Heavy
- Explosive Type: plasma bomb
- Delivery Method: self-propelled
| Omni-Directional Self-Destruct | Delayed Impact Mode | |
|---|---|---|
| Effective Range: | Average | Average |
| Area of Effect: | Large | Personal |
| Damage Output: | High | Extreme |
SPECIAL FEATURES
- Variable Fire Modes: The Thorn effectively has two different firing modes that dictated by how it is armed. Most commonly is uses a delayed impact setting. After impact, the warhead ideally penetrates deep into the target and then explodes. While the plasma bomb charge doesn't have the raw power to make a massive explosion in such tight confines against a capital ship, the sheer mass of the missile- with its solid construction and heavy ball bearing loading- imparts a lot of kinetic energy into the immediate area of the target, creating a large amount of damage in a small area, making it ideal for destroying starship subsystems or overwhelming capital grade dovin basals. In omni-directional self-destruct, the warhead uses a proximity fuse to detonate in a cluster of smaller targets. This causes an expanding sphere of burning hot mirrsteel ball-bearings, making it useful for disrupting and destroying starfighter formations and enemy warhead salvos.
- Armored Assault: Thorn is designed to withstand at least several hits to the front from point-defense weapons. Its nosecone is solid ferrocarbon, which can usually absorb a several laser cannon hits and brush aside many flechette-based defenses. A high-powered energy envelope projector shrouds the Thorn in flight with a dark blue sheathe of energy that can take absorb several more hits.
- Composite Gravity/EPR tracking: Thorn use combined gravity and infrared photoreceptors signatures, like GAM missiles, to track targets. These sensor signatures are typically harder to spoof and/or jam, especially as joint criteria for targeting, which makes Vortexes not as easily fooled by conventional sensor jamming.
- Chemical Drive: Thorn uses a solid fuel slug, much like the Vulture Drone, to propel the warhead. Using a chemical reaction for propulsion means that it cannot be shut off by electronic countermeasures.
- Backwards Compatible: Thorns are the same general size and shape as many heavier concussion missiles, meaning that it can easily be fitted into existing warhead launchers, including most heavier concussion missile launchers or Lucerne Lab's own Harpoon-class General Purpose Warhead Launcher.
- Defended Strike: Thorns have both armor and shielding which protects them against most point defense weapons. Additionally, the nature of the chemical-based drive means that it is resistant to missile transmitter deactivators while their sensor package is designed to not easily be fooled.
- Heavy Hitter (Impact Mode): The sheer mass of this weapon means that in impart a large amount of kinetic energy in a relatively small area, making it excellent at destroying subsystems on capital ships.
- Bulky: The Thorn is bulky weapon that doesn't fit into smaller or even average warhead launchers. Typically a larger general purpose or specialized launcher is needed to fire these weapons.
DESCRIPTION
While the Vortex-class Heavy Concussion Missile has become the standard warhead used by Lucerne Labs designs, there are times where a simple explosive warhead is not very effective due to the nature of the foe, such as Yuuzhan Vong starships, or defenses designed explicitly to defeat explosive-based weapons, such as spaced armor designs. With that in mind, Lucerne Labs took the base technology of the Vortex and turned it into a kinetic kill weapon, using dense materials and high velocity to create destructive shockwaves and intense heat upon impact. This latter effect is augmented by the inclusion of small plasma bomb designed to help superheat the metal ball bearings which help more uniformly distribute the damage in the immediate area of impact. A side effect of this ability was that the Thorn can also use a proximity detonator mode instead, allowing to effectively act as a omni-directional fragmentation weapon, making it useful against clusters of starfighters, warheads, and other smaller targets. Consequently, the Thorn is fairly versatile weapon which is particularly useful against foes more resistant to traditional explosives.
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