Time to Make a Bang [Dev Thread]

[Sere Reene]

Bootana Hutta Region – Gos Hutta System - Kor Oktanivii Planet​

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OOC Note:

Spoiler

While I’d appreciate help, as this is a powerful dev thread, please only decent sized posts in this one, it’ll take a quality thread and a long one.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0WI4DOit2s​

The Sound of the War Drum​

Kor Oktanivii was a relatively unknown world to anyone outside of the hutt cartel, located in the triplanet system of Gos Hutta, inside the Bootana Hutta, it saw a lot of industrial and trade traffic, but otherwise outsiders avoided the heavy gang violence that littered its cities streets. Gang violence encouraged and funded by one company, fire for effect to test its weapons.

The motives for this companies recent flurry back into the galactic weapons market were only known to a handful of people, their real owners known to no one at all, the jumps and hoops people hand to go through to get to them were monumental. Money seemed to move everywhere, filtered through individuals, banks, middlemen and it was all skimmed, everyone took their cut.

Sere Reene was the face of the company, not that she was a pretty face, a deformed sluissi couldn’t be called that by anyone’s standards, but she was good at her job and efficient, the people she dealt with didn’t give a damned what she looked like as long as the guns kept coming.

Location: North Continent
FFE’s Main Production Facility, Punta Outman Geesa, or Dead Outlanders
In the rubbled filled interlinked cities of Seutta and Nuttaon

The main production facility, nicknamed affectionately Deadballs by the staff, given the domed shape bunkers, the shields surrounding them, and the distinct stench of industrial death being manufactured at all hours of the day. There was always something else was being worked on, and there were more weapons or empty discarded metal guns here than staff, far more. You could for sure smell the scent of dried whiskey or spice going down at the same time. It made for a vile mix unless you were used to it, in which case this rich scent of the underworld was home. Being a weapons manufacturer the facility was extremely heavily armed for its size, some of the guns were experimental but there were some household names on display, both large and small weapons around the outside.

Around them lay the burned out cities of Seutta and Nuttaon, plenty of people lived here, but the constant state of gang violence was only encouraged by FFE who made a killing off the occupants and better yet got to test their weapons for free.

What was on the table today to work on?

The sound of progress, aliens of all denominations working on ion tipped charged rounds. Sere was her usual calm self, even if the rodians, trandoshans, weequay and others here were rubbing their hands, tentacles or paws depending on the species, she was here supervising, waiting for the work to really get underway.

 

[Sere Reene]

Clang Clang Clang still in the background as metal met metal, and things began to move. The wardrum of progress beating its all too familiar tune, everyday made another way to die here!

“Why the frak are we still using ion charges?” One of the more vocal Rodians said in her native tongue. Going over what was in front of them.

“Shabla” A weequay responded insulting, a weequay of all things using mando’a

Nearby a fat podgy gamorrean snorted his own feelings, leaning on his forceaxe looking on, the two techs looked ready to rip each other to pieces, and nobody much looked like stopping them, especially not the guard on duty. Nobody except the woman running this thing, who calmly picked up a stun baton and jabbed it calmly into the gamorrean’s back, piercing it, till he fell over gibbering and his body shaking.

“Can we concentrate pleasssse.” Sere hissed, everyone grumbled and got back to work, minus one guard of course who wouldn't be waking up for a while.

So the day began getting the casing ready, dismantling the iron grenades needed for testing purposes, for all FFE’s wide range of products, this wasn’t a military operation. The guy loading the explosive onto the nearest production droid to be disposed of, was smoking a spice stick for hecks sake, he could just as easily blow himself to kingdom come as finish his job, but then the accident rate was high here. Hazard pay came in the form of free drinks and spice, or if you were really lucky a trip to the white palace.

“How many do we need?” the whining female rodia said, rubbing her ears, wanting another spice hit, she looked like a junky and this was probably her way of paying for her next fix. The prospect picked her work rate up.

“Thirty.” Sere replied, measuring up the ion charge, and preparing the design for the cast size of the ammo. She had to step over that fat green Gamorrean to continue on, "sss'someone roll him out of here", she hissed.

 

[Sere Reene]

One roll of a fat green body later, well actually a few, Gamorreans were just heavy all things considered, room was cleared. The casing size was being setup up for the explosive tipped slug. Only this wasn’t just carrying only detonite like most, detonite was still stuck at the very tip of the round, primed to set the ion blast off below it on impact with explosive force.

The design schematics she was scribbling down on bits of whatever she could find, not as if her thoughts had any organisation, but Sere’s mind worked like a sprinter, she had an idea, put it all down, then paused for a good ten minutes forever making small adjustments while she got her breath back.

Everyone else around her, knew to just leave her to it when she was in her zone. Below the ion charge, room was left in the round for whatever substance was to be used, be that an incendiary material, acid, plasma, further explosives, AP or AV ammo. It was a simple enough principle, taken to somewhere she was surprised nobody had before.

Two hours later, thirty experimental rounds were kicked out on the production line.

Attempt One

Their first try, the rounds were big, too big all things considered given the makeshift small grenades they'd used. Needing the experimental assault rifle they were being loaded into, it was a sharp looking design, and had the guards and onlookers shoving each other to get hold of it, but it was bulky.

Sere Reene picked her usual sharpshooter, a trandoshan female who had the same love of firepower as her. Viera Minn, her teeth grinned, lining up against the targets on the small firing range, taking her time to adjust to the weight of the weapon.

Everyone crowded around keen to see what happened, all eyes on her.

Viera braced herself, letting her breath out and squeezing the trigger…

...

Nothing happened, except a laugh from somewhere behind them.

 

[Sere Reene]

A laugh, which someone could probably guess by now was met with a fist to the face, and a cheering fight starting up, because it gave the guards some distraction. Sere had more important things to worry about than two of her minions killing each other, so she left them too it, she needed the techs, the rest were replaceable. The fight, being between ruthless criminals, didn’t last long and wasn’t fought fair, a headbutt and a quick knife to the gut ended it.

A rework of the casing and trigger mechanism was ordered, the detonate laced trigger for the ion tip hadn’t been primed right, and it seemed whoever had made the mistake was now sweating as they redid the round, sweating because while Sere was very easy to work with, and her technicians were valuable to her, she would still have someone killed to speed up efficiency, there was always someone else looking for a leg up the corporate ladder. In hell hole of the streets and cities outside, people wanting a respite were easy to find.

Another hour or two went by, while Sere poured over the explosive slugs schematics, at least this time they’d be using actual fitted ion tips, not some jerry-rigged grenade leftover. Though if she was honest she found the thought of taking one weapon to bits to build another appealing, it wasn’t in the end as practical on a large scale for manufacture, only testing which had failed here, so they went right into production on this second run.

For the demolitions expert supervising the production's sake, it had better work this time.

 

[Sere Reene]

30 rounds made to fit, small this time, still with the hollow chamber to fit whatever ammunition was required, FMJ rounds some called them for slang, with a soft core center for increased velocity, in their case a hollow center filled with whatever was necessary.

These were expensive, not cripplingly so but cripplingly so for the senior technician if they didn’t work on the second attempt. Another smaller assault rifle was hauled up, an experimental model again but more practical, easy to use. Viera her sharpshooting trandoshan seemed apprehensive about getting her face blown off with experimental ammunition, you couldn’t really blame her, that happened around here some days.

“Come on…..” the very bored looking rodian tech was almost shaking for a hit of liquor or spice. Several around her turned with varying degrees of interest to the firing range.

Attempt Two

Eventually the female trandoshan guinea pig found her courage, leveled the weapon, braced herself for the worst and fired. The round wasn’t accurate being hollow inside but it flew toward the target and in a moment where everyone braced for the worst… exploded in a bright flash of ion energy.

The beginnings of SPA, Sere was pleased, even if it was wildly inaccurate, the assault rifle rattled off a clips worth, peppering the target area with automatic fire and ion discharge.

“Plasma?” The weequay ventured, wondering whether to try ten plasma rounds to compare.

“I knew he as going to say it, I knew it, I said that at the start didn’t I? I said Ion rounds were old but nooooo…” The jittery Rodian tech groaned, stealing a hit off a spice stick from someone nearby to settle her.

“One more tess'st,” Sere said swishing her tail and the casing was pulled back to pre-production, where the two techs set to work on designing the alternative cap.

 

[Sere Reene]

Waiting casually for the rounds to be produced, Sere slithered off to her office, curling her thick reptilian tail, and overlooking the facility, shots fired toward the firing range were a constant sound in the background. Rain and thunder crashing down outside meant the storm that was brewing wasn’t letting up, it was hell out there at this point, as it often was and heading their way. Acid rain, a lovely little side product of the smog from the hutt’s factories.

She signalled for the plasma testing to begin, small plasma charges to product electrical bursts as they were discharged. More expensive than ion to be used this way, but also there was less resistance in circulation to pure plasma electrical discharge. Of course getting the ammunition to charge and release on the way to its target was no small task, and the problems going as the techs talked about how to approach this were as you can guess, loud and vocal.

Sere turned on her office’s music, enjoying her break from up high, some smooth tatooine blues, to match the usual sound of the heavy production, the tap tap tap of the war drum, that was till one of the techs tapped her on the shoulder two hours later, rousing her back to work.

“We are ready.”

“Proc’ccc’eed,” she hissed, as the live target was brought out this time, two live targets and a droid in between them, someone who crossed the hutts, they were occasionally used for live fire demos, struggling to get away. Overlooking her balcony she gave a signal of her hand...

 

[Sere Reene]

Attempt Three

Fired, the discharging plasma used an accelerating heat discharge from within the round, to cause the electrical discharge at the point of impact, triggered by the acceleration chamber they were perfecting. It was extremely unstable, as the unfortunate live fire victims found out, and indeed the assault rifle slugthrower they were testing found the same fate, everything melted, the barrel, the targets, nothing was hit by an electrical discharge. Her sharpshooter was spared losing a limb, but barely as she dropped the weapon in time.

Sere was not impressed, but nothing bothered her much, they could just do another test run, “bring more targets’ssss.” Her voice hissed, in fact how little she cared was maddening to the rodian tech next to her, who was considering throwing herself off the balcony just to get reaction. As long as everything was moving forward Sere was happy to take all day, and the next day.

She went back to her office and plugged in the music again, turning it up loud enough so that when she slithered back downstairs, they had some music to work to, rather than the chatter of frustrated techs. Pushing aside the clutter from the dev table, which was more just a mess of whatever was to hand, they began round 4!

Back to the drawing board!

 

[Sere Reene]

Attempt Four

Modelling the acceleration chamber of a jawa ion blaster, which essentially was the ignition system of a starship engine in a rifle, had seemed the natural thing to do when looking at the plasma chamber of most blaster rifles, miniaturized in much the same way inside a shell, it had actually been easier in terms of degrees of scale. These miniature plasma accelerators were supposed to discharge an electrical blast at the point of impact, like the plasma casters of old did, potentially chain linking to impact several points along a shield grid as plasma casters did. So far though all they’d managed to achieve was to roast the target in flaming hot plasma, which although looking all well and good, didn’t do much for its value against shields.

What they tried was a thicker metal casing before the traces of detonite, to increase the time the plasma had to reach acceleration before being expelled from the slug, a longer trigger than the ion tipped rounds hand, thus you had a split second more time before the miniature plasma chamber ejected outward.

They loaded up to fire again, and same problem… everything melted. The Rodian tech this time did just punch someone to let her frustrations out, and the usual scuffle happened, tables flying everywhere. What were they missing?

 

[Sere Reene]

Sere wasn’t an expert at firing a weapon. She was an expert at designing one, so it wasn’t until Bssik one of the Trandoshans to her side growled, “move the target back,” that she did so. That was logical, she could see what he was saying, the range needed to be greater and the plasma discharge on a small timer mid way to the target. Hmm, Bssik had just gone up from minion to underling in one fellow swoop, he might even make henchman yet.

“Give the slug a timed discharge from the barrel?” Sere quizzed, seeing the possibilities for extending the range of a plasma caster.

“More work?” Groaned the rodian, who at this point was bruised, battered and lying in a crumpled heap, she picked herself up and thus attempt five was underway.

“Shabla” the weequay tech said again, with a low laugh.

“Get a new line!” The dishevelled Rodian cried, measuring up another casing prototype, and grabbing her tools to work on it, which she did with due diligence, for all her whining she was good at her job, the best perhaps which is why the others put up with her.

Smelt like industry, or a powder keg about to go off, either way, it was all good business. Round 5!

 

[Sere Reene]

While the techs and production line supervisors ordered the redesign and production of the final system, she tasked her more coolheaded weequay tech with designing final piece of the puzzle, tamper proofing the rounds. They were so tightly sealed that any attempt to tamper with them, to say for instance reverse engineer the rounds was going to set them off. Not that anyone should need to, but if they were so inclined they would fail. It was a rudimentary tamper proofing system, but then this wasn’t the hardest tech to copy in the world, it was still nonetheless effective.

Sere studied the wording on the ammunition blueprint in her hands, if you could call her hands hands, that was the topic of some unkind debate when the hybrid was out of earshot. Regardless, it read: Anti-Tamper Proof, made to trigger in a bullet press, not just from crude handtools. Handtools like they’d used here to disassemble the ion grenades, these rounds were fitted with a switch that would detonate inside the round if the detonite trigger was removed, worse as part and parcel of the design if it was exposed to open air the plasma accelerator was set to discharge on contact, melting the round from the inside out.

“Ready for another try!” Bssik her trusted lackey, soon to be promoted to henchmen if he kept up with this efficiency, called.

Attempt 5, had an efficient ring to it, the snake like tail took her toward the firing range one final time, she even smiled, briefly to Viera, while the Trandoshan female studied the new clip passed to her.

“Better not burn my arm off,” Viera growled.

 

[Sere Reene]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISPAdjApz6o​

5th Attempt​

Tamper proofing done, they gave the female trandoshan a break because Sere actually liked the Trandoshan's arm, and a human sharpshooter stepped up, his specialty single shot rifles, to be fired at a small landspeeder and some armor tech they were working on. Single shots this time, which all things considered would have been the simpler option last time to remove the variables she was testing at once. Sere made a note for next time, to the backdrop of a snide comment or two! There wasn't the suspense now, this wasn't the first or second test, there was just the resignation of the stubborn desire to see the project completed no matter what.

Lining up with the speeder, high powered shots rang out, and this time the plasma discharged before it hit its target, the remaining canister falling away safely, a smaller amount of plasma had been used, and when it struck the target, the micro surge chain hit across its surface, striking several systems and causing an overload in the speeder.

The ion rounds wouldn’t be this potent because they wouldn't chain hit, but then they wouldn't be this expensive to product, clips would be possible, but perhaps it was better to save the plasma rounds for the rifles, something to consider as it gave them the range they needed to discharge safely. Now to fill the main chamber! Incendiary first, seemed the most logical option, and the least expensive.

 

[Sere Reene]

Field Testing an Incendiary Round

The primary purpose of SPA ammunition wasn’t to kill droids, sure it could do that, but you were better off using standard ion weapons to do so, not only were their discharges sometimes bigger but they were a fraction of the cost to fire. It wasn’t even to breach personal shield generators, though again it could handily double in that capacity, it was to breach shielded personal armor, a worrying new development that seemed to be going under the radar to everyone, everyone not focused on the weapons market that is! As it left the potential for shields to have a dual layer.

Thus the incendiary test was the first real test of the weapon. A shielded personal armor suit was brought forth, and strapped up to a mannequin. This was it, the big one, sink or swim. They were going with the inexpensive ion round first, with detonite packed into the bottom of it.

For once it worked like a charm. The assault rifle rattled off a semi automatic burst, struck the armor, several ion hits bounced against the shield, penetrated and the detonite blew a whole clean through. Some clever chemtech who was usually too busy smoking spice to contribute much, had cleverly swapped out the pure detonite trigger with a phospha ignitable one, which seemed to be proving more reliable.

There was a noticeable cheer, because it meant it was almost time to celebrate, and of course several of the guards had started early, that was par for the course. The music blaring out, the spice flowing, all of it only added to the mix that was FFE.

 

[Sere Reene]

Field Testing a Plasma Tipped Ion Round

Sere steadily swished her tail, and this, as she so confidently now leaned over the bannister to watch, was the crowning jewel of today’s design. The real double shield penetrator, if people were stacking shields… she was stacking damage types. A wry smile crossed her face, and her claws come hands, come whatever they were, wrapped against the bannister railings. If she wasn’t a sluissi you might have been forgiven for thinking she was excited, she wasn’t but she was as close as she got.

These would be expensive rounds no doubt, and the test would cost her plenty, though they were trying to salvage the discharged plasma accelerators, only about 50% of them could be reused in a new round, so yeah this had better work! She knew it would now, they’d put the time in.

Giving her trandoshan sharpshooter the nod, tagging her back in, Viera took the stage, leveled up an assault rifle, settled in. Smiles all around, they watched the personal shield, and shielded armor both be put up in front of her.

And it was beautiful, at least to Sere’s eyes, the plasma discharged its electrical burst, micro chain hit across the surface of the main shield, shorting it out, while the ion charged detonated on impact with the shielded armor, and just three rounds had the entire set shorting out.

 

[Sere Reene]

SPA-I – APR, Ion Test
SPA-P – APR, Plasma Variant Test

The slug now designed and stable, it left a lot of options for what to do next, the obvious thing was to keep varying the cartridge size to see what they could pull off. Sere dearly wanted to see this round maximized in potential usage, so they had 6mm, 8mm, 10mm, 12mm, 14mm and not for the faint of heart,16mm, 20mm, 30mm and 40mm rounds on the table, laid out ready for testing now.

Galactic standard APR rounds were usually made out of depleted Baradium and she no reason to change a good thing, depleted baradium leftovers weren’t all that hard to buy up cheap, as they had little value as an explosive when inert, they did however retain great armor piercing qualities.

Two rifles were lined up side by side, and a moving target demonstration was ordered, to see which sharpshooter could pull off more hits, the subject was an unfortunate droid, as they were running out of hutt prisoners they could pull in to be used. The casings were tipped with the ion or plasma charges, with the slug beneath them layered in Detonite to force the projective forward on impact, the standard type of explosive APR slug all things considered, only this time it was tipped with ion or plasma discharges.

High power rifles fired, and the droids shields buckled before it even knew what hit it, armor piercing rounds ejected and drove right through its plated chest. It was debatable which one did more damage, the ion round moved faster but the plasma round hit more of the shield in a single shot. Sadly however the detonite proved too powerful for the APR round to not just splinter up in a few cases before the deplete baradium hit home, so they'd have to rework the design, much to the cursing of the rodian tech.

 

[Sere Reene]

30mm rounds were almost always anti material not anti-personnel ejected out of an autocannon, while 40mm were usually considered a grenade size, The beauty of the case they had designed, was although they had to scale upwards depending on the round, the design didn’t change, they could go all the way at least as far as personal arms or infantry mounted weapons allowed.

The main problem they had for material rounds, was that the detonite was too strong to be used as an ejection material, partially breaking apart the ejected metal instead. So Illerium was picked in its place, which gave a smaller explosive force, but perfect for shoving an armor piercing shell straight through thick armor. These were the killers for the thicker armor out there in circulation, though she’d be working more on APR rounds another day! First thing was first.

The loud crack of an autocannon rattling off 30mm rounds into the side of a metal sheet was music to her ears, the cheering and laughter was also, because it had been a long project, all that was really left to do was wrap this up with a 40mm test, the biggest she could envision anyone ever using practically in the field, a thunderous shot exploded next to the metal, shattering it completely and sending a large sonic discharge into the air.

They ran through the other damage types that day, but had no more problems, just people queuing up to fire the gun, and some arguments about the practical nature of using Jawas as surface to air missiles, but that was another development for another day!

Fin