Directorate Officer
OUT OF CHARACTER INFORMATION
- Intent: To provide a more modern, mobile piece of artillery in Lucerne Labs's product line
- Image Source: painted miniature of Dindrenzi "Longbow" by Spartan Games, modified by yours truly
- Canon Link: N/A
- Permissions: N/A
- Primary Source: Baldr-class Assault Gun, Katarn-class Main Battle Tank, Capricorn-class Rail Gun
- Manufacturer: Lucerne Labs
- Affiliation: Directorate, Silver Jedi Concord, Closed-Market
- Model: Wrix-class Assault Gun
- Modularity: Ammunition, secondary pintle weapon mount, MAST Turret
- Production: Mass-Produced
- Material: Argentum-series Matrix Armor Plating, Beskar frame, ceraglass viewports, standard vehicle components
- Classification: Tracked Artillery Piece
- Role: Mobile Artillery / Assault Gun
- Size: Average
- Weight: Average
- Armaments: Extreme
- 1 modified Capricorn-class Rail Gun
- 1 pintle-mounted Flamestorm Assault Blaster Cannon or Firestrike Machine Gun
- Defenses: Average
- LV-F Deflector Shield
- Argentum-series Matrix Armor Plating
- Beskar frame
- 1 MAST turret
- Maneuverability Rating: Low
- Speed Rating: Low
- Propulsion: Tracks
- Minimum Crew: 1 (driver)
- Optimal Crew: 4 (driver, gunner, mechanic droid, commander)
- Passenger Capacity: none
- Cargo Capacity: Small
- Partially Automated: Wrixs have a droid brain used to process sensor and targeting information, communicate with other Wrixs and (partially) automated units, and provide diagnostic information to the vehicle's crew.
- Omniprobe: Like the old Heavy Tracker, Wrix's main sensor array is a small Omniprobe Sensor Array, which allows the Wrix to effectively detect and accurately fire upon many targets that are hiding behind terrain features and out of line of sight.
- Environmentally Sealed: Wrixs have environmental sealing and full internal life-support for three days of continual operation, allowing the assault guns to be deployed in hazardous environments such as vacuum or toxic atmospheres and to enable limited submersion in water.
- Heavy Hitter: The Wrix's railgun packs an exceptional and modular punch, allowing it to quickly blanket saturate areas with high explosives for general bombardment purposes or fire high-velocity armor piercing rounds to defeat hard enemy targets such as heavy walkers and tanks.
- Low Performance Vehicle: The Wrix is an armored, tracked vehicle and consequently is fairly slow and sluggish compared to most combat vehicles.
For many years, the Baldr-class Assault Gun was Lucerne Labs standard offering for a piece of mobile artillery, but the old vehicle was becoming obsolete due to technological advancements on the everchanging battlefields. To that end, Lucerne Labs took the base chassis of the Baldr and merged it with technology pioneered on Katarn-class Main Battle Tank and equipped with a modified version of the Capricorn-class Rail Gun, the latest piece of ground artillery in the company's inventory. The resulting vehicle was different enough from the original Baldr to receive an entirely different name: the Wrix. Like many of the company's more recent vehicle designs, the Wrix is fairly modular, allowing to more easily adapt on the battlefield. The Wrix is just as home fulfilling fire support missions for infantry assaults as it is laying in wait in hull down positions to hunt enemy armored vehicles.
Technical Explanations
Crew: Wrixs have a pretty typical crew for an assault gun, with a driver and gunner needed to operate the vehicle at a bare minimum to have any sort of combat value. But to obtain normal combat performance, the Wrix needs a full crew, including having a commander and a mechanic/communication's operator (typically a droid). The driver and mechanic are housed in the main chassis right underneath the turret, while the gunner and commander have their places in the Wrix's gun compartment All stations have small ceraglass viewports, normally covered by retractable plating, which provide the crew with very limited vision. Because the field of view from these is actually quite poor in order to better protect the crew, miniature photoreceptors located across the hull provide the visual feed for driving the vehicle and firing its weapon.
Engine Systems: The Wrix moves about on two separate continuous tracks like many older style conventional tanks. Each track is powered by a separate hydrogen-oxygen fuel cell engine derived from the Lab's previous Myrmidon-class APC. This drive system provides the Wrix with a robust drive system that is capable of navigating through many terrains, though it is not as fast nor as capable of maneuvering around objects as many repulsorlift vehicles. The tradeoff is that the Wrix's drive system is more resistant to electromagnetic fluctuations, making it more resistant to EMP attacks and allowing it to work on worlds with unusual magnetic fields, such as Jabiim. Additionally, with its sealed hull, this allows the Wrix to crawl underwater at the depths of a typical continental sea shelf.
Defensive Systems: The Wrix's most basic defense its reinforced beskar frame, which is then covered in a moderately thick layer of Argentum Matrix Armor plating that is carefully designed to act as sloped armor from most attack angles. Thus the actual arrangement of plates combined with its frame is designed to resist kinetic weaponry, while the plating composition itself is designed to resist a wider variety of attack types. This protection is then supplemented by LV-F deflector shield generator, whose low power is typically used to reduce damage before it hits the vehicle's dispersive armor. However, when the vehicle is stationary, it can reroute its engine power to activate this shield system's fortress mode, making it significantly stronger and ideal for engaging in lengthy slugging matches common in artillery duels or when supporting infantry in direct assaults against enemy positions. The Wrix also sports a MAST turret mounted on the top right of its gun compartment, just opposite of the pintle-mounted weapon (if present). This is typically outfitted with a sensor jammer or directional particle shield, providing the Wrix with a more active means of defense.
Hull: The Wrix has a pretty conventional layout for a mobile artillery piece, with a base chassis and a separate gun compartment. Like many older Baktoid Armor Workshop products, the Wrix has most of its more vulnerable components placed in the rear, including the power generator, in order to better protect them against incoming fire. Internally, the assault gun has a single, environmentally sealed working space that encompasses the entire gun compartment and the driver and mechanic/communications operator stations just beneath and in front of the turret.
Weapons Systems: The heart of the Wrix is a Capricorn Railgun whose rails have separated slightly further away from each other to effectively increase the weapon's bore, allowing it to fire slightly heavier payloads at slightly shorter distances. The greatest advantage of this modification is the ability to now fire saboted shells with enough thickness in the sabot to effectively shield electronics from the weapon's magnetic fields. This means that not only can the Wrix fire the typical solid shot, high explosive, and gas shells of the originals, but it can also fire 'smarter' munitions like Starcore-class Concussion Missiles against enemy aircraft or Calmant-class Missiles against large warbeasts. The advent of the Bryn'adul invasions have also mean that CryoBan shells have also been built as well as a specialized sabot for Blazer Bombs. The railguns two firing mechanisms remain unchanged, allowing it to rapidly fire a flurry of shells at low velocities, particularly useful against groups of soft targets like infantry, or slowly fire shells at high velocity against hardened targets like enemy tanks. This allows Wrix to act fairly effectively as a either a conventional infantry support artillery piece for pre-assault bombardments, or take advantage of its low silhoutte and high velocity weapon to hunt enemy vehicles. The Wrix also has a pintle mount on the commander's hatch for a repeating blaster or a machine gun. This is typically used as a point defense weapon against small enemies like infantry who could pose a threat if they get too close to the vehicle.
Carrying Capacity: Wrixs are dedicated artillery pieces, and consequently have little carrying capacity aside from what's given to their ammunition. There is no room inside the vehicle for passengers, albeit a few daring individuals can elect to ride on top of the assault gun. Cargo space is similarly small, with scattered internal compartments for a few of the crewmembers' personal effects. These are typically sidearms, rations, and other like items. For prolonged operations where the assault gun needs to carry more supplies, it's not unusual to see bags and other containers fastened externally to the vehicle's hull.
Electronics: Like the Katarn, the Wrix has a basic droid brain not unlike those found in many tramp freighters. Like those brains, the Wrix's brain is primarily used for basic diagnostic and information processing. Taking a cue from the IX-6, the droid brains between Wrixs communicate and interact with each other to form a shared, collective understanding of the environment and tactical situation around them. They most notably pool information gathered by their omniprobe sensors to collectively map out their surroundings and keep track of targets in order to execute precise time on target attacks and similar tactics. Perhaps also somewhat unusually for a manned vehicle, the Wrix's droid brain usually also controls the MAST, allowing collective groups of Wrix to not only react individually to emerging threats, but to collectively produce an area of active defense around their battery mates.
