Popo
I'm Sexy and I Know It
Intent: To create a new and interesting ammunition type to work with a new series of weaponry.
Development Thread: N/A
Manufacturer: Tenloss
Model: X-PK
Affiliation: Tenloss, restricted sales to market.
Modularity: Yes, X-PK Ammunition can be scaled to any weapon system compatible with the ammunition type.
Production: Mass
Material: Silver, Gadolinium, Plastic, electrical charge, micro-magnets
Strengths:
High Power - X-PK ammunition’s design creates an ammunition type with a power level that is on par with most types of disruptor weaponry. This means that a standard X-PK shot is capable of a great amount of destruction when compared to any standard ammunition of the same size/caliber/etc.
Knockdown Power - Designed to be fired with magnetic acceleration and utilizing a higher powered energy variant, X-PK ammunition hits with both kinetic and energy damage on impact, making the ammunition capable of potentially causing impact damage when connecting with a target.
Split the Shot - As the X-PK does not contain the fired ‘bolt’ inside a magnetic field, lightsabers cannot deflect X-PK ammunition. A lightsaber can attempt to block a shot fired from a weapon using X-PK ammunition, however this can often result in a ‘split’ shot, much like how a physical blade can ‘cut’ a fired bullet in two. This split can bypass a block entirely depending on angles, positioning, and whether the lightsaber user knows what the weapon is capable of/what the weapon is.
Weaknesses:
No Disintegrations - While the X-PK ammunition is on par with many forms of disruptors in power levels, it is unable to cause disintegration damage types. This means that the weapon is incapable of rendering a target to ash on impact (though firing a really big X-PK shot at a really small target kinda makes it look like you can).
Shield Block - As the X-PK causes both energy and some kinetic damage on impact, X-PK ammunition can be blocked by particle shielding, however it should be noted that the shield cannot block the thermal radiation that occurs on impact without a ray shield working in conjunction. Deflector shields operate as both ray and particle shielding and therefore avoid ‘penetration’ of thermal radiation.
A Shocking Vulnerability - While the X-PK ammunition itself is generally safe against EMP and Ion damage (save for direct hits against the ammunition with electrical weaponry), the weapons utilizing the ammunition type require the ability to emit an electrical discharge. This means that any weapon system utilizing X-PK ammunition is vulnerable to some extent against Ion, EMP, and electrical damage and must include this as a weakness in addition to the minimum number of weaknesses listed in the submission.
Description:
With the success of the X-CL ammunition type and improvements in material quality, quantity, and ease of manufacture, Tenloss R&D opted to step into an alternate direction in regards to further ammunition subtype development. Utilizing magnetics and energy containment, the resulting product was the X-PK ammunition type.
Resembling a marble in shape, X-PK ammunition is a form of energy weapon ammunition utilizing a combination of energy containment, particle projection, and non-Tibanna plasma. The ammunition is, essentially, a thick shell of hardened plastic with micromagnets embedded on the inner surface. Inside the outer shell is a molecularly aligned strand of silver metal encased within a dense layer super-energized gadolinium mesh. The energy held within the gadolinium mesh is held in place by the micromagnets within the shell, preventing the ammunition from simple, random detonation.
When fired, specialized electrical emitters built into the appropriate weapon give a powerful, millisecond burst of energy which homes in on either end of the silver strand and shuts down the micromagnets inside the X-PK ammunition. This forces the material inside the ammunition to reach critical mass, rendering the silver and gadolinium into a plasma cloud and vaporizing the plastic entirely. Almost simultaneously, a “puff” of condensed super-cooled gas that both pushes the cloud down the barrel of the weapon and toward the electromagnetic “lenses” that line the barrel of the weapon and keeps the cloud away from the inner lining of the weapon’s barrel. The electromagnetic lenses then push the plasma cloud down the barrel and out of the weapon in a manner that both massively accelerates the plasma and gives it the distinctive “bolt” shape as it is fired.
On impact the bolt immediately transfers the thermal energy and, to some extent, the kinetic energy of the material plasma itself. As there is no magnetic containment field, X-PK bolts cannot be deflected by shields or lightsabers. Instead, the bolts often “splash” on contact with such items which, depending on the size or “caliber” of the bolt itself, this can cause injury or damage even if the bolt is blocked.
In addition to this unusual ability, X-PK bolts are inherently more powerful than standard blaster weaponry. In controlled environments, tests have shown that X-PK ammunition is equivalent with disruptor-type weaponry in power levels, though lack the ability to render targets into ash via disintegration.
Unfortunately, the lack of disintegration ability is only one of a small number of drawbacks to the ammunition type. Primarily, X-PK ammunition cannot penetrate shields, much like a blaster has difficulty in doing so. However, while a blaster can fire through particle shielding with ease, X-PK ammunition cannot do so as without the containment field, the bolt of plasma is stopped as a kinetic projectile rather than one of pure energy. While the bolt still passes along the same damage as if it had struck a standard target, this means that even targets armed with simply anti-kinetic shielding can stop X-PK ammunition to some extent. Lastly, X-PK ammunition requires electrical equipment to fire, not only making the ammunition compatible with weapons solely designed to utilize X-PK ammo, but in doing so places Ion and EMP vulnerabilities, to some extent, on any weapon that fires X-PK ammunition.
Despite such faults, Tenloss has deemed the X-PK ammunition series a general success and has used the general ease of the ammunition’s manufacture to produce various sizes of X-PK ammunition. With luck, company leadership hopes that, bit by bit, more weaponry will utilize such ammunition in the future in various and profound ways.
