Story(-ish): The Babble Files (updated 2408.5)

[Loser]

New Technology for 2408.2

Sympathetic Shield Depleter

While working with Shield Depletion technology in laboratory settings, it has been observed that a certain feedback is transmitted back through the projected 'leech field' of the Shield Depleter to the projector itself. Those who may be familiar with this ordanace should recall that shield depletion technology relies on a leech field projector, much like the ones used in shield generators, manipulating the target's shields in such a fashion that they burn themselves out.

The weak feedback generated by the interation of the two leech fields, the first created by the shield generator, the second by the shield depleter, was simple enough to filter out through compensation routines in the projection systems, and has been paid little mind, until now.

While putting the generous funding of the Ministry of Science to good work on Palaquin IX, researchers discovered that working the feedback into the modulation of the projector allowed the shield depeleter to better destabilize the target shield. While this new design comes at a significant increase in cost, twenty-five percent more general minerals and radioactives, it both increases its degredeous effects by twenty-five percent and increases the effective range of the weapon dramatically. The Sympathetic Shield Depleter now has an effective range forty-percent beyond that of our best DU Cannons, allowing our ships to make initial engangements to lower the defenses of the enemy at extrordinary ranges.

Quad Ionic Dispersers

With refined miniturization and higher grades of materials the Ministry of Science, in cooperation with Burning Stone Labs, has developed what we believe to be the ultimate refinement to our engine destorying weapons technology.

With more precice and finite machinery, a single battery of Ionic Dispersers can now incorporate four separate 'guns', feeding from the same power supply, contra-terrene mass, and coordinatation andtargeting system. By carefully controlling these smaller delivery systems we are able to prevent the loss of range while increasing the damage dealt, specifically to engines, by over thrity percent.

While this weapon is significantly more expensive than the Piercing Shell DU Cannon, requiring twice the supply of general minerals and ten times the supply of general radioactives, it is now equal to our mainline DU Cannon in damage and slightly betters it in range.

Because of the specific targetting capabilities of the Ionic Disperser, in that after the elimination of shields it first destroys engines, the military theorists of the Ministry of Science have requested that Burning Stone Labs make available updates incorporating the Quad Ionic Disperser to current warship designs built around the DU Cannon. While these ships will have an increased cost in produciton and maintainance, they will also bve capable of specifically imobilizing enemy vessels.

Independant Module Repair Bay

With the increasing number of retrofits expected on the ships of the Republic, those just built and those which have already been in service for soem time, efforts have recently been focused on improvments to our repair capabilities.

A repair bay lacks the construction capabilities of the Space Yard component, relying on more limitied modifications to a ship's frame and replacement components provided either by local Space Yards or imported through the Merchant Guild. The advantage of a repair bay, however, is that it does not dominate the design of a ship or space station as does a Space yard component, and so multiple instances of the same component may be added.

Our most recent design, the Extension Cavity Repair Bay, slides a significant portion of the repair hardware out of the ship, in order both to make better use of the repair equipment, by increasing the workable surface area, and to provide a cavity in the space vacated by the extended hardware. This hollow place may be presuriazed or subjected to the ship's artificial gravity as needed, allowing work to be completed in a more timely fashion. Limitations of engineering and systems coordination have demanded that the extended repair module remain attatched to the ship, until now.

A young engineering student in the research complexes of Calonica IX, working under a grant jointly funded by the Ministry of Science and the Primus Corporation, has put forwrad an elegant combination of magneto-mechanical locks and control systems that will allow the extended repair module to detatch from the vessel or space station and move independantly on manuvering proulsion systems. This not only clears a more accessable repair cavity back on the vessel or space station, but allows the repait module itself to manuver around, over, and even inside of the vessel or space station that it is repairing, much like a gangantuan Version of the skeletal construction barges used in conjuction with our various Space Yard construction implementations.

At no increase in size or production of maintainance cost, this new design increases the repair capabilities of our bays by sixty percent over our previous designs, nearly three times the capacity of our original repair bays. Unfortunately, the complex alterations made to the system would require that any ship wishing to refit to this new design make use of construction facility or component services.

A Star Base outfitted entirely with this new repair technology and a Simplified Ship's Computer would posses the ability to implement repairs at over twenty-five times the rate of our most advanced Base Space Yard, the Ganymede Industrial SD II at something close to twice the total cost in both production and maintainance.

This spcecific design is now being investigated by Burning Stone Labs. Only the constuction and space station experience of Avalon Heavy Industries will allow the constuction of this behemoth, currently designated the Scarab