The Zytone Heavy Combat Armor is the first combat-specialised power armour ever developed by Galactic Horizon and, after passing its final tests with flying colors in the middle of YE 40, became the primary heavy defence armour for the Horizon Security Force after being added to the Galactic Horizon product catalogue. It replaces the ORC suit as the primary combat equipment for the aforementioned heavily-armed security team.

Initially started in an effort to move Galactic Horizon forwards into heavier combat equipment following the completion of the URSA Armoured Transport Unit, the Zytone Heavy Combat Armor aims to provide heavy protection and a small arsenal of weapons to its pilot at the cost of stealth and mobility - and, in addition to being packed to the seams with several types of weapons and powerful armour and shielding, is capable of operating in space.

The suit itself is designed to allow for multiple configurations depending on the task at hand and comes with powered and reinforced hardpoints in various areas of its body to allow for the connection of weapons and tactical attachments.

General information about the Zytone Heavy Combat Armour, including its designer, manufacturer, and nomenclature.

• Class: M2 Heavy Combat
• Nomenclature: GH-M2-4a
• Designers: Galactic Horizon
• Manufacturer: Galactic Horizon
• Fielded by: Galactic Horizon/Private Transactions
• Price: 20 000KS¹⁾
• Range: 120 hours/5 days
• Maintenance Cycle: 1 year
• Lifespan: 4 years

The Zytone Heavy Combat Armor resembles a large bulky suit with a black and gold design, several built-in weapons, two shoulder-mounted offensive systems, and a stealth coating; the legs, arms, and chest are all strengthened significantly to provide as much defensive potential as possible - and the feet of the armour are similar to the feet of birds, with one backward-facing toe and two forward-facing toes for maximum stability.

The chest of the Zytone is one of its weaker points, as it's made up of several folding pieces to allow for pilots to enter and exit the armor; although it does have slightly stronger armour to compensate for the lack of rigidity, the seam lines between pieces are still weaker in comparison to the rest of the armor. On the Zytone's back is a large built-in backpack that houses a small Cirrostratus Ion-Grid Propulsion Drive and enough food, oxygen, and water supplies to last a pilot for up to 5 days.

The Zytone project was started in early YE 40; due to setbacks and a lack of applicable knowledge or technology, however, the armor's debut was postponed until late YE 40. Designed by Galactic Horizon with the efforts of over half of the company's staff members, the development of the Zytone Heavy Combat Armour is considered to be one of Galactic Horizon's biggest projects due to the amount time and subsystems involved; despite this, however, it still falls slightly short of the URSA Armoured Transport Unit and the Albatross Anti Starship Laser Array - the latter of which is the largest weapon created to date by Horizon - in terms of scope, complexity, and scale.

The Zytone offers a large amount of defensive capability in the form of its strong armour - which is able to easily withstand light fire - and the inclusion of 2 Bubble Blowers to protect the power armour from heavy fire for a short period of time. These shield modules are equipped in specialty amplifier to match their damage capacity to that of the armor.

The suit is capable of operating in space and underwater and features a tough inner and outer framework which prevents the armour from buckling or crushing at depths of less than 1,000 meters; although the suit's high density gives it a tendency to sink when underwater, its integrated Cirrostratus Ion-Grid Propulsion Drive is capable of lifting it back up to the surface - as the Cirrostratus can operate for far longer underwater due to gravity being less of a factor.

The Zytone Heavy Combat Armour is equipped with multiple hardpoints in various locations on the suit which can connect to and power any modules the user desires, thus allowing for many possible configuration types and a wide range of operation types and areas.

As expected of a large and heavy power armour, the maximum running speed of the Zytone is only just around regular sprinting pace; additionally, it is incapable of flight within an atmosphere due to the massive energy requirements associated with flying such a heavy object. While it may not be a physical drawback, the Zytone's maintenance and munitions costs make it expensive to run for long periods - thus one won't see huge squadrons of it marching into town squares during a planetary raid.

The Zytone, though capable of boosting the strength of its user by a moderate degree, cannot boost the user's running speeds due to a combination of less flexible joints and a denser and heavier composition than a standard unarmoured humanoid. When in space (or underwater), the Zytone relies on its miniature Cirrostratus for main propulsion and small adjustment thrusters on the pack for rotating and alignment.

• Ground Speed (Running): 20km/h
• Ground Speed (Hovering): 90km/h²⁾
  • Recharge Rate: Atmospheric Cirrostratus movement bursts require 45 seconds in between uses to properly reroute sufficient power; continued and excessive use may result in a critical power failure or lethal rapid energy output.
• Max. Atmospheric Speed: N/A
• Max. Sublight: 0.185c

Although the sizes of the Zytone Heavy Combat Armour are standardised, they can be produced at custom dimensions by request - and have some customisation in their sizes by default.

See Damage Rating (Version 3) for an explanation of the damage system.

• Armor: Tier 6, Heavy Armour

• Barriers: Tier 6, Heavy Armour⁷⁾

Entering and exiting the Zytone Heavy Combat Armour is a fairly basic procedure: to maintain maximum strength in the suit, the chest folds open, the helmet folds upwards, and the legs expand slightly, thus allowing for the armour's pilot to step in backwards; when exiting the Zytone, the process is simply reversed.

With more onboard systems and weapons than more basic Galactic Horizon armours like the Orbital Reentry Carapace, the only effective way to control the Zytone is via the Aurora Synaptic Controller Interface mounted within the helmet; despite this, however, basic controls - such as moving the suit's arms and legs - are still manual.

The sub-components of the Zytone Heavy Combat Armour are listed here.

The primary armour material of the Zytone is Nerimium, with strengthened joints to avoid overexposing the critical weak points of such a heavy suit; additionally, there are knee and elbow guards to protect the limb joints.

The Zytone, designed as a front-line tank, comes standard in black and gold, thus camouflage is not of top priority; if desired, however, the Sensory Smart Coating can be applied, which helps facilitate some stealth tactics - though the size and function of the Zytone will cause the overall performance of the coating to be rather inefficient.

As a suit designed both for planetary and space combat, the Zytone's life support systems can sustain a pilot for up to five days through recycling moisture, re-circulating (and scrubbing air), and by having enough basic food rations to keep the pilot's metabolism active.

Alongside the air containers and various life support systems within the integrated backpack are two heavy duty power cores that supply all of the energy required by the Zytone and its hardpoints.

The Zytone has a Multifunction Optical/Audio Sensory Suite built into its helmet and several other smaller sensors integrated into various parts of its frame that transmit integrity readings for the suit to the helmet.

Weapons and equipment that can be used by the Zytone are listed on the Galactic Horizon PA Accessory List.

The Zytone has a total of 6 hardpoints, each of which is designed for different types of items and equipment. The following table details where they are and what their purpose is.

The following wiki code is for the standard loadout of the Zytone Heavy Combat Armour.

==== Zytone Standard Loadout ====
^  Handheld Weapon  ^^
|  [[corp:galactic_horizon:gh-w2-4l_breachanova_heavy_shotgun]]  |
^  Right Shoulder  ^  Left Shoulder  ^  
|  [[corp:galactic_horizon:gh-m2-w4005_fiver_missile-pod]]  |  [[corp:galactic_horizon:gh-m2-w4003_hyper-shift_rotary_chaingun]]  |
^  Right Gauntlet  ^  Left Gauntlet  ^  
|  [[corp:galactic_horizon:gh-m2-w4006_the_shank_gauntlet]]  |  [[corp:galactic_horizon:gh-m2-w4004_sonic_defender_gauntlet]]  |
^  Right Leg  ^  Left Leg  ^ 
|  [[corp:galactic_horizon:ammunition:energy_core|Spare Core]]  |  [[corp:galactic_horizon:ammunition:energy_core|Spare Core]]  |

club24 created this article on 2018/09/10 20:24; Frostjaeger approved it (using the checklist) on 2018/09/17 09:30.

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