The Rapid Deployment Drone Fighter (RDDF) is a custom fighter design for Iemochi Innovations & Sales to be used in conjunction primarily with their Mercian carrier ship. Its purpose is an easy to build and fast to complete design that can be mass produced and operated remotely or by an AI.

Galactic Horizon was commissioned by Iemochi Innovations & Sales to design an automated and easy to build fighter for them which can be built on the go within their newly created Mercian class carrier. The fighter model would not only benefit IIS and their endeavors but helped Horizon to test out several different designs and develop starship class weapons to accompany it.

As a prototype fighter the physical design is a trial run to test out how agile a fighter can be without sacrificing size or power. Its design aims to create a harder target to hit during combat on top of its agility overall going for a fighting style that utilizes mobility and size over firepower.

In addition to the agility and design the fighter uses weapons that work best against smaller targets to give it the biggest advantage over units of its own type, while these can be swapped out for different scenarios the default loadout gives the RDDF a large advantage over other fighters and smaller combat units.

With the ships hull focusing on agility and being a strange hard to hit shape it makes the RDDF suited to anti combatant tasks and are often used to defend ships against enemy fighters and mecha.

• Anti-fighter combat
• Anti-mecha combat

Wings: Each wing is a jagged V shape with the point at the front, on the outside tip and central point is an agility thruster along with a Shooting Star Machine Gun on the underside. Fitted to the underside of each wing between the inside point and the central point is one Orbit Jumper Missile System with an auto-loader connected to the small munition storage within the wings.

Hull: Connecting to both wings the hull is an A shape with two large horizontal cylinders built into the crossbar of the shape, one which houses the necessary equipment for autonomous or remote flight, while the second contains fuel. At the forward point of the main hull is a small sensor package to assist with target acquisition and path-finding which includes

Art by Bannz

The Mercian concept was officially completed in late YE 39 but the ship itself was not utilised until early the next year as it did not possess a suitable fighter design to produce on the go. With their new partnership with Galactic Horizon the super corp took the time to enlist the help of their new partner and commissioned an autonomous fighter design.

Taking the chance to experiment with fighter design styles the Horizon team eventually settled on a very wide but open and irregular hull style to avoid incoming fire and provide area for additional agility thrusters.

The RDDF performs best against other combat units of similar class and size such as enemy fighters and mechas due to its design.

General Information about the fighter.

• Class: V1 Chaser Class Fighter
• Type: Starfighter, Remote/Autonomous
• Designers: Galactic Horizon
• Manufacturer: Iemochi Innovations & Sales
• Fielded by: Iemochi Innovations & Sales

Information about the number of crew and passengers the ship requires and can hold at max capacity.

Crew: Being autonomous the ship does not require any crew but can be piloted by a single operator from its host carrier.

The physical dimensions of the fighter.

• Length: 5 meters
• Width: 10 meters
• Height: 1.5 meters

Statistics detailing the capabilities of the fighter in regards to propulsion and range.

• Sublight Engines: 0.225c standard, can go to 0.300c in combat manoeuvres for short bursts
• Range: Designed to be resupplied after each sortie, max range is 1 week
• Lifespan: disposable in nature, estimated lifespan is 1 year
• Refit Cycle: 1 year

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

• Tier: 6 - Heavy Armour

List of the included systems contained within the starship that assist or make function possible.

Constructed from widely available and cheap alloys and metallic components to ensure it is easy to mass produce, they provide little physical defence against most weapons.

The RDDF does not possess an independent means of decision making and relies on its host ship for orders, however it does contain an isolated version of Dawn which controls its immediate responses to threats and regulates internal systems.

In the event that the engine sustains critical damage the individual ship will break off from any friendlies and fly itself into the nearest enemy while self destructing.

With no living crew on the RDDF there is no need for ship preservation emergency systems as it was designed to be expendable.

The RDDF is essentially the electric car of space fighters, situated within the central hull area is three heavy duty Energy Cores which provide all necessary power. This includes powering the Cirrostratus Ion-Grid Propulsion Drive as well as weapons, scanners and digital systems and micro thrusters.

1 Cirrostratus Ion-Grid Propulsion Drive on the rear of the ship provides main propulsion, 4 smaller thrusters are positioned on both the top and bottom to provide agility

Using two independently controlled and lightly modified Bubble Blower Grenade, each located at the half point of either wing. The RDDF is able to switch on and off Tier 4 shielding for either wing side, with each shield covering that wing and the main body while leaving the other wing unprotected.

As per the Bubble Blower limitations these can't be active simultaneously without destroying both units and causing massive damage to the fighter internals. Each of these units contains 2 Galactic Horizon Energy Cores, one being held as a backup unit if the first runs empty.

List of included weapon systems on the fighter, their amount and maximum damage output tier per DRv3

• Orbit Jumper Missile Launcher: 2, Tier 7 - Light Anti-Mecha
• Shooting Star Machine gun: 4, Tier 6 - Heavy Anti-Armour

club24 created this article on 2018/04/19 01:48.

Article approved on 2018/06/12 here