Raska Empire Technology Sheet

Ships

Weaponry:

Pulse Cannon: The basic cannon for most capital ships. It fires a condensed blast of energy, but due to the condensing process, the blasts are only really effective at medium range as the process slows the blast to that of ballistic weapons, though can still be very effective en masse at long range. The blast size ranges from one eighth of a meter to fifty meters wide, depending on the size of the cannon. Their rate of fire also depends on their size. Anti-Capital ship Pulse Cannons fire single shots or three shot bursts, while anti-fighter Pulse Cannons can fire continuously so long as the heat levels are managed.

Advanced Pulse Cannon: With the discovery of the Power Stem, Pulse Cannons using a charged power crystal suddenly became a feasible weapon. The blasts are even more focus and have more energy output, making for a more powerful and faster blast than the average Pulse Cannon. The requirement of having a stable power crystal limit's their size and makes them more expensive. These have replaced many of the overly large Pulse Cannons, Crystal Cannons, and Halberd Torpedoes, in the end providing more firepower than granted with those weapons.

Beam Cannon: These have a similar design that the Advanced Pulse Cannons have, though they require larger crystals. Instead of firing a single pulse of energy, they fire a beam that travels at the speed of light. Their size and the power put into the Beams make them effective at dealing large amounts of damage to large Capital ships. The downside is that they can't be placed on rotating or pivoting platforms for the Capital ships that would use them, though stations would be able to make use of them.

Crystal Cannons (Outdated): These Cannons range in size, much like the Pulse Cannons, though instead of firing Pulses of energy, they fire magically charged synthetic power crystals. Upon impact, they typically create either an explosive blast or a powerful pulse of raw energy.They tend to be used on larger vessels due to the need for storing ammunition.

Cutter Beams: These are repurposed mining lasers that travel at the speed of light, and are only equipped on ships that are cruisers and bigger. Practically useless against most energy based shields, but once the shields are down they can cut through armor with ease. The energy dissipates very quickly at a certain point, as mining lasers were meant to do, and this makes them only effective at medium and short ranges.

Halberd Torpedoes (Outdated): Large, anti-capital ship missiles propelled by chemical rockets. Packed with an armor-piercing tip and a large high-explosive payload, these 70 meter long and 20 meter high missiles will deal major damage to ships. Their speed, however, is their downfall. Though they can survive some fire from PD systems, they are far from impervious. It would take them one full turn to hit an enemy ship from Long Range. Though homing, they lack turning ability, so smaller ships can easily dodge them. The explosion is meant to go forwards to blast the tip forward into the ship, damaging internal systems as well as making a large, deep hole in the ship.

Hatchet Missiles: The little brother of the Halberd Torpedo. These missiles are four meters high and 22 meters long, and are also meant for attacking capital ships. These are meant for the smaller ships, having greater speed and maneuverability, but are more vulnerable to PD systems. Optimal range is medium range.

Dagger Missiles: These are anti-fighter missiles. Being one fourth of a meter wide, a meter long and packed with a high-explosive payload, they can be used to hit small capital ships if needed, though, as mentioned earlier, they are meant to kill fighters.

Defense:

Point Defense Pulse Cannons: These are fighter grade Pulse Cannons made to shoot down fighters and missiles.

Point Defense Beam Cannons: These PD weapons are only effective against missiles, and typically can only take down one missile at a time. Small missiles can be killed in quick succession, while larger missiles might require more time to destroy.

Titanium Carbide plate: Strong plating used for the outer armor of capital ships and fighters. Though more brittle than pure titanium, it is much harder.
Reinforced Synthetic Crystal: The strongest armor the Empire has as of yet. Like Natural Power Crystals, it is nearly as hard as diamonds, though forming it is a long and expensive project, so it is saved for ships that require longevity on the battlefield. The Crystal used in armor is uncharged.

Shielding:

Photon shields (outdated): The shields are separated into six sections, front, back, top, bottom, left and right. They also hug the ship, so they only block what would hit the ship. They have to switch to a lower powered shield when firing cannons, missiles, launching fighters, and escape pods as the shields are meant to stop anything and everything.

One-Way Photon Shields: With the Power Stem discovery, a magic based shield for ships was finally possible. By placing the new generator in the same space as the reactor, shield strength has doubled. With the added bonus of being one-way, thanks to the spell the crystal casts, weapon ports and hangar bays no longer need to lower shields to fire or launch fighters. For fighters to return, they lower the hangar bay shield as usual.

Engines/FTL:

Sub-light engines: Imperial ships are fairly slow. They can divert weapon power to the engines to go about 60% the speed of light for the largest ships, but need to reduce speed to activate weapons again.

Warp Drives: When Imperial ships warp, a small sphere of energy forms in front of it, often much smaller than the ship itself. Upon contact with it, the ship goes to warp, traveling twenty times the speed of light. When nearing exit, an energy field appears at the end, and the ship lurches out of it and the field disappears. It takes about five minutes for the drives to recharge afterwards without risking an overload. These are long range Warp Drives.

Battle Jumps: This involves purposely overloading the jump, or warp, drives and making a jump. The ship then goes 100 times its normal speed, but the jump drives are too damaged to be repaired by the crew afterwards. If a fleet uses this to enter combat, they are committed to the fight. Escape is not possible. This is most effective when a jump beacon is used as the exit point.

Miscellaneous:

Cloaking: Frigates are the largest ship able to cloak at this point and time, as their cloaking technology is still in its infancy. Because of that, it’s not very powerful. In fact, all it could take to reveal them is someone with a good eye noticing the distortion.

Imperial ships have no windows. Instead, microscopic cameras linked to screens make the “windows,” as well as the main viewport for the bridge. This also allows for the viewport to show a view from any side of the ship, unless the cameras are destroyed. Only the Hangar Bays are not armor, but they get a double layering of shields instead.

Planetary

Orbital Defenses:

Ground Force Weaponry:

Valar Assault rifle: Named after a historical hero, these are the basic weapons for Imperial infantry. Capable of firing 400 rounds a minute, and loaded with either generic armor piercing rounds or synthetic crystal rounds. One magazine holds 40 shots. Variant -A has a grenade launcher, Variant -B is silenced, and Variant -C is silenced, has a thermal scope, and has a grenade launcher. Variant -C is for Elites and Legionnaires.

Malek Combat Pistol: Also named after a historical hero, this is the basic sidearm for soldiers. A small, semi-automatic pistol with a 15 round magazine. It has the same power per shot as the Valar, but in a smaller and more concealable package. Variant -A is silenced and has a thermal scope.

Balar Shotgun: This fires 20-gauge shells or slugs, along with the option to fire two barrels at once. It holds ten shells at most. It is mostly used by law enforcement officers, who tend to not receive training with melee weapons other than stun batons. Only the slugs can be made of synthetic crystals.

Crossbow Sniper Rifle: Though it looks like a crossbow, it is actually a rifle. It fires 50 caliber rounds, either conventional or synthetic crystal, and it can fire them at Mach 1.7

Gredol Light Machine Gun: This is one of the oldest guns still in use by the Empire. It is able to fire 500 armor-piercing or crystal rounds a minute and is belt fed with 300 round belts. It is named after the company that originally made it before it renamed itself to Eretek

Eretek Heavy Machine Gun: It fires 50 caliber rounds at a rate of 300 rounds a minute, and is easily able to puncture the armor of most light vehicles. Synthetic crystals fired from this are more like miniature grenades.

Eretek Mortar: Infantry manned and carry-able mortars made to fire mortar shells typically of synthetic power crystal to detonate with a large pulse of energy, like the pulse grenades. The Phalanx version fires much larger shells with a much larger and more powerful blast.

Trident Missiles: These are powerful ground based missiles, often launched from a mobile platform of some sort, whether it be a vehicle, battlesuit, or an infantry based weapon. Specifically made to combat heavily armored vehicles, it features an armored tip and a synthetic crystal payload to either cause an explosion or a pulse wave. It is an unguided missile, allowing it to be smaller and have less of a need for fuel. Infantry fire one missile at a time with a shoulder mounted missile launcher. Battlesuits will have the launchers integrated into them, and the same goes for vehicles. For most battlesuits and vehicles, they are meant to compliment the main guns.

Hatchet Missiles: Shrunken down versions of the Capital ship versions, these are used for artillery instead of direct combat.

Dagger Missiles: Exactly like the Capital ship ones, they are meant to take down aircraft. They can be fired from missile launchers on vehicles or an infantry based weapon.

Melee weapons: These range from combat knives to swords and battleaxes. Imperial soldiers are excellent melee fighters, so they are often equipped with their favored weapon. They come in both titanium and energy variants, though the energy variants are typically saved for elites and Legionnaires.

Aurora Railgun: This is an infantry carried platform that requires two operators to carry, set up and fire. This was made to defeat the larger battlesuits by killing the pilot with a solid tungsten shell fired at 95% the speed of light. The Seraphim based platform is meant to defeat Capital ships as a mobile planetary cannon. Though it can beat smaller vehicles, it is very much a waste of ammo as Tridents and Hatchets are both cheaper and more effective at that role. The Seraphim version requires three operators.

Frag Grenades: These either use conventional explosives or a synthetic crystal catalyst. Conventional grenades are used by the militia, as the crystal variant has completely replaced them in the military. The explosion sends both metal and crystal shrapnel.

Pulse Grenades: These only have a synthetic crystal catalyst. Instead of an explosion, they release a powerful pulse wave of energy. This makes them safe for use indoors and on ships while being just as damaging.

Dragon’s Breath: A race with ties to Dragons wouldn’t be complete without a way to spew fire. Napalm is the preferred fuel source, though this makes it solely usable by infantry. The tanks are reinforced to help prevent ruptures and penetration from enemy fire, though the weapon is still the most dangerous for an infantryman to carry.

Ground Force Armor:

Titanium Plate: Being both light and very strong, it makes for very effective armor for both infantry and vehicles. Having a very high melting point, it will actually burn before it begins to melt, and at the same time it is a very poor conductor of heat and electricity, making it effective against energy based weapons and EMP.

Spider Silk Armor: This is solely used for infantry. It’s soft armor that is often dyed black, or white for Legionnaires, and soldiers often wear a full suit of it to maximize protection.

Tower Shields: These are energy based, except in response to possible riots in which they are titanium instead.

Basic Infantry Armor: The majority of the armor is Spider Silk Armor, with titanium plate covering the chest, shoulders, arms, and legs. The helmet is also made of titanium. It covers the head, but not the entire face. The helmet also features a HUD over one eye, typically the right eye, allowing soldiers to quickly identify friend from foe.

Elite and Legionnaire Armor: Both Elites and Legionnaires receive the same armor, with some minor differences. Elite armor is black to aid in stealth ops, and it includes a personal cloaking device and personal shields. Again, it is made of Spider Silk and Titanium Plate, but plate almost covers the entire body. Legionnaire armor is white, is stronger than elite armor, and the shielding is stronger too, but it lacks the cloaking device. They both have a full face helmet made of titanium and a clear, durable silicon visor. Visor shapes vary on preference, and provide the HUD for the user.

Vehicles:

Scythe Hover Bikes: A ground based hover vehicle that is capable at going faster than Mach 1. They have energy blades on the front of the craft to cut down infantry they run into, along with two forward guns to strike light vehicles and infantry. Obviously, running into vehicles is very fatal for the bike. It helps that those who ride them are often crazy in the first place.

Pike Hover Bikes: These are much larger and heavier than the Scythes, and also are not as fast. They’re meant for more prolonged ground engagements and to transport infantry, depending on the variant. Combat variants have a driver and three gunners at Pulse Cannons. Transport variants can carry a whole squad of infantry, and are more heavily armored than combat variants. They still feature the energy blades and forward guns on the front, but add the fire from the two side passengers and a rotary heavy machine gun on the back.

Mauler Troop Transport: A hover-vehicle meant to transport troops into areas where transporting troops by aircraft is too dangerous or through the streets of an urban environment. It is armed with a heavy machine gun on the top and a number of ports for the infantry inside to fire out of. A single Phalanx Battlesuit is able to ride on the back of the transport, using magnetics to keep the Phalanx in place so all of its weapons can be used.

Trebuchet Artillery Platform (Outdated): A large Hover vehicle that does its best to stay off the frontline as it rains Hatchet missiles from afar. Despite its size, it has little armor. It carries 24 hatchet missiles, and if needed it can fire every one of them at the same time. As they typically stay out of combat situations, they can be rearmed anytime in relative safety.

Bastion Anti-Tank Platform: As the Empire has noticed many nations still use tanks, they've dug up the old Anti-Tank guns and given them a much needed upgrade to be able to fire synthetic crystal shots. They specifically play a defensive role, as they require a Mauler or a couple Phalanx suits to pull them around. The crew is vulnerable to fire from behind and artillery, but has very strong defenses against anything in front of the gun.

Land Breaker Heavy Artillery Platform: It is much like the Bastion in design, but is designed for long-range, indirect fire instead of direct confrontation. As such, it lacks the defensive plating, but fires larger shells and has a longer barrel.

Meiar Gunships: These gunships are meant to support ground units with light machine guns and 36 Trident missiles. As they rely on rotors, their speed is not great compared to fighters, and so are even more vulnerable to anti-air missiles.

Todar Dropships: Large transports meant to take troops and vehicles from the ships to the planet surface. Seraphim Battlesuits and Meier Gunships latch onto the bottom of the transport. They are armed with four anti-fighter pulse cannons to deter fighters and hit enemy infantry.

The Dragon Fortress: This thing is a behemoth. It is three kilometers long and one kilometer high. It features Capital ship grade armor and has enough firepower to level a battlefield with numerous Pulse Cannons, including capital ship grade 50 meter cannons, machine guns, Trident and Hatchet Missiles. It’s a quadrupedal platform. If it’s legs are at risk of being destroyed, it can blow the legs off and drop to the ground, becoming an immobile fortress. Due to this, no weapons are present on the underside.

Phalanx Battlesuit: This is the smallest battlesuit, standing at 2.5 meters tall, or about 8 feet, and it has three variants, anti-infantry, anti-armor and anti-air. All of them have two wrist mounted pulse cannons. Anti-infantry carries four trident missiles in case vehicles show up. Anti-armor has heavier armor and a shoulder mounted quarter meter wide cannon armed with synthetic crystal rounds with a spell to superheat them to take on vehicles head to head. Anti-air has two missile pods filled with Dagger missiles, eight for each pod, though the pods are far bulkier and heavier, making them less mobile. The wearer is entirely covered in ten centimeters of solid titanium plate, and the user wears a spider silk suit for some protection if he has to leave the suit.

The original V.1 Anti-infantry Phalanx has been replaced with the Mortar Phalanx and the Ripper Phalanx. The Mortar Phalanx carries a large mortar mounted on its back. It has to take a stable stance to fire its mortar safely. The Ripper Phalanx has a shoulder mounted chaingun that fires synthetic crystal round.

Duelist Battlesuit: A seven meter tall battlesuit meant to fight in urban environments. It carries two half-meter wide cannons on the shoulders and two fifty caliber chainguns in the arms. It also has two, ten missile racks filled with Tridents on the chest. It has a full meter of solid titanium armor on the chest.

With the addition of the Advanced Pulse Cannon and the Beam Cannon, there is a variant that is quickly replacing the old one. Advanced Pulse Cannons of the same size replace the cannons and Beam Cannons replace the chainguns. These Beam Cannon are at a lower power level to fire for a longer period of time and are meant to sweep across the battlefield to kill infantry and focus to kill light vehicles.

Seraphim Battlesuit: This stands at 50 meters tall, uses sized up infantry weapons and uses synthetic crystal rounds. They are more or less sized up infantry. They feature thrusters to get them around the battlefield quickly and to out-maneuver larger enemies. They have four meters of solid titanium armor. These are the most advanced battlesuits to date. They also have a two Seraphim manned Halberd Torpedo launcher meant to hit targets like the Dragon Fortress.

Drake BattlePlatform: This is a quadrupedal platform that stands at 200 meters tall. It carries 8 Dagger missile launchers, 10 anti-fighter pulse cannons, 6 Hatchet missile launchers, 1 five meter-wide cannon, and 6 two meter wide cannons. Many Imperial soldiers simply call this the mini-fortress.

Miscellaneous:

Valar Riders: Valar is both the name of a hero and of an animal, the Valar Wolves, the ancient steed of the Raskal. Valar was said to be the first to tame and domesticate them, and so they were named after him. Hassa Valar Wolves are much like horses in terms of intelligence. Rimta Valar Wolves are far more valuable. They somehow evolved to be much more intelligent as the planet was terraformed, almost to the point of sapience. They lack speech, but Rimta Wolf riders have been know to communicate with their Wolves. Valar Riders in the Imperial army feature personal shielding much like the elites and Legionnaires, and are armored well enough to weather small arms fire. Riders actually do better in urban combat, where the wolf can engage in close quarters combat. Seeing a man ripped apart, and sometimes eaten, by a giant Wolf is not a pretty sight.

General Use

Power Crystals: These are crystals that can store magic power. Their size is directly proportional to how much they can hold. For Legionnaires, they allow them to use simple spells without using any of their energy, and can be recharged by the user outside of combat once their energy stores have recovered. Healers will carry large crystals on their backs so they can do major healing without exhausting themselves after one healing. There are both natural and synthetic crystals. Natural crystals are more stable than the synthetic ones, though aren’t as available. These typically are used in Legionnaire armor, Legionnaire melee weapons and Healer packs, as well as day to day use. They are slightly less durable than diamonds. Synthetic crystals are much more volatile when charged. Though unsafe for civilian use, they have a special niche in the military as ammunition. Bullets and shells made of these crystals can have a single spell in them to give them a desired effect, like causing a small, fragmentary explosion or creating a lethal pulse of energy. There is what is called Reinforced Synthetic Crystal, which has the stability of the Natural Crystal, but it is far more expensive and time-consuming to make.

Velia Flower: This is a magical flower the radiates the same power the people of the Empire use. Not only are they pretty, they are very useful as a temporary power source and for charging power crystals. It is much easier and uses less energy to siphon power from the flowers to crystals than to charge a crystal straight. They are a symbol of purity, and also of love, for the Raskal.

Power Stems: Only recently has the secret of the Velia Flower's life-force energy production been unlocked. The stem contains a catalyst that typically converts caloric energy into the life-force energy the flower radiates. When isolated, it is able to convert almost any form of radiation and energy into life-force energy, with the exception of life-force energy for reasons not yet known. This also means any energy field sent out by the enemy, including EMP, would quicken the rate of charging for the crystals linked to the stems. This also allows for a much safer, faster and consistent way to charge crystal ammunition for ground units.

Inge’Deya: This literally translates from Ne’Ala to “Spirit Power,” though “Mind Power” is a more proper term. It is used to both describe the power and the people who have said power. These are people who have natural psychic abilities. Most Inge are Ne’Ala, though mixing has caused some Raskal to be Inge as well. Inge are extremely rare. One in roughly a few hundred million Ne’Ala have this trait, and even fewer Raskal have it. Inge can make very effective Legionnaires and spies.

Jump Beacons: These allow for accurate jumps between systems, negating the need to jump in at the edge of the system so long as a beacon is active. Scout fighters have a mobile jump beacon, though they have to remain entirely immobile once they activate the beacon, and they’d easily show up on sensors. If the beacon is destroyed while a ship is jumping to it, the ship is guaranteed to misjump but still arrive in the system.

Eretek Arms: The company that produces most of the military’s ground based weapons.

Spider Silk: Another oddity that came from terraforming Rimta was the birth of impossibly large spiders for the oxygen content of the atmosphere. These spiders are four meters tall at the head and seven meters tall at the abdomen, and they consider anything with flesh as a possible meal. On the plus side, they are nocturnal and stick to caves and forests. Spiders taken into captivity can be coaxed to secrete their webbing in large amounts. Woven spider silk makes durable soft armor that is mostly bulletproof.

Titanium Forges: Titanium is very plentiful in the Empire, and is used solely for military purposes, with exception for biomechanics and bone replacements. As melting down titanium requires a zero oxygen environment, someone had the brilliant idea of doing it in space, where both oxygen and weight wouldn’t be an issue. So, the orbital titanium forges were created, and they process all the titanium used for the military.

Biomechanics: The Ne’Ala brought many advances in Biomechanics to the Empire when they joined. Soldiers who lost legs or arms could regain their lost limbs, either to go back onto the battlefield or to return home, able to do everything they could do before. These advances also allowed for neurological integration with the battlesuits.