Adcap Guided Standoff Weapon Designer's notes: Constructed using battlespace's small craft rules, with a handful of modifications. Use at your own risk :) Mass: 40 tons Thrust: 8/12 Fuel: 5 tons Structural Integrity: 12 Armor: 2 fire factors Cost: 2,000,000 cbills a pop Warhead weight: 7 tons Warhead yield: 70 fire factors for a standard warhead. 35 fire factors for a dispersion warhead. The adcap could also be fitted with a high yield thermonuclear warhead, or chemical and/or biological packages, however such use is a gross violation of the Ares Conventions, and not even the most ardent munchkin has any business bringing WMD into their games. So there. Use in game: A ship may launch an Adcap from a standard Maelstrom AR 10 launcher. When the weapon is launched, the controlling player must designate a target for the weapon (which can be changed at any point in the weapon's flight as long as control is maintained). After launch, the weapon can be moved just like any other small craft as long as it stays within the launching AR 10's firing arc. However if control is lost (intentionally or otherwise, each AR-10 can only control two weapons) then the weapon will go to its internal guidance mode, following the shortest possible path to attack its last designated target. The weapon is programmed to conserve fuel, so while it is in internal guidance mode it will use only enough thrust to run down its target. When the weapon reaches its target, it initiates a ramming attack against it. A successful ram by the weapon deals 70 warship scale points of damage to the target for the standard warhead, while the dispersion warhead deals only 35. If the weapon misses, it can (and if on internal guidance, will) be manuevered to attack again as long as it has fuel and the target still exists. If the target is destroyed before the adcap hits it, the controlling player may designate a new target for the weapon IF he has control of the weapon, otherwise it self destructs. While in flight the weapon can be attacked like any other small craft. Oh yes, leave us not forget the use of this weapon against dirtside targets. The Adcap is atmospheric capable, with all the built in lifting surfaces and such. Though this means that the Adcap can be used to attack dropships in an atmosphere, this ability is intended to be used to attack stationary ground targets, buildings and bridges and other structures. The weapon flies to its target along a pre-programmed flight path, then unceremoniously drops on it. The effects of this are quite spectacular. A standard warhead obliterates everything in the target hex (actually it inflicts 700 points of damage to it, but close enough) and most everything in the six adjacent hexes (350 points) but the blast does not go beyond that. Since the standard warhead was designed to punch through layers of warship armor it also tends to leave a good sized hole in the ground. The crater will be four levels deep at ground zero (or it will knock the first four levels off of a hill) and two levels deep in each adjacent hex. The dispersion warhead, on the other hand, was designed to deliver as much widespread destruction as possible against ground targets. As a consequence it is treated like a normal naval weapon when it detonates. Fluff Text: Project Shipwreck came about largely due to the efforts of David Terumi, a naval history professor working at the Debussey naval accademy in the Bryant system in the year 2756. He first concieved of the idea during a lecture on the ancient soviet Komar missile patrol ship and it's impact on naval doctrins of the late twentieth century, stating that "the introduction of the first dedicated antiship missile allowed a relatively weak naval power like the soviet union to produce a fleet that could, for a relatively small expenditure of capital, be a significant threat to the most powerful naval force on the planet. It would be akin to the Taurians developing a very small, easy to deploy weapon capable of devastating our largest warships." After the class, Professor Terumi had lunch with one of the naval engineering professors, and a discussion about the day eventually led Terumi to ask why there were no weapons like the ancient antiship missiles. When the other professor said that such weapons did exist, but they weren't all that impressive, Professor Terumi asked "why not build a better one?" With that simple question, the Professor managed to win over his colleague. Between the two of them (along with another professor and a handful of students) they began working out their idea, eventually attracting the attention of Krester's Ship Construction, who agreed to bankroll the project. After four years, this ad-hoc team had produced a prototype missile, which they named Adcap after an ancient american torpedo. In 2760 the prototype was tested on a derelict corvette and, much to the joy of all observing the test, blew the old ship clean in half. Despite this success, there were numerous problems with the missile, especially its guidance package, that needed to be resolved, but enough interest was generated that the Star League Defense Force took over funding for the project and cloaked the whole thing in a blanket of absolute secrecy. Over the next four years, the design team worked on their weapon, ironing out the kinks of the guidance package and modifying the design for a secondary land attack capability. By 2762 the team's test ship, the Luxor class cruiser Jigoku, was conducting test firings of the weapons, not all of which turned out well. In one case during a test of the missile's target acqisition package, the seeker lost the original target and instead targeted the Jigoku, striking the ship amidships and killing a dozen crew. The disaster nearly resulted in the project's cancelation, but instead the design team altered the internal guidance system, eliminating the problem but at the same time removing the missile's capability to seek a new target should it loose its original one. By 2764 all the problems were worked out, and the Adcap was approved by the SLDF for deployment. Initial plans were to use Luxor class cruisers as missile carriers because of their large number of AR-10 launch tubes, and all fifty Luxor class ships were scheduled to undergo modifications to their firecontrol system so that they could control the Adcap. Unfortunately, these plans were disrupted by the periphery uprising and the Amaris Coup. Only four Luxors were ever fitted out to carry Adcaps, and relatively few Adcaps ever saw use, with only about half a dozen being loaded aboard each of the four existing refitted Luxors before the Amaris Coup cut off the SLDF from the factories on Bryant that made them. The last use of Adcaps wasn't even by the SLDF, but rather by Amaris forces, who had recovered a dozen Adcaps from the ruins of the Bryant shipyard, wrecked by the SLDF in order to prevent its capture. When SLDF forces returned to Bryant during the campaign to liberate the Hegemony, Amaris troops used this last handful of weapons to great effect against the attacking SLDF fleet, crippling or destroying a Mckenna and two Luxor class vessels. The knowlege of the Adcap was lost to the inner sphere after the exodus, with the last few copies of the design scematics stored away in comstar's archive. Though they have the ability, the order has not manufactured new adcaps because of the extremely high cost involved (one Adcap costs a hundred times as much as a killer whale missile), but it is possible that the Blakists may possess this weapon, and there are some indications that they are testing the weapon with the intention of evaluating its usefulness.