Preliminary Phase Four ResultsKnights ReliquarDragonnade Railgun (Mechanical/Magical)
The Dragonnade is a modular railgun with a rather unconventional design.
It is a reasonably accurate long range weapon. While the damage it inflicts is good, this is actually rather anemic for a carriable railgun, even when considering its semi-automatic rate of fire. Its spike-like rounds inflict an ever-worsening curse with the idea being that it can be used to debilitate foes, progressively degrading their ability to protect themselves or retaliate until they perish under either repeated railgun hits or the effects of the curse itself.
While most Arehan railguns are powered by their own awakened spirit, the Dragonnade instead draws on a particularly vengeful ghost channeled through the railgun making its underlying principles closer to theurgy than animism.
This ghost charges the binocular-shaped cores of the Dragonnade's rounds with curses and accelerates it in tandem with the weapon's rails. Upon striking a target, the barbed spike-like rounds embed within their victim and activate their curse. The curse draws in other ghosts and weaponizes them, haunting its victims.
Damage and disruption from the haunting is initially limited to more delicate or exposed components such as sensors and joints, but as it progresses will deal increasing amounts damage to other systems, the afflicted Titan seemingly being buffeted by an invisible barrage of shellfire.
This is often accompanied by the sounds of furious cursing in a foreign language, seemingly originating from inside the cockpit itself, and the ever-growing suspicion that the Titan is in fact under attack by "a fleet of Japanese torpedo boats".
The ghost channeled by the Dragonnade has identified itself as one Zinovy Rozhestvensky, former admiral of the Imperial Russian Navy on Earth. Given that both Russia and Earth do not appear in any relevant database and given that the associated star system apparently had never been formerly named to Rozhestvensky's knowledge, the Reliquars have been forced to conclude that it is most likely "some backwater system of no significance".
Users of the Dragonade report that Rozhestvensky regularly manifests in their own cockpit, assuming the form of a middle-aged human man in dress uniform. His appearance and counsel is a mixed bag and he has at times threatened pilots with physical violence in response to some perceived incompetence.
Difficulty: HardRoll: 4+5-1=8, Average.There are few things that better embody the Arehan Frontier Union than a gun with an angry ghost man shouting at you (until he is in turn shouted down by other spirits
he has made angry) which fires a spike enchanted with angry ghost energy to haunt its target.
The Dragonnade Railgun is a Carryable Weapon -- a railgun. It's a relatively light Carryable Weapon, inhibiting the Titan carrying it a little less than other Carryable Weapons might, although it
is still a Carryable Weapon, so the penalty to speed and agility of the mech using it is rather significant -- and the engineers had to strip out the Arquebusier's native railgun to manage to get the damn thing stuck in JUST the right spot to fit inside the shuttle.
Though the firepower of the Dragonnade firepower is somewhat anemic, it's anemic for a
Carryable Weapon, which means that its damage output is about on par with the Medium Magimechanical Railgun that had to be removed, as well as about comparable in accuracy -- although it is notably much less accurate against faraway targets that are moving, because this relatively low damage is explained by the fact that the railgun fires at a
much lower velocity than the Medium Magimechanical Railgun. It does so because it has to keep its projectile, a long, thin, hardened spike, from being destroyed on impact. Notably, this projectile actually has decent armor-piercing capabilities, doing damage and sticking even through heavy armor, but its damage suffers against
larger mechs thanks to its small size, an issue which extends to its further effects.
The reason that these limitations exist is because of the power of its secondary effect -- the ghost of Zinovy Rozhestvensky, some very ancient officer. This man is deeply affected by a seemingly endless wellspring of impotent rage which reaches the point of delusion, and the projectiles of the Dragonnade confer some of this impotent, delusional rage onto what they strike. The Titan is repeatedly struck by nonexistent rounds (each of these being the equivalent of what a Small or Medium Magimechanical Railgun would do), which prioritize easier-to-strike areas before moving on to more general firepower over time. Although one of these rounds will eventually cover a small mech entirely, larger mechs see the effect typically localized to the struck Part.
This effect can be stopped by breaking more than half of the offending projectile off, though Titan pilots should be careful not to get 50% of it stuck within their mech. This means one can't fire the Dragonnade once, leave, and just expect a Titan to die, but the semi-automatic fire-rate of the Dragonnade is actually a decent one, and helps ensure that if an enemy Titan is continuously engaged, it will have a difficult time both doing so and engaging the wielding Titan in return.
Rozhestvensky himself often appears in the cockpit and fills it up with impotent and angry advice -- as a response to this, a button has been installed for when focus is needed that sees the other Spirits of the mech metaphorically bludgeon him into submission and drag him into a confined area. We have been assured that there are in fact other ghosts out there he can draw upon for further copies of this weapon.
Dragonnade Railgun: (Mech/Magic)
A slightly light Carryable Weapon, the Dragonnade is long-range and fires accurately, but with low muzzle velocity, limiting that accuracy against distant, moving targets. Has a respectable rate of semi-automatic fire. Does moderate damage with its initial hit, and then does damage-over-time as if the target were being shelled by small and medium cannon weaponry. Initial strike pierces armor well, but both initial and prolonged damage do poorly against larger mechs, doing less damage and more localized damage respectively. Breaking more than half of the spike off ends the effect. Comes with free angry Slavic ghost.
To manufacture 1 Dragonnade Railgun requires: Railgun OR Destroyed Railgun Scrap Or Mech Scrap w/ Advanced Magnetic Tech, 3 pieces of Magic Scrap.
Rivalla's RetinueMegaraptor Legs:
The Megaraptor was at one point the pinnacle of light-Titan design in the Kingdom. That point was roughly a century ago, but it remains decent stuff. Rivalla's Retinue managed to salvage legs from a decommissioned Megaraptor before departing for the Sommet Sector, in order to provide the Barely-Rivalled mech with superior mobility.
The basic construction of Megaraptor Legs is fairly standard. High-strength cultivated musculature augmented with pistons and motors in key locations, metal-reinforced skeletal structure, light armour plating on top of flexible reptilian scales. The technology is out of date, but it is reliable and relatively ease to fix.
Structurally, Megaraptor Legs appear to have two knees, the second of which bends backwards- though in fact the lowest sections of 'legs' are actually elongated 'feet' (with the toes/talons being quite large in order to provide stable ground contact). By providing an additional point of major articulation, this gives the Megaraptor Legs a greater range of motion, allowing for increased acceleration, speed, and agility.
In lighter Titans, the Megaraptor Legs also enable considerable vertical movement. By injecting a chemical stimulant that temporarily supercharges the muscles, they become powerful enough to let the Titan jump- across large gaps, or up steep slopes, or whatever.
Finally, and probably least relevantly, the Megaraptor Legs culminate in vicious, steel-shod talons, the largest of which can- in principle- pierce through Titan armour and shred internal components. However, you'd have to be pretty crazy to try and pull that off, as it requires either kicking the target- risking being knocked over-, or jumping on them- an even riskier action.
Difficulty: Very HardRoll: 5+3-2=6, Average.While it's very frequent for old pieces of Titan equipment to stand the test of time, what with the abundance of salvaging and frankensteining of old equipment, and the outdated gear on the Titans afforded by poorer entities, it's much rarer for old pieces of Titan equipment to stand the test of time whole and en masse. The Megaraptor Legs are an example of this kind of Titan equipment, and the reason that they've lasted long is that they're versatile, effective, and reliable.
The Megaraptor Legs present four advantages over the standard legs on the Barely-Rivalled.
Firstly: Toughness. The Megaraptor Legs are by absolutely no means invulnerable -- they were not exactly designed to be taking heavy amounts of fire, or extremely powerful fire. But they're a bit heavier than the legs of the Barely-Rivalled, and are more durable. Thanks to their internal structure, it takes more fire to really cripple a Megaraptor Leg than it does for a Barely-Rivalled Leg, though they still aren't heavily
armored and will take damage under concerted fire or when hit by powerful weaponry, such as Medium Railguns.
Secondly: Speed/Agility. This is the primary benefit of the Megaraptor Legs, which can adopt a fair clip,
significantly faster than the slow, deliberate pace of the Legs of the Barely-Rivalled. The speed of the Barely-Rivalled with the Megaraptor Legs can be described accurately as
running -- and while there are a bevy of further enhanced legs out there which go well beyond that, the Megaraptor Legs are a serious contender for the cheap, light mechs that the Retinue will be dealing with for some time.
Thirdly: Jump. The jumping capacity of the Megaraptor Legs is not a major jumping capacity, leaping from one end of a tactical section of battlefield from the next -- but that wasn't the point. The Megaraptor Legs are capable of making small jumps during movement, allowing them to clear sections of rough terrain without having to interrupt their Titans' movement, or allowing them to avoid climbing, or to leap over or onto another mech. These jumps are much less effective when not moving, however.
Fourthly and finally: Talons. Being dinosaur legs, the Megaraptor Legs have a pair of giant god damned steel-clad talons on them, which (as giant fucking steel-clad talons tend to) have offensive usability. Though using them is a bit less riskier than one might think, thanks to the agility of the Megaraptor Legs, it
is still a risk when dealing with any Titan with melee capability or other means of capitalizing on the inherent vulnerability of a Titan balancing on one leg. The talons also aren't really capable of getting through heavy armor, given that they're just large metal talons. They are, however, capable of dealing fairly grievous damage to lightly armor mechs, carving large rents in what they strike.
In short, Megaraptor Legs are a little tougher, a lot faster, a fair amount jumpier, and situationally a lot deadlier than the legs of the Barely-Rivalled.
Megaraptor Leg: (Mech/Organic)
A double-jointed raptor leg, the Megaraptor Leg offers decently high-speed and agile movement, enough toughness to take some firepower without losing functionality (although they are not highly armored and are vulnerable to heavy firepower), a small jumping capacity which is more effective the faster the Titan is running, and melee strikes that are somewhat risky and not effective vs. heavy armor, but are very much effective vs. light armor.
To manufacture 1 Megaraptor Leg requires: 1 Mech Scrap, 1 Organic Scrap, 2 Legs (Mech, Organic, or Mech/Organic)
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Topic: Ramshackle Titans - a Semi-Pseudo, Semi-Mecha Arms Race (Read 1280 times)