05-31-2011, 11:25 PM | #1 |
Join Date: Feb 2007
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Orichalcum Universe: Machines, Vehicles, Robots, etc...
Since I'm planning to post some designs and details for some of the robots, machines, vehicles, and other devices used in my Orichalcum Universe, I decided it would work best to put them all in a single thread and link to it as seemed appropriate.
For more about the Orichalcum Universe, see here: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=70111 ----------------------------------------------------------- VELTAK BASIC EXOPOD ----------------------------------- Veltak Exopod Model 1 The Veltak Mark One Exopod is a cyborg support system and combat unit designed with basically only two purposes in mind: 1. Sustain the life of the 'pilot'. 2. Make the pilot an effective and versatile combat unit in most situations. The term 'pilot' is actually something of a misnomer, the actual Veltak is a Thalerigen creature, bred and genetically engineered to serve as a pilot, or more precisely as a living control module, for the exopod. The pilot is completely sustained by the life-support system of the exopod, and normally will never emerge from the machine through its lifetime. The life-support system provides nutrients, water, survivable temperatures, protection from radiation and shock, and everything else the 'pilot' requires. Indeed, the pilot is surgically fused with the control system and life-support system of the exopod, and can not voluntarily emerge from it. (The few Homosapients who have ever seen a Veltak outside its exopod almost universally describe its appearance as looking like a translucent, fleshy 'worm' form about one and a half meters long and ten centimeters in diameter, with internal organs dimly visible through the strange white/transparent integument.) Though physically quite frail, the Veltak 'pilot' is psychically powerful. Indeed, this is part of the reason for the physical frailty, these creatures have been so heavily bred and mutated for psionic ability that their other faculties and abilities have suffered in consequence. The exopod is designed to make up these lacks, and for the purposes of the Veltak, it does. The Veltak are so closely associated with their exopods that many Homosapients mistake the exopod for the creature, assuming it to be a robot, and this assessment is not absolutely wrong. The fusion is so intimate that, as noted above, the operator is more like a living control component of the exopod than a separate living entity. Even then, the lines blur. The central computer of the exopod, for example, though a separate device than the pilot, is itself a biocomputer, a fusion of living tissues akin to the Veltak and cybertronics...and the actual Veltak has cybernetic/bionic components implanted into its body when it is merged with its exopod shortly after its 'birth'. The exopod has a number of 'interface ports' built into its frame, behind armor seals, which it can use to fully integrate itself into larger machinery, in which case the entire exopod acts as a 'control module' for the larger machine. Such machines can include any number of different vehicles or weapon platforms. The Veltak exopod (in its basic form, specialized models do exist) is built around a fission-rocket engine of advances design, which can provide both thrust (via heating hydrogen as a reaction mass) and energy, the standard model can produce up to fifty thousand pounds of thrust, and up to 17,500 kilowatts of energy, or both (the reaction can be throttled down to nearly nothing), and the core has enough fuel to operate, with typical usage, for many Terran years before requiring refueling. (Note the distinction between fuel and reaction mass, which must be replenished far more often.) The exopod is equipped with ten arm-tentacles, made of semi-flexible segments mounted on universal joints, these can be reconfigured to serve either as walking limbs, swimming limbs, or arms, and contain various specialized manipulators and weapons as well, they can also be reconfigured to serve as strikers able to do either slicing or piercing damage in accordance with strength. An intricate network of sophisticated psionic amplifiers and psychotronic systemry is an integral part of the entire exopod, enabling the alien psionic power of the 'pilot' to be harnessed and used in unusual ways. The primary means of propulsion for an exopod, other than its limbs, is a specialized amplifier that boosts and mutates the psychokinetic power of the Veltak 'pilot', combines it with the energy from the power core of the exopod, and generates levitation/propulsive force suitable for operating in vacuum, or most atmospheres and liquid environments. (The rocket is used primarily for short bursts of quick acceleration, or for achieving orbital or escape velocity from a planetary surface in combination with PK thrust.) The psionic power of the pilot can also be combined with the psychotronics of the exopod and the energy of the power core to produce a protective barrier-field around the exopod, making it very difficult either to hit or damage (PD 4, DR 1000). The pilots primarily communicate with each other via a form of artificially augmented telepathy, with a range of hundreds of thousands of miles (or more if boosted and relayed). They do, however, have radio and laser communication facilities to communicate with telepathy is interfered with, or to communicate with other life-forms, and there are standard systems built into the exopod to communicate with beings who normally use sound or light or other means of communication (when the Veltak bother). The Veltak exopod is heavily armored, and armed with two powerful infra-red lasers cannon, as well as being equipped with the necessary mounts to carry various types of missiles and other weaponry. In addition, the retractable 'arm/tentacles' can be used to operate separate machinery, and the interface points enable the entire exopod to dock with and operate heavier equipment with more powerful weaponry. The outer surfaces of an exopod can be heated rapidly to as much as five hundred degrees F, or made to vibrate at an enormous rate for a short time. A Veltak exopod can operate efficiently underwater, including at far greater depths than its apparent crush depth, because it can use its psychokinetic screen to resist the pressures. They are temperature resistant across a greater range of temperatures than would normally occur on Earth (broadly, from about -200 F to up to +1000 F indefinitely). To Be Continued... Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 05-31-2011 at 11:29 PM. |
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