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Old 05-24-2010, 06:21 PM   #1
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Shryn Combat Piloted Tribot...

This is a war machine used by the alien Shryn that I described on the thread by that name, from my world. It is based on GURPS 3e.

Shryn Tribot

This tripodal fighting machine is a basic combat unit used by the Shryn species on the war-wracked planet Cytheria. This is a fairly typical unit of its sort, optimized for combat and field operations, though these machines are readily adaptable to other purposes with some modest modifications. They were mass produced by the millions at the height of the Cytherian Wars.

The triple 'legs' are articulated in six places each, that is, each one has six 'joints', enabling them to be folded up into recesses in the bottom of the ovoid main body. This also enables the machine, when walking on dry land, to raise its height from no more than the three meters of the main body height, to up to thirteen meters from ground to top with the legs fully extended.

(Note that the legs _are_ a vulnerable point, particularly the joints, but they are armored and the joints as such are at -6 to hit except at point blank range.)

In many ways these vehicles are more like battlesuits than tanks. There is one crewing creature, living within an internal pod which fits it closely and incorporates a battlesuit-like control system. Shryn have twelve tentacles, four long specialized ones and eight shorter, stronger ones used interchangeably as arms and legs when on land. Three of the shorter limbs of the pilot are dedicated to controlling the 'legs' of the vehicles, leaving eight limbs linked to the retractable, highly flexible robotic tentacles built into the main body of the vehicle. These can be pulled entirely inside the main body, or extended outward to remarkable distances away from the machine. (Can extended up to twenty meters in any direction away from the main body, which is about six meters wide.)

The robotics limbs are highly flexible, with enormous strength, and can be used to engage in constriction attacks if the pilot wishes, with an effective ST of 50, or half that if the tentacles extend more than ten meters away from the machine. The nature of the Shryn brain is such that the pilot can and does engage in separate simultaneous activities with each limb. Only if something requires unusual attention will the pilot be forced to disregard the other limbs, or turn them over to the vehicular computer system.

As noted, the piloting Shryn does not so much occupy a tribot, as wear it. Food, in the form of a nutritious paste, and water and oxygen (dissolved in the water) are provided by an integral full life-support system. The machine can take in water and purify it, and gather various forms of organic material to convert into the paste, generally speaking anything of a Solarigen biochemical base will serve as raw material, plant, animal, or fungus. The pilots do not usually particularly enjoy the flavor of this paste, but it will sustain them indefinitely. There is also an integral automed in the pilot capsule, incorporated into the form-fitting control system, which can enable the pilot to rest in suspended animation for months at a time, maintain overall health, or repair damage from combat if need be.

Given these features, it is fairly typical for a Shryn pilot to remain inside its vehicle for as much as a Cytherian year on end, or not quite two Terran years. Most of this time, though, will be spent in suspended animation. In many ways, the pilots are treated more like control components in the machine than as operators.

Power us supplied by an enhanced-fission reactor, which can generate up to two thousand kilowatts, and which has enough fissionable fuel in its core at activation to last up to ten years of constant use. About fourteen hundred kilowatts is needed to power most of the systems at once, leaving six hundred excess to charge the accumulators that power the beamcannons, or as reserve power, available to energize later equipment additions (which is a common practice among the Shryn).

In the water, they can retract the legs and tentacles, and use two integral hydrojets for propulsion on the surface or underwater. The design rates the crush depth at around 40 yards, but this is highly misleading. If the tribot were to be suddenly transported from surface to that depth or deeper, with no time to adjust, it would likely be destroyed. Normally, however, a diving tribot, with its amphibious pilot, equalizes the internal and external pressures as it dives, making the issue moot. In practice, tribots operate fairly freely down to a depth of about one kilometer.

The legs of the tribot, on good terrain in on Cytheria (which is similar to Earth in gravity) can carry it along at about sixty miles per hour. Good terrain on Cytheria, however, is somewhat rare. This is part of why a legged vehicle is so useful to the Shryn when they operate ashore, most of the land surface of Cytheria is rugged, swampy, or otherwise unsuited to wheeled and tracked vehicles. A more typical land speed for a tribot is about thirty miles per hour.

(This also means that should they engage in those few areas suited for them, tanks can be a deadly problem for the tribots.)

A standard Shryn tribot is an ovoid structure, and has two retractable weapon turrets, one dorsal and one ventral. Each armored turret houses an infra-red frequency beamcannon. The ventral beamcannon is smaller, used mainly for close-in work or fire-suppression, often using the tribot as a high firing platform. A bank of accumulators can store enough energy to fire this weapon one hundred times.

A similar, but larger and longer-ranged, beamcannon occupies the dorsal turret. It has about five times the power of its lower sibling, and its own bank of accumulators to give it also one hundred shots, usually fired twice a second. Note that power from the upper battery of cells can be diverted if need be to the lower cannon, giving it hundreds of additional firings.

A standard tactic of these machines is to form an array on the ground, fold their legs to press down to the surface, and use the upper lasers as anti--aircraft batteries. Though the individual power of the beams are not that great, when several hundred such machines are massed together they can be a major problem for an airborne target, since they can combine their beams or spread them out to make evasion ver nearly impossible.

The lasers are not terribly effective in the water, except at very close range. For underwater combat, the tribots rely on a pair of launchers and a variety of specialized torpedoes. These launchers can be used to fire missiles as well, but on land they primarily rely on their beamcannons in most situations.

The onboard computer system of a tribot can operate the vehicle as a pure robot, but this is usually done only if the pilot is incapacitated, or for very routine matters while the pilot 'sleeps' in suspended animation.

Each tribot incorporates a substantial integral warhead as a self-destruct, which can be triggered by the pilot at will or the computer under preprogrammed instructions.

MORE LATER.
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Old 05-24-2010, 06:22 PM   #2
Johnny1A.2
 
Join Date: Feb 2007
Default Re: Shryn Combat Piloted Tribot...

Crew: 1 Shryn pilot

Subassemblies: Vehicle +5, 3xMulti-articulated supporting leg -4, Body +5, Ventral Turret +0, Dorsal Turret +2, 9xManipulative Tentacle -2.

P&P: 2,000-kW enhanced fission reactor (no access space), 360,000-kWs rechargeable rapid-discharge accumulator [Ventral Turret], 3,600,000-kWs rechargeable rapid-discharge accumulator [Dorsal Turret], 1,000-kW legged drivetrain (short term access), two 500-kW hydrojets (short term access).

Fuel:

Occupancy: Shryn Command Station, 1-Shryn full life support system, 125-cf cargo hold.

Armor F RL B T U
Multi-articulated supporting leg 4/50 4/50 4/50 4/50 4/50
Body 5/150 5/150 5/150 4/100 4/100
Ventral Turret 5/150 5/150 5/150 4/100 4/100
Dorsal Turret 5/150 5/150 5/150 4/100 4/100
Manipulative Tentacle 2/20 2/20 2/20 2/20 2/20

Weaponry Malf Type Damage SS Acc 1/2D yds Max yds RoF TL
1,000mm multipurpose launcher - Cr 0d 30 0 0 0 1/33 10
destruct charge Crit Exp 4dx1700 - 6 0 0 - 10

infra-red light laser beamcannon Ver. Imp. 5dx26 20 21 4,300(x10) 13,000(x10) 1 10
infra-red laser beamcannon Ver. Imp. 6dx50 25 27 39,000(x10) 120,000(x10) 2 10

Equipment
Body: Shryn-specific integral automed; short range laser communicator (500-mile range; blue-green laser); short range sonar communicator (10-mile range); long range radio communicator (3,000-mile range; tight beam); external speaker system (disturbing voice, bull horn); searchlight (3-mile range); ladar (scan 18, 15-mile range; multimode); active sonar system (10-mile range); LLTV (magnification x200); advanced radiation detector; chemical sensor array; two mini-computers (complexity 3; hardened, high capacity, neural net, robot brain); +4 damage control program (C3); computer navigation program (C2); general database; encryption program (C5); full coordination (C3); gunner program-13 (C3); routine vehicle operation program (piloting-14, C3); inertial autolocation system; deceptive jammer (jammer rating 3); sonar detector; radar/laser detector; 1,000mm breechloader multipurpose launcher (concealed); full fire suppression system; psi shielding,Power:5; basic chameleon (-3 spotting modifier); radiation shielding (10,000 PF).

Ventral Turret: 7,200-kJ infra-red light laser beamcannon (close range, accurate/fine).

Dorsal Turret: 36,000-kJ infra-red laser beamcannon (normal range, accurate/fine).

Manipulative Tentacle: arm motor (ST:50, extendable, retractable, extra-flexible).

Statistics
Size: [LxWxH] 3.5 yards vertical, 5 yards short longitudinal, 5.5 yards long longitudinal

HT: 13 HP: 0 each [3x Multi-articulated supporting leg], 1,200 [Body], 26 [Ventral Turret], 112 [Dorsal Turret], 12 each [9x Manipulative Tentacle].

Ground Performance: Motive Power 333-kW, Top Speed 60 mph, gAcc 20 mph/s, gDec 20 mph/s, gMR 1.25, gSR 4, Ground Pressure 0 lbs./sf, Off Road Speed 60 mph.

Water Performance: Top Speed 35 mph, wAcc 15 mph/s, wDec 10 mph/s (17.5 mph/s), wMR 0.5, wSR 7, Draft 2.1 ft, Drag 974, Flotation 128,104 lbs.

Underwater Performance: Top Speed 12 mph, uAcc 3 mph/s, uDec 10 mph/s (11.5 mph/s), uMR 0.5, uSR 7, Draft 16.8 ft, Drag 2,548, Test Depth 18 yds, Crush Depth 36 yds.

Design Notes:
Vehicle Features: computerized controls, computerized diving controls, self-sealed, ruggedized, waterproofed, very good streamlining, finely made.
Water Features: no lines, flotation.
Underwater Features: submersible.
Body: 30° Slope on all Faces.
Multi-articulated supporting leg: improved suspension.
Ventral Turret: full rotation, total compartmentalization, 30° Slope on all Faces.
Dorsal Turret: full rotation, total compartmentalization, 30° Slope on all Faces.
Manipulative Tentacle: retractable.

Last edited by Johnny1A.2; 07-22-2017 at 09:12 PM.
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