WULFEN FIGHTER Craft: Shuumar Central Command Wulfen 1.0 Fighter Type: Heavy Fighter Scale: Starfighter Length: 14 meters Skill: Starship piloting; Wulfen (see below) Cost: 2,150,000 credits (see below) Crew: 2 Passengers: 1 Cargo Capacity: 40kg Consumables: 2 months Hyperdrive Multiplier: x2 Hyper Backup: None Nav Computer: Limited to 3 jumps Maneuverability: 5D+2 (see below) Space: 11 Atmosphere: 450; 1,300 Hull: 3D+2 Shields: 1D Sensors: Passive: 30/1D Scan: 45/2D Search: 65/3D Focus: 4/4D Weapons: 3 Heavy Laser Cannons (fire linked) Scale: Starfighter Fire Arc: Front Crew: Pilot Skill: Starship Gunnery Fire Control: 2D Space Range: 1-3/12/25 Atmosphere Range: 100-300/1.2/2.5 Damage: 6D+2 2 Ion Cannons Scale: Starfighter Fire Arc: Front Crew: Pilot Skill: Starship Gunnery Fire Control: 4D Space Range: 1-3/7/26 Atmosphere Range: 100-300/700/2.6 Damage: 4D 1 Proton Torpedo Tube Scale: Starfighter Fire Arc: Front Crew: Pilot Skill: Starship Gunnery Fire Control: 2D Space Range: 1/3/7 Atmosphere Range: 30-100/300/700 Damage: 9D Designed with the special abilities of the Shuumar in mind, the Wulfen fighter is of a rather unusual appearence. A pair of X shaped wing struts extend from the main pody of the ship, one extending in each direction. These struts house 4 Ion Engines each, with the rear engines mounted toward the rear and the foward engines toward the front. All of the other systems are located in the somewhat spherical central capsule. Because of the Wulfen's unusal configuration, it is far more manuverable than the standard ships, and is also capable of a number of tricks that even the most sophisticated of New Republic or Imperial craft cannot even attempt. It can reach a full stop im miliseconds, and accelerate to full speed in little moretime. In addition, the Wulfen is just as fast and maneuverable in reverse as it is in foward, and it can slam from full foward to full reverse without any great difficulty. Because of it's special abilities, the Wulfen lends itself to truely remarkable techniques. A favorite among Wulfen pilots is to stay just out of laser cannon range of the target, and disable it with thier ion cannons. This requires a delicate touch, as the Ion cannons only outrange standard Lasers by a single meter, but the Wulfen can usualy duck back out of the range of the oponent craft when they feel threatened, and once one of these ships get behind a target, they are almost imposible to shake. In additon, the Shuumar have modified a fair number of their ships to include a pair of long range lasers instead of the Ion cannons. These weapons have the following stats: 2 Long Range Laser Cannons (fire linked) Scale: Starfighter Fire Arc: Front Crew: Pilot Skill: Starship Gunnery Fire Control: 3D Space Range: 1-7/1.7/76 Atmosphere Range: 100-700/1.7/3.6 Damage: 4D+1 With these weapons mounted, they have a few meters to play with while baiting enemy fighters, and as such have proven nearly invulnerable against small groups of enemy fighters. The one reason that the design of the Wulfen has not been copied by any other power is the tremendous stresses that it places on it's pilots. Even the most modern inertial dampers can't do much against the sort of g-forces that the sudden stop and go motions of the Wulfen put out. Even with full modern inertial dampers, a full speed in and out reverse puts up to 12g of pressure on the pilot for short times, enough pressure to knock out or kill a human pilot. Other manuvers have been known to put even more pressure on the pilots, and Shuumar have been known to travel at double normal speed (two move actions), reverse (one action), and head back at full speed (a final action) all within a 5 second interval, putting nearly 24g worth of pressure on the pilot, pressure that would be great enough to crush a human skull flat. Only the Shuumar, with their high gravity adaptations can survive a combat mission in a Wulfen. The Shuumar are attempting to build a combat cruiser with similar capabilities. Known as the Wrath of Heaven Cruiser, this ship would easily be able to destroy just about any capital ship in existance, especialy in it's current form, where it mounts a planetary defence level Ion Cannon modified for aditional range. However, the Wrath of Heaven project has met with a number of setbacks, and after the three prototypes constructed were lost with all hands in an accident that appeared to have been sabotoge, the project has been put on hold until the agent or agent responsible can be apprehended. The Shuumar people do not have enough spacemen to risk loosing any more to accidents of that sort. Note: In playtesting, these babies kicked the snot out of X and B wings without much trouble. A-wings and TIEs were somewhat more difficult, but still couldn't realy challenge them, as they can simply sit still, spin around real fast, and blast anything that somes in range. In order to keep things balanced, it is important to remember that the Shuumar do not have that many fighter pilots, and as they are a long lived, slow breeding race, they do not expect any great numbers to grow up any time soon. Still, with the Wulfen fighters, they have become a military power, and if they ever would complete the Wrath of Heaven, they would be a power of the first rank, as that ship can drop ISDs like flies. (the prototypes were destroyed by Black Serpent agents, who have left a series of clues leading back toward the New Republic. The Shuumar investigators, with the aid of several NR operatives discovered the deception, but have still been unsuccesfull at tracking the saboteurs back to thier source.) Also, it is important to note that the Shuumar are not particularly mechanicaly inclined, and do not make the best pilots, though their veteran pilots are improving fast.