Vampir II Droid Interceptor

[Lord Admiral AriklegoLord Admiral (MSI)]

The AMA Vampir II droid interceptor is an easy-to-field, high-performance automated interceptor designed for the purpose of providing fleets with large numbers of interceptors to screen against enemy bombers.


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-Model: AMA Vampir II Droid Interceptor
-Role: Interceptor
-Manufacturer: Advanced Military Automata
-Length: 8.9 Meters
-Width: 9.7 Meters
-Height: 3.2 Meters
-Armament:
--Primary: Dual Mark.1137 "Stinger" 1.3M Pulsed Beam Laser Cannon; 950 mJ Power Output; 2,000 RPM Fire Rate; Turreted (nose armament)
--Secondary: Mark.1 AS/GLT4 (Anti-Starfighter Guided Light Torpedo, Type-4) Torpedo Racks; 12 gJ Payload; 10 Deg/s turn radius; 1.5km Acceleration Range; 7,500 G Acceleration; "Meteor-174" Sensor-Processing/Guidance Intelligence
-FTL Drive: None
-Shielding: None
-Hull:
-Max Acceleration: 4,350 G
-Turn Rate: 35 Degrees/second (sust.); 42 Deg/s (inst.)


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Because of capital ships' inability to carry large complements of interceptors, naval strategists began to look for alternate ways to screen against incoming bombers and thus better protect fleets. One solution of many was AMA's new Vampir droid interceptor. Droid fighters meant no pilots to train, and the fighters could be stored on external racks (eliminating the need for hangars).

Advanced Military Automata's Vampir is compact and fairly cheap, making it an excellent craft for swarm tactics, while still showing superb performance in a number of key areas, most notably its speed, maneuverability, and coordination capabilities.

AMA took a little-explored route with the Vampir's design and equipped it with a pair of solid fuel thrust drives.
The Vampir's solid-state fuel is an amalgam of supercompressed volatile fuel compounds, giving the Vampir spectacular acceleration rates that allow it to run circles around most other fighters. The fuel is incredibly explosive--enough so that if a malfunction or enemy fire striking the fuel slugs will obliterate the entire fighter--and no one has dared use it on a manned fighter yet. But for the automated Vampir these concerns were tossed out the window.
And the resulting fighter could out-speed nearly all of its targets, giving it an edge that would give it an infamous reputation among bomber squadrons.


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However, the Vampir's solid fuel thrust system came at the cost of an inefficient solid-fuel-run reactor, which couldn't reach the necessary output to power several of the Vampir's intended ship systems.

The Vampir's AI computer banks and its vast array of sensors and comms were considered absolutely essential, as the Vampir interceptors badly needed them in order to take in and process the data to handle its maneuvers, and to coordinate with the other Vampir fighters and the capital ship they're screening.

Instead, the designers swapped the original dual particle beam cannon that was supposed to be equipped on it for an underpowered, turreted pulsed beam cannon set, and removed a number of less-essential AIs.

The Vampir I's low-power "Stinger" PBC turret, while more then sufficient for reducing the numbers of incoming missile waves, was weak and barely had the power to punch through bombers' shielding even after sustained fire. In fact, many commanders simply resorted to ordering the Vampir I to ram bombers.

To overcome this, designers equipped the new Vampir II variant with low-payload anti-starfighter torpedoes, ranging from two to eight per fighter depending on the Vampir-carrying ship's cargo capacity. As bombers, like most starfighters, virtually never carried particle shielding, the torpedoes greatly improved the Vampir's kill rates.

Other changes that came with the Vampir II included radiator banks in the wings for more efficient cooling, updated sensors, and most importantly, secondary thrust streams directed through the wings which, located farther from the fighter's center of gravity, gave the Vampir vastly superior maneuvering capabilities.


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While the Vampir has proven itself to be a cold, efficient Bomber-killer, it's still not employed in very large numbers due to its high casualty rates, caused mostly by frequent collisions and accidental tangles with enemy interceptor.

The Vampir is also still at a low production rate, due to AMA's lack of sufficient production facilities and refusal to outsource to other corporations in its efforts to safeguard its designs, and AMA has been unable to meet the Imperial Navy's requisition orders.

As such, Vampirs are typically limited to capital ships operating independently of fleets or in battlegroups too small to be assigned a carrier.

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LDD File Download

[TetrahedronCaptain (PCG)]

I need more pictures to break up the description so it doesn't become an unreadable wall of text.

*cough*cough* Ahem...

I'd like more pictures in order to pass judgement on the design's merits, as I'm too lazy to download the LDD file- but what i can see suggests some really impressive SNOT work, especially on the wings. Description was also good, but again, I'd like to see the rest before i declare my opinions on it.

In a nutshell: Looks good, but i'd like to see the rest before proper comment.






(On a side note, I need to start getting all my ideas out there before anyone else does...)

[Dino27Captain (PCG)]

This is good, insanely bulky, but that doesn't matter in space, so the design is quite good! 

As for the description: Honestly, this thing is incredibly under-powered. 
#1 30 AI units, auto-targeting turreted weapons systems, and this thing can't dodge the debris from what it just killed? Sorry, but that would make it rather useless as there would be TONS of debris later in a battle. Also, if it can dodge ships, then surely it can sense and dodge larger debris? Trek tech tends to be a lot more advanced than this. I can't imagine 30 AI units, that fill the internals of this thing, in 2065, much less 2,605, being so... outdated. 
#2 no shielding? In Trek, that is utterly unheard-of, even for fighters. These things are going to be blasted out of the sky like, well, drunk moths flying to a bug zapper. 
#3 two 1137 laser cannons? Might I suggest an 1138 model number?


Other than those two (actual) issues, this thing is a GREAT idea!  And I think that it is well executed!  The pics are great, and I love the weapons display pic! 


The more I look at the design, the more I like it.

[Lord Admiral AriklegoLord Admiral (MSI)]

Tetra: No worries, I'll have more up soon.


Dino: I'll tackle these out of order 'cuz it's easier.

2. The fighter barely has enough power output for its weaponry. And considering it can outfly and outmaneuver almost any other fighter, has decently good armor plating, and is basically considered more or less expendable, deflector shielding isn't needed much.

1. 22 AI units actually, not 30. Basically, each AI unit (which are significantly smaller than what would be used on larger ships) is a sort of "Smart AI", being able to make decisions for itself almost on the same level as a sentient being. Meaning that they're utterly enormous compared to anything that would exist IRL, and still by this time large enough that this cheap unmanned fighter is only able to hold 22 of them.
Also, they handle a wide variety of very complex tasks. We're talking about taking in and processing data about an entire battlefield, handling its speed and maneuvering, coordinating with hundreds of other Vampir fighters and manned fighters, the ship it's protecting, and any other carriers/flagships in that fleet, tracking any enemy starfighters, bombers, gunships, missiles, and other threats to its ship, prioritizing which one it needs to hunt first, and then engaging and destroying all of its targets as efficiently as possible. And it's intended to do this with the same efficiency and discernment as a group of organic pilots.
Point being, the Vampir is essentially entirely and exclusively a single capital ship's means of not getting killed by bombing runs. It's designed to do its job extremely well, and while that may come at the cost of its own self-preservation, a couple Vampir fighters are more expendable than a capital ship and its crew.

3. That almost-reference didn't take long to get noticed...

[Star-HunterCEO]

Once again, a great construct with wonderful shaping and detailing. I can only imagine what you could accomplish given a more powerful PC. Our capital fleets shall quiver in terror before your cupcake missiles.

[Lord Admiral AriklegoLord Admiral (MSI)]

Bump, new pictures and description are up.

I tried to condense the description a bit, and tweaked a few details. Anyway, this should be everything to add to it.

[TetrahedronCaptain (PCG)]

Mmmm... looks good. Similar to an idea I had for some specific ships, as I hinted at earlier. I really like the SNOT designs and the folding wings; great work there.

Description-wise, my only issue is with the solid-rocket fuel; even without it's explosive qualities, it's terrible interceptor fuel. The thing with solid-fueled engines is once you turn them on, there's no turning them off; they run at 100% thrust until the tanks are empty. Provided, the amount of Vampirs available is greatly outstripped by the capacity to supply them, given the circumstances, but it still seems like a major flaw.

[Lord Admiral AriklegoLord Admiral (MSI)]

As far as the solid fuel goes, two things I'll make note of:

-If the fighter needs to slow down or stop, you don't have to reduce or cut off its thrust. You simply redirect it in the opposite direction. The thrusters can redirect it (albeit less efficiently) forward.
If you want to sort of "go into neutral", drifting along by your own momentum or perhaps stopping altogether if you've already eliminated that momentum, then you just have to create equal amounts of thrust in both directions. It'd have the drawback of still consuming fuel, but it still works.
If you're slowing yourself down, then you just redirect all of it, and you'll decelerate at the same rate (or close to it) you accelerate.
And then if you just want to lower your speed for better maneuvering, you just put it somewhere in between.

-Then, if you're coming to a complete stop, say to dock back with the capital ship, you simply eject the solid fuel slugs. They're actually designed to to do that anyway, since, because you can't refuel a solid, you'd have to eject the fuel slugs and get brand new ones or else run the next mission with less fuel.

Is it a cost-efficient, space-efficient, or fuel-efficient way to go? Probably not. But, considering the advantages it gives the Vampir in sheer speed (which it basically has to have in order to compete with other fighters), it's arguably worth it.

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