#system11

[oshlet]

Wasn't *quite* happy with the initial fairy design so I've been iterating on it a little, this is what I've settled with at the moment, making the Choke launchers and arm lasers more clearly visible, and adding a little asymmetry with the IRST on the nose.

Choke is an abbreviation of Chaff-smoke, and is a vital tool on the battlefield. Normally released via high pressure grenades, Choke is made up of superheated smoke - which baffles visual and infrared sensors - and highly reflective crystal fragments, which do double duty of confusing radar and diffracting most energy beams which pass through. Inside Choke, short-range focused lasers and ballistics are king, but even then, they must be fired with little to no guidance.

[oshlet]

So much for regularity, took a bit longer than I thought.

System-11 Heavy Aquatic Mech, modified for ground use in Sond's North Pole. HAMs, and heavy mechs in general, are a rarity on modern battlefields: their size and sluggishness makes them vulnerable to tank-fire, although they still retain a niche on especially rough terrain where such vehicles struggle to be deployed.

[oshlet]

Bandit-piloted revolutionary era P-Man A model. Over half a century old, the machine was discovered in a forgotten weapons cache and restored to functionality by cannibalising other machines for replacement parts. While formidable back during its introduction, with its impressive terrain traversal abilities and long range, the A model is sorely lacking in the modern battlefield.

Of course, Bandits would avoid pitched battles anyway, and the machine is tooled more for intimidation and raiding. Thick ERA bricks help provide some supplemental defence to the already decently thick plating on the 'Man, while the flamethrower makes the machine a terrifying prospect to any lightly defended villages it comes across.

The 9 eyes across the torso is in reference to the 9-eyed heavy mechs of the devastation era. Equipped with tactical nuclear weaponry to crack through each other's armour, they laid waste to several planets and sundered humanity. Even 9 dots arranged in a grid pattern is thought to bring bad luck and only the most misanthropic of pilots consider the 9 eyes as decoration.

[oshlet]

'Fairy' Light Mech. A design originating from the more piracy inclined spacer tribes of System-11. It pulls double duty as the favoured mech of spacer mercenaries operating on Sond and a means of amping up muscle on ship and station raids. The ground and space types vary in propulsion systems, with one of the more noticeable changes being the swapping of the wings for large radiator elements, but otherwise the variants have enough commonality between them that one can be converted to the other without the need for sophisticated maintenance facilities.

Spacer technology in general is moderately more advanced than Sond natives, and spacer mercenaries operating planet-side are eager to flaunt this, usually painting their mechs in bright primary colours to show off. Their higher technology isn't insurmountable however, and a number of mercenaries have lost their lives showboating before forces they were convinced were of no threat.

[oshlet]

'Tresspasser' Gunship, workhorse of the System-11 rebels. A good deal smaller than the scorpion, but slower and less agile. These are old school rotary wings, dug out from colonial caches or sold on the cheap by spacer black marketeers. The designs predates ubiquitous pd lasers on vehicles, so the rebels had to jury rig a bulky unit on the right side, and an accompanying cooling system on the left. The modifications make handling awful, but it beats getting nailed by smart-munitions.

The 20mm cannon on the bottom is only really effective at shooting soft targets and unarmoured vehicles, which the laser can also pull double duty on. Later in the conflict, they ended up being filled with choke rounds instead to break up sightlines and blind targets in preperation for rocket strikes.

Although its not a great flyer, the excellent visibility afforded by the bubble canopy and roomy interior means that while its not a beloved machine by pilots, its certainly not hated. Mechanics love the thing, though - colonial equipment is famously rugged and easy to work on (although the laser mount is a bit more of a pain to fix).

[oshlet]

Customised variant of the Lohan-Scott 'Dope' Light Mech. Modifications tend towards making it easier to repair in-field and being more robust overall: The large head unit which contains a laser has been switched for a smaller, better armoured replacement, and the forward camera has been removed entirely, with an analogue periscope in its place. Main armament is a 4-aperture converging laser rifle. For anti-armour combat, all four lasers fire simultaneously while for soft targets, they're instead ripple-fired to increase fire-rate. At the right shoulder sits a 2x5 grenade launcher loaded with 'Sink' munitions - air bursting grenades with a mixed payload of hot smoke and reflective strips, capable of confounding radar, visual and infrared sensors while also disrupting laser fire. The left shoulder is fitted with a high-frequency deflector shield, capable of redirecting lower mass, supersonic projectiles - namely cannon rounds or anti-tank missiles. The energy draw of such a system is immense, so it can only be activated for short periods. Furthermore, it has limits with regards to especially high-energy impacts like railguns and is utterly useless against lower-speed kinetics like melee weapons.

[oshlet]

Edward South's Vagabond MBT, used against S-11 rebels and his own allies during the revolutionary war. Modern at the time, it was still fairly practical, mounting a tried and tested 120mm smoothbore gun for anti-surface use. South's model was a solo-tank conversion, featuring additional automation and a Brain Interface System, allowing it to be controlled by only a single person.

In his re-emergence as a mercenary, he's now behind the wheel of a jury-rigged civilian crawler. Such a vehicle is slow, and not nearly as well suited to receiving weapons fire, however it makes up for it with its truly eye-watering armament of a huge laser cannon, fitted with three separate hybrid cooling/power cells, each of which can only squeeze out a single shot from the weapon.

Despite all the downsides, the intimidation factor of a weapon that doesn't even require a direct hit to disable an enemy vehicle is hard to pass up, and South has become feared for his ambush tactics using it.

[oshlet]

Lohan-Scott 'Dope' Light Mech refitted for operations within the rainforests of Sond's Southern Tropics. The lower legs are sheathed in thick, waterproof waders to help keep the muddy water from degrading the leg servos. A translucent covering of a similar material rests atop the head to keep the delicate electronics within out of the worst of the moisture, too.

Weaponry errs on the side of practical, as is often the case with L-S machinery, and those who use it: A high fire rate, 20mm autocannon in a bullpup configuration for better close-quarters capability is the main armament. Underslung are a pair of boxes holding anti-tank guided missiles. An IR laser sits in the chest-turret for anti-personnel and point-defence duties and a set of 12 grenade tubes sit on the shoulders for additional utility.

While System-11 sticks to its domestic P-men units for patrolling its territory, Lohan-Scott models are the second most popular across Sond, with the Dope being the most widely used - by mercenaries, pirates and rival polities to System-11.