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I.C.E. - Interstellar Combat and Exploration units; actual technobabble
Topic Started: Aug 7 2014, 10:14 AM (174 Views)
The Void of Space
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I.C.E.
 
Interstellar Combat and Exploration unit - Technology adapted from the great war. Large, mechanical suits capable of travelling in the vacuum of space and keeping its pilot safe. Weapons systems, appearance, and build tend to vary from unit to unit, especially since most Voyager crews have a few heavily-customized ICEs to keep themselves safe. Typically humanoid and around 13 meters tall.

ICEs were the major weapon used in the great war; their use was widespread, with every nation who could afford them buying as many as they could. As is usual in times of war, there was constant development and experimentation with ICEs in order to keep up with the ever-changing battlefield. As such, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of ICE frames out there, each with distinct purposes and builds.

One thing that most frames share is that they are made of Stritium: a type of metal developed before the great war that is cheap, light, and sturdy enough to not have the machine collapse in on itself. Stritium is easily manufactured, so repairs to ICE units are not very expensive. This is fortunate for most Voyagers, as most ICEs leave battle with their brittle Stritium shells battered and dented, if not torn apart altogether. Other machines have bulkier frames, outfitted with other metals in order to increase durability, but most standard-issue ICEs can't take more than a few hits.

Most ICEs just use beam guns of some variety. The technology required to shoot laser beams was a development late in the great war, and permanently changed the landscape of ICE development. Laser beams would simply rend through Stritium armor without any effort, and every other country had to quickly buy into the new technology to stay afloat in the war. The main innovation used to stabilize the volatile energy in a beam weapon was the Venturex Coil, named after the company that developed it. The coil is capable of focusing the energy from an ammo pack and condensing it, letting the gun shoot it out in a few short bursts.

Some number of experimental ICE frames were created using the Venturex Coil as a model for their own power source. These ICEs, while incredibly fast, dangerous, and powerful, tended to blow up a lot due to their instability.

In order to counter the powerful new beam weapons, beam shielding was developed shortly afterwards. (Unsurprisingly, by the same company that had developed the weapons in the first place.) An ICE equipped with Beam Shielding has a thin energy field coating it, and this field is capable of dispelling the majority of a blow from a beam weapon. It will not fully negate it, and it is still preferable to just dodge the shots, but an ICE equipped with beam shielding will be able to take a few more hits from a beam weapon before blowing up. Beam shielding is considered standard-issue, but a few cheap, lower-end models will not have it installed.

One of the strangest developments for ICE weapons was the idea that to counteract the mass production of beam shielding, that ICEs should use physical weapons. Large robot swords soon became a common sight on the battlefield, and they are still fairly popular today due to the fact that they can get past even the toughest beam shielding without a dent, along with other large physical weapons.

At some point, beam sabers were also invented, using a slightly more advanced version of the Venturex Coil. One of the development teams trying to apply the technology to an ICE downsized their innovation, and found that they could create a contained laser field that would function like a sword. While physical weapons are better at puncturing beam shielding, they get sliced apart by a beam saber if some foolish pilot were to attempt to duel an enemy wielding a beam saber. Some tried to apply beam shielding onto their physical weapons, but they found that it made them even less effective at slicing through beam shielding than a beam saber, due to the interactions of the two energy fields.

Physical bullets are available, but are about as effective as laser beams at cutting through a Stritium shell, and are more expensive than buying more ammo packs for a laser weapon.
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The Void of Space
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Although ICEs are labeled partially as exploration units, and can function as such in delicate situations where ships are not efficient, they are mostly meant for combat. It is considered foolhardy to travel the galaxy in just an ICE, especially since they aren't capable of warpspeed like most ships are. In terms of expenses, ICEs are a large purchase (think a boat) but affordable with taking out loans and treating it like a business. Or you could just be rich or have skeevy connections in the FEU or the black market. Maintenance is actually fairly cheap, as Stiritum is easy to produce, and many voyager crews include ICE maintenance as part of the pay for pilots.

When it comes to piloting an ICE, a pilot's skill level actually has multiple tangible skill levels, determined by their ability to lead their machine through complex maneuvers. The majority of actions an ICE can take are actually automated - already programmed into the machine. All of the pre-programmed piloting maneuvers are referred to as 'Macros.'

When ICEs were first developed, all of the test pilots found that manual control was far too difficult, so the Macros were made to simplify the process. For example, without a Macro, a pilot would have to lift a machine's arm, reach backwards, align the hand with a rifle, grip the rifle, move the arm back, aim the rifle forward, and then fire the trigger just to fire forward. With a Macro, that action is condensed into pressing one button to grab your rifle and fire.

As a pilot uses fewer and fewer Macros and gets closer to pure manual control, the higher their skill level goes: from C to B to A. A class pilots are considered aces: they barely even use Macros at all, controlling their machine like their own body. Controlling every aspect of an ICE's motion gives them much greater finesse over their machine's movements. A B class pilot is the middle ground between an A class pilot and a C class pilot, and C class pilots tend to be completely average pilots who use simple Macros like the one described above.

There are also D class pilots, but they are people who have literally no idea what they're doing and probably shouldn't be in an ICE in the first place, since they'll just endanger themselves and everyone around them. Most actual pilots today tend to be C and B class pilots, since the majority of A class pilots are veterans from the great war, and most of them are dead, retired, or too expensive for you.
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