Name – Shade-class StarfighterClassification – Fast Assault/Stealth
Funding Source – The Imperial Inquisitoriate
Dimensions
: Length – 10 meters
: Wingspan – 6 at widest point
Armaments
-x2 Hurricane Cannons
-x1 Concussion Missile launcher (4 missiles)
(optional) Disposable Rocket pod (20 dumb-fire rockets, under-carriage mounted)
Shields – x1 Chempat-5 Shield Projector (135 SBD)
Hull Material – Military-grade Durasteel
Crew – 1 Inquisitorial Pilot or 1 Centurion series battledroid
Propulsion
- Sienar P-sz9.7 Twin Ion Engine (145 MGLT)
- Sienar P-w702 maneuvering jets
Reactor
- Mk3 “Viper” Supercharged fusion reaction
Additional Equipment:
- Fabritech Vanish 1 Sensor Mask
- Fabritech Emission Filter
- Neural Uplink System
Design Specifications:
As efficient as Navy starfighters perform, they do not suit the purposes of the Inquisitoriate. Standard TIEs are built for the sole purpose of overwhelming the enemy with sheer numbers and are individually weak. On the other hand, the Defender model TIEs, while arguably the best starfighters in the galaxy attract too much attention from enemy anti-starfighter ships.
Using its wide-reaching influence, the Inquisitoriate took aspects from many different manufacturing companies and their own ingenuity to create the Shade. It is small, fast, and as maneuverable, or better, than the Rebel A-wing class of fighters.
What makes these ships uniquely ‘Inquisitoriate’ are the extensive sensor masks and ion emission filters that hide them from enemy scans.
While effective in a dogfight, the lack of an onboard hyperdrive makes these craft a poor choice for deep raids. Instead, the shade’s main purpose is to act as an ambush fighter or to sow confusion amongst enemy ships with the speed and near electronic invisibility.
Design Appearance
As with most Inquisitoriate designs, the Shade is built to affect the enemy psychologically. The entire craft looks like a living machine of sorts, the cockpit, in the form of an archaic leering ‘face’ and scythe-like wings give it the appearance of a deadly predator searching for prey.
Technology Explained
-Mk3 “Viper” Fusion Reactor
Very similar to the Mk1 version carried by the Spectre-corvette, albeit on a much smaller scale. Instead of utilizing the use of two sub-reactors (The Shade just doesn’t have that much space), a series of magnetic accelerators create the mag-field required to supercharge the engine. The resulting effect is only a 125% boost in speed, due to the small reactor’s more limited cooling capabilities; a boost can only be sustained for about 20 or 30 seconds at a time.
-Hurricane Cannons
The Hurricane-pattern lasercannon is essentially a modern, twin-linked version of the ancient autoblaster, the forerunner to the blaster cannon used by soldiers throughout the galaxy. While the autoblaster was a milestone in weapons technology, its function was quite primitive: hurl as many low powered, difficult to aim energy bolts at a target and hope that some would hit the target
Improved focusing beams and more efficient power coils allow the weapon far greater accuracy, strength, and range while retaining the same horrific rate of fire. The dual barrels fire in a rapid alternating sequence to launch a hail of precise laser blasts. However, since both barrels use the same set of power coils, the individual bolts don’t have much of a punch.
-Vanish 1 Sensor Mask
Developed and manufactured by Fabritech, this device combines electromagnetic and holographic transmissions to "hide" a starship from most sensors. This device doesn’t absorb sensor beams but, rather, disrupts them by sending back information on the environment surrounding a starship. The Vanish 1 makes a ship virtually disappear by sending back sensor data about the starfield around it. This does not prevent visual tracking by the enemy and it's effect is dramatically reduced while operating weapons or while the Mk3 Reactor is in supercharge mode.
-Neural Uplink
Throughout the fighter’s electrical systems run a series of optical cables hardwired directly to all the ship’s systems. Pilots with an Inquisitorial issue neural implant can link directly to the ship via these chips and essentially control the ship by thought. Signals from the brain are retransmitted by the neural implant as conventional electrical signals to the various ship systems.
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