An MIU-43 Rockhound in service with Hounds of Tindalos Interstellar Security, credit to Synne Industries for art
Class: Medium Tactical Strike Morph
Origin: Qhevak
Designer: Tsalal Productions
Mass: 419 kg empty
Length: 2.01 m + 1.1 m tail
Width: 0.61 m
Height: 0.98 m
Armor: Hyperdiamond Adamant + Quantum Dot Smartmatter Outer Layer
Protection:198mm RHA equivalent front, 154mm RHA equivalent sides, 141mm RHA equivalent back, 120mm RHA equivalent top, 96mm RHA equivalent underside, higher vs shaped charges
Power: Superconducting magnetic storage pack, 3.5 GJ stored
Top Speed: 208 kph unloaded running
Offensive Systems:
- AEK-449-D3 Pulse Cannon
- Arm-mounted ordnance pylon, 125 kg capacity
- 500 kW Quantum Dot Phased Array
- 64mm EM tail launcher
Defensive Systems:
- Phased Array ECM
- Active Camouflage
- Anti-Missile Flares
The
Structure
The MIU-43 Rockhound is a combat synthmorph resembling an Earth hound, with four heavy legs supporting an armored central body – the frontal “head” is used for looking and firing the phased array system around corners, as well as providing heavy frontal sloped-armor protection against lasers, and is one of the least-critical systems on the Rockhound. The Rockhound carries a heavy layer of nanocomposite armor protection, consisting of multiple layers of cBC5 metastable polycrystalline diamondoid, with microcrystals of other carbon allotrope incorporated within the diamond matrix to increase flexibility and toughness. Spongy mid-layers containing nanofabrication systems and nanite storage cells are sandwiched within, allowing rapid repair in response to attacks.
The outer armor is coated in a layer of quantum dot smartmatter, which can be charged to take on most molecular forms, and form phased arrays capable of outputting broad spectrum barrage jamming and point defense lasers with outputs of up to 500 kW. The phased array simultaneously provides broad spectrum omnidirectional sensory capabilities, and matching incident radiation with emissions can make the Rockhound invisible between the VUV and microwave ranges. It also carries a 12 kg internal Al-Si phase change heat sink with 7.485 MWs of capacity, enough to mask the waste heat signature at max output for up to a minute.
Underneath the armor is over a hundred kilograms of industrial grade carbon-nanotube muscle, which provide an additional layer of protection past armor and give the synthmorph enormous strength and speed, with a maximum lift of over twenty tons. Each leg sports a high-dexterity five-toed claw for opening doors, carrying loads and finer work.
Offensive Systems
For offense, the Rockhound carries a pair of dorsal turreted weapon pylons - these are normally held close to the hull, but can be extended slightly to fire from cover. The right pylon carries a 40mm diameter mirror-system for the AEK-449-D3 2.5 megawatt heavy pulse laser, linked by fiber optic to the primary free-electron laser system in the inner hull. This laser system is designed to fire 500 kilojoule pulses at 300 RPM, each one composed of 40 nanosecond micropulses fired within a millisecond of each other. Using atmospheric filamentation effects the pulse laser system is capable of drilling through 340 millimeters of armor steel per shot within a 1 kilometer range with the standard 400 nm wavelength, and is effective against armored infantry out to 10 kilometers and unarmored humans out to 20 kilometers or more. The laser system can modulate wavelength for different conditions - 400 nm violet is standard for atmospheric combat, but the system is tuneable from 100 nm VUV for vacuum combat to 1.5 μm for short ranged baseline eye-safe lasing.
The second pylon holds an ordnance mount with a 125 kg capacity, that can hold any ordnance desired – typical options include multi-shot micro-missile packs, heavier ATGM and SAM systems, anti-armor railguns, various less-lethal systems and heavy melee weapons. The tail also mounts an EM launcher system for 20 internally stacked 64x80mm grenades. The launchers typically use a mix of EFP anti-personnel warheads and MAHEM anti-vehicle warheads - other options include airburst frag, stun and thermobaric warheads for use against soft targets, and occasionally 2 kiloton autocatalytic nuclear warheads on more open battlefields where collateral reduction is not a priority.
Power
The Rockhound is powered by a series of superconducting magnetic power storage packs distributed throughout the body storing 3.5 gigajoules of energy, sufficient for long term operations, and can recharge with ambient solar while operating at lower power levels. The powerpack has safe structural margins, but will catastrophically quench in the event of severe damage - it is therefore recommended to eject any pack experiencing serious structural damage immediately.
Pilot Accomodations
The MIU-43 utilizes a standard microframe memristive physical neural network with a volume of 150x9x9 cm and mass of 21 kilograms, capable of hosting a superturing grade mind with a value of 0.71 on the Berram10 scale. This is equivalent to the networked processing power of 700 baseline human minds, which while quite high by the standards of human baselines is practically necessary to contend with the information density of modern infantry warfare. This processing power is normally not spent on a single intelligence - usually roughly half is allocated to the primary pilot, and half to secondary "tulpa" savant intelligences used for sensor processing, targeting and drone control. As with all of our microframe systems, the microframe is capable of networking together with others as long as a sufficiently high bandwith link is available in combat (that's up to you, no promises), enabling extreme levels of coordination within combat units.
