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| RZ-002B Spider Type: Wolf Spider Total length: 15.5 meters Total height: 5 meters Weight: 34 tons Speed: 240 kilometers per hour 66.67 meters per second Equipment: Electrode Fang x2 Multi-Nozzle Spidersilk Spinnerets x18 Anchor x8 Receptor Antennae Infrared Optics HHUD Soundsight Sensory Converter Package Capacitor Grounding System Stealth Measures Armor Description: It’s a good thing this zoid is so nimble, ‘cause otherwise it’d be screwed. The structure is an endoskeleton of titanium and polymer under a sheath of myomer fibers, with a layer of very thin armor covering it all. The armor is covered with small antennae sensitive to even the slightest vibration. The armor is a low-reflection radar-scattering composite, specially angled to reduce radar reflections. It is also very weak, perhaps weaker than even the Guysack’s. The armor leaves the joints exposed, protecting only the carapace, legs, and the abdomen. A major weakness is the undercarriage of the cephalothorax, although the cockpit is located just above the leg joints. Mobility and Power Source: This is a spider. It can go just about anywhere, including climbing vertical faces or even hang upside-down. It can burrow at a half-decent rate – sixty kilometers per hour through most surfaces, although it cannot burrow through rock. The zoid can turn on a dime, able to head in any direction at maximum speed, changing directions with barely a hitch in the eight-legged step. It also has fantastic endurance, able to keep going and going for hours on end, though burrowing is a tiresome activity. The spider’s core supplies plenty of surplus energy, although its tight and streamlined structure leaves almost no room for modification. Thanks to the airtight construction and air scrubbers, the zoid can even go underwater. It has enough air for about thirty minutes. Weaponry and Equipment: Electrode Fang x2 This spider has a nasty set of mandibles. The outer pair are a couple of hooks that swing out and crunch down on the prey, whilst the inner pair are a couple of mechanical arms holding metal pads on the ends, wiring running from them to the zoid’s core. They have an extremely limited reach, requiring that the spider be almost on top of the enemy to bite the foe. Or more than ‘almost’. Standard procedure is for the fangs to grab a hold of the foe, and then the electrodes apply a killing jolt. The stun is usually strong enough to CSF most zoids under forty tons, severely weaken those larger, although zoids over one hundred tons are going to require a great many bites to take out. Multi-Nozzle Spidersilk Spinneret x18 These are a cluster of small nozzles at the tip of the abdomen. They can be calibrated to fire their spidersilk in a number of ways, primarily as a cable or as a sheet. The spidersilk reservoir is behind them, the silk kept in the liquid state until the reservoir pushes it out through the nozzles. The reservoir is large, extending around most of the top of the abdomen – coincidentally providing a measure of protection to the core and the computers – and capable of firing three fifty-meter-long cables. The silk is amazingly strong, capable of holding this zoid suspended in midair or hindering an enemy’s movements. It is also very, very flammable once it hardens. That is why there is a layer of armor between the reservoirs and the rest of the abdomen. Anchor x8 Similar in design to those of the Geno Saurer, these anchors automatically engage when the foot contacts the ground, disengaging upon command to move the leg. They provide the zoid with amazingly good traction. It can also climb vertical faces, and is theoretically capable of climbing on ceilings. Infrared Optics The zoid has six eyes. It has two small eyes in front, then the main eyes above them, two small eyes on the side, and two small eyes on the top. They give it a wide range of view, though it sees in only infrared on top and on the sides. It can switch the main viewpanel over to visible light, thanks to the complexity of the main eyes. The default optical setting is infrared. Holographic Heads-Up Display Because the cockpit is entirely internal, the zoid has an advanced HUD. It creates a computer-generated image of the surrounding area on the viewpanels, although the main eyes are capable of providing live camera feed. The smaller eyes provide feed that has to be processed, resulting in a refined image of wireframe zoids highlighted against a topographically-marked terrain. Receptor Antennae These are amazingly sensitive to sonic vibrations. They are a series of antennae installed all over the exoskeleton of the zoid, providing the Soundsight Converter with the necessary information. There is a direct relationship between how many of them are present and how well the Soundsight Converter works. The decline is logarithmic, meaning that while it’s unnoticeable while up to about forty percent of them are present, it goes downhill real fast from there. Note that the zoid might not actually survive losing sixty percent of the antennae, as the armor is mighty thin and that structure is mighty soft and a lot of them are on the legs. Soundsight Sensory Converter Package This is the thing that the antennae send their data to. A large computer in the abdomen, between the cephalothorax and core, it converts the sonic waves into visual representations. For most, it merely triangulates and calculates out the origin, showing them as a pinprick of light against a black background. Note that even slight air currents count as ‘sound’, so it can show just about anything. Stealth systems are useless against this, as even sound-dampening won’t stop air currents – and even if they did, the pilot would see a black spot against the mass of tiny lights floating in the air. This system cannot be engaged at the same time as either the infrared or visible light optics due to the fact that they take up the same viewports, and the zoid just can’t handle showing them both at the same time. However, the system does have a weakness. Loud gunfire overloads it, resulting in the entire sonic wave being displayed. This effectively blinds the zoid for as long as the soundwaves last. Capacitor Grounding System An old design by amateur engineer Rick Xaratan, this modification was actually intended for use on his own Guysack, after a battle with a Geno Saurer demonstrated the fact that electricity, when used against the Guysack, could prove a potent weapon. Y’know, not like much of anything else isn’t a potent weapon against the Guysack. Thus, he designed a system that provided electricity passing through the Guysack a quicker route to go to the ground than the internal structure of the zoid. He built a series of un-insulated wires through the armor of the Guysack, as well as installing a layer of insulating material underneath the armor. The wires all lead down the structure of the ‘Sack to the feet, rendering the Guysack almost entirely immune to electrical attack. Further testing indicated that installing capacitors inside the internal structure would be handy, as they help manage damaging power surges, further rendering the Guysack protected against electricity. The Midnight City Library took this design and expanded it for mass-production, allowing the modification to be installed on the other bug-type zoids. It cannot be installed on quadrupeds or bipeds because they have a far greater tendency for their legs to not continuously be in contact with the ground. Thus, this design was natural for the eight-legged spider-type, and included as a standard part of the structure. It was considered as a modification, but the fact that the structure couldn’t really be modified safely prevented that idea. Stealth Measures Thanks to the composition and design, this zoid is almost invisible to radar and infrared tracking. It has electromagnetic joints to eliminate noise from them, and even the feet are cushioned against sound. It is quiet and difficult to spot, thanks to a rudimentary optical stealth camouflage system. While not quite on par with the Helcat’s, it does make optical detection a pain. The optical stealth system is tentatively referred to as ‘camo paint’. |