ARMY
Marksman
Free-Electron Laser Sniper Frame
Ultra Consortium sniper frame. Its right arm is a free-electron laser as tall as the frame, an electron accelerator whose beam is turned into light: swung up to the shoulder, fed from the four capacitor cells in its breech block, and loosed as a single burst. Its heat goes into a deep-cold clathrate block in the breech, which fogs the air about it.
01 · Speed
On foot, in the air, on its thrusters
Its thrusters push 1,686 kN, 2.6 times its weight: flat out at sea level it reaches Mach 0.63.
02 · Combat
One frame, fielded alone
One frame at base rank, from the battle sheet; ranks strengthen hull, shield and damage.
03 · Weapon
High-energy beam laser
High-energy beam laser
Free-electron laser arm · flat beam
Fed from the four capacitor cells in its breech and loosed as one burst: a blade of light the width of its slot mouth, on its mark the instant it fires. Light has no recoil; the heat of the shot goes into a deep-cold clathrate sink that fogs the breech.
Fire cycle · one frame over 18.6 s
2,329 an attack every 3.1s: 751 a second. Six attacks land 13,974 from one frame.
What lands · by distance through air
Sea-level air. In vacuum, nothing takes from it: it lands whole at any range.
Reach against the other units
04 · Available tech
What a commander can fit
Bought mid-battle with supply, for one frame. Each one gives something and costs something.
Core upgrades · 4
Adds a +50% outer targeting band. Attacks, repairs, and boarding channels operate at 55% output beyond native range, and armed squads hold that safer line.
Converts the squad into a breacher: it closes to 45% range and deals +60% damage there, but deals 15% less outside the breach band.
No single hit can strip more than 30% of maximum hull after shields. Mobile units lose 12% thrust; static emplacements lose 18% maximum integrity. Strong into alpha strikes, weak into rapid fire.
Burns at +65% speed while marching or closing on its chosen standoff, then disengages in combat; turn authority is halved during the burn.
Marksman signature tech · 8
Consortium doctrine is to close. The Marksman's accelerator is recut for short, hot bursts and its thrusters carry it into the line: a 1.86 s cycle and a fifth faster on its feet, for a reach of 8.4 km. It fires on whatever is nearest instead of waiting for a heavy mark.
Marksman trues its beam with optics built for a megastructure's spans across Saturn's rings: it reaches 17.5 km, and cannot bring it to bear on anything inside 3.5 km.
Marksman empties all four breech cells into one mark: 4,076 damage to a heavy, assault or titan frame, on a 4 s cycle while the cells refill.
Marksman looses its cells two at a time: two beams a volley at 62% each, on a 3.5 s cycle. More in all, and neither of them a killing shot.
Marksman opens its slot mouth to its full height. The flat beam cuts through every frame in line behind its mark and spares allies in the lane: how a Consortium line breaks a formation before it closes.
Marksman lays a beam the way Ultra fleets lay mines. It is let bloom on its mark and burns everything within 600 m, less the farther out, for 10% less on the mark itself.
Marksman hangs armour plate from the Titan yards on both shoulders, turned to the enemy. It takes 950 points of return fire across the forward 72°, and its weight costs a tenth of the frame's pace. Fire from the flank goes past it.
Marksman shares its gunner's sight with its clone batch down the line. Cloaks within 7.7 km are stripped, and what is revealed is marked for allied fire at 8% more damage.