PT-BVRM Pteranodon OXZ
Contents
A Toothless Flying Terror
This week, a Pteranodon is set to soar out of the hidden heart of Galcop's 'Black Labs', our faceless, voiceless inside informant told your favourite reporter earlier today. The name's meaning, in a now-forgotten Terran language, is 'Toothless Flyer'. Fitting for a standoff missile that purportedly will irradiate but won't kill.
On evidence gathered, Galcop is in the throes of a last bid to survive: economizing on manpower and vehicles, downsizing the arsenal drastically, then licensing all its new assets out to civilian contractors, our Vault Whisperer strongly intimates.
And their darkly innovative PT-BVRM Pteranodon is already third in a line - or suite - of licensable weapons.
But PT is unquestionably the most frightening. It scares the Giles out of us because it will never be seen, detected, or known about by its victims, whose vessels will silently fail, ceasing to respond or function in an instant. That's no warning and no bang, Tuners. Nothing, or very little, on a viewscreen, port, or scanner. Our Black Lab-Rat goes on:
"The PT-BVRM was an inevitable outgrowth of the NPB Neutralizer, in turn a child of a bout of intense brainstorming in the R&D think-tank, spurred by a need to curb the increasing and unnecessary slaughter of infracting entities and vessels in ever more lawless systems like Riedquat, Uszaa, Atriso, and a host of others with similar societal and governmental problems: Locales where Police personnel and outmoded vehicles are perpetually spread thinly. Licensing of Galcop assets has come in the nick of time. We now have an experienced vigilante police force of growing confidence and unheard-of power to prevent the escalation of offences via fully autonomous Rider Drones (SDD) and now the Pteranodon, which extends the enforcement circumference to the System as a whole."
We tell our Black Breather that we've grasped the essentials - not a lot of mystique to the term 'standoff weapon'... So PT houses an NPB Accelerator like those now being fitted in alarmingly greater numbers to the luckier Harvesters' mounts. And the bird's NPB, in split-second sequence, curdles the innards of all ships in its scanner environs (not just the 'primary'), stopping them in their tracks and making them instant towbar-fodder. 'Win-Win', right, nobody dies?
"Fatalities from a direct neutral particle beam's effects are rare, those that have, regrettably, occurred more often down to collateral interior energy-damage and fires, also small explosions inside critical systems; more rarely failure of life-support. The vessel as a whole - its hull - remains largely undamaged, but in need of comprehensive refit to become serviceable again - that's engines, laser weapons, computers, all electronic components."
There's no stopping this one once it gets into its stride: "Our PT-BVRM outwardly resembles the ECM-hardened missile in every respect except size. Pteranodon's a lot bigger. Triple the mass of a conventional missile. It needs to be, in order to comfortably house the Particle Accelerator, state-of-the-art AI guidance systems, and a vastly more powerful drive. It easily attains speeds twice that of the ECM Hardened. It can cross a System in ten minutes."
A picture starts to form of a Harvester 'standing off' near a Station or a Witchpoint marker, targetting, then launching a Ptera, and sauntering off for a snack while far out in the blackness a group of hapless ships become ghosts. On re-seating itself, our gallant commander yawns as the list of the incapacitated skitters greenly down the main display. It's 'mop up' time again. Charming image to lay us down to sleep on, is it not, Tuners?
"So we'll choke on fumes of roasting circuitry, gasp for any breath in a cold system-less dark, or be slowly crisped by 'resultant fires' in the cabin?" we query, for nothing more than confirmation. Do we imagine a short nod from the shadow? Nothing else to add? - The murky smear flickers off the holo. And we're left with only our Tuners.
We suddenly know how we'd prefer to go: In a blaze of defiance under the beam lasers of some honest Jameson.
--Tea Mereso, retained freelance, Xexedi Enquirer - Telling you what you need to know when you need to know it.
Insider Technical
[Included for those among our dear Tuners who aspire to be, or are already, Harvesters equipped with those oh so enviable Galcop credentials. For nay, the above snippets were far from all that our obliging source spilled to your devoted go-between... Notes are passed along exactly as received.]
ARMING of the Pteranodon's launcher is accomplished by accessing your onboard system's F5 screen and hitting [A] (shift+a).
LAUNCHING a PT-BVRM missile can be made to happen in different ways:
- 1) Press [i] on the F5 status screen after arming.
- 2) Press [i] in flight after arming. On PT-launch, this will briefly ignite your injectors, but on subsequent pressings, injectors will burn without hindrance.
- 3) Prime the equipment in the normal way if your HUD is set up for using primeable equipment. Viz. Press [N] then [n] after arming in the normal way.
PT-BVRM Operations and Behaviour
Once the package is successfully launched, an operator need do nothing.
All targeting is handled by the Police SDD-Network. The nearest, highest Offender in system will be prioritized. Their group will be irradiated first.
On successful irradiation of the Primary, target will be switched to the next highest on the recorded (and updated) Offender List.
If there are no more Offenders in system range, the Pteranodon will loiter until your vessel comes into scanner range of its sensors, at which a request will be sent for confirmation of reattachment.
Recommended OXPs
Sound choices for those donning vigilante Harvester garb:
The most notable observed effect of this tiny tweak is that ships of class Pirate no longer openly threaten or attack the player's ship. You are essentially transformed into a police vigilante, or proxy copper. Best results with an Asp or Viper!
Galcop's Neutral Particle Beam weapon causes catastrophic internal damage - frying computers, disabling power, knocking out weapons and critical systems - while throwing off little energy as surface heat. A direct hit leaves the target a drifting derelict without triggering fatal explosions of fuel or ordinance.
Flyable and essentially unaltered versions of the Asp Mk II, Constrictor, Fer-de-Lance, Gecko, Krait, Mamba, Sidewinder, Viper, Viper Interceptor, Worm, and Transporter. Those ships originally sans Hyperdrive now have one; those without cargo space remain without. Newly rationalized prices applied.
FE Shipyards' premier trader/vigilante HUD now integrates realtime tracking of this OXP's closest High Offender in-system. Unzip the file to your Oolite AddOns folder.
Versions
Version 0.0 *Proof of concept - functional, launchable, trackable, integrates with SDD.
Quick Facts
| 1 |
| Version | Released | License | Features | Category | Author(s) | Feedback |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.0 | 2026-05-22 | CC BY-NC-SA 4 | Enhances Combat | Weapons OXPs | Reval | N/A |
