Blackwasp Mk.30N
Mass: 50 tons
Frame: Unknown
Power Plant: 240 Fusion
Cruising Speed: 64.8 kph
Maximum Speed: 97.2 kph
Armor: Primitive Fighter
Armament:
1 Binary Laser (Blazer) Cannon
Manufacturer: Unknown
Primary Factory: Unknown
Communication System: Unknown
Targeting & Tracking System: Unknown
Introduction Year: 3157
Tech Rating/Availability: D/X-X-X-F
Cost: 2,241,875 C-bills
Overview
One of the primary roadblocks to the Niops Association's efforts to rebuild its militia's defensive forces was that, even by 3150, the Association didn't just have issues with its technological base, but, thanks to deaths during the Jihad, the population still had not fully recovered to pre-Jihad levels, and shortages of trained personnel in nearly every key industry could be keenly felt, not just in the military.
The Niops Association Militia had opened an academy to train their next generation of soldiers, but expertise took time to build, and there simply weren't enough troops to go around. This was especially problematic for aerospace forces, who would shoulder a large part of the burden of stopping any incoming invader. Saturn and Independence class patrol ships were only part of the solution, and required trained crews of their own. The less said about their Cruiser project, the better. Niops needed fighter pilots, and would need fighters to put them in, but presently didn't have enough of either.
Niops was known, however, for occasionally ridiculous solutions to common problems, and expanding their aerospace fighter corps would prove to be no exception: why not build a fighter that didn't require a pilot?
Capabilities
How Niops happened to have a pair of original Mk.30 Blackwasps is not entirely clear. But, then, it's not entirely clear how Niops managed to build Nighthawk powered armor a century earlier, either.
What's clear, though, is while they had examples of the Blackwasp, they weren't working examples, with their fusion engines inoperarable. Further, while efforts to rebuild the Niops Project Workshops were going well, there was no conceivable way they could rebuild the 250-rating fusion engines of the originals (as much as they might like to).
The good news was that the 240-rating engines that the Project Workshops were beginning to manufacture for their variant of the SHD-1R Shadow Hawk (and downrating for their variants primitive-tech Thunderbolts), and testing on the more intact spaceframe showed that this engine could drive the Niopian Blackwasp at reduced thrust when compared to the original.
Another problematic area for Project Workshop engineers was the standard-grade armor plating of the original. The primitive Project Workshop armor alloys offered only 66% of the protection per ton compared to the original's armor, but adding 50% more armor mass to the Blackwasp's frame proved untenable, resulting in a significant reduction in protection.
The original Mk.30 carried a single nose-mounted medium laser with an extended-range large laser in each wing. Duplicating this was impossible. Two reduced-tech "primitive prototype" large lasers could be mounted instead, but providing enough heat sinks to use them both was not. Swapping the arrangement to a single large and twin medium lasers was considered, but heat management was still problematic. In the end, assistance from Ix Shipyards solved the issue, with power distribution and heat sinks sufficient to mount and fire a single nose-mounted blazer cannon proved possible, giving the "Mk.30N" Blackwasp a solid punch at medium range, for both anti-fighter and anti-ship work.
Remarkably, electronics expertise is still intact enough in the Niops Association for reproduction of the robotic control system to not be an issue. Combined with a conventional 5-ton fuel tank, this allows the Blackwasp to remain on station for an extended time.
Deployment
The first domestic-production Blackwasp squadrons have been undergoing shakedowns with the NMDS Independence. Deployment plans include at least a squadron for the NMS Beer Keg of Science!, though the exact method of deployment remains unknown, as the Independence-class patrol ships cannot fit in the cruiser's DropShuttle bay.
Type: Blackwasp
Technology Base: Inner Sphere (Experimental)
Tonnage: 50
Battle Value: 698
Equipment Mass
Engine 240 Fusion 11.5
Safe Thrust: 6
Max Thrust: 9
Structural Integrity: 0
Heat Sinks: 16 6
Fuel: 400 5.0
Primitive Cockpit 5
Armor Factor (Primitive Fighter)117 11
Armor
Value
Nose 30
Wings 30/30
Aft 27
Weapons
and Ammo Location Tonnage Heat SRV MRV LRV ERV
Binary Laser Cannon NOS 9.0 16 16 16 0 0
Smart Robotic Control System FSLG 2.5 - - - - -
