Cost: not for sale must win or capture (Although I personally would prefer to see this as an NPC only mecha, in a higher than we currently have level mission result where a player has to fight only one or two of these with either a full or partial formation)
Upgrade cost: 33 ferrite, 1333 bioptics, 3 niodes
Tonnage: 25
Start Armor: 45
Start Weapons: 3
Minimum Level: 90+ and either incredibly good relationship with the Emperor or the Shadow Clans
Levels/Weapon: 6
Initial Design and Manufacturer: Shifting Shadows Mecha Monastary
Mass Production Manufacturer: Alpha Corporation
Start Weapons: unknown
Build Bonuses: +10 Speed, +1% Crit-Kill, Precision (8), Dodge (7), 25% Laser Vulnerable, 25% Fire Vulnerable, 20% Ice Vulnerable, 17% Missile Vulnerable.
Guesstimated Bonuses at Minimum Level of 90: +91 Speed, +45% 1.5x Damage, +8% Crit-Kill, Precision (70), Dodge (73), 50% Laser Vulnerable, 50% Fire Vulnerable, 43% Ice Vulnerable, 33% Missile Vulnerable, 45% Trample Shield, 45% Fork Shield, 45% Wide Fork Shield
Final Equipment Slots at upgrade level 180: 4 Cockpit, 2 Chassis, 3 Engines
Final Bonuses at upgrade level 180: +171 Speed, +90% 1.5x Damage, +15% Crit-Kill, Precision (132), Dodge (138), 75% Laser Vulnerable, 75% Fire Vulnerable, 67% Ice Vulnerable, 50% Missile Vulnerable, 90% Trample Shield, 90% Fork Shield, 90% Wide Fork Shield
These stats would allow this mecha at level 180 to match a fully equipped level 180 Antithesis for dodge, a fully equipped level 180 Boreas for Precision, and to be able to fire as often as a fully armed and equipped level 181 Fext, it might have to hit them several times to destroy them, unless crit-kill worked, and chances are the larger mecha would only have to hit it once to destroy it but it should be a fight instead of the slaughter that taking same level light mecha even in a larger formation up against BFM is. The reason for this is because it is designed to hunt down and destroy command mecha and assassinate the generals within them.
In April of 3307 several Research and Development Corps formations that were returning from missions on the Jungle Moon of Rizpah were attacked by an unknown mecha. This mecha single handedly nearly wiped out an entire formation of veteran Hoplite pilots in almost fully upgraded mecha. Unfortunately the unknown pilot of this mecha fought to the death rather than surrender or withdraw as Mercenary Commission rules of engagement dictate so we took the mecha as a prize and proceeded to learn as much as we could from it. For more than 8 months we have learned as much as we can about this mecha and are making our findings public for two reasons: first as a public safety announcement to mercenaries operating in Meiji Shogunate and Shegakuji Reaches space; Second we can neither replicate this mecha nor it's weapon systems so we figured there was no more point in keeping it secret. For our classification purposes and because it's the best translation we could get of its actual name… we think… we're calling the mecha the Shadow Blade.
On the fringe ward edge of the Meiji Shogunate is a cold dark star around which orbits a world called "Darkness" (rough translation) upon which stands the mecha-monastary of "Shifting Shadows" (again a rough translation). Early in the 33rd century the Emperor himself tasked the cyber-monks there to create the ultimate stealth mecha. We hope the Shadow Blade was the end result of their endeavors.
The Shadow Blade is powered by a 3rd generation controlled singularity power plant. This not only provides power to the mecha but subtly manipulates the gravitational forces around the mecha. This combined with advanced niode actuators makes it incredibly light on its feet, exceptionally maneuverable and very hard to detect using gravimetric sensors. The power plant, engine compartment and cockpit are surrounded by faraday cages. All power conduits, data lines and control relays using advanced neural-bioptic circuits are also electromagnetically shielded. This makes the Shadow Blade immune to most electromagnetic pulses and when combined with a radar absorbent frame and armor that uses no ferrous metals makes it invisible to magnetic anomaly detectors. It has two operational modes that dictate how its stealth, communications and sensor systems work.
In passive mode the Shadow Blade is practically invisible and senses it's surrounding through its skin. The surface of the mecha is covered with thousands of polygons (most are actually hexagons but some aren't) each of which is made up of radar absorbent material and on the outside is covered in nanite directed nano-tubules as well as a number of electromagnetic sensors and emitters. All of these polygons share data with each other and the central computer creating a phased array sensor and emitter that can see everything from gamma rays to extreme ultraviolet through the visible spectrum to far infrared and very low frequency radio waves. They also allow it to mimic it's environment in almost all of those spectrum allowing it to disappear if not moving and due to a micro second lag still be practically invisible even when moving although a blur may be seen or sensor ghosting. In this mode weapon systems are limited to those that can have their firing ports (also covered in polygons) open and close in a fraction of a second such as some laser and Ice weapons to minimize possible detection. Although at least one highly skilled pilot would even use a melee weapon in this mode but retract it after every strike minimizing the weapons detection.
In active mode the skin of the Shadow Blade goes passive on the polygons outer surface all the nano-tubules are aligned vertically. The active sensor suite includes the most advance Radar, Lidar, Sonar, optical, electromagnetic and gravimetric sensors the Meiji Shogunate has ever deployed. This mode also include an active jamming system that interferes with all radio sensors and communications within a several kilometer radius from the mecha. In this mode weapon ports will stay open as long as they need to be allowing it to use a variety of fire, missile, projectile and even melee weapons. The vertically aligned nano-tubules on the polygons creates a vantablack surface over the entire mecha, hard for the human eye to process as it will absorb all visible light and sensor lasers nothing is reflected, which is very strange when you fire an energy weapon at it and none of the waste or bleed light you normally see from a hit or even a miss is seen. Although this light absorption heats up the polygon they actually convert most of the excess heat from non weapon sources to energy and route it to sensors, the jammers and weapons. The vantablack surface of the mecha is only broken by the open visor for the mechas sensors and weapon ports for weapons in use, all such surfaces are still painted black but at least you can see some details of these floating in a sea of apparent nothingness.
There are some disadvantages to this mecha. The central computer is constantly dealing with thousands of sensor inputs and outputs it takes a highly skilled pilot able to filter out all of this extra data flow and concentrate on fighting and maneuvering when neurally linked. Although the polygons on the surface of the mecha are its best defense the light armor and frame beneath them cannot handle a lot of punishment. Hits by energy weapons of any sort cause excessive heat buildup that the power conversion system cannot handle causing additional damage. Also the Meiji Shogunate has not figured out how to dodge explosions and large area effect weapons so some times the easiest way to hit this mecha is fire area effect splash weapons where you think it is.
Based on our research these mecha are still very rare and are only used officially by the Emperor's own Secret Police or Himitsukei. However our research also indicates that the cyber-monks of the mecha-monastery of Shifting Shadows also has very close ties with the rumored shadow clans to which the Shogun himself, the Damyios, and the Yakuza will turn to and pay for assassinations, which means such mecha may also be in the hands of so called Ninja. Fortunately the Warrior caste of the Meiji Shogunate disdains the use of stealth technology and would consider such extensive use of such technology dishonorable as well as any pilot that uses such technology.
We are not certain who the pilot of the mecha RND captured was working for, nor do we know what weapons are considered stock with such a mecha. The one we captured was equipped for communications surveillance, with computer systems that could decrypt communications signals in real time if the decryption algorithms were know in advance, we hope the pilot learned these from our pilots that they captured (we were unable to recover the missing bodies of our pilots and do not know for sure what happened to them). The implications are that such a mecha could even intercept a communications laser by standing between the sender and receiver, copy the information while sending the same signal to the intended target and the sender and receiver would not know the intercept occurred.
The weapons we encountered deployed on this mecha were as advanced as the mecha itself, they included: A retractable microfilament edged vibroblade, capable of decapitating a mecha or punching through its armor to its core systems; A projectile weapon that would use a combination of gravimetric and electromagnetic accelerators to spin and launch flat disc and star shaped projectiles, some of which were designed as high density penetrators with a microfilament edge, explosives that would detonate after embedding themselves in the target, or release nanodisemblers to eat away at the targets armor; An energy beam designed to hack into and disrupt or take over the target mechas control computer; A missile launcher that could deploy a cloud of sensor blocking and disrupting particles; A variation of the Prince of Irons Iron Chain but used multiple microfilament cables with hooks as well as piercers and a retraction system that could drag a lighter mecha within reach of a melee attack or suspend the Shadow Blade from a surface; And beneath the armored chest plate we found a beam weapon that seemed to be designed to expend all stored and produced energy in a single devastating blast which would not only vaporize mecha but tear up the country side pretty good (we are trying to repair this weapon system enough that we can test fire it, because this is important research for RND… and some of us just really like big explosions)
Legendary Pilots
Based on our research we found limited data on Oroku Yoshi and Hamato Saki. They are the only pilots of this mecha that are talked of by name but we were unable to find any detailed or corroborated information on either of them other than they both may have worked for the Himitsukei and one of them may have forsaken his oaths and become a leader of a Shadow clan, possibly with a foot fetish.
Submitted by Sean Wadey # 356597