This light interceptor is a redesign of the aging F422x Erinyes, keeping roughly the same profile and reactor configuration but with a new hull refitted with modern technology. Compared to its predecessor, the new fighter is much faster, more agile, and better protected. It is also lighter and more compact, making it cheaper to deploy. The vessel has two hardpoints for auxiliary weapons and systems. With a flexible feature set girded by excellent firepower for the price, Vytis excels as a fast picket ship, interceptor, carrier fighter or armed personal transport. The attached archive contains blueprints for three configurations of this ship.
Improvements in reactor efficiency give Vytis better offensive options than Erinyes, although the basic loadout is similar. The two laser projectors have been amplified and switched to a 55% duty cycle burst mode, which gives them similar armor penetration power to the F535x Faris, a ship more than twice as heavy. The fighter has upgraded Mk. V anti-fighter guided missile launchers which do increased damage, particularly to armored targets. The ship also has an anti-missile machine gun in the nose.
The two docking hardpoints on the underside of the hull can be used to expand the fighter’s capabilities. The H-variant is fitted with an automatic point-defense gun and a microlaser. The microlaser is an automatically triggered weapon that shoots a powerful beam of ionizing radiation at the pilot’s computer-selected hostile. It is capable of searing off up to 30kS of shield energy from an adversary no matter their agility before a dogfight even starts. The weapon recharges every 55 seconds and can hit anything in a 0.4 steradian forward arc. The laser can be discarded using an inner-ship remote after firing to reduce mass and frontal profile, and its AI can be activated through the rail system collective tag in the entity structure computer. Once detached, the laser is self-powering and will continue to track and engage targets.
Zaran native torpedo technology is not yet mature but field tests with salvaged Alterintel torpedoes have shown that Vytis takes very well to additional weight and can function as a superb torpedo bomber. The first-strike capability of these systems make Vytis disproportionately dangerous for its size, and a threat even to capital warships.
Defensively the fighter relies on its speed. Featuring the highest thrust/mass of any Zaran ship and a full 50% overdrive system, Vytis can strike unexpectedly, slip through enemy fire and withdraw at will to regenerate its shields. The ion-reinforced shield grid has a good regeneration rate and can wear a hit from an AFGM, but it is still fairly light. Armor plating is thin - minimal plates cover the cockpit and nose only.
The ship’s slim hull makes it suited to carrier operation even aboard smaller frigates, and it is fitted with an AI module. It has USD, but a carrier version is available with a rotated rail docker. The ship has a single jump drive, radar jammer and retractable canopy. Weapons and defensive systems are controlled on panel one, navigation and auxiliary systems are on panel two.
