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Description
Professional Military Solutions Corporation is an up-and-coming mercenary firm that focuses on providing naval asset support for independent system garrisons, ground-oriented mercenary companies, and to engage in high-threat counterpiracy and marauder eradication operations. As the core of the company’s asset profile is based around their ships, it made perfect sense for PMSC to invest the 1.2 billion credits to construct their own shipyards and armaments factories to produce vessels ranging from fighters to battlecruisers. This is one of those vessels.
Due to the large number of Namaran pilots within the company, the designers wanted to create a fighter that could be flown by Humans and Namarans, but also be able to make the best use of the Namaran’s superhuman agility and perception. To achieve that, the engineers stepped outside of the box a bit and looked at the maneuverability dynamics of conventional gravitic drives. In general, the location of a gravitic drive is somewhat less important than older pulsed fusion drives, largely because of the bubble effect. This is the principle where the entire craft is enveloped in the gravitic field of the engine in a fashion not unlike a bubble, and the bubble itself moves with the vessel being relatively static within.

In his research, chief engineer Kurtis Rayburn noticed that the midship placement of the primary maneuvering and propulsion gravitic drives in the Spartan Group mercenary company’s Xyphon-class frigate was directly responsible for that ship’s legendary maneuverability. Studying the interaction between the fields, he determined that it wasn’t the midship placement, but the interaction between the fields generated by the four primary engines spaced equilaterally around the vessel in the engine nacelle ring. Further research into this led to a more streamlined and scaled-down engine layout designed for a fighter to allow it to outmaneuver just about anything else out there. And thus, the unusual quad-wing design of the Talon was born.

The Talon is armed with five primary energy weapons- four wing-mounted 80mm pulsed AP lancers and a spinal-mount 130mm heavy APPC with the barrel emitter in the bow. The use of anti-proton particle weapons in a fighter obviously requires additional polarity inverters to convert hydrogen taken in through the ramscoops into anti-hydrogen, and then refine this into charged particles which fuel the AP weaponry. However, in the case of the lancers the wings proved to have sufficient room to fit these systems in amidst the reinforced superstructure and microreactors, allowing each wing to act independent of the rest of the craft. The end result- disabling one wing, or even the primary reactor in the main hull, does not cripple these weapons.

The Talon is primarily an interceptor, which are normally light on missile payload. Missiles in 24th century combat are primarily anti-ship weapons, largely due to the relative lack of maneuverability and the significantly deadlier yield being wasted on a fighter. However, the Talon carries a payload of twenty SRMs and eight LRMs, far more than most interceptors, housed in the main body in a cylindrical magazine around the APPC spinal. The launch ports for these missiles are two fore, two aft, both in the ventral hull. This fore-and-aft dispersion allows the Talon to fire SRMs at pursuing fighters without the usual launch-to-contact delays due to missile aspect changes.

Nor are the aft missile batteries the only defensive capabilities of the Talon. In addition to its phenomenal agility in both space and atmo, it has an aft-mounted 40mm AP lancer turret for missile defense and counter-fighter fire, as well as a short-range FragMaster disruptor cannon designed to wreak havoc with the electronics of pursuing craft. The electron arrestor and photon attractor fields play hell with even the most advanced non-hardened networks and electronics, and can often disable forward shield generators to soften a target up for the defensive weapons.
The vulnerability of the Talon is an attack from directly perpendicular- either directly above, below, or to the sides of the craft- due to the lack of an omnidirectional weapon system such as dorsal/ventral turrets and the like. However, this vulnerability is common among interceptors, and pilots learn to avoid turning their flanks to an enemy.

Description
Professional Military Solutions Corporation is an up-and-coming mercenary firm that focuses on providing naval asset support for independent system garrisons, ground-oriented mercenary companies, and to engage in high-threat counterpiracy and marauder eradication operations. As the core of the company’s asset profile is based around their ships, it made perfect sense for PMSC to invest the 1.2 billion credits to construct their own shipyards and armaments factories to produce vessels ranging from fighters to battlecruisers. This is one of those vessels.
Due to the large number of Namaran pilots within the company, the designers wanted to create a fighter that could be flown by Humans and Namarans, but also be able to make the best use of the Namaran’s superhuman agility and perception. To achieve that, the engineers stepped outside of the box a bit and looked at the maneuverability dynamics of conventional gravitic drives. In general, the location of a gravitic drive is somewhat less important than older pulsed fusion drives, largely because of the bubble effect. This is the principle where the entire craft is enveloped in the gravitic field of the engine in a fashion not unlike a bubble, and the bubble itself moves with the vessel being relatively static within.

In his research, chief engineer Kurtis Rayburn noticed that the midship placement of the primary maneuvering and propulsion gravitic drives in the Spartan Group mercenary company’s Xyphon-class frigate was directly responsible for that ship’s legendary maneuverability. Studying the interaction between the fields, he determined that it wasn’t the midship placement, but the interaction between the fields generated by the four primary engines spaced equilaterally around the vessel in the engine nacelle ring. Further research into this led to a more streamlined and scaled-down engine layout designed for a fighter to allow it to outmaneuver just about anything else out there. And thus, the unusual quad-wing design of the Talon was born.

The Talon is armed with five primary energy weapons- four wing-mounted 80mm pulsed AP lancers and a spinal-mount 130mm heavy APPC with the barrel emitter in the bow. The use of anti-proton particle weapons in a fighter obviously requires additional polarity inverters to convert hydrogen taken in through the ramscoops into anti-hydrogen, and then refine this into charged particles which fuel the AP weaponry. However, in the case of the lancers the wings proved to have sufficient room to fit these systems in amidst the reinforced superstructure and microreactors, allowing each wing to act independent of the rest of the craft. The end result- disabling one wing, or even the primary reactor in the main hull, does not cripple these weapons.

The Talon is primarily an interceptor, which are normally light on missile payload. Missiles in 24th century combat are primarily anti-ship weapons, largely due to the relative lack of maneuverability and the significantly deadlier yield being wasted on a fighter. However, the Talon carries a payload of twenty SRMs and eight LRMs, far more than most interceptors, housed in the main body in a cylindrical magazine around the APPC spinal. The launch ports for these missiles are two fore, two aft, both in the ventral hull. This fore-and-aft dispersion allows the Talon to fire SRMs at pursuing fighters without the usual launch-to-contact delays due to missile aspect changes.

Nor are the aft missile batteries the only defensive capabilities of the Talon. In addition to its phenomenal agility in both space and atmo, it has an aft-mounted 40mm AP lancer turret for missile defense and counter-fighter fire, as well as a short-range FragMaster disruptor cannon designed to wreak havoc with the electronics of pursuing craft. The electron arrestor and photon attractor fields play hell with even the most advanced non-hardened networks and electronics, and can often disable forward shield generators to soften a target up for the defensive weapons.
The vulnerability of the Talon is an attack from directly perpendicular- either directly above, below, or to the sides of the craft- due to the lack of an omnidirectional weapon system such as dorsal/ventral turrets and the like. However, this vulnerability is common among interceptors, and pilots learn to avoid turning their flanks to an enemy.