Advanced Plasma Burner
Model: Lobic Arms' Phoenix III Heavy Plasma Burner
Type: Heavy plasma weapon
Scale: Capital
Crew: 8
Ammunition: 10 rounds of continuous fire
Range: 1/3/7
Skill: Capital ship gunnery: plasma burner
Fire control: 3D+2
Damage: 9D+1
Cost: not available for sale (at least not to the public. To governments and corporations with the proper liscences it can be sold for ludicrously high prices)
Availabiliy: 4 X
Capsule: The Phoenix III is a weapon based upon plasma torch technology, such as that found in most ship boarding devices designed for forced entry. This weapon employs superheated plasma that can easily slice a ship in half. Like the tools that it is based on, the Phoenix III uses a continuous beam rather than a distinct shot in the manner of turbolasers. Also like plasma torches the Phoenix III has a fairly short range, although it's range is much greater than that of the torches commonly used, because of it's massive size and power. It would be possible to make a plasma burner of the same size and the same power requirements with a much greater destructive capability, but the range would be reduced to the point where it would become effectively useless as a weapon. Indeed, it is known that the Phoenix III can be modified to produce exactly this result. A modified Nebulon-B frigate operated by rebel privateers once used this tactic against a shadowport asteroid base where it was docked. The base had been captured by Imperials 2 days before the frigate docked, and the Imperials were keeping up the appearance of an illegal operation in order to capture as many unsuspecting lawbreakers as possible before word got out. The frigate, one Tourane's Star, couldn't break free of the tractor beams that the asteroid base was holding her with, and so jury-rigged the Phoenix burner on board for maximum power at a range of only 5 meters. The asteroid, which was large enough and dense enough to be impervious to all turbolaser fire from anything short of a super star destroyer, split in half, completely destroying the former shadowport, killing hundreds of Imperial Naval personnel, and marooning others until they were rescued a day later. The Phoenix III, despite it's incredible potential to cause damage, is not a very good seller for Lobic Arms. This is largely due to 3 factors. First the price is extremely high, much more than most corporations, and even governments can justify. Second it is a weapon that has only a limited usefulness due to it's short range, and limited fuel. The third factor is that since the Tourane's Star incident, the weapon has developed some degree of infamy. Ironically the only people who seem to be very interested in the Phoenix III are the New Republic, as they search for weapons that can take out the remaining Star Destroyers fielded by remnants of the Empire. The Imperial-friendly Lobic Arms is not willing to sell to the New Republic. Despite this, the New Republic has gotten it's hands on a few of these heavy weapons through third parties, and is looking into the feasability of aquiring more.
    In game terms when the plasma burner hits a target the difficulty to hit that target the next round becomes one level lower, continuing in this fashion for as long as the burner keeps hitting the target, or at least untill the target moves out of range, is destroyed, or the burner runs out of fuel. Each round after the first in which the burner hits a target the damage of the burner is raised by 1D. As an example, if a Super Star Destroyer were hit for 6 continuous rounds, the burner would cause 9D+1 damage on the first round, 10D+1 damage on the second, and so forth untill the sixth round when it would cause 14D+1 damage. If a burner hit it's target for the full 10 rounds that it can fire, it would cause 18D+1 damage on the last round! Because of the power constraints of such a weapon, it cannot be mounted on anything smaller than a frigate.