Stellar Remover ASGM

A famously powerful and high velocity guided missile of the Cypher Dominion designed for an anti starship role.

This ASGM (Anti Starship Guided Missile) is relatively large but designed to penetrate a large amount of armour through sheer kinetic energy. As such, an extremely high velocity is necessary, along with a very structurally strong warhead which would allow it to penetrate without shattering itself against strong enemy armour. It consists of a very long rod penetrator with a high mass. It requires so much energy to accelerate that much of the turret that they are mounted in is designed to assist the missile accelerate, and as such it is fired out of a cannon. Due to the sheer momentum of the missile, it has famously poor maneuverability which might be used to help it evade enemy CIWS fire by taking a slight corkscrew maneuver or to correct its course in case the enemy attempts to evade it. After it is fired, the missile resembles a large cannon round that was fired at an enemy ship.

The 'Stellar Remover' as it came to be known, is best at destroying ships larger than a cruiser, but might not penetrate the immensely thick armour of a star annihilator or super titan, especially those of the Hyperion Federation, which are made of TGX Composite. Ships of the cruiser class or smaller might not be hit because they are more likely to evade the missile, even under their own power.

After penetration, it will create a hole in a ship large enough to damage a huge number of systems and likely also cause sections of the target ship to depressurise. However, most factions have a form of CIWS weapon that would shoot down missiles before they hit the target, significantly weakening the missile and disallowing it from penetrating. Many factions would fire a smaller guided missile at the Stellar Remover missile as an anti missile missile. It is possible to mess with a Stellar Remover's guidance system using ewar and cause it to miss, like in virtually all guided missiles. As such, like with all missiles, CD captains and commanders have to be careful with its deployment otherwise they might be intercepted, despite the extreme damage that it can cause to the enemy. Also, due to the sheer size of the missile, they can only bring so many and it can only be mounted to ships of the cruiser size class and larger, and even cruisers would need to take many sacrifices to bring it in large enough numbers. When the missile launches, it is often loud enough to hear around much of the ship's interior. Crews dedicated to firing it will hear an alarm before it fires that warns them that the missile is about to fire so that they can wear hearing protection before it fires. Before the tube can be reloaded, the leftover burnt propellant needs to be vented and the tube cleared for launch.

Other factions are terrified of it though, especially the HF because of the low numbers of HF ships relative to other factions, and the Stellar Remover can easily penetrate even TGX composite. Its mere presence might cause morale damage in enemy forces, though the HF sheer will to fight seems to never waver.