Parallaxian is a stunning new game in development for the Commodore 64 and The C64 and, in native mode, for the Commodore 128.

Meet the Figment

Your craft, the DOT S-1000 Figment V/YCV, is a Yaw-Configured Vehicle (YCV) with a Vertical Take-Off / Landing (VTOL) capability, designed chiefly for air defence with secondary low level close quarters “mopping up” combat and downed pilot rescue / retrieval operations, a mission it increasingly became tasked with towards the end of the Laser Wars back on earth.

Being a previous generation design, the Figment lacks the cutting edge propulsion technology and hyper agility of its successor, the DOT-HK2000 Hunter-Killer, but is regardless a highly capable craft and was the Directorate's only viable option for Operation Condor, given the urgency of the crisis on the micro-planets and the need for a manned (and thus non-AI-hackable) interdictor aircraft to penetrate and engage the Dotbot forces.

A two-seater layout, the Figment is powered by a high intensity ion-bath fuel cell driving twin air-breathing hyper compression engines with low thermal latency afterburning capacity and thrust vectoring, enabling it to perform high-g turns and tailsliding manoeuvres within tightly confined arcs.

Its fuel cell also projects a powerful ion-plasma shield around the airframe, reducing its radar cross-section considerably (thus obviating the need for stealth contouring) and, more importantly, it cushions both kinetic and energy weapon impacts.

Also fuelled by the aircraft's ion-bath cell, the primary weapon is the Laser War staple and go-to heavy weapon, the DOT-MPLas-XX, a micro-pulse energy canon that works by ionising an airborne pathway to its aim point in an instant before unleashing a high voltage supercharge rippled pulse along that pathway, somewhat mimicking the effect of real world lighting strikes, but in a controlled, linear fashion.

After the DOT-MPLas-XX was developed, its designers found a lightweight and uncomplicated way to channel the laser energy into explosive plasma bombs that could be dropped from the Figment, thus affording a secondary weapon at minimal additional development cost that expands the aircraft's tasking boundaries.

On the negative side, the Figment's greatest point of failure in terms of its design has always been the endurance of its fuel cell, which must be recharged regularly to maintain mission operability. Activating the laser or plasma bomb will deplete the fuel cell, as will absorbing impacts, but the Figment's instrumentation provides warnings when energy is low and a recharge is needed. That shortcoming aside, the Figment remains a formidable mission platform on which the entire fate of the micro-planets and the hopes of the Directorate rest.