Description:
If you were to ask any ten pilots what the Geno Saurer was (im)famous for, you could be assured their answer would be along the lines of: "Its Charged Particle Cannon."

Well...after it became clear that the Geno Saurer's place was on the battlefield, rather than the coliseum, a few pilots who favored the zoid retired, pooled their money, and became a sort of backwoods engineering firm who's goal was to give their two cents by giving the venerable Saurer a few new tricks, to keep it competetive. It would've been a simple matter to add guns or shields or even replace the iconic superweapon with something new but they decided for something new based, in part, on the Expanded Potential Corporation's CSO modification. Instead of temporarily overloading the Geno Saurer's already mutant core the designers turned to an oft overlooked but key system, buried deep within the Geno Saurer: the particle collection system. Be adding new circuits and rerouting the conduits that already exist, a world of possibilities are opened.

In essence, instead of drawing in massive amounts of charged particles as it would for the CPC, the collector system consistently and constantly draws in smaller amounts of these ions, turning them into raw energy, and routing this fresh and even flow of power into systems all across the zoid. The downside is that the system has to have time to build power up; for every second it's allowed to build power the Geno Saurer can benefit from this part's effect for a single second; in other words it's a one-to-one relatonship for the charging and usage of the part.

And what, exactly, are the effects? They're....numerous and touch on virtually every aspect of the Geno Saurer. First, there's speed; the Geno Saurer's boosters surge with power, operating at nearly twice normal capacity propelling the Saurer to speeds of 350kph with its boosters though it's no more or less maneuvable on those jets than it was previously but that brings up the next part, land speed. Even the Geno's land speed is affected as stabilizers and drive systems are supercharged increasing strength, reaction time, and running speed by roughly 50% meaning that not only is the Geno Saurer physically stronger in melee combat but it's faster to react and more nimble as well on top of a 195kph running speed.

Offensively, the Hyper-Killer Claws and Teeth, already the most dangerous uncharged melee weapons on Zi, become even more dangerous as the same ionic energy courses through them, melting armor even as they cut and tear and rip. In long range firepower each of the Geno Saurer's energy based weapons becomes a "demi-particle" weapon which is, to say, that while not true particle beams, the raw energy the guns normally use is laced with a high energy ions, smashing down shields and dealing damage equal to a weapon twice the size though at vastly shorter distances -- the shots lose all cohesion and scatter into a harmless light show past 300 meters.

Most striking though is the armor subsystem; when activated and the energy from the collector system is sent crawling through the special magnite circuitry built into and under the armor it energizes the armor plating: the closer an attack comes to penetrating the armor the greater the energy used to deflect it; it increases on a logrithmic scale. While it won't prevent damage, the Geno Saurer enjoys protection roughly equal to that of a Dibison or the Iron Kong MkII.

Aside from the obscenely high price tag, what's the catch with this part? The sad fact is, this is permanent, as upgrades always are -- no more Charged Particle Cannon now or ever. And while not an EP part in and of itself, this upgrade is entirely imcompatible with internally mounted or permanent parts such as the Pulse Ampilfier or Command System Overload.