Name: Shadow Fox
Alignment: Helic Republic
Family: Fox
Registration Number: RZ-046
Crew: 1
Height: 8.0 Meters
Length: 17.2 Meters
Weight: 100 Tons
Top Speed: 290 kph
Weapons: AZ30mm Laser Vulcan, AZ70mm Electromagnetic Net Cannon, Electron Bite Fangs, Strike Laser Claws.
Special Abilities: Smoke Dischargers, Stealth Systems, Leg Anchors, Multi-Sensor.
Level: 4
The Shadow Fox is one of the more popular Zoids ever to be produced by the Helic Republic. Though it was originally designed mainly to support the Liger Zero, it quickly became apparent that the Shadow Fox was useful for a variety of other purposes. Indeed, the Helic Republic quickly discovered that the Shadow Fox was one of the most customizable Zoids in existence, and can adapt to almost any any situation. It also happens to be extremely fast and agile, roughly as much so as the Blade Liger, and also among the ranks of the sneakiest Zoids every built.
Unfortunately for the Shadow Fox, it has reasonably thin armor for its class, only about halfway between the Lightning Saix and the Konig Wolf in strength. However, it makes up for its lack of ability to absorb punishment simply by avoiding it. The Shadow Fox is amazingly stealthy, almost as much so as the Panther-typed Helcat. In addition to being elusive, the Shadow Fox is reasonably well armed, boasting an AZ30mm Laser Vulcan and a powerful AZ70mm Electromagnetic Net Cannon. This vulpine Zoid has also proved itself in melee again and again, boasting powerful Strike Laser Claws and Electron Bite Fangs. If all that wasn’t enough, the Shadow Fox also has a Multi-Sensor, which allows it to find almost any Zoid anywhere. As I mentioned earlier, it’s a very versatile Zoid.
Weapons:
AZ30mm Laser Vulcan:
The Shadow Fox has a fully automatic AZ30mm Laser Vulcan on its back, placed on an omnidirectional mount. This weapon can really pump out shells, as many as 20 per second, and can strip away even heavy armor with sustained fire. It’s mount also allows it face damn near anywhere (hence the word “omnidirectional). Combined with the Shadow Fox’s maneuverability and the leg anchors, the AZ30mm Laser Vulcan has been responsible for some truly legendary shots.
AZ70mm Electromagnetic Net Cannon:
Mounted in the Shadow Fox’s tail is an AZ70mm Electromagnetic Net Cannon, which can envelop and shock a target. The net itself fires out of a concealed cannon in the Shadow Fox’s tail (as mentioned earlier). The net is initially released in a canister, but it deploys a moment before hitting a target (via some rather nifty proximity sensors, which are based off of the multisensor.) The net then envelops whatever target that’s in its path, shocking, lagging, and perhaps stalling the recipient for 2-4 seconds. Extricating oneself from the net can also take a second or so. Note that once the AZ70mm Electromagnetic Net is fired, the Shadow Fox must rearm before it can fire another one. Also, due to its positioning, the net can only hit targets behind the Shadow Fox. Lastly, the net canister is dumbfire and strictly short range. While there’s no specific effective distance of the net gun, closer is better.
Electron Bite Fangs:
Sometimes, the Shadow Fox will find that its main guns lack the stopping power to prevent an opponent from reaching melee range. That’s where these come in. The Shadow Fox’s fangs -- that is, teeth -- can siphon to energy from the Zoid Core to pseudo-charge themselves, increasing their cutting power almost as much as if they’d been charged with a system similar to the Strike Laser Claw. This makes the jaws excellent for downing an opponent quickly in melee combat; attempting to bite through the enemy Zoid Control Conduit is an old favorite of soldiers.
Strike Laser Claws:
The Shadow Fox claws certainly look dangerous, but they’re actually among the most dangerous weapons it possesses. Using the same Strike Laser Claw system as the Dark Spiner, the Shadow Fox’s claws (any of the four) can be charged with energy, drastically increasing their cutting power and allowing them to inflict massive damage with swipes and sustained pressure.
Special Abilities:
Smoke Dischargers:
The Shadow Fox’s signature piece of equipment is the series of Smoke Dischargers located throughout and around its body. They’re not rear-facing, like so many other Zoids, and simply spew out thick, black smoke to create a large cloud. This obscures vision, and is great for concealing the Shadow Fox’s real position. While the Shadow Fox can’t see through the smoke either, it has the multisensors to help it out. Also, the smoke only obscures visuals, and does nothing to stop other detection systems, such as IR Sensors. As a last note, firing the Shadow Fox’s weapons can create muzzle flashes in the smoke cloud, which may give away its position.
Stealth Systems:
The Shadow Fox has a number of Stealth Systems to keep make it the sneaky fox-typed Zoid it is. This encompasses a wide variety of various trinkets, all of which combine to make it worthy of the term “nifty”.
Optical Camouflage:
This is the big one. The Shadow Fox’s Optical Camouflage allows it to vanish at will. Well, not really vanish. Unlike the light-bending Optical Stealth Shield, the Shadow Fox’s camouflage merely work’s like a chameleon’s, changing the skin color and image to look like the image on the other side. There is a noticeable blurring effect, as well as an outline remaining, but both tend to break up when the Shadow Fox moves. There are a few other items of note: 1) Whenever the Shadow Fox fires a ranged weapon, it decloaks for a fraction of a second. 2) If the Shadow Fox is hit with any fire to any one spot on its body, it will decloak for a fraction of a second. However, since the Optical Camouflage is a combination of internal systems and special paint, it’s difficult to outright destroy.
Noise Suppression:
The Shadow Fox is coated with noise bafflers and other noise suppression equipment, which it makes it nearly silent. (The guns on the Shadow Fox are not noised suppressed.) Essentially, you can’t hear the Shadow Fox. However, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear, the Noise Suppression won’t stop a Heartbeat Sensor from finding the pilot.
Footprint Scrubbers:
There is, unfortunately, still one obvious way to locate the Shadow Fox: by its footprints. No problem. It can get rid of them. The Footprint Scrubbers wipe away the indentations of the Shadow Fox’s tracks, but don’t get everything. Generally speaking only 90% get wiped on normal ground, and only 50% get wiped in mud or snow. In long grass, the Footprint Scrubbers will --yes, you guessed it -- try to unbend the blades of grass the Shadow steps on, but only roughly gets 20% of them. Not necessarily a piece of equipment to rely on, but useful nonetheless.
Leg Anchors:
The Shadow Fox has a system of Leg Anchors in each of its legs. Each anchor can be used to moderately increase stability and reducing shaking while running, or can be locked down to provide the stability necessary to fire heavy weapons. Though not necessarily strong enough to keep the Shadow Fox planted against a charge, to keep another Zoid pinned, the Leg Anchors can allow the Shadow Fox to stay at angles that it really shouldn’t be able to. The extent of the Leg Anchors is allowing the Shadow Fox to stand on a 90 degree -- completely vertical -- incline and shoot from there. That combined with the omnidirectional nature of the AZ30mm Laser Vulcan allow shots and angles of attack that no other Zoid can achieve.
Multi-Sensor:
As far as sensors go, the Shadow Fox cheats a little. Just a little. It uplinks to (read: hacks into) various ground sensor stations and satellite systems that have the battlefield in their sensor range, and uses their resources to find its opponents. This includes any number of little “tricks” such as and triangulating an enemy’s position based on its communications chatter, or even (during a sanctioned battle) take advantage of the sanctioned Zoid Battling registration system, and leech the data the judge uses to keep track of everything. What I just listed is just from satellites, and is available anywhere in the world. If there’s a sensor station nearby, with say... 3D Doppler Radar, the Shadow Fox can leech that as well. Somehow, (there are theories that this involved several large bribes) the Multi-Sensor was approved for use in sanctioned Zoid Battling. However, this system can’t hack into other Zoids and can’t transmit data. Also, if communications are being jammed on the field of battle, the system may become useless without friendly ECM support.
Available Modifications:
