Hehe, typhoon subs beware. As you say heavily armored, is he entirely covered or do he have anything exposed? (As in a full plate arour or not quite a complete set)

With all the armour sets locked together and sealed, he has no parts exposed. Weakest point would be around the melon, which is made almost like the orca's original skin, only thicker and a little harder. That way to minimise interference or distortion of any kind to the ultrasound and sound waves produced there.

Question how does it keep its own score?

Same way he rearms, puts on and takes off his suit; Robotic arms back at base or a pod carrier (Augmented blue whale).

intriguing; I notice the enhanced power jaw and heavy armor, but unless those are torp launchers on his back, no long range weapons, just the booster engines on either side of his dorsal, to help deal with the heavy armor. is the sonar enhanced at all to form a beam, or is he just a close combat unit?

Those jaw 'teeth' you see are basically the male connectors for the top and bottom part of the head armour pieces. It is to hold the head pieces securely together when in a ramming run and to minimise damage taken around that part when locked. Also doubles as a deliverer of a very mean bite. And those are torpedo launchers on his back, the armoured side compartments are where the other torpedos are stored like that in a gun magazine. So, he can also engage at range, as well as in close combat. One design reinteration I'm working on is extra jet engines on his flukes to help the orca maintain their famous speeds despite the bulky armour. The sonar is not really enhanced, as there already isn't much to enhance on what is already a very good system. The armour only seems different there as a compromise had to be made between echolocation capabilities and defense, of course with an emphasis on the former.

Ah, excellent: And you're right about the sonar working fine already, but if you integrated pressurized synthetic fatty fluid in the melon-cover, it could actually serve as an amplifier; give longer range and accuracy, as well as make the pings more discerning. One of my little side hobbies/projects is designing fictional sonic weapons*blush*

the clip-fed torp launchers are also excellent ,are they self homing, or guided by whistles from him, like the wire guidance systems in modern subs?

I'd also recommend using a magneto-dynamic drive for propulsion; could be powered by the suits power supply, also go along the tail rather then requiring propellers, and give better performance, plus be more compact.

Hmm, the sonar enhancements sounds like a great idea to integrate into my other species I plan to do, particularly the longer ranged ones. Will have to credit you for that. :)

As for the torpedos, they can be fired dead straight, self homing by sound or heat, or manually controlled by wire for maximum versatility. Which sort of guidance systems used would also depend heavily on the type or torpedos used. The most common would be the Shockwave torpedos which basically takes advantage of the incompressibility of water to deliver a devastating shockwave from a concussive blast that can do heavy internal damage. Those are usually self homing or dead fired due to their large blast effect radius. There's also the Penetrator and Scatterer torpedos which are kinda self explanatory as the first one is.

As for the jet systems, it'll be quite compact to minimise further interfereing the orca's mobility and overall weight.

Are the eyes exposed or is that a lens over them?

Shown here are the eyes exposed, but when in heavy combat, some armour would extend and cover the eye completely maximum protection, with a slit of super-thick lens to maintain vision.

Could do the whole Metal Gear Solid thing, where Gear Rex/Ray just covers all ocular input completely and gave a visual representation instead.

Yeah, I could go that way too, but I feel having a direct view seems tougher, which would fit the orca. I'd likely try that tech with other species that I plan to do. (Yes, there'll be more)

Now this I support, very neat idea.

Heh, kind of reminds me of a spoof article I read in the onion: "Dolphins develope opposable thumbs, oh shit says humanity"

Thanks!

And heh, yeah, only thing stopping them from outdoing us now would be the lack of manipulating limbs. :P

K'tha-Jon!

K'tha-Jon was a bastard in every sense of the world. That's is a genuine purebred Orcinus orca right there!

Everyone can dream :p

Well, supposedly, at the time of Startide Rising orcas were simply too feral and predatory to properly uplift, so dolphins were chosen over them. K'tha-Jon was a little experiment: an attempt to get the best features of orcas and dolphins by 'back-crossing' them. All the power and size and speed of an orca with a dolphin's amenability to sentience and generally social personality.

It didn't work.

no, he was a hybrid, this one is pure orcinus, though k'tha, I'll admit, was smexy in his own way;)

eheheh ;)

Animals wearing high-tech armor = sick rad

Indeedy!

Will it be easier than Battletoads?

Hah, perhaps. :P Knowing cetaceans, this won't be a one against all kinda game. You'll have a squad to back you up.

Yep. This does have a rather Uplift universe feel to it, only the weapons and armour get alot more sophisticated there (senior patrons routinely use MIV nanotech smart missles, antimatter implosion and hyperspace torpedoes, and other really nasty ultratech stuff -- and that's just for rare cases where they actually go hand to hand!)

Sounds like very neat stuff! Now I REALLY want to find myself a copy of Startide Rising.

It doesn't have examples of the hand to hand ultratech unfortunately -- most of the combat takes place in the space above Kithrup. (Though there are a couple of good examples of ultratech missle combat during the battle).

Nice. I've been wanting to design myself an underwater suit of powered armor since I had a dream involving it.

he looks ready to go to war yay someone is going to get there asses kicked nice