Nuclear Captor Mine

Name:  Nuclear Captor Mine
Notes:  The Nuclear Captor Mine is an anti-ship weapon used by the Imperial Starfleet of the Zodiac Empire.  The mine is a disc in shape with four claw-arms spaced equidistant around the circumference of the device.
These weapons are deployed in the predicted path of a target vessel.  Once armed, the proximity sensors come on-line.  When a vessel is detected, the mine 'launches' itself from its hiding spot and latches on with the claw-arms.  As the device doesn't rely only on a magnetic or gravitic attachment system, this makes them cheaper to mass produce and don't have to worry about non-magnetic hulls or detection by gravitic sensors.
Detonation is triggered by several methods:  motion of the ship it is attached to, a timer, or remote trigger.  There is an external keypad on the disc part of the mine's main body that, if one knows the code, can disable the mine.  However, inputting of the wrong code or other tampering with the device can also result in detonation.
Though nuclear captor mines come in various payload sizes, they are usually enough to cripple, if not outright destroy, the ship they lock on to.
As this weapon requires clamping onto target ships, vessels with shields on-line tend to be more or less relatively safe from being targeted.
Recent work has been undertaken to look into adding a friend-foe recognition system to the Zodiac Empire's nuclear captor mines to help lower the number of 'friendly fire' incidents.
Category:Weapons
Category:Defenses
Category:Technology