Advanced General Purpose Octet Mass Driver (Model GPMD8)

Drawing upon experience and favouring general purpose launchers due to their versatility, the NIF has deviced a mass driver system which can launch projectiles against targets. These projectiles include a great variety of missiles, torpedoes, or bombs, making the mass driver work like a hypervelocity missile launcher, accelerating warheads to greater launch speeds than earlier systems, thereby extending missile range by 30% (78 SU).

But aside from auto-loading warheads, the driver can also auto-load and fire flak shells of a wide variety, including cluster, shrapnel, and shaped charge proton warheads or mines. This means that if required, the driver can act like multiple flak cannons, providing additional interception fire against incoming hostile warheads or enemy fighters. With the ship's tractor beams, even external asteroids can be loaded into the driver and fired. Unless the asteroids or debris is magnetically inductive (significant presence of iron or nickel for example), however, the driver cannot utilize hypervelocity mode and will fire at reduced muzzle velocity and range.

For a long time, missiles couldn't be fired at hypervelocity speeds since they aren't built to withstand the acceleration involved. This problem was finally overcome with the GPMD8, which projects a transitory structural integrity field over the missile during launch, enabling the launcher to fire standard missiles.

Name/Type: Advanced General Purpose Octet Mass Driver (Model GPMD8)
Designer/Manufacturer: New Imperial Federation
Designation: Mass Driver
Range: 78 SU (missiles), 26 SU (flak).