The DDS have announced that the Zip cannon, the multi-phasic successor to the Z cannon, has gone into development after several years of theoretical work at DDS Research. The DDS said, however, that they do not expect the weapon to enter service until the end of the decade. The Zip cannon (Z Intra-Phase) is a development of the massively powerful Z cannon that has a multi-phasic beam that should render the beam to defeat an ememy's defenses and then re-phase inside the target destroying it.
DDS Research's Dr Forbidden said it would revolutionalise warfare just like the Z cannon and trans-phasic missiles before it. But he said it would not replace the TP missiles. "A Zip would only be able to tackle one target at a time wheras we are now building ships like the Panther that can fire up to 8 missiles at once, but of course the Zip will be a mainstay weapon that will not have the drawback of missiles... being a finite resource."
Dr Forbidden also spoke about the Panther destroyer. He said that it would not have 2 Z cannons as Janes DDS Weapons have said. "Z cannons (and one day the Zip cannon that replaces it) require a massive amount of energy. Having 2 cannons on one ships would require a larger reactor battery which of course makes a ship more vulnerable. So the Panther will just have one." He also spoke about the Panther's wing-tip mounted missile launcher batteries. "We are looking to having one battery fire forward and the other aft, giving a 360 degree field of fire. Design lockdown will occur in the fall so some details are still to be decided."
