Jay replied to me: > > But what about Earth? If the UEO had the resources for one > > ship > > the size of the SeaQuest, why couldn't they cover the > > oceans with > > specialized vessels? > > Notice that in Seaquest, we never, ever saw helicopters, the natural > enemies of Submarines.
I wonder if that can be explained by a sufficiently high TL. Extreme Sound Baffling from VXi26 improves by -4 per TL, while the dipping sonar has a maximum scan 21 at TL7-8 an 22 at TL9-12. That means sonar is dead and ladar is the way to go. Depending on your choice of optional rules, you need a really big sensor, but the rules allow that. Really big ladars could go into orbital ladar sats, not helicopters. Last but not least, by TL8 or even TL7 submarines can shoot back at helicopters. > SeaQuest really wanted to be Star Trek, but more Politically Correct. Or you notice the PC more, because it is closer to the real world. Trek got pretty preachy at times, too. > Depending on the tastes of your players - perhaps they could play > Eco-terrorists scavenging machines and weapons to damage the corporate > exploitation. Not mine. Tom Sparks asked two weeks ago, but I was busy with the battlesuit. More thoughts: * 160 knots on aquajets (hydrojets) are completely beyond the Vehicles rules, and supercavitation doesn't look good until it is combined with TL11 reactionless thrusters. * Biomech structures are TL9. From the look and feel, I would have put SeaQuest at TL8. Once upon a time I did a batch of little TL8 subs that could serve as subcraft, too. OTOH, writing the little ones again at TL9 would be a new project. * At a first glance Uplift covers cetacean crewmembers, but those dolphins were gengineered to breathe oxygenated water. Perhaps the best way would be to subsume them in the dry dock stats. No rule says that dry docks can't open to the bridge, or that they have to be emptied completely. Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
