Zan replied to me: > > Stealth Shuttlepod, Single Seat Version v1.0 (TL11) > > > Equipment: > > Body: Long-range radio with scrambler; medium-range laser communicator > > with scrambler; 5-mile AESA, LPI; two 5-mile PESAs; 5-mile radscanner; > > surveillance sound detector, level 5; IFF; inertial navigation system; > > two C5 hardened small computers; neural induction field; high-security > > alarm; 0.01 kT self-destruct; 1-man full life system. External: Radical > > emission cloaking; radical sound baffling; radical stealth; intruder > > chameleon; radiation shielding. > > Not much room for luggage! :)
20% of the nominal volume, and 25% of the actual volume. > It would be interesting to build up an example of the kind of sensor net > it would be trying to defeat. Is it designed for smuggling or > intelligence operations against a fully developed TL 11 opponent? Not really. When I wrote the introduction, I didn't want to get too repetitive - the Stealth Shuttle writeup mentions primitive worlds and the Drones talk about first contacts. > Using TL 11 Earth as an example. > > The Sol system at TL 11 would probably have a very large sensor net > watching the outer system for FTL ships, c-fractional mass weapons and > the like. I'm assuming a warp-capable civilization, cf the Stealth Shuttle, so a FTL sensor is a must. FTL radars will have awesome range, and only stealth screens help. On the other hand, FTL radars are active, and there might be a limit how many technobabble beams one wants to pulse over a homeworld. > Earth orbit would probably be very full. Lots of civilian > infrastructure: power satellites, shipping warehouses, residential > housing and shopping and entertainment. > > Lots of scan satellites directed toward Earth just like now only more > so, both government and civilian, with probably the literal ability to > do facial recognition from orbit. This scan ability would be available > to AI or near-AI computer systems. Somewhere you run into physical limits from atmospheric distortions, but generally yes. > Depending on just how much computer ability is available, a stealth > shuttle might find itself vulnerable to detection by its disturbance of > air streams. On the other hand, there would be *lots* of other traffic > doing the same thing. The answer to that is going slow. Ionization wouldn't help, either. > And of course the amount of inter-communication between systems would > matter too. Would the weather system even bother informing Homeland > Security (or whatever they call it). They might call search and rescue or the traffic cops if there is a wake without transponder. > I suppose that even if that was a problem, a stealth shuttle could > mitigate it by following in the wake of a scheduled flight. If it was > close enough to another ship, even a successful sensor roll :) by > Homeland Security systems might dismiss it as a sensor ghost. > -- > Zan Lynx <[email protected]> But you couldn't hide the mothership that way. _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
