On Sat, Feb 13, 2010 at 11:20:45AM +0100, Onno Meyer wrote: >Is radar stealth worth trying? > >* Developing a stealth airframe takes longer than ignoring > this requirement. How will the stealth material react to > reentry? > >* Hiding a TL9- craft against large TL10+ starships with > their powerful sensors could be futile even if stealth > was possible in space ...
IR stealth is a rather more important consideration, I think. Considering the amount of waste heat to be dumped even from a lifesystem containing humans, never mind nuclear rockets, there's simply no point in even trying to hide a spacecraft against the 3K cosmic background. If you have just one target you _might_ manage something along the lines of "coming out of the sun" (or the Earth), but against a fleet, forget it. (This is based on real-world physics considerations rather than VEHICLES.) Looking at the systems in SPACESHIPS at TL8, the options are Orion or NTR - and Orion gets you ten times the acceleration and delta-V. I'd be inclined to stack an Orion-driven fighter on top of a chemical launcher. No energy weapons at TL8 (without ^), nor even railguns, so it'll be a conventional gun or a missile launcher. Size will depend on the enemy's armour. Roger _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
