TL9+ mines should have a means for the owners to deactivate a field they leave behind, so mine-clearing may be best done with signal processing(or better yet, alter their IFF and make it a 'friendly' mine-field that only targets enemies).
I expect that bulldozers would either have a low-velocity/high-thrust mode or a propulsion system that only does low velocity. Without that option you either have bulldozers with a weight/thrust ratio that makes racers look pokey, or they are simply not viable, and bulldozers may have contra-grav but use tractor treads for real work. Construction sites invariably have that little trailer that presumably has either maintenance or blasting supplies in it(it is the one that is usually hung from a crane during off-hours for added security) Seems like an ideal place to keep your cyber-swarms. On the other hand, I suspect cyber-swarms would have difficulty with a constantly-changing construction site if they are expected to maintain lots of vehicles, and could lose a lot of their resources from getting buried when dealing with large earth-movers, making on-vehicle the only semi-safe place for them to be... On Wed, Mar 6, 2013 at 11:55 AM, Onno Meyer <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear GURPSnet, > > I've been wondering what kind of equipment (especially vehicles, > of course) one would give to a very high TL combat engineer unit. > I'm talking about 3E rules for now. > > * The classic engineer missions are mobility (building roads and > breaching obstacles), countermobility (building obstacles) and > survivability (building shelters). Demolition and urban combat > also feature, but you don't always use engineers for that. > > * If you have contragrav at TL12+, mobility and countermobility > look different, but you'd still want those capabilities to > clear starports and similar sites. > > Bridging is out. Bulldozers, graders, backhoes will still have > their place. > > * According to the rules, contragrav vehicles can have bulldozer > blades, but how much thrust do you need to make them viable? > > * Might there be dedicated vehicles with many cyberswarm hives, > or will each vehicle have a few? > > * What is TL12+ mine clearance? What are TL12+ minefields? Does > it differ from EOD? > > * At a first glance, manipulator force screens (VXii22) look > neat, but their ST is too low to matter. > > * Would engineering be a role where bipedal mecha might be > justified? > > Any thoughts? > > Regards, > Onno > _______________________________________________ > GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> > http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l > _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
