Eric replied to me: > If a side has spacelift, then laser communications to satellites or > ships could provide a great advantage in intel.
Hello Eric, that opens several cans of worms: * Are lasercoms suitable to talk with orbital assets? That assumes you know exactly where they are -- no dodging? The ground unit shouldn't be able to track the sat on passive sensors, or enemies can do that, too. * I would assume that a pair of tightbeam coms (likely neutrino coms at this TL) and suitable datalink software can maintain links even between maneuvering vehicles if they send each other corrections. However, this limits the number of 'supported' ground units for each satellite to the number of tightbeam communicators. * How long will orbital assets survive when at least one side brings capital ships into play? I was assuming that troop transports play cat and mouse in the outer system and that dropships dash in with insystem hyperjumps. * You can try to make sats cheap/expendable or expensive/survivable. An expensive/survivable sat is an orbital battle station. It would have powerful sublight thrusters, and probably a small hyperdrive as well. Think insystem monitor. These monitors would duke it out with the invading starships. Cheap/expendable sats would have to be replaced often, either when the enemy takes them out or when their endurance runs out. Why send them all the way to orbit? Better stay relatively low in the atmosphere -- not too low, of course, to stay out of the ground fire. A tricky balancing act. Expendable drones would be a 'good' role for robotic vehicles, where they won't overshadow organic player characters. What is their role? * Commo relay is not an issue, if there are neutrino communicators on the grav AFVs. * Active sensors (especially FTL radar) can see things which passive sensors won't see, but going active is very risky. A good job for drones. Take off, get into position, go active and relay the data as long as it lasts. * Passive sensor drones have a value, too, since they can have a higher ratio of payload (sensors) to size than manned grav AFVs and thus detect before they are being detected. * Should drones be armed? That goes against the 'no warbots' meme for my setting, unless the look-and-feel is more like a remotely operated vehicle. * They could carry point defense, to reinforce the task force net. My current thinking is that drones come in several sizes, and the bigger they are the higher they fly. The largest ones might even be FTL-capable. But none would ever stay in orbit for long. 10 cf, 0.25 tons, look and feel like a Shadow. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AAI_RQ-7_Shadow 100 cf, 2.5 tons, look and feel like a Gray Eagle. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Atomics_MQ-1C_Grey_Eagle 1,000 cf, 25 tons, look and feel like an X-47 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northrop_Grumman_X-47B Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
