Black Globe Generators Help

[Solomani666]

As I now understand Black Globe Generators they will instantly slice through any material that the field intercepts when they are first turned on.

What happens to the matter/energy of the object that was intercepted by the field?

So what about matter that comes into contact with the field AFTER the field has been turned on?

Lets take a small 1 ton mass asteroid for example, say with a 100 km/hr impact velocity:

Will the BGG simply absorb the kinetic energy of the impact leaving the rock or fragments thereof floating in space?

Will it absorb the kinetic energy and also disintegrate the rock?
If so then what is left?
Where did the 1 ton matter/energy of the rock go to?

Same questions as above:
What if I just poke it with a stick?

Inquiring minds want to know...


Also:

Anyone care to estimate the diameters of the various BGG fields on page 65 of HG?

How would you go about calculating the resulting explosive damage after the fact.


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[barnest2]

What happens to the matter/energy of the object that was intercepted by the field?

So what about matter that comes into contact with the field AFTER the field has been turned on?

It is absorbed by the black globe, and transferred to the ships capacitors.

Will it absorb the kinetic energy and also disintegrate the rock?
If so then what is left?
Where did the 1 ton matter/energy of the rock go to?

It will disintegrate the rock. The matter is converted into energy, and transferred to the ships capacitors.

What if I just poke it with a stick?

You no longer have a stick

Anyone care to estimate the diameters of the various BGG fields on page 65 of HG?

Big enough to cover the ship it is carried on
I know that's a bit glib, but since they can be mounted on any sized ship...

How would you go about calculating the resulting explosive damage after the fact.

Explosive damage after what? after the ships capacitors are filled? depends on the size of the ship I would say.

 

[DFW]

Explosive damage after what? after the ships capacitors are filled? depends on the size of the ship I would say.

I believe MT listed damage or something depending on how much power was in the capacitors at the time. Could be wrong and it just destroyed the ship...

 

[rust]

Yep, the entire damage caused by the black globe would be equivalent
to the amount of energy the ship's or drone's capacitors can store, it
just stores the energy from what it absorbs in the capacitors and relea-
ses it in an explosion once the capacitors are filled and overload. Un-
fortunately Mongoose Traveller has no data for the capacitors, so it is
impossible to calculate what the damage potential of a specific black
globe would be.

 

[Ishmael]

I could be wrong, but I don't think it would disintegrate the rock or the stick. It would just drain ALL energy from it. No kinetic energy means the rock/stick stop all motion relative to the field. It drains all thermal energy dropping the rock/stick's temperature to 0K. All of that energy goes into caps which only hold 650MW each so that's not much compared to the total kinetic/thermal energy of anything with real mass.

For it to convert mass directly to energy, the black globe field would effectively be anti-matter and a stray pebble hitting it would quickly overwhelm the capacitors/sinks.

 

[Solomani666]

Yep, the entire damage caused by the black globe would be equivalent
to the amount of energy the ship's or drone's capacitors can store, it
just stores the energy from what it absorbs in the capacitors and relea-
ses it in an explosion once the capacitors are filled and overload. Un-
fortunately Mongoose Traveller has no data for the capacitors, so it is
impossible to calculate what the damage potential of a specific black
globe would be.

You are talking about the explosive effects after the fact.

Shearing out 1 or 2 sections of the ship (or cutting it in half!!!) is a sure kill regardless of the ships size.

The resulting explosion is really just a demoralizing factor to the enemy.

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[DFW]

You are talking about the explosive effects after the fact.

Shearing out 1 or 2 sections of the ship (or cutting it in half!!!) is a sure kill regardless of its size.


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No, it stops working ONCE it absorbs too much. NOT after. So, if the capacitors aren't large enough, only partial "shear" or, whatever.

 

[rust]

GURPS Traveller has a very simple rule for the black globe. Its capacitors
have a storage capacity in hit points, and once the black globe has absor-
bed or done this amount of hit points, the capacitors explode, doing that
amount of hit points.

For example, if the capacitors can store 100 hit points, they will explode
and do 100 hit points of damage once the black globe has absorbed or
done 100 hits points of damage. If the capacitors can store 100 hit points
of damage, a black globe hitting a ship will do those 100 hit points of da-
mage, and then the capacitors will explode and the black globe cease to
exist.

By the way, this makes the design of a black globe drone slightly difficult,
because the capacitors have to remain protected in order to keep the
black globe active until they overload. Just hitting an enemy ship with the
drone will not do, because the impact would destroy the capacitors, and
the black globe would not work at all.

 

[Solomani666]

You are talking about the explosive effects after the fact.

Shearing out 1 or 2 sections of the ship (or cutting it in half!!!) is a sure kill regardless of its size.


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No, it stops working ONCE it absorbs too much. NOT after. So, if the capacitors aren't large enough, only partial "shear" or, whatever.

NOTHING stops immediately.

The question is:

How long does it take the for field to form compared to the amount of time it takes for the resulting energy acquisition and explosion to overload any capacitors and then destroy the generator. This may take a very long time compared to the field effects of the BBG.

Many weapons work on this principle hence the use of kryton switches in some nuclear weapons. (The switches all need to be deployed before the resulting chemical explosion destroys the switches.)

The capacitors may actually absorb a hundred or more times their capacity in the process, but it still takes a finite amount of time before they actually 'blow up'. Just enough time for the BGG to finish it's shearing effect.

At TL16 I am sure that some 'mad scientist' has solved this problem.

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[barnest2]

Okay, son lets assume the shearing effect will work, and will work once.
You still have the problem of getting your globe to the target...

 

[rust]

NOTHING stops immediately.

The black globe field ceases to exist at the moment when it can no lon-
ger transfer energy to the capacitors, just like the lights turn off the mo-
ment you interrupt their power supply - only in reverse.

The next problem would be the size of the drone - as the black globe can
only do as much damage as the capacitors can store, one would need a
rather big drone to transport capacitors big enough to do significant da-
mage - more like a small starship than a normal drone.

 

[Solomani666]

By the way, this makes the design of a black globe drone slightly difficult,
because the capacitors have to remain protected in order to keep the
black globe active until they overload. Just hitting an enemy ship with the
drone will not do, because the impact would destroy the capacitors, and
the black globe would not work at all.

It gets even better than that.

You don't want to actually 'hit' the ship, you want to activate the BGG from some distance so that it actually cuts out just one or two sections.

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[barnest2]

That's still very nice. But once again. How are you going to get your black globe to the target? A small drone couldn't manage it. A bigger ship will have trouble catching another vessel.

I have few doubts that this will be near pointless as a tactic in true naval combat, or even against a surprised naval vessel.

 

[DFW]

NOTHING stops immediately..

edit : rust answered

 

[far-trader]

...The capacitors may actually absorb a hundred or more times their capacity in the process, but it still takes a finite amount of time before they actually 'blow up'. Just enough time for the BGG to finish it's shearing effect.

At TL16 I am sure that some 'mad scientist' has solved this problem.

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Nope. That's not how capacitors work. Once the critical failure point is reached they explode. There is no delay permitting one to pass that point and put more energy into them.

In fact the actual failure point of any single capacitor is not exactly known. The only way to know the exact failure point is to load it until it fails... and of course then you don't have that capacitor. The rated failure/load is a calculated value based on the manufacturing and testing of sacrificial samples, with a safety margin factored in.

This is one thing the rules don't model (but should imo, and do imtu). The 650MW (or 100 hit points, or whatever) rating should be the safe load. There should be a small margin above that. And the evil ref should encourage his players to push that safe load to promote more explosions. Explosions are cool :twisted:

So, no, there will be no extended shearing. Once the BGG/Capacitors have reached critical the whole thing explodes, the field collapses, and the shearing stops. The explosion of course may well finish the job.

BGGs are really not well explained and care should be taken ascribing too many magical properties and inventive uses to them.

My take fwiw is that the capacitor idea is a kludge. Something the Imperial scientists don't really understand but vaguely make work. It is actually a function that sets the size of the sphere and provides some feedback. The bulk of the energy is shunted into jump space. And a properly functioning and/or built BGG would not overload the capacitors as all the energy would be dumped into jump space with the capacitors serving only the size setting and feedback functions.

The original Ancient BGGs discovered seemed to have variable (and smart, though not understood) size and capacity. I think the two should be related. The larger the sphere you need the more capacitors you require to inflate it at that size. The kludge factor is also imo well overstated. The amount of capacitors a ship has is enough for a large sphere, many times larger than required. But that isn't really well defined, understood, or controllable at current TLs.

 

[GypsyComet]

Anyone care to estimate the diameters of the various BGG fields on page 65 of HG?

Big enough to cover the ship it is carried on
I know that's a bit glib, but since they can be mounted on any sized ship...

Old writeups state that the original cache of black globe generators had two controls: diameter and power. Both are multi-setting. Diameter can be set to anything from a few centimeters to many meters, while the power switch has "off", "full on", and several flicker rates in-between. Imperial copies can't flicker nearly as well as the originals.

 

[Solomani666]

Okay, son lets assume the shearing effect will work, and will work once.
You still have the problem of getting your globe to the target...

You either go total stealth, or partial stealth, giving them the same radar signature as a common missile.
Bury a dozen or so in a missile barrage attack.
Determine the number of missiles that hit their target by dodge, ECM and turret fire only to determine the percent chance that one of the drones got through.

One drone hit and game over.

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[Solomani666]

Anyone care to estimate the diameters of the various BGG fields on page 65 of HG?

Big enough to cover the ship it is carried on
I know that's a bit glib, but since they can be mounted on any sized ship...

Old writeups state that the original cache of black globe generators had two controls: diameter and power. Both are multi-setting. Diameter can be set to anything from a few centimeters to many meters, while the power switch has "off", "full on", and several flicker rates in-between. Imperial copies can't flicker nearly as well as the originals.

Since HG lists several BGG's by hull size, I am inclined to believe that certain generator sizes can only produce a field up to a certain diameter.

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[Solomani666]

The black globe field ceases to exist at the moment when it can no lon-
ger transfer energy to the capacitors, just like the lights turn off the mo-
ment you interrupt their power supply - only in reverse.

No. That is simply the start of the inevitable cascading effect that eventually leads to the destruction of the BGG vessel being overloaded and destroyed.

Even if I turn off a light switch there is a finite amount of time between the switch going off and the light ceasing to emit EM radiation.

Example: The US Navy has tested many prototypes of railguns that led to the destruction of the gun itself due to overload, but only after the railgun projectile was successfully fired.

The next problem would be the size of the drone - as the black globe can only do as much damage as the capacitors can store, one would need a rather big drone to transport capacitors big enough to do significant damage more like a small starship than a normal drone.

Unless someone can say differently, BBG's turn on near instantaneously. This makes sense since they can be flickered at several hundred times per second.

A single pulse lasting only a few milliseconds should be enough to fully activate the field before the whole system goes critical.

If any capacitors are needed at all, they only need to be a buffer to delay the overload of the generator itself for a few milliseconds, while the shearing effect takes place, before it explodes.

Capacitors needed = minimal or non existent.

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[far-trader]

...Even if I turn off a light switch there is a finite amount of time between the switch going off and the light ceasing to emit EM radiation.

Depends how far you are from the light bulb...

...what I'm saying (we're all saying if I grok it and may be so bold) is that the light bulb instantly (speed of electricity in decent wire is or nearly so the speed of light) shuts off when you throw the switch. Current does not continue to flow for any additional finite time worth mentioning. Any EM you are perceiving is residual heat of the filament or if far enough away the light that left the bulb when it was turned off but still hasn't reached you.

Same thing with the BGG. Switched or exploding. It is off. Instantly. No delay. No packing extra energy into it after the fact.

Example: The US Navy has tested many prototypes of railguns that led to the destruction of the gun itself due to overload, but only after the railgun projectile was successfully fired.

Cite please, or it didn't happen I'm not saying the USN didn't slag a railgun or three when firing but it was not the way you seem to be imagining it and the comparison doesn't fit.

Unless someone can say differently, BBG's turn on near instantaneously. This makes sense since they can be flickered at several hundred times per second.

Here you have simply piqued my curiosity I don't recall a "several hundred times per second" or any rate of flicker for that matter. Of course my memory being what it is I could have read it once and just don't recall it now. Do you recall where you read this?

Capacitors needed = minimal or non existent.

No, not the way I understand it. The only energy dealt by the BGG is that of the capacitors. And the only destruction dealt by the BGG is what the capacitors can hold. Turning on a BGG that has zero capacitors will be a non-event. The BGG will not activate. And having only a very minimal level of capacitors will shorten the amount of BGG destruction and capacitor explosion to the same very minimal event.