Highly Creative Ways Of Weaponizing A Black Globe Generator

[Solomani666]

Please first take a look at this thread:

http://www.mongoosepublishing.com/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=47996


If you had your own TL16 pocket empire and a near limitless supply of Black Globe Generators (BBG's):

How would you turn them into weapons?

What kind of weapons and with what effect?

Assume that unlimited funds are available.


The more sinister the better.

.

 

[locarno24]

With sufficient capacitative capacity* you can in theory make anything up to and including a sunbuster. With the realistic amount of energy available...less so; you need the power supply, which is a problem.

Getting them the correct distance from a target is important, so using them paired up with harpoon launchers (which are fairly sucky weapons but give you a bonus to docking manouvres, which is essentially what you're doing) might be good.

One interesting question is what happens if you try and fire a j-drive whilst inside someone elses black globe (or, I guess, what happens if you fire up a black globe whilst in jumpspace). Since both devices are supposed to leave you 'cut off from the universe', I suspect interesting physics may occur.

* no comment.

 

[AdrianH]

Put a big M-drive and a black globe on an asteroid. Aim it at a planet, switch off the M-drive, and have a timer to switch on the black globe after you have left.

Then demand that the planet gives you loads of money. If it does, you give them the co-ordinates and velocity of the asteroid and the time at which you switched off the M-drive, with which information the planet's defences should have no trouble destroying the asteroid. Otherwise they get to search all of local space for an incoming black globe before it smacks into the planet.

 

[rust]

Otherwise they get to search all of local space for an incoming black globe before it smacks into the planet.

Since the black globe would block out the microwave background radia-
tion, it would take them not more than a few minutes with an advanced
microwave telescope to locate the black globe ... the entire idea of the
black globe as a good stealth device is simply nonsense, it will show up
on almost every passive EM sensor as a moving black spot against the
radiation background, whether visual, thermic or microwave.

 

[rust]

Well, I have tried to come up with some brilliant idea, compatible with both
the Traveller rules and the basics of real world physics, for using a black
globe as a weapon. Frankly, my best idea still is to sell the black globe ge-
nerator and use the money to buy 5,500 bomb-pumped torpedoes and a
week on some luxurious resort planet.

 

[DFW]

Frankly, my best idea still is to sell the black globe ge-
nerator and use the money to buy 5,500 bomb-pumped torpedoes and a
week on some luxurious resort planet.

If you're buying 5,500 bomb-pumped torpedoes, the manufacturer should throw in the resort trip gratis. That's how they do things "downtown"...

 

[Rick]

What about generating a BG with the target ship completely inside it - you'd have effectively taken a portion of the oppositions fleet out of a battle (well, for as long as it stayed up anyway). If you could do this for a few ships, it would swing the odds in your favour - finish off the rest of the fleet and then swich the BG's off one at a time.....

 

[barnest2]

Except the trapped ship could simply target the vessel generating the BG. It would not be a tactic that left many of your trap ships alive...

 

[DFW]

What about generating a BG with the target ship completely inside it - you'd have effectively taken a portion of the oppositions fleet out of a battle (well, for as long as it stayed up anyway). If you could do this for a few ships, it would swing the odds in your favour - finish off the rest of the fleet and then swich the BG's off one at a time.....

You would have to attach a large pod to the target ship. The crew of said ship could easily turn it off with a turret shot or a quick EVA

 

[rust]

What about generating a BG with the target ship completely inside it - you'd have effectively taken a portion of the oppositions fleet out of a battle (well, for as long as it stayed up anyway).

I would hesitate to spend 100+ MCr to protect an enemy ship from any
damage by my fleet's weapons.

 

[far-trader]

What about generating a BG with the target ship completely inside it - you'd have effectively taken a portion of the oppositions fleet out of a battle (well, for as long as it stayed up anyway). If you could do this for a few ships, it would swing the odds in your favour - finish off the rest of the fleet and then swich the BG's off one at a time.....

I'm guessing this is a tactic of sabotage rather than offensive action. Slip some undercover stealthy sneaky types into an enemy port or whatever to install a BGG in some inconspicuous area (fuel void imo and imtu - nobody ever/rarely actually drains their tanks and wouldn't often notice they didn't have the full volume) with a remote activation or timer. Something like some of the limpet mine exploits mentioned above. Only this time it's tied into the enemy ship's own jump capacitors with no off switch. They attack and you flash the code. Their ship goes into the globe and you leisurely pump energy into it until they explode. This imo could actually be a workable tactic/value for very high value hard to kill targets.

 

[mattman]

You could use them to build a "nigh invulnerable" trade fleet for the purpose of creating dependency upon your exports among your closed-to-trade lower tech neighboring worlds. Yeah, lame but had to try.

 

[ShadowDave]

Stealthed remote/robot piloted cutter, sneak up to the enemy (very close) and flicker the globe while passing alongside. Cuts chunks out of the target, ruining structural integrity, armour coverage, decompression or even take out a turret. And when it finally explodes it may even do some more damage.

 

[barnest2]

Except the problem is:
a) getting it close enough
b) having it not explode on the first 'cut'
c) That is an incredibly expensive toy
d) Having it have enough capacitors to even make the first cut properly.

 

[BFalcon]

Barnest: e) Having the signal to control it being blanked each time it goes up, so probably causing massive chances of it going wrong, unless you managed to sync the signal with the flicker.

f) Running the risk of the enemy or terrorists gaining control and using it against you..

 

[rust]

Stealthed remote/robot piloted cutter ...

Stealth is not invisibility - just look at the picture of a stealth aircraft, you
can see it as well as you can see a non-stealth aircraft, and so can many
sensors. To bring something as big as a cutter close to a warship without
being detected would require that all of the warship's sensors are turned
off and the entire crew is in low berths.

 

[barnest2]

Plus the fact that we went through it in the other thread, and assuming you need a capital scale power plant for your BG to function, you're ship is going to be 60-70 tons, or more with capacitors.