Problematic canonish technology

[Shardan13]

With the release of the Imperial Navy book and declaration that certain technology is prohibited it raises certain complications. The first is the personal energy shield found in the core sector book and why it can't be applied to bigger objects. The second is the hop drive found in the journals and how come the Imperium is not using primitive versions of it.

My not so brilliant idea for the hop drive is that the Imperium do have the drive but it is still experimental and is being developed by a top secret research station. The station is testing it on next generation scout/couriers. Already there are rumors of strange ships making impossible jumps.

 

[Geir]

With the release of the Imperial Navy book and declaration that certain technology is prohibited it raises certain complications. The first is the personal energy shield found in the core sector book and why it can't be applied to bigger objects. The second is the hop drive found in the journals and how come the Imperium is not using primitive versions of it.

For the 3I energy shield, if it only scales linearly from the personal shield scale, it would likely run about MCr 1-2 per ton and only provide 1-3 points of Ship armour. So it may exist, but just doesn't scale to vehicle or ship protection very well.

My not so brilliant idea for the hop drive is that the Imperium do have the drive but it is still experimental and is being developed by a top secret research station. The station is testing it on next generation scout/couriers. Already there are rumors of strange ships making impossible jumps.

Probably Hop-1 being developed somewhere. Along with Jump-7, but a prototype Jump-7 would require so much fuel tanks to be nearly useless - actually less useful than an (early) prototype Hop-1. Although in T5 the Astrogation rules for Hop drive are harsh, so you'd need an expert Astrogator with expert software to use it. And a Core computer just to run the Hop Control software.

An interesting side issue is the Collector. It's been around since ANNIC NOVA, so it's pretty much canon, but not Imperial tech. In the Great Rift it's used on a Darrian research ship, so that might be the niche for it: Darrians and mysterious aliens.

 

[Sigtrygg]

For the 3I energy shield, if it only scales linearly from the personal shield scale, it would likely run about MCr 1-2 per ton and only provide 1-3 points of Ship armour. So it may exist, but just doesn't scale to vehicle or ship protection very well.

That's frantic handwavium at its best... it doesn't make any sense.
It's also not the answer the book's author gave - do MgT authors not read each other's work? - when I asked about this on release of the Third Imperium book, which was that ship scale and vehicle scale are doable. I asked about it during the wait for the 2022 update to HG and got the same answer.
The Third Imperium introduced energy shields now deal with the unintended consequences of allowing it to make it through playtesting, editing and secret squirrel squad checks.

Probably Hop-1 being developed somewhere. Along with Jump-7, but a prototype Jump-7 would require so much fuel tanks to be nearly useless - actually less useful than an (early) prototype Hop-1. Although in T5 the Astrogation rules for Hop drive are harsh, so you'd need an expert Astrogator with expert software to use it. And a Core computer just to run the Hop Control software.

Hop, like jump before it, requires a paradigm shift in physics. There are TL20+ cultures that never discovered the jump drive but did discover hop. Nor can you understand jump just because you have discovered hop.
Hop is not a guaranteed progression from jump in the same way jump 6 follows jump 5.

According to OTU canon the workings of the hop drive are not discovered until around the time of the Galaxiad era ~1900

An interesting side issue is the Collector. It's been around since ANNIC NOVA, so it's pretty much canon, but not Imperial tech. In the Great Rift it's used on a Darrian research ship, so that might be the niche for it: Darrians and mysterious aliens.

The IN is missing a trick then - I wonder if the Zhodani have worked out that you could move an entire invasion fleet through empty hexes using big collector equipped tenders...

 

[john_q_traveller]

For the 3I energy shield, if it only scales linearly from the personal shield scale, it would likely run about MCr 1-2 per ton and only provide 1-3 points of Ship armour. So it may exist, but just doesn't scale to vehicle or ship protection very well.

The problem with that is that they already exist for ships, and according to the 2022 update for High Guard, are available beginning at TL 14 (pages 82 - 83). They were also described in the previous version of High Guard, though they were not available until TL 16 (page 69).

 

[Bill Sheil]

The problem with that is that they already exist for ships, and according to the 2022 update for High Guard, are available beginning at TL 14 (pages 82 - 83). They were also described in the previous version of High Guard, though they were not available until TL 16 (page 69).

No, all of the exotic technology section (p79) is described as optional so it is not canon.

 

[Sigtrygg]

If personal energy shields are a thing at TL15 then vehicle and ship energy shields at TL14 should be a thing - and the author has agreed.
The personal energy shield should not have been allowed at TL15 in the first place.

 

[Vormaerin]

I don't personally worry about that too much. I just delete the stuff I don't agree with. There simply aren't personal energy shields. Drop tanks, like the jump drones in Leviathan, were an experiment that failed or never got off the drawing board stage. Hop drives, skip drives, hyperdrives, warp drives, and all the other future tech stuff mentioned in books that project what tech 17+ looks like are hypotheticals that I just ignore.

Obviously, authors have a different issue. Personal Shields are introduced in an official book. But future authors don't want to rewrite almost 50 years of starship design. So they have to make up an excuse why you aren't putting Star Trek shields around all the Imperial ships, because they don't have our freedom to just say: "Nope, didn't happen" and get on with our lives. That's why you end up with long discussions on how meson guns aren't guns and don't actually use mesons.

If you enjoy squaring circles, then go for it. But otherwise, I'd recommend just not bothering with explanations. Just ignore that it exists in a book if you aren't interested in using it or dealing with the setting changing implications of a particular technology.

 

[Bill Sheil]

The personal energy shield should not have been allowed at TL15 in the first place.

I agree, although, for this discussion, it is worth pointing out that the "canon" personal energy shields provide armour protection and are ineffective against lasers; which would be a big weakness in space combat. The "non-canon" energy shields in High Guard provide absolute damage absorption and do not have the weakness to lasers so despite sharing the (generic) name they are apparently not the same technology.

And the hop-drive remains optional and non-canon.

 

[Condottiere]

Has anyone tried shooting a laser at it?

 

[Vormaerin]

Lasers for the navy are point defense weapons. The question is whether it helps against real weapons like missiles, particle accelerators, and other military grade weapons. No one shoots lasers at actual warships unless they are trying to clean off a bad paint job or something

 

[Bill Sheil]

Questionable that lasers are only used for PD but If a major component of warships' protection has no effect against lasers then the paradigm would shift significantly in favour of using lasers as an offensive weapon.

 

[Vormaerin]

The current Imperial Navy sourcebook says that laser turrets are under the control of the defensive fire control officer, because they don't do enough damage to affect any ship with non-negligible armor. They are used to destroy missiles and small strike craft.

 

[k0k0pelli]

The current Imperial Navy sourcebook says that laser turrets are under the control of the defensive fire control officer, because they don't do enough damage to affect any ship with non-negligible armor. They are used to destroy missiles and small strike craft.

i suppose I should pick it up but I am not sure the statement makes sense given a heavy fighter has 15 armor. Sure the lasers won't take out capital ships but a particle accelerator will struggle against a 15AR too unless you are using bays.

Against heavily armored ships, missiles are the way to go generally unless you really stack for effect to get through the armor at which point even a beam laser has a chance with crit fishing.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yes, the general assumption is that turrets are not offensive weapons at a fleet level. Offensive weapons are bays and spinal mounts. Turrets and barbettes are used for shooting up little ships that bays struggle to hit, particularly small craft. But adventure class ships as well. And, yeah, even for that, you are mostly going to use heavier weapons than lasers. Even with focused battery fire, lasers aren't great against armored targets.

 

[k0k0pelli]

I guess I tend to ignore everything over ~1000 tons. Generally it is beyond what a party would be able to acquire and run so larger ships are interesting in the abstract and for things like the trillion credit squadron but not for a conventional game.

Ignoring in-game reality and focusing on the ruleset though and the beam laser is one of the best weapons there is. Saturate a ship with beam laser fire and overload the sandcasters. With firecontrol/5 (+5), gunner 2 (+2), beam laser (+4), with accuracy (+1), bonuses for large ships (+6 for a target 6k and over) and any hit you get that penetrates armor is almost guaranteed to be a crit 6. Ignoring sandcasters that is +18 DM, it would not be unusual to have an +16 effect, which will get through most armor before damage is even rolled which would lead to a level 6 severity crit. All you need to do is get a single point through, the crits do the rest.

Sure you need to shoot a lot more but you can have a lot more beam turrets than you do spinal mounts.

Oddly enough this is close to the strategy I used for the trillion credit squadron competition in the 80s, though there I used fusion guns IIRC.

This is not the thread for that discussion though. Just let me use collectors is all I ask. I am meh on the rest of the canonish technology but collectors make small ships more interesting for long runs.

 

[Bill Sheil]

The current Imperial Navy sourcebook says that laser turrets are under the control of the defensive fire control officer, because they don't do enough damage to affect any ship with non-negligible armor. They are used to destroy missiles and small strike craft.

Yes, but this is in a universe where there is not an equivalent of the personal energy shields for ships. But if they became a thing, whether in the canon or a non-canon universe, then the tactical and design paradigms would change. If lasers could entirely bypass 15 points of energy shield armour, for example, then that is the effective equivalent of 4D6 extra base damage, making them the equivalent to torpedoes and putting them ahead of all other turret and barbette weapons in terms of damage. Not to mention that the accuracy bonus also adds to damage through effect. And, following that, the development of bay mounted lasers would be viable as well.

So in the hypothetical universe where energy shields did exist then offensive lasers would be an effective counter.

 

[Sigtrygg]

The author who put them into the Third Imperium says they exist on ships and vehicles.

 

[Vormaerin]

Yes, but this is in a universe where there is not an equivalent of the personal energy shields for ships. But if they became a thing, whether in the canon or a non-canon universe, then the tactical and design paradigms would change. If lasers could entirely bypass 15 points of energy shield armour, for example, then that is the effective equivalent of 4D6 extra base damage, making them the equivalent to torpedoes and putting them ahead of all other turret and barbette weapons in terms of damage. Not to mention that the accuracy bonus also adds to damage through effect. And, following that, the development of bay mounted lasers would be viable as well.

So in the hypothetical universe where energy shields did exist then offensive lasers would be an effective counter.

Anything is possible. I assume there's a reason they don't have bay or spinal mount lasers currently. A personal energy shield helps you against an FGMP shot. So they should be in all the battle dress used by the Marines. As you say, shields would degrade the value of particle accelerators and fusion guns relative to lasers in ground and space combat. And, of course, they are great against gauss weapons and missiles. (I am morbidly curious as to why they stop a particle accelerator but not a laser. But I'm not a physicist so there may be an obvious reason I am not aware of).

Mindjammer Traveller uses personal forcefields, but 1) the entire setting incorporates them and 2) they aren't nearly as powerful as the ones in Third Imperium outside of the milspec "Assault Field", which is comparable to a non overcharged 3I one.

The reality is that the simple existence of effective force fields, even if only personal and mysteriously unable to upscale, radically alters the setting. How does Strephon get assassinated if he has a 24pt armor invisible force field? There's really no middle ground between "ignore that sidebar" and "extensively modify the entire setting" with this technology.

 

[Bill Sheil]

I am morbidly curious as to why they stop a particle accelerator but not a laser. But I'm not a physicist so there may be an obvious reason I am not aware of

They block mass, I assume - kinetics, plasma and neutrons alike. A bigger question is: would they block mesons? But for personal shields that is probably never really relevant.

 

[AndrewW]

Anything is possible. I assume there's a reason they don't have bay or spinal mount lasers currently.

Both the 2nd edition High Guard and the update 2022 offer a spinal mount laser, though just in the High Technology / Exotic Technology sections.