Psionics Prevention Measures
- Thread starter ottarrus
- Start date
alex_greene
Guest
Which means all those ships are going to be noisy as hell from all the GROPOS yomping up and down the corridors in full marching kit, and the gravity always being turned up to 1.1 G 24/7 for everybody, whether or not they are Marines.
alex_greene
Guest
Your ship's CO would know when the Zhodani are preparing to send in teleporting shock troops, when the ship begins trying to close in to within a few kilometres and match your ship's exact vector. Usually, by then, your vessel's ability to run Evade might have been compromised somewhat by either weapons fire disabling your ship's M-drive and thrusters, or through hacking.
And if they've been trying to limit your ship's ability to manoeuvre already, you'll probably have guessed their intentions long before they begin matching course and speed. In which case, feel free to have the engineer set the grav plates in critical open areas ro 20G. Clairvoyance usually can't sense the gravity in an area, so unless you have loose objects that suddenly fall to the ground at incredible speed and flatten themselves out on impact, their spotters won't know what to expect.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
One of my biggest complaints with Traveller ship design is how designers REALLY short the troops deployed on IN ships.
Where IN enlisted get double occupancy cabins with freshers, the troops are jammed into bunk-beds like they were on a Liberty Ship in War Two, and they only have one shower and one head for a whole bay. And this is for the troops that are actually assigned to the vessel! You know, the Marine battalion that's part of the ship's company, as opposed to the 'guests' who are just being transported to a deployment zone to be dropped off.
Aboard a ship that doesn't have a flight deck [like a USN LHP Marine Assault Ship], the troops require as much interior space to work, train, maintain equipment, and recreate as the spacehands do -- ESPECIALLY if the troops are deployed with vehicles or Battle Dress. This includes briefing /class rooms, proper hygiene facilities, workshop space, ranges, armories, etc.
What's more, I don't see much of a problem with IN enlisted being put in 4-to-a-stateroom standard bunking arrangement. Senior NCOs and junior officers getting double occupancy [that is, two per stateroom] and the XO and CO being single occupants with an office. Luxury staterooms are for flag officers to get lost in so they stay out of honest spacehands' way while their trying to work.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Thinking about your comment, the gravity settings would really depend on how fine a set of controls you have for your anti-grav inertial compensators. I would think that would depend on TL... say at TL 9 it's the whole ship, by TL 12 it's the compartment [the space between bulkheads and deck], and by TL 14 it's by individual area ['this stateroom' or 'just the flight bay'].
Remember, the grav settings effect everyone and the higher the gravity the slower the work and the greater chance of injury.
Going back to my initial post about being in the US Army when NBC training was the focus, that training wasn't just getting the gear on in time but also WORKING with that gear on. Turning wrenches, cleaning your rifle, having to mess with optics that weren't designed to accommodate a plastic shield an inch away from your eyes, etc. Official estimates were that in a chemical environment troop efficiency was reduced by as much as 50 percent... meaning more misses at the gunnery range, longer work times, more mistakes generally. But in that environment it effects everyone equally, both us and them. Like Psionic Protection Measures, I mentally equate a High G Training Environment as that 'lower efficiency' situation. It's reasonable to presume that everyone in the Imperial services can cope with gravity in the 0.8 to 1.1 G range [aka 'Normal Grav' by the rulebook] but low-G is included in the Vacc Suit skill but high-G requires higher levels of that skill.
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Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
As I recall, no penalties between seventy to one hundred forty percent Terran gravity.
alex_greene
Guest
You'd think so, but against Zhodani in Battle Dress, possibly also teleporting in with tranq guns and gas bombs of their own ...
Gauss tranq guns with AP
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
There are problems with that whole idea:
- Injector rounds are a 'less-than-lethal' option in a situation [warfare] that demands all the lethal force you can muster;
- Injector rounds depend on the injected agent to effect the target, not the ballistic force of the bullet;
- At maximum, there are only 4 psions per infantry company of 150 troops;
- The company level psions aren't really the ones you should be worried about any... it's the clairvoyants at battalion HQ that should be your chief concern;
- Troops almost never get within rifle range of the battalion HQ.
alex_greene
Guest
AP rounds tend to shoot right through armour, which means putting bloody great holes into visitors. And the hull on the other side, which means vacuum, or bulkhead breaches and possible friendly fire casualties to crew on the other side.
You are in a spaceship. You don't use AP rounds inside. Try again.
You know they'll send in warbots next, right through the hull.
alex_greene
Guest
If they're really impatient, or bored, or you've cheesed them off by putting holes into the first troops who just dropped in, or I'm your referee and getting bored with all your overplanning, you know they're going to pinpoint their ship's lasers at the ship locations where your crew is clustered. Psionics countermeasures won't be any use at all if your crew just got fried or mesoned into fine particles, or a particle beam just irradiated you all like an overdone plondak curry.
Why do you assume they are on a spaceship
alex_greene
Guest
Because generally, AP rounds are held in the ship's locker, and most of the encounters described in this thread have assumed a hostile Zhodani force boarding the characters' ship, because 99.9% of such encounters have been shipboard.
Now if they're at some fancy, swanky black tie dinner affair, and they're encountering the Zhodani delegation fresh from the Embassy of Zhdant, they won't be carrying AP rounds, gauss rifles or any kind of weapons at all.
Again why would you assume they are doing this on a ship. The traveller galaxy is way bigger than that. And ship hulls require DD damage to penetrate.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
1. No reason at all to assume that combat vs. Zhos are going to be shipboard, most combat in the 5FW was groundbased according to canon;
2. AP won't deliver the anti-psi drugs, but does do a dandy job of penetrating combat armor [don't leave Regina without it!];
3. A couple of epic fails on the die roll and a ref might reasonably rule that a crack in the hull or window has caused an atmospheric breach, but that's a YTMV ruling;
4. As I stated in my top post, it's reasonable to have to all medics in Imperial forces in the Domain of Deneb have 8 doses of Psi-Blocker in their kits, thus removing the need to try to ballistically deliver anti-psi medications like the elephant keeper at a zoo...
Condottiere
Emperor Mongoose
Dum Dum bullets.
If they're wearing armour, it would be more for the knockdown effect.
If you're getting knocked off your feet, concentration is going to take a hit.
If they're wearing armour, it would be more for the knockdown effect.
If you're getting knocked off your feet, concentration is going to take a hit.
alex_greene
Guest
I know. Hard to concentrate on mundane tasks, too, if that warbot just walked through a hole in the bulkhead it just created, and started firing at everything carbon based with a pulse.
ottarrus
Emperor Mongoose
Getting shot at tends to eff up your concentration mightily. Trust me on that one
What's more, I'm not sure how your gonna get a dum-dum round out of a 4mm Gauss flechette...
In re: warbots, I'm more of a classic LBB guy when it comes to those. IMTU, most Zho military warbots are grav locomotion. There are no 'light warbots'... if you're gonna sink the money into a war machine, spend enough to make it capable. A warbot with an SMG and snub pistol is kinda silly when you think about it.
The Standard Zhodani warbot is specifically designed to deal with combat armor [which is what Provincial forces in Iadr Nsobl expect to face]. That means it's armed with an onboard laser rifle equivalent and a Gauss rifle with a 500 rnd ammo cassette.
The Assault heavy warbot is heavily armored [to near battle dress standards] and equipped with a PGMP and a laser carbine. THOSE are the ones coming through the breach in your hull. You get three or four of those right next to your Type A's hull all firing 1DD damage at the same spot and it'll be breached in a tick.
Note that Assault warbots are too heavy for teleporters to transport, but the Standard model comes in at about 100kg or so and can be teleported by a strong commando in battle dress. It's a standard trick for the Zho's to pop into a rear area, release 4 or 5 warbots on a search and destroy setting, and then pop out leaving the bots in place.
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