Stealth Jump Drive Advantage - testing

[Nerhesi]

Quick comment here - not powerful enough.

A stealth jump drive ship jumps in at minimal sensor detail distance. Requiring 12+ to be detected.

Ye Olde Hobo long time sensor monitoring civilian with 2 ranks in sensors, INT & EDU 8 or below, and a dedicated simple sensor suite (+2 sensors DM bonus). This person has a 50/50 chance to detect a stealth jump?

I would think we need to look at making it a formidable difficulty check (14+), and if you take the advantage, you get a further -4 DM penalty. This would make it really shine as a viable option, useable by special ops/pirates/etc.. especially when compared to the amazing savings that 50% power, 20% size or 10% less fuel amount to!

 

[MongooseMatt]

This is one possible solution. Alternatively, we might decide that stealth in space is very difficult.

What does everyone think?

 

[phavoc]

I think stealth, at a distance should be easy - assuming you spend the funds to make your ship stealthy. Normal ships usually WANT to be seen in space for safety reasons. A stealth system should also be about spoofing sensors, to either make it look like you ARE a rock, or that you are a rock that is moving around a lot. I'm not a big fan of the 'cloak' style ST tech. Even though visual cloaking could be possible, too many other things (neutrinos, heat, electronic radiation, etc) all are cues to be detected potentially by an enemy.

But once stealth is broken it's easy to keep the ship locked on with sensors, which makes stealth in space fit more or less with stealth in the real world. It should allow you to possibly sneak up, but that's it.

As far as jumping goes, didn't jump masking used to be a separate issue? I don't remember which version talked about the radiation signature a ship emerging from jump makes, but it's like a gian' flag saying "hello! here I am!". To sneak into a system you had to jump way far out so normal planetary detectors could not see you coming. The old sci-fi series of books (Terran Trade Authority series I think) had an image of the Port of Miami on Earth that had these massive shell-like sensors that could pick up a ship emerging from jump from a very long distance). I think passive sensors like that should remain, and if you wanted to incorporate stealth into jump emergence it should be either an add-on or part and parcel, but with an increased price.

I have no issue with it being there, but it shouldn't be easy enough that everyone adds it just because it's there. There need to be reasonable rules around why it's not a norm.

 

[phavoc]

I think stealth, at a distance should be easy - assuming you spend the funds to make your ship stealthy. Normal ships usually WANT to be seen in space for safety reasons. A stealth system should also be about spoofing sensors, to either make it look like you ARE a rock, or that you are a rock that is moving around a lot. I'm not a big fan of the 'cloak' style ST tech. Even though visual cloaking could be possible, too many other things (neutrinos, heat, electronic radiation, etc) all are cues to be detected potentially by an enemy.

But once stealth is broken it's easy to keep the ship locked on with sensors, which makes stealth in space fit more or less with stealth in the real world. It should allow you to possibly sneak up, but that's it.

As far as jumping goes, didn't jump masking used to be a separate issue? I don't remember which version talked about the radiation signature a ship emerging from jump makes, but it's like a gian' flag saying "hello! here I am!". To sneak into a system you had to jump way far out so normal planetary detectors could not see you coming. The old sci-fi series of books (Terran Trade Authority series I think) had an image of the Port of Miami on Earth that had these massive shell-like sensors that could pick up a ship emerging from jump from a very long distance). I think passive sensors like that should remain, and if you wanted to incorporate stealth into jump emergence it should be either an add-on or part and parcel, but with an increased price.

I have no issue with it being there, but it shouldn't be easy enough that everyone adds it just because it's there. There need to be reasonable rules around why it's not a norm.

 

[AndrewW]

As far as jumping goes, didn't jump masking used to be a separate issue? I don't remember which version talked about the radiation signature a ship emerging from jump makes, but it's like a gian' flag saying "hello! here I am!". To sneak into a system you had to jump way far out so normal planetary detectors could not see you coming. The old sci-fi series of books (Terran Trade Authority series I think) had an image of the Port of Miami on Earth that had these massive shell-like sensors that could pick up a ship emerging from jump from a very long distance). I think passive sensors like that should remain, and if you wanted to incorporate stealth into jump emergence it should be either an add-on or part and parcel, but with an increased price.

There is the stealth jump advantage.

 

[FallingPhoenix]

I don't know about stealth jumps, but stealth in space if your ship is actually moving anywhere seems to me that it should be very difficult, on the basis that any starship which produces heat (from electronics, people, drives, etc.) will glow like a star in infrared. Given how easy infrared sensors are now, I would think any ship with a sensor suite would have infrared with a decent field of view. This sensor suite looks at the sky for, say, 30 minutes, and the computer says "Hey, this star is moving weird, it's probably a ship!"

Outside of ST style cloaking, there's not really any way to hide that.

 

[Nerhesi]

I would actually now ammend this and ask to make Stealth Jump a seperate drive option not an advantage. Not only do we want the 10X price associated with it, we would also want it to be a different style of jump, not just an advanced jump.

That was a TL15 stealth jump is possible and so on - as is currently doable under the rules.

 

[middenface]

This is one possible solution. Alternatively, we might decide that stealth in space is very difficult.

What does everyone think?

Well stealth is pretty much impossible any way.. Best I can imagine you could do is lessen your signature. Even in real terms a stealth plane can be detected..

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php#nostealth

 

[Nerhesi]

This is one possible solution. Alternatively, we might decide that stealth in space is very difficult.

What does everyone think?

Well stealth is pretty much impossible any way.. Best I can imagine you could do is lessen your signature. Even in real terms a stealth plane can be detected..

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php#nostealth

Everything in this game is pretty much impossile, hence why it is sci-fi of a semi-hard (hah!) nature (and yes i'm aware, like Piracy in Traveller, this topic has huge camps of players to and for). However, Jump Drives, Stealth Hulls, Turrets that are manually aimed over a distanced of 10s of thousands of kilometers, grav drives, armour deflecting near-luminal rail gun projectiles without issue and black globe generators are pretty much impossible anyways.

So back on topic, Matt, I'd say we keep as it was in MGT1, similar to how you kept TL15 jump drives as a separate option in the ship design rules. As for the system, we can keep it as is written, if we stipulate that other bonuses for detection also apply (stealth hull, emission absorption).

 

[madmike]

Well that was dismissive.

Seems to be a trend emerging with all of this.

Damn shame.

 

[Nerhesi]

Well that was dismissive.

Seems to be a trend emerging with all of this.

Damn shame.

Perhaps this how conversations spiral into being more personal, and rather unproductive. When people turn conversations into personal slights? (especially a third party). That is a damn shame.

The gentleman brought up a point stating that stealth in space is near impossible. I stated that nearly everything in this scifi game is near impossible. Then you, a 3rd party, appear and to say it was somehow a breach of etiquette? Countering by pointing out their line of reasoning invalidates all technology in this game is dismissive?

Wow. Lets avoid any disagreements on the forums then!

 

[FallingPhoenix]

This is one possible solution. Alternatively, we might decide that stealth in space is very difficult.

What does everyone think?

Well stealth is pretty much impossible any way.. Best I can imagine you could do is lessen your signature. Even in real terms a stealth plane can be detected..

http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacewardetect.php#nostealth

I'm usually in this camp, too, but in this case, I think I'll lean the other way. Here's my handwave:

Stealth options just partially shunt your emissions into jump space, so you're harder to detect.

 

[AnotherDilbert]

Personal opinion:
Stealth is fun!
Without stealth we have no pirates, no SDBs lurking, no enemy spies hiding in the shadows, no loan skipping.

Handwaving: Eh, Hyperspace? What more handwaving do you need?