What does Stealth Look Like

[Greyaxe]

In you game how do you run your ship stealth?

[Kryzbyn]

A sensor balckout only. if its in range to be seen by the MK I Eyeball, then its visible, just sensors can not see it.

[Greyaxe]

So far we agree this is not an invisibility like you will find in a si-fi tv show. I was reading the stealth description of the stick in your eye. It states there is only a -50 penalty to detect a cloaked ship at FTL and -80 to detect a ship at STL speeds. Does everybody use this or is it assumed the stealth works all the time. (As long as you are outside 5000 miles)

[Braden Campbell]

I believe that "stealth" in the Phase World setting has more to do engine design.

If we compare the medium of space to that of an ocean, and starships to conventional water craft, then we can accept that the larger and faster a vessel moves, the bigger its displacement.

So a Packmaster carrier moving at FTL leaves a huge gravity wake as it travels, measurable out to 10 light-years.

Stealth then, would be like running a submarine: tweaking the engine so that the gravity wake is either greatly diminished, or appears as something else to an enemy's sensors. Stealth systems would also only work on ships of frigate size or smaller, meaning that there is no physical way to hide the movements of a Doombringer.

"Cloaking" would be any technology or magic which disguises he physical appearance of the ship... like holograms and Invisibility. This would almost never show up because of the ridiculous cost: to cover a Frigate with Naruni cammo sheeting would run in excess of 12 billion credits.

All in all, it makes for a fairly balanced game. There will never be fleets of hundreds of Birds of Prey moving unseen and striking with little to no warning. PCs will almost always have a chance to do something about it if they are attacked by a stealth vessel, and NPCs will have a decent shot of finding any Players who are sneaking about in such a ship.

[Aramanthus]

There is another form of detection which is not mentioned in many places. It is not mentioned in Rifts alt all, but I've used something to carry out that method of detection. I've seen it in several scifi series over the years. Mass detection. Being able to tell there is a mass out there and to differentiate it from a normal astronomical event. And I've used something which covers your mass event to make it harder to detect that way.

[Aramanthus]

Actually you are right on. I should have put gravity sensor, but what can I say. It was one of those days.

[Aramanthus]

Your funny!

[Aramanthus]

I'm still looking for a laugh. I'm still on the verge of tumbling down into a very deep depression! I'm fighting it thru sheer will power, but it's very tuff to stop all of the time.

[Aramanthus]

It's tough to do so. And today it got a lot tougher when my folks told that my Dad has to under go exploratory surgery near his pulmonary nerve tomorrow to check on this lump which has surrounded it. That torpedoed the rest of my holiday spirit for this year. Now I'm just going to go thru the motion without probably feeling any of the joy it should bring.

I'm sorry to have carried the topic on a tangent!

Any way lets get back to the topic on hand. What is stealth.
I have a few vessels which are equiped to detect gravitational masses, both stationary and those like starships. But those same ships are also equiped with systems to mask their very gravitationsl presence. Of course they are from a place far more advanced than the 3Gs.

[Aramanthus]

Thank you Max!

[Aramanthus]

And with you and yours my friend!

[Aramanthus]

Actually it was horrible news! My father has cancer of the lungs and his aorta. I'm still in shock and still trying to deal with this and the other thing from last week.

[Aramanthus]

Good question. From the sound of how it has spread, makes me wonder if it maticized?

[Aramanthus]

I know. I was thinking the other day of my best friend from childhood, he lost his dad last year just before Christmas!

[Aramanthus]

Never say never Max. Another friend's dad had liver cancer. A few months later it had just up and vanished! But you are right, to live the moment and to not fear the end but to live each moment without fear and when it comes to cherish what you've left behind. Memories that others will carry with them.

[Aramanthus]

Knowing my friend who is doctor himself I doubt it.

[glitterboy2098]

"stealth" in my notes has two parts.

the first is emission control, particulaly thermal. since you can't hide the heat, and ships are the hottest things in the sky due to their requirement of radiating that heat to keep the interior at safe temps, you have to find ways to disguise it. "stealth" fields use a gravitic shell to redirect that heat, as well as light and radio, into specific directions. while this does not hide the emissions, it reduces the area of sky in which enemy passive sensors (mostly thermal) can pick you up. and even then, the signature is distorted enough they won't be able to identify what you are exactly.

second, the shell disguises the contra-grav signature put out by your CG drives and systems, reducing their strength and reducing the distinctive waveforms. so if you get too close their passive gravity sensors will pick you up, but they'll not be able to ID you.

downside? it uses a modified shield set up, and thus when it's active your shields don't work to protect you.

Stealth is more of a Strategic assest than a Tactical one. it won't stop a ship in combat range from seeing you and shooting you, but if combined with smart manuvering may allow you to enter and leave a star system without attracting every ones attention.

[KLM]

Adding my two cents:

1, Atmosphere:
"Canon" stealth is countered by visual detection and identification.
However, it is not neccessarily your Mk I. Eyeball! An IRL example
is the chin-mounted camera on the F-14's - it can spot aircraft from
even a hundred kilometers (depending on visibility, size, painting etc.)

Another device could be a LADAR (laser-radar).

So, Phase world stealth craft can do everything a B-2 can do
to avoid detection, and maybe doing it even better.

2, Game mechanics
Frankly, Palladium/RIFTS deals quite poorly with different
difficulties for skills. IMO set up a table, with skill bonuses
and penalties depending on range, target size, etc.

3, Heat
Glitterboy's pet "sandbox" is the Atomic Space Rocket page.
(You can find a link to it in his "technology" topic, definitely
worth a look).
However...
Keep in mind, that on that page, the maximum efficiency
of various devices and gadgets is 90%. As things are, this
seems to be a valid estimation. However, in RIFTS
it would mean that a MDC laser doing 9 MD would radiate
away 1 MD worth of heat energy as a waste byproduct.
Of course it is not focused, and is "bleed away" over a longer
period, but still would worth something like 1-2d6 SDC burn
damage to the wielder.

So, RIFTS stuff are - ridiculously - effective, around 99% or
even 99,9% effectivity.

Keep this in mind, when applying the theory to RIFTS and
Phase World.

Adios
KLM

[glitterboy2098]

i use the Atomic rockets page because it's a useful tool, and it helps inject some realism into the game.

phase world as written is a very star trek/star wars type science fiction setting. full of technobabble and miracle tech that defies reality. it ignores things like thermodynamics, and the laws of physics.

and thats just the technology. when the mundane technology stuff is harder to accept than the existance of magic, you know you have a problem.

my goal in both my Techmanual thread, and also in my house rules is to introduce Naturalistic Science Fiction, as like in the new Battlestar Galactica. thermodynamics are followed, though some very creative solutions had to be found to explain why ships aren't most big radiators with some drives and a crew capsule stuck. ships have inertia and follow most of the laws of motion, but said laws are stretched to allow for ease of play.

ultimately, my goal was and is to turn phase world into something closer to Babylon 5. where ships look like your typical scifi space ships, but move and fight closer to how they would in reality.

it still required technobabble and a small degree of miracle tech, but it's at least grounded in reality. albiet using some very esoteric realms of knowledge and stretching and bending the laws of physics to preserve the integrity of the original while expanding and enriching it.

[Aramanthus]

I agree Atomic Rocket is very useful for adding reality to your gaming experience.

[glitterboy2098]

for those daunted by the math on the site, but wanting to inject some realism to their games, Youtube has some nifty primers.

The Physics of Starship Battles- the Laws of motion and momentum
The Physics of Starship Battles: Energy, Waves, and Sound
The Physics of Starship Battles- Explosive Decompression
The Physics of Starship Firepower- Phasers & Disintregration (uses trek's phasers to illustrate many elements of thermodynamics, radiation, light, lasers, disintergration, ect [i dislike the last bit about the 4 states of matter, because solid, liquid, and gas are tied more to molecular states than atomic ones, and a plasma is just a gas heated so high that it's electrons have left the shells])

[Aramanthus]

Nice links! Thank you for sharing them. I'm sure I've seen them before somewhere!