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Old 08-26-2015, 02:25 AM   #25
Rupert
 
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Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
Default Re: [Spaceships] Heat Signature, Cloaking Device, and Stealth Hull

Quote:
Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk View Post
AM Plasma Torch or Total Conversion Torch have +10 or +11 to detect respectively and the same accel as the hot reactionless, I'd pick whichever number you like the best.
I've always used +4 for a 'cold' (standard) reactionless - just enough to stop them being used whilst stealthy (and as you need power anyway, it's largely moot). For hot reactionless drives I use +6, to match a nuclear thermal rocket - I see the signature as being from waste heat, and thus nowhere near what an equivalent reaction engine would put out. One reason was that I'm running a Traveller game, and hot reactionless drives are the standard and I didn't want them so hot that a powered landing by a spaceship was a minor ecological disaster.

I think it's really very much up to the individual GM where they are set.

Quote:
Originally Posted by Mailanka View Post
Stealth hulls, though, certainly aren't good enough.
Note that a -8 (TL-10 stealth) means you have to get about twenty times closer to the stealthed ship to detect it. If stealth needs help, I'd say it'd be by raising the threshold at which it stops working, so that low-powered thrusters and power supplies of some sort can be used without negating it.

For stealth that's really hard to spot, you need cloaking. I assume that this is intentional.
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Last edited by Rupert; 08-26-2015 at 02:30 AM.
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