Re: Orbital Base Jumping
 

Works okay if the ship's still in orbit, but that's not always.

Re: Orbital Base Jumping
 

True. If the ship leaves orbit, they could just launch a satellite to provide data to the drop pods, though. Would be a good idea even if they couldn't communicate with the pods as they were descending, too, as real-time satellite survelliance is probably pretty nice if you can get it.

Re: Orbital Base Jumping
 

They have found a way to use the plasma sheath itself as a radio antenna, not a way to see through it, and not a way to turn it into a radar dish. You could transmit course corrections to a Thor, or targeting solutions to a gunship, if you had a separate observing platform somewhere with line-of-sight to the target and the gunship. If you had that, I would strongly recommend sticking a laser on it, rather than somewhere it's only going to a service life of a few minutes. Because an orbital laser platform is going to be useful for fire support after landing and disembarkation, whereas the eight-second wonder isn't.

Re: Orbital Base Jumping
 

True, but then what do you use human troopers for at all? I'd've though grabbing and holding territory would be one of the last things to be automated, other than SOF.

TeV

Re: Orbital Base Jumping
 

So you are going to use indirect fire from a moving firing element against moving targets with a time delay between Forward Observer and Firing Element of at least a few milliseconds? Good luck!

C3 mostly. I think it's very plausible that people would expect an entity that's considered a person to have operational control in combat.

Re: Orbital Base Jumping
 

Weapons are TL8 on the cusp of TL9 - humans are relatively new to the galactic society, and being the military monsters we so frequently are portrayed as, our weapons tech bested most of the other races' by a good margin. Not enough to overcome their sheer numbers and aerial superiority, so nobody was dumb enough to wage outright war on first contact, but enough that within about three decades of humans being integrated into the council most races were using human weapons tech. Plasma and energy weapons aren't available, though spaceships might have bulky but functional lasers; but kinetic-kill is the real order of the day.

Basically, all guns are TL8, but melee weapons and ammo are TL9, so any TL9 improvements for ammo cost or which weapons can handle which rounds are counted.

Engines, anything TL9 that isn't reactionless superscience or a warp drive is available. (I seem to recall an electric reactionless engine that wasn't superscience? Though that wouldn't be much use for these purposes)

The reason for this is primarily plot-based - the prime BBEGs are using TL10^ tech including energy weapons, reactionless drives, and their own warp engines, while the other races are using TL9 gear with a warp gate network limiting their mobility. I imagine if scientists could get their hands on an Amovorc ship in one relatively intact but not actively-trying-to-kill-them piece, combined with existing experiments into reactionless drives and one of the races being geniuses with reverse-engineering the council would have their own versions inside of two to five years, the only issue would be manufacturing enough to retrofit.

Reactors, again, most anything TL9^, and psychotronic reactors are available; and at least among the merc companies, they get enough psychic or psionically-gifted people that they could probably assign one to a ship as a power source without too much shuffling at any given time. (One of the players is a high-level teke, and another is a low-level ESPer - and the presence of two psis on one team isn't considered unusual in the slightest.)

If you want me to give an itemized list, let me know and I'll try to throw one together for you, though off the top of my head I don't recall any explicit deviations from the above - my idea for allowing most superscience was that collaborating with other races has pretty much meant things we assumed impossible are now almost routine, simply because we had no idea how to do it. Much like it never occurred to, say, the Yskzvani to develop guns, simply because they never developed the tech to allow for it or thought about it.

(Considering they're a race of psis, their answer to 'Gee, I really wish this piece of metal was in that bugger all the way over there but I just don't want to walk that far' was generally to fling it at him via teke. Or give it to someone to give to their brother who's been paid off to get close enough to fling it at him as a distraction while another assassin hits from a different angle - Yskzvani make Xanatos Speed Chess look like their national sport)

Re: Orbital Base Jumping
 

Yeah, Conventional Guns/Missiles will likely be the armament on the pod then.

I you, very theoretically, can still fit a 24kT nuke into a missile turret if you want to provide the priority targets for the enemy, you'll need your suits to be rad-proof and the stuff will be overpriced. So, more likely to just use conventional guns with self-guided warheads, or simple missiles.

Either way, you can ditch the reactor now.

In which case, what battlesuits are we talking about?

So the idea of a cold deployment is out. Might have to choose between a HEDM and the chemical rocket. But in either case, you can only afford course corrections.

TL8½ vs. TL10^? Nasty.

With no needs for high-energy systems, there isn't much need for a full-fledged reactor either. Auxiliary power for a number of hours will do.

All in all, the thing just got very, very impractical. Now it's essentially a slightly self-guiding space parachute for 10 marines.

Now, regarding the rough landings:
A crash-landing inflicts a 0.1mps collision randomly on either the front or the central hull.
That's 6d × 3 × 15 × 0.1 == 6d×4½ dDamage, or 95.5 dDamage on average - enough usually completely destroy it. So,

Now, vertical landing requires 0.1mps per attempt per planetary gravity, and takes 20/(Acc-G) minutes, halved for a streamlined craft in atmosphere. So the two choices for engines are HEDM (2G, 0.5mps) and Chemical (3G, 0.15mps).

For landing on Earth, this produces the respective results of:
HEDM: 10 minutes, 2 rolls, and 1/5 of a fueltank per attempt. You need two successful rolls in a row, and can retry 4 times per tank.
Chemical: 5 minutes, 1 roll, but 2/3 of a fueltank per attempt. You need just one successful roll, but if you fail that roll and don't have a second fuel tank, you're back to the winged landing, which if you fail again, you die.

Of course, you can also ditch the three ECMs and the reactor, put in 5 HEDM rockets, 1 fuel tank in the core, and have instead:
HEDM, 1.1 minute, 1 roll.
Choose whether you prefer being harder to hit, or having less time in the vulnerable spot.
It is not quite clear whether you waste all your MPs per attempt though - SS-41 says 0.1MPs per planetary gravity per attempt, and doesn't mention multiplying by the number of drives. I wonder if this is because engaging several drives simultaneously has a higher net efficiency in fighting gravity.

Re: Orbital Base Jumping
 

I seem to recall a TL9 powered armour/battlesuit which was primarily a strength booster with heavy armor and the ability to add stuff like a jetpack and such? I'm seeing it more as bridging the gap between infantry and armour than anything else.

And yeah, these guys are kinda nasty. The only reason the Amovorc haven't completely taken over the galaxy is lowish numbers and an apparent unwillingness to try - they hit colonies, take things and people, and usually leave fairly quickly. They only dig in for big targets or if extraction isn't reasonable - the one big victory the Council got against them was forcing them to dig into a mid-sized city which they proceeded to nuke to hell and back. (Which was kind of a pyrrhic victory since the city was still occupied by their own side's civilians...)

Re: Orbital Base Jumping
 

TL9 Powered Combat Armor, DR70/50 $80,000; 150lbs; E-cell/18 hr.? Not exactly serious thing for the weight and price. Not much better protection than the TL9 Clamshell (DR45, 18lbs) or Combat Hardsuit (DR 50/30, $10,000; 30lbs).

I'm treating weight as a bad thing because it is a strain on logistics.