Hydrocarbon Fuel Cells for 3e

[GURPS Fox]

Originally Posted by Fred Brackin

There's a 3e sourcebook (2003) converting the setting of the original Blue Planet game from Biohazard. As a licensed product it does not appear to be available in pdf. Finding a used copy is not out of the question though.

Converting settings from other game companies to gurps was fairly common in 3e. Gurps Traveller would be the most famous (and numerous) but there were 3 volumes from White Wolf's World of Darkness, a Gurps Deadlands, Gurps Castle Falkenstein and no doubt some thing or things I'm forgetting.

Also,besides the many adaptations from fiction there were a couple books adapted from videogames. See Gurps Myth and Gurps Alpha Centauri. Not adapted from other companies were Gurps Autoduel and Gurps Ogre.

Good to know.

Originally Posted by Varyon

I'm not familiar with the source, but I assumed if a recon vehicle (which needs to avoid detection) needs to run active sensors at all times (as indicated by OP), pretty much everyone needs to - or, at least, you need at least one vehicle doing so in any given group.

Something that is implied in canon CnC. Especially in TibWars when units with the detector tag have what looks like an active LIDAR scan showing up every so often, especially when it detects a stealth unit.

Originally Posted by Anthony

The source appears to be some one of the Command and Conquer (Tiberium Universe) games, unclear which, which is an RTS that includes stealth units that, depending on the game, can be detected by moving your own units close enough, or at longer distances by units with the detector trait, or by using a couple specialized abilities. It looks to be a fairly typical RTS stealth mechanic, where if one side does a rush to research and build the stealth units they can do a lot of damage before the other side manages to set up their detection.

Actually, 1-3 has the stealth field of mobile units broken by the very act of firing. Even the first base-spannig stealth field (available in TibSun for Nod) had units that fired breaking the stealth field. Later on, they fixed this problem but -from my recollection- the act of firing decreases the capability of the field to negate sensors...

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

In the first and I think also second game, cloaking units decloaked to attack, so it wasn't a combat defense so much. Successfully taking advantage of an expensive and weak unit that the enemy couldn't see if it wasn't fighting them was tricky.

This and it was an ambusher, not for line combat.

[Anthony]

I'll take the word of people who've actually played the game, but the basic point is that stealth detection is not the norm, nor is it clear that it requires active sensors, just sensors most units don't have.

In both the video game and real life, often the way you detect snipers is by getting shot at.

[GURPS Fox]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I'll take the word of people who've actually played the game, but the basic point is that stealth detection is not the norm, nor is it clear that it requires active sensors, just sensors most units don't have.

In both the video game and real life, often the way you detect snipers is by getting shot at.

Though, to be honest, in TibWars, the GDI equivalent of a humvee (the Pitbull) is equipped with this sort of sensor array.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Anthony

The source appears to be some one of the Command and Conquer (Tiberium Universe) games, unclear which, which is an RTS that includes stealth units that, depending on the game, can be detected by moving your own units close enough, or at longer distances by units with the detector trait, or by using a couple specialized abilities. It looks to be a fairly typical RTS stealth mechanic, where if one side does a rush to research and build the stealth units they can do a lot of damage before the other side manages to set up their detection.

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

In the first and I think also second game, cloaking units decloaked to attack, so it wasn't a combat defense so much. Successfully taking advantage of an expensive and weak unit that the enemy couldn't see if it wasn't fighting them was tricky.

Originally Posted by GURPS Fox

Something that is implied in canon CnC. Especially in TibWars when units with the detector tag have what looks like an active LIDAR scan showing up every so often, especially when it detects a stealth unit.

Actually, 1-3 has the stealth field of mobile units broken by the very act of firing. Even the first base-spannig stealth field (available in TibSun for Nod) had units that fired breaking the stealth field. Later on, they fixed this problem but -from my recollection- the act of firing decreases the capability of the field to negate sensors...

This and it was an ambusher, not for line combat.

Alright, how's this for an alternative that should reduce your vehicle's power requirements and seems like it largely fits with how it appears to work in-game (as I assume Detector units don't show up on the map from further away than other ones, which is what would happen with constantly-scanning active sensors). The "stealth detector suite" uses passive scanners to initially find cloaked units. Due to the nature of the stealth field, it is unable to determine precise locations of the targets, so once it does detect some, it sends out a single active pulse of energy that disrupts the stealth fields, making the targets visible for both allies and its own weapons. There is the potential issue that this makes the detector platform obvious, but in strategy video games there's sufficient real-time, secured communications for the commander to basically see everything his units can, so if there are cloaked foes within range your own vehicle has almost certainly already been detected.

Given the active sensors now only need to activate for a moment to send out the pulse, you should be able to get away with capacitors or similar that can be recharged later by the engine. I don't know how much power your active sensors are drawing, but let's say the disruptive pulse use twice as much energy as your high-res LIDAR running for 1 second - so if your LIDAR suite burns through 1 MW when actively scanning, you need a 2 MJ capacitor (perhaps several of them, if you anticipate needing to do multiple pulses in a relatively short time frame). If it takes you a minute to recharge the capacitor, and want to be able to do so during combat without any reduction in other systems, that means 1 MW of output (for active scanning) can be replaced by 33 kW; assuming the weight of your engine scales linearly with power output (IIRC, unless it's fairly small, reactors in Classic Vehicles have constant plus a value that scales linearly, but at 4 MW I think you're powerful enough of an engine that it might as well be linear again), that reduces your fuel cell from 2025 lbs to around 1535 lbs, and the fuel consumption from 80 gph to around 61 gph (although given the vehicle would be a bit lighter, this might improve fuel efficiency further by not requiring as powerful of an engine to reach your top speed). Now, the passive sensors would likely still require some power to run, so you'll lose a little of what you gained, and you'll need to also tack on some weight (losing some more of that gain) for the capacitors, but overall you'll be looking at a net gain in lightness and fuel efficiency. Note you can gain a bit more by accepting a longer charge time per capacitor - or you can even have no part of your engine dedicated to recharging them, and simply accept lower performance elsewhere while recharging them (or recharge while the vehicle is idling).

The pulse scheme doesn't work so well for Detectors that are also Cloaked (if those exist in your campaign), as the stealth-disrupting pulse would give away their positions (of course, such can't exist if they're doing active scanning, because that would be constantly giving away their position). However, just knowing the general area the enemy Cloaked units are in is useful (it lets you largely bypass them, or send in a kill team), and once it's time for battle to be joined (by said kill team), the Detector can send out the pulse, then take advantage of the chaos of the kill team engaging to get away from the position from which it sent out a pulse. Essentially, the enemy may know there's a Cloaked Detector in the area, but the fact their stealthed units got de-stealthed by a disruption pulse means they'd already know that.