[UT] Help! Future Combat Revolving Around Ultra-Tech Stabbery

[Langy]

I'd probably go with 100 km/hr or so if you want it to be all about speed, but really how I'd handle it is probably kinetic energy. Allow things with relatively low kinetic energy through, and only start stopping it at pistol or rifle levels.

[lwcamp]

Originally Posted by Seneschal

So, me and my players are fleshing-out an upcoming TL11 space opera campaign and getting all the world details right. We're going for a slightly comedic campaign set in a relatively hard-sci-fi setting. While the core technologies aren't completely realistic, we're aiming for internal consistency, so I'd like to have clearly defined limits and capabilities for each of them. I'd appreciate if the hive mind here could stress-test them, and see how you would use them most efficiently, what exploits you would find, which technologies have obviously better alternatives that I've overlooked, etc.

This makes me envision hamster-ball shields. Rather than worry about someone shivving you through the shield, make it deflect everything, but also make it spherical so you can run around while you are in it like a hamster in a ball.

Are the shields transparent? If so visible light lasers (at least) should go through them like they are not even there. If not, how do you see?

Regarding the ability to breathe - a resting human requires about 8.3 grams of oxygen per second. An exercising human could easily require five times as much. A quick calculation of integrating the Maxwell-Boltzmann velocity distribution (which gives the speed distribution of a gas) of earth-like air at 300 K (27 degrees C, 80 degrees F) and standard pressure at sea level across the range of allowed speeds finds the following mass fluxes across the barrier at the various speed cutoffs you listed
44.72 km/h ... 0.195 g/s/m^2
100 km/h ... 4.85 g/s/m^2
70 km/h ... 1.17 g/s/m^2
77 km/h ... 1.71 g/s/m^2
238 km/h ... 151 g/s/m^2
300 km/h ... 373 g/s/m^2
thus, to support a resting human, the barrier would require a surface area of
44.72 km/h ... 42 m^2
100 km/h ... 1.7 m^2
70 km/h ... 7.1 m^2
77 km/h ... 4.9 m^2
238 km/h ... 0.055 m^2
300 km/h ... 0.022 m^2
and a human engaging in vigorous exercise (such as combat) would need maybe five times the area.

The human body has about 2 m^2 of skin, so a form-fitting screen would have the same area. If the screen were a sphere of 2 m diameter (allowing maximum extension of the limbs and full freedom of movement) it would have an area of 12.6 m^2. So you can use this to guestimate the cutoff speed needed for respiration.

Luke

[Mathulhu]

I added ablative shields into a setting to reward people using shotguns instead of rifles.

Rcl 1 shot shreds ablative dr surprisingly quickly, especially when you are getting a significant bonus to hit for all the little bits of metal going down range.
You do need a friend with a really gun to pierce their real armour once their shields are down.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Mathulhu

I added ablative shields into a setting to reward people using shotguns instead of rifles.

Rcl 1 shot shreds ablative dr surprisingly quickly, especially when you are getting a significant bonus to hit for all the little bits of metal going down range.
You do need a friend with a really gun to pierce their real armour once their shields are down.

So, no sub-barrel shotguns?

(FYI, shotguns are very weak against my orgone shields since they are more than RoF3.)

[Mathulhu]

I should have specified "in the same turn" ;) their shields might only go back up a bit but, you don't want them to get an action.

[Jovus]

One thing you could do is have the shield flicker on and off at some high frequency, allowing people to walk and breathe once they got used to the vibratory effect it might have on the ground and other surfaces.

Originally Posted by Seneschal

Still, even with that weapon, six shots were needed instead of one. And getting six shots in a row on target, especially from a weapon with such high Rcl, isn't easy.

Sure, but it's safer than getting close to you. As is a payload rifle from a mile away with a Nanoburn cartridge, or an EMP round from my UGL followed by a burst from my Storm Carbine, depending on how these things are made.

[Anthony]

You know, if the point is ultra-tech stabbery, you can easily have the shield-penetrating effect be a feature of the sword rather than the shield; i.e. the sword has something built in to the blade that lets it pass through shields. This does mean you can build shield-penetrating guns by putting the same generator in a bullet, but depending on the size and cost of the shield penetrating device, doing so may not be cost effective.