THE CCW Starfleet is Sneeky

[Greyaxe]

Has anybody noticed that both the Scimitar and the Hunter, valuable CCW destroyers, are stealth ships. It is only mentioned in the Cost, indicating the ships found on the black market have their stealth systems removed but it's there for both ships. Does this mean that the CCW relies heavily on stealth to sneak up on its enimies. I thought they were supposed to be the up front good guys.

[Greyaxe]

If you read about the stick in your eye it is the only location where the "Stealth" is quantified. It states a -50 penalty to detect the ship at FTL speeds and -80 to detect the ship at STL speeds outside of 5000 miles. I recomend this, as the only cannon reference, be the default for all stealth operations.

[Greyaxe]

You would thingk the TGE would do the same thing, but they dont appear to. Maybe due to econimics or lack of concern for their fleet but they seem to have the more honourable apporoach to space combat than sneeking arround through space.

[Braden Campbell]

Actually, in terms of fleet sizes, the CCW is bigger than the TGE.

Since the Consortium is an amalgamation of technology from 231 races, its very likely that "Cloaking" is Wulfen or Noro technology... my guess is actually Noro. With their high code of personal honour, it seems unlikely the Wulfen would have to sneak around in the days before joining the CCW. And the fact that the TGE doesn't have it (a good thing) makes me think that it did not go over to the other side with the rest of the Dark Tribes.

Noro cloaking then, was likely for the purposes of observing new races without risking detection... like the duckblind mission in Star Trek: Insurrection. When the Consortium was founded, and everyone started sharing technology, it became adapted into the Scimitar (which was built, according to Fleets of the Three Galaxies, as a replacement for the older destroyers of the Human Alliance).

Notice though, that this technology was not used on either the Warshield or the Protector. My belief is that ships of this size, with their huge engine wakes and spacial displacment, cannot be hidden from sensors... so no cloaked dreadnoughts.




NOTE: I have now realised that I know far too much about this setting...

[Greyaxe]

The Hunter is a wolven design, so i would suggest that Cloaking is a Wolven technology developed for the hunt, like a wolf pack getting ready to spring upon its prey. I agree with you regarding the Scimitar, it is intended as a replacement for older designs and uses the Wolven cloaking device and methods of stalking its prey. Perhpas in responce to the larger Kreegor ships. Ambush attacks and such. Although at mach 10 it takes forty min to get into combat range once the 5000 mile threshold is breached.

[Greyaxe]

Yes The good guys are not supposed to use stealth, Just kiddin. What im saying is the CCW is sneaky, they include stealth system in all the documented frigate sized ships. The Kreegor seem more up front with their fleet. Im here and Im proud type of position, either that or they dont have the stealth technology.

[taalismn]

One can assume that most modern warships in the THree Galaxies have some sort of EW systems, but there are so many types, degrees, and almost daily changes in both type and effectiveness(as well as in the COUNTER-EW sensor technology and programs) that it would be pointless to document them in every ship description unless it becomes a critical part of the game...or the ships are going up against opponents with a vast advantage over them, or disadvantage, in which case the technology is mentioned...

[taalismn]

that's another way to look at it.....

More likely, KS and crowd were sloppy, and didn't want to add page count and time delay with systems and rules few folks were going to use anyway for fast games...

[Aramanthus]

Actually that stealth equipment could be defined as ECM and ECCM. I consider it that.

[Greyaxe]

Good point Gardin, I really like that phase world while similar to other space operas has its own unique feel to it mostly because of the supernatural elements and the occasional presence of magic. I find all too often Phase world's unique feel and flavor is lost to popular books, movies and shows. I love that there are no cloaking devices although I think a UWW battle cruiser becoming visible (after invisibility superior is broken) and blasting the hell out of a Kreegor warship...

Is just plain cool

[Greyaxe]

I agree, a little birdie told me there are a couple of projects in the works which will expand the pahse world setting (a little more detail in some areas) and not elevate the tech levels or have any superior magic powers. In fact they may be a bit of down leveling as far at the technology in this area of space is concerned. (outer colonies and such) It sounds like a really exciting project.

[glitterboy2098]

the mechanics of cloaking will depend on how detailed you want to get in the physics.

i add in real sensor stuff, so cloaks get very high-tech.

in space, your biggest enemy is heat. vacuum is a horrible radiator, and you absorb more heat from sunlight all the time, as well as generate it from electronics, the drives, the powerplant, the crew's metabolism....

since background heat is only 3 kelvin or so, and your ship will be registering in the hundreds, you stand out like a spotlight from half a solar system away. so heat is the #1 thing you'd have to hide.

radar is a given, with ranges out to the light seconds.

one thing few people remember is gravity detectors. simple laser systems that detect gravity fluctuations. in phaseworld, these would be able to detect the common contra-grav drive from extreme distances. (if 20th century ones can pick up waves from stars hundreds of light years away, scifi tech ones could pick up a ship across a system.)

all three have to deal with speed of light lag. so a ship 4 light seconds out, your seeing where it was 4 seconds before. generally not a problem in canon phase world, where space speeds means decades to travel between planets, and most of a month to go to the moon.

on the sci-fi tech setup, you usually have some technobabble FTL sensor system as well. this will vary by GM, as will the countermeasures. i fluffed it as a sweeping gravity distorsion, which gets fluctuations when it passes over another gravity feild. the fluctuations propogate at FTL speed due to the nature of the distorsion. (basically a stationary, linear FTL drive feild) range was only a few light minutes, but it was realtime detection within that range.



stealth, in my set up, was a specially tuned CG drive feild designed to mask the gravity waves, and shunt most of the heat and electromagnetic radiation into a singularity, keeping it from reaching another ship. you were still visable optically, but with the heat, RADAR, and gravity feilds masked, you were unlikely to be found unless the enemy got within a hundred miles or so, or just happened to train a telescope on you.

you could still get picked up by the FTL sensor, but that means your gravity detector can lock onto the enemy ship, since you can pick up it's beam.

this turned space combat between 'cloaked' ships into a sub-battle, as each ship tries to maintain a passive lock on the other, while manuvering into position, the first one to turn on the active sensors dies.

[Greyaxe]

The star ghost uses phase technology to acomplish its stealth capabilities, no rist of technology falling into the wrong hands unless its evil prometheans.

[Aramanthus]

There is a difference between stealth and cloaking. Stealth is something you will see on military ships. We are seeing it get far more wide spread as the latest genenration of naval ships are being constructed. And stealth should be as prevalent in a setting such as Phase World. But the phasing ships of the Promethians should be rare and unique.

[Aramanthus]

I just hope the rest of them see it that way too. Thanks for agreeing Gadrin!