Black Globes

[Michael Taylor]

My understanding of black globes is if you are stationery you stay stationery and you cannot change course as menaeuver drives cant work out of a BG. If going on a certain vector you have to stay on that vector. Is that correct?
Alsl, if a ship is docked with a larger ship and the larger ship has a BG, can the smaller ship also be protected? (I'm thinking of a 2000 ton ship with a BG cloaking a 200 ton ship).
Thankyou in advance for your collective wisdom on this.

regards

Mike

 

[Michael Taylor]

Adjunct question. Just how large would an anti-matter explosion be if you had 1000kg of antimatter that breached containment? And would there be time to get out of harms way?

 

[womble]

1000kg antimatter annihilating with 1000kg of matter would release approximately (3 x 10^8)^2 x 2 x 10^3J = ca. 1.8x10^17kJ
A Megaton explosion is about 3x10^12kJ
So the annihilation of a tonne of antmatter would produce an explosion equivalent to about 60000 Megatonnes of TNT, or 600 100MT nukes.

Even at 30% efficiency, that's 20GT

No, you would not be able to outrun the explosion.

 

[The Oz]

Originally posted by Michael Taylor:
My understanding of black globes is if you are stationery you stay stationery and you cannot change course as menaeuver drives cant work out of a BG. If going on a certain vector you have to stay on that vector. Is that correct?
Alsl, if a ship is docked with a larger ship and the larger ship has a BG, can the smaller ship also be protected? (I'm thinking of a 2000 ton ship with a BG cloaking a 200 ton ship).
Thankyou in advance for your collective wisdom on this.

regards

Mike

You are correct in that a maneuver drive cannot be used by a ship with a fully-on black globe. Such a ship must remain on whatever vector it had before it activated the BG.

But, if you have a ship with a flickering BG, the ship loses maneuver ability in proportion with the flicker of the BG.

I do not recall a canon reference as to whether a BG would cover a ship docked to the ship with the BG, but my interpretation would be "Yes." Since the BG is described as a "globe" away from the skin of the ship with the BG, I would think that any ship docked to the BG ship would be protected, as long as the docked ship does not physically extend into the BG itself (in which case, BOOM!!!).

As a rule of thumb, I would say that a single BG-equipped ship could also protect other ships up to a total of 50% of the BG-equipped ship's tonnage. As a referee, I would adjust this figure depending on the configurations of the ships involved: a spherical BG ship (say, a Tigress with a BG) could not protect as much tonnage as a Kokirrak since the BG itself would likely be closer to the surface of a spherical ship, while a more angular ship like a Kokirrak is likely to have more "room" available inside the BG.

Does that make sense?

 

[BetterThanLife]

Michael,
I don't like the implications of these questions.

There is no canon reference to whether a ship docked with a ship with a BG operating would be covered. I would think it would depend on your interpretation of how far from the ship the BG field sits, whether it is a true Globe, the shape and configuration of the two ships. I would tend to think of it as a sphere, with a little safety margin at the wide point of the ship. (Usually with the long dimension of the ship being a little smaller than the diameter of the sphere.) Though most canon ships with BG fields have been flattened cones, so the generator would have to be centered closer to the rear of the ship with a bit of space behind the ship covered but not occupied by ship. You would have space in that configuration above and below the ship as well as behind it. But to either side quite a bit less space.

If, for example, a Scout Ship or a Marvara II were docked to the upper or lower surface of say, The Black Prince, neart the center of the ship, then I would say it was covered. If on the other hand a ship shaped like, say, The Spinward Rebellion, was docked to the side of the Black Prince, it would likely intersect the field of the Black Globe with catastrophic results.

I hope my examples didn't give too much away, but when I read the question that is where my mind immediately went.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Thinking about it. I looked up something I seem to remember about Black Globes. I would think that the field is spherical. In Adventure 1, The Kinunir, the precise location of the Black Globe installation was important. With its location, being towards the stern, it would give coverage to the enitre length with space behind it and coverage at the widest and tallest place of the ship with close to the minimum possible size.

 

[Chuck Anumia]

Perhaps it also depends on the tech level of the generator? (higher=Bigger globe)

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Baron Weiskircher the Preacher:
Perhaps it also depends on the tech level of the generator? (higher=Bigger globe)

Since virtually all Generators are TLF that doesn't help. Further it appears to be counter intuitive. The bigger the field the more crap will impact on it causing a strain on the generators. I would think at higher Tech Levels you could get shapes other than a sphere so the globe would conform closer to the ship's actual shape and get smaller not larger.

 

[mike wightman]

According to Traveller canon the original Ancient black globes that the Imperials either:
reverse engineered;
or,
installed as found (a chache of a thousand or so is mentioned IIRC);

were activated by pressing a button - the longer the button is depressed the larger the field grew.

So I would say that a black globe equipped ship could be extended.

Oh, and since they are tonnage based components the same black globe generator from a Kinunir could be refitted to a Tigress and still work

 

[Chuck Anumia]

Ah Right, Thanks

 

[Andrew Boulton]

What my players always wanted to know (but were too scared to try) was whether a psionic could teleport through one...

(they did figure out a way of using sensors through one, though).

 

[far-trader]

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
According to Traveller canon the original Ancient black globes that the Imperials either:
reverse engineered;
or,
installed as found (a chache of a thousand or so is mentioned IIRC);

were activated by pressing a button - the longer the button is depressed the larger the field grew.

Interesting, if silly. Where is this from btw? How fast does it grow? Did this consider the flicker-rate idea? Did nobody consider someone might purposefully or accidentally engage a black globe and never shut it off so the globe just keeps growing and absorbing everything until it blows the capacitors? Imagine one of these drifting through deep space with only a minimal charge being accumulated. It'd be huge. Until one day it drifts near a star. "What is that? IT'S HUGE!? We can't get any readings but it's eclipsing a big part of the starfield. It seems to be closing, or growing, or both." And then "BOOOM" it "hits" an outer planet or oort object and the capacitors finally overload. The globe disappears and the ship, several AU (or more) distant at the center, explodes, perhaps unnoticed.

Originally posted by Sigg Oddra:
Oh, and since they are tonnage based components the same black globe generator from a Kinunir could be refitted to a Tigress and still work

Do you mean "not" tonnage based?

 

[Rossoneill]

Depending on which version of Traveller you use the rules for BG change .
There are BG and WG
Some Black Globes need more energy and more BG Tonnage for bigger ships .
At least i think this is how it read
I can not remember how WG work
I will need to double check it
WG =White Globe

 

[far-trader]

Oh, wait, I think I see what Sigg meant now. The components are tonnage based but the effectiveness is not based on the tonnage protected. As long as you have room to install the thing it'll work. So the BG generator on the Kinunir could be hooked up in a small locker on a Tigress (whose small lockers are HUGE ) or maybe even shoehorned into the cargo hold of a small trader

No matter the size of the ship it'll work the same with the effective usefulness being dependant on the capacitors (Tigress, lots of capacitors, Free-Trader, not so much).

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Rossthree:
Depending on which version of Traveller you use the rules for BG change .
There are BG and WG
Some Black Globes need more energy and more BG Tonnage for bigger ships .
At least i think this is how it read
I can not remember how WG work
I will need to double check it
WG =White Globe

I have never seen Black Globes as other than one size fits all. (LBB5, MT and T20 being the only three I own though.)

White Globes, detailed in MT work like Black Globes except they are like one way mirrors, everything can get out but nothing gets in. Which means you can maneuver, shoot and disapate energy while the shield is functioning. Not sure how that would work with the cloaking side effect though.

 

[Michael Taylor]

Thankyou one and all for your words of wisdom. I know now what I must do.

 

[BetterThanLife]

You do realize that there is enough space in the Cargo hold of the "Spinward Rebellion" for a Black Globe installation. And since the Black Globe generator doesn't require power....

 

[Rossoneill]

Bhoins
I believe i was thinking of Marc Millers Traveller and FFAS
As the tonnage protected increased the BG or WG requiring more tonnage and power .
So it could be we are both right .
I will check tonight after work if my headache is gone .

 

[womble]

White Globes, detailed in MT work like Black Globes except they are like one way mirrors, everything can get out but nothing gets in. Which means you can maneuver, shoot and disapate energy while the shield is functioning.

You still can't see, though...

 

[Andrew Boulton]

WGs can be tuned to allow certain wavelengths in, so you can see out.