[gurps] [VEHICLE] of the week 741 – Stealth Shuttlepod, Single Seat Version

[Zan Lynx]

On Mon, 2009-01-05 at 19:25 +0100, Onno Meyer wrote:
> Stealth Shuttlepod, Single Seat Version v1.0 (TL11)
>   Copyright 2009 by Onno Meyer

> Equipment:
>   Body: Long-range radio with scrambler; medium-range laser communicator 
> with scrambler; 5-mile AESA, LPI; two 5-mile PESAs; 5-mile radscanner; 
> surveillance sound detector, level 5; IFF; inertial navigation system; 
> two C5 hardened small computers; neural induction field; high-security 
> alarm; 0.01 kT self-destruct; 1-man full life system. External: Radical 
> emission cloaking; radical sound baffling; radical stealth; intruder 
> chameleon; radiation shielding.

Not much room for luggage! :)

It would be interesting to build up an example of the kind of sensor net
it would be trying to defeat.  Is it designed for smuggling or
intelligence operations against a fully developed TL 11 opponent?

Using TL 11 Earth as an example.  

The Sol system at TL 11 would probably have a very large sensor net
watching the outer system for FTL ships, c-fractional mass weapons and
the like.  

Earth orbit would probably be very full.  Lots of civilian
infrastructure: power satellites, shipping warehouses, residential
housing and shopping and entertainment.

Lots of scan satellites directed toward Earth just like now only more
so, both government and civilian, with probably the literal ability to
do facial recognition from orbit.  This scan ability would be available
to AI or near-AI computer systems.

Depending on just how much computer ability is available, a stealth
shuttle might find itself vulnerable to detection by its disturbance of
air streams.  On the other hand, there would be *lots* of other traffic
doing the same thing.

And of course the amount of inter-communication between systems would
matter too.  Would the weather system even bother informing Homeland
Security (or whatever they call it).

I suppose that even if that was a problem, a stealth shuttle could
mitigate it by following in the wake of a scheduled flight.  If it was
close enough to another ship, even a successful sensor roll :) by
Homeland Security systems might dismiss it as a sensor ghost.
-- 
Zan Lynx <zlynx at acm.org>