Hi everyone, In the second book "To Dream of Chaos" from GDW the plot hook centered on sending an improved J-hawk very deep into the wilds to recover or destroy a black globe before the Solee could get their hands on it. This leads me to think that the Coalition does not have any globes of if they do only one or two. These would most likely be found items, off a derelict starship or being repaired at a base when the base was abandoned. Lancers might come across the hulk of one that the locals striped for parts to keep their fusion plant going, never realizing just what they had. The Guild being active over at least a sector would have an even better chance of finding one that the RCES. They could repair one for sure but I don't think they could build a globe. The Solee are close to the sector's depot, and here I'll bet they were building globes for black war raiders. These black war raiders I've always pictured as being smaller more expendable ships, CEs, DEs, or anything up to maybe 3000 tons. So the globes being built here would not fit on the larger Solee ships. The Solee could mount one on a J-Hawk. Soup up its sensors and you would have a dandy spy ship. My money would be on the vampires. They must have captured ships with globes, and building new globes would not be a problem for them especially behind the black curtain. Could a fleet of them work together, yes if they wanted to but would they want to?
Since black globes are so hard to get-build-find. Currently stealth aircraft absorb and reflect radar signals to make themselves harder to spot. In BARD the is something called smart paint, how about adding computer controlled crystals to the paint. The crystals would reflect EMS and radar emissions away from the searching ship making it harder to spot the reflecting ship (+1 to Active EMS search attempts). Something else is EM Masking, it makes your ship look smaller on active sensors. Put EM Masking and reverse the process on a two ton craft and on radar now gives a return echo of a much larger ship. The enemy could be drawn off to follow or shoot at the phony target. Also extra EM Masking radiators could be added to EM Masking package. Turn off the radiators facing the rival ship and turn on the ones facing away from it, making it harder (+1 to passive sensors) for passive sensors to pick up the target.
I like the concept. How paranoid people would get, if reports of starships fading into nothingness started coming in.
Roger
Since black globes are so hard to get-build-find. Currently stealth aircraft absorb and reflect radar signals to make themselves harder to spot. In BARD the is something called smart paint, how about adding computer controlled crystals to the paint. The crystals would reflect EMS and radar emissions away from the searching ship making it harder to spot the reflecting ship (+1 to Active EMS search attempts). Something else is EM Masking, it makes your ship look smaller on active sensors. Put EM Masking and reverse the process on a two ton craft and on radar now gives a return echo of a much larger ship. The enemy could be drawn off to follow or shoot at the phony target. Also extra EM Masking radiators could be added to EM Masking package. Turn off the radiators facing the rival ship and turn on the ones facing away from it, making it harder (+1 to passive sensors) for passive sensors to pick up the target.
I like the concept. How paranoid people would get, if reports of starships fading into nothingness started coming in.
Roger