Nuclear Dampers- The Ultimate Weapon?

[kilemall]

Got ahold of the cheap MgT1E Pocket Rulebook (guess fire sales all over due to 2E) and read up on everything, including starships. Got to the nuclear dampers, and they can screen not only nukes, but Fusion Guns.

Well, that was a surprise.

Don't see how given that traditionally the fusion part happened back at the weapon and the bolt is 'just' a bolt.

So I had a ha-ha wouldn't that be funny if BD troops had personal NDs and everyone would have to go back to plasma guns and gauss rifles.

But then I thought about the fact high tech Striker troops typically operate with ND sets.

So could those NDs shut down all those fusion powered weapons and grav tanks?

Scale up, wouldn't that be handy in a fleet battle, even if the effect could only be used at 1000 km, to facilitate intact capture of those pesky rebel blockade runners? Or neutralize enemy defenses for troop landings?

Scale further up, building-sized damper nodes in planetary defense that can reach 10,000 km or more out, making it impossible to close for planetary assault because the power plants of small craft or ortillery can be shut down?

I think this is a rule with some potentially ugly downstream complications.

Nuclear Dampers Uber Alles?

 

[lostscout5]

Don't ND's form the basis for disintegrators? Does the ability to make your enemies go "poof" count as an ugly downstream complications?

 

[Lycanorukke]

Don't ND's form the basis for disintegrators? Does the ability to make your enemies go "poof" count as an ugly downstream complications?

Yep. Given dampers weaken (or increase) the SNF, just wind the power setting up and watch your enemies disappear into hard radiation. Though by the rules this doesn't occur till TL-19 or so.

The downside is that dampers can be counteracted by the target having its own damper onboard to counteract the external damper. The other catch is that the dampening 'field' is usually relatively small. So if the taget had backup power (fuel cells or batteries) the reactor might 'burp' for a few seconds as you pass through the field but you are otherwise unaffected.

 

[kilemall]

Don't ND's form the basis for disintegrators? Does the ability to make your enemies go "poof" count as an ugly downstream complications?

Knew about the disintegrators, but that's in the legendary Galaxiad times. We are just a simple TL15 peoples.

 

[mike wightman]

Original CT had the nuclear damper tech becoming disintegrator tech at TL16.

The TNE adventure Guilded Lily has a starport nuclear damper lockdown a merchant ship's reactor preventing it from taking off.

Using NDs in this way in ship combat would require you to be within visual/boarding range.

 

[kilemall]

Okay, great, but what about NDs shutting down gravtanks at typical 10 km or less engagement ranges? Or suborbital flyers with fusion power?

 

[Meeko100]

Best grab your favorite internal combustion engine then!

I don't know much about the earlier versions of travel too much off the top of my head, but MgT1e in the vehicle design had hydrogen fuel cells power grav vehicles, before small fusion power is then used TL13 and on for grav vehicles. So run your tanks on fuel cells. Sucks for long term engagements, but how long is your shock orbital assault going to last until you can recharge your vehicles/rotate the next wing in?

 

[mike wightman]

Okay, great, but what about NDs shutting down gravtanks at typical 10 km or less engagement ranges? Or suborbital flyers with fusion power?

I would require the ND to be focussed on the grav vehicle for several minutes in order to degrade the power plant output.

Once the vehicle notices it is under ND attack it has the option of getting out of range or destroying the ND emitter before serious power loss can take effect. Throttle up the power plant in the meantime.

 

[epicenter00]

Okay, great, but what about NDs shutting down gravtanks at typical 10 km or less engagement ranges? Or suborbital flyers with fusion power?

If it is possible (and I suspect it is) - I doubt it'd work on military vehicles. Probably not even on civilian vehicles.

NDs are relatively short-ranged and no matter how "slow" space combat missiles are, I doubt they're so slow as to spend long periods of time inside ND range if NDs worked slowly. IIRC, NDs have to actually be "aimed" at their target, which means if NDs worked slowly, you could swarm a ship with missiles pretty easily. A slow-acting ND could take out a few but the rest would hit. Nukes would still be the king of space combat. This suggests that NDs are pretty fast-acting.

If they're fast-acting, they would be useful against vehicles with their smaller, more fussy fusion reactors (they'd have to be fussy to actually trigger sustainable fusion reactions in such a small space). In theory.

In practice, if such a thing were possible, someone in the Traveller Universe would have done it already. If a player has thought of it, you have to assume that someone among the trillions in the TU has thought of it, too. Probably many times. As a trick, it would have been done pretty soon after NDs were developed. It might have worked a few times, but eventually word would have gotten out and something would be done about it. I'm not sure what kind of technology would be used to counter this sort of thing, but it must exist or else militaries (especially) would stop using fusion reactors in vehicles. It also seems fairly dangerous if some "comedian" (they might be known as terrorists in some places) decided to use an ND on reactor-equipped spaceship or lighter coming in for a landing.

The counter device (probably a weak ND in itself since it'd likely be necessary to achieve viable fusion reactions in a small fusion reactor) would have to be assumed as standard equipment on small reactors. It might not prevent the fusion reactor from shutting down, but it'd buy long minutes. It's likely that most tanks and so on would have some sort of backup power supply good for a few minutes of running as well.