optic armor

[spank]

An outgrowth of suspended light lasers, optic armor or photo absorbent armor first becomes avilable at TL 13. It is however less effective against other forms of attack; IE impact, plasma ect. As a result it is frequently worn under other armor.

A set of armor weighs 10KG. A heavier (or lighter) set may be purchased, treat as double weight, +1 TL. (or -1TL)
The armor discharges the dice it absorbs into standard power packs at a rate of 3 dice to 1 shot.

TL 13
When an attack occurs the attacker and defender both roll 1 die, if the defenders roll is equal or greater the the attack dir is consider to be absorbed. If the attack roll is greater then reduce it by the defenders roll, and consider the result as the roll, however no absortion occurs.
roll the rest of the attack as normal.

TL 14
When an attack occurs the attackers roll 1 die and the defender rolls 2 dice, if the defenders roll is equal or greater the the attack die is consider to be absorbed. If the attack roll is greater then reduce it by the defnders roll, and consider the result as the roll, however no absortion occurs.
roll the rest of the attack as normal.
TL 15
1 die is automaticly removed from the attack roll
TL 16
2 dice are automaticly removed from the attack roll.

 

[Gadrin]

??? are you talking about something different than Reflec ?

Reflec (Cr1500; TL 10): Reflective material on a plastic base can be tailored
into a body suit which is ineffective against most weapons, but superior in defense
against laser fire. Unlike other forms of armor, reflec is worn under other clothing.
Reflec is expensive and often difficult to obtain.


I didn't see a weight listed for it.

 

[spank]

Vs. reflec

Sorry, probably should have specified, this is a IMTU peice of equipment. I just had the idea for it Monday, so feedback would be nice.

 

[G. Fieendish]

Re: This thread
With regard to the last poster's comment, this armour is similar to reflec armour, but does'nt reflect the laser pulse.
Rather, it adsorbs the pulse, & shunts the converted energy into batteries....
Think of it rather as a "alternative tech, poor man's black globe"....
Another analogy would be if, Reflec is the equivalent of attaching mirror tiles to the side of a vehicle, this this armour is the equivalent of attaching solar cells to the vehicle instead....

 

[Renaissance Man]

A combat-effective laser carries a lot of energy so heat dissipation would be a definite problem. ANY loss of absorption efficiency at ANY wavelength will mean a heck of a lot of joules converted to heat, which will threaten to melt the armour. At the very least, heat will effect the quality of the absorbing medium (e.g. reduce surface area, degrade contacts, etc.) reducing efficiency for further attacks.

Then we have a variation of the black globe problem, which is: where to put all of that absorbed electromagnetic energy?

The advantage of reflec is that it doesn't attempt to take in the energy of a laser, but rather reject the photons and encourage them to transfer their "payload" elsewhere. Thankfully, photons are happy to go anywhere, as long as they get to stay at C. Absorption is something your body will do anyway when the the laser hits you, with ugly consequences that we are all familiar with. IMHO you want less, rather than more of that.

 

[spank]

Perhaps absorb is the wrong term, but I can't think of a better one. The basic idea came from an article about slowing light.

The basic idea with the armor is this plus trying to redirect the light energy to somewhere besides where it was going, not absorb it in the same way that a bulletproof vest does.

 

[Renaissance Man]

Yeah, I was reading your initial post a little more carefully and I noticed the concept of slowing light afterwards.

Sorry about not getting that the first time around.

I'm still trying to work out the implications of this though... somehow using a Bose-Einstein condensate as armour... hmmm...

 

[DaveChase]

hmmm

Maybe the armor has a thin layer (or thick) of gel that changes to gas upon contact by the 'laser'.
This gas is of course more active and expands as compared the gel.
There are small converters at several major joints that change/exchanges the heat/energy/motion into a electric energy which is then fed to a storage device.

Each converter uses a small portion of the collected energy to operate. At higher TL's the converters use less energy.

Just my thoughts based on some of the current tech on solar exchangers (both heat and electric).

Dave Chase

 

[spank]

A scenario

I think I have a secenario I might use to introduce this, a planet with a high law level, lasers are legal for citizens, but the armor is either on legal for police, or available on the black market to criminals.

 

[spank]

an analogy

Edit--I didn't see your second post Dave.

The best analogy I can think of is a pane of glass, some of the energy passes through, and some of it passes down the material, where it is trapped.

I do like the poor man's black globe moniker however.

If material science advances to the point where light can be trapped, like in the experiments currently going on,

Edit-- in experiments currently going on light has been slow to 38 miles an hour, google slow light

and the material can be made to conduct the light only in certain directions, say perpendicular to the plane of the armor then I think such armor could be built. Even if all the armor does is act as the resonator in a laser, the chage could be bleed off out on edge of it.

 

[Gadrin]

In a way "slowing down light" makes me think of the General Products hulls in Niven's Known Space series.

"Nothing gets thru a GP hull except visible light"

or something to that effect.

Wonder what the world would look like thru a pane of 38mph glass ?

 

[G. Fieendish]

Re:General Products hulls
Did'nt the hero in one of the Known Space Stories (Beowulf Schaffer ?) spend some time worrying if a species that General Products dealt with, saw X-rays, & as a result, the G.P Hull would let X-Rays in....?

 

[wfames]

I realize this thread is long-dead, but a word of commentary on slow light:

It's not that the beam of light moves any slower, a la through glass. There are many different things which can all be called the "speed of light", that which we normally think of as the "speed of light" it the phase velocity, which is the speed at which the wavefront propagates. When we talk about slow light, what we are slowing down is the group velocity, which is the velocity at which wave packets travel within the wave, and can be faster, slower, or even in a different direction than the phase velocity. So using magic armor to make lasers that hit you into slowed light beams will do nothing at all to prevent you from being cooked by the incoming beam.

Thus, when the announcement was made several years ago that a group velocity much faster than c was achieved, it was not in violation of relativity, and while an impressive experimental achievement, was not the theory-shattering, paradigm-shifting development the press made it out to be.