I'm going to try to limit myself to clearing up misunderstandings with what I meant/how ER works.
See, I'm fairly certain that the actual power a manipulator requires is just for the interface, and I get the feeling (judging from what a manipulator battery pill did) that the power requirements for that are equivalent to those of a pocket calculator. The manipulator battery, rather, does something different entirely, and it's only called a battery because it looks like one. I'm reasonably sure piecewise stated something to that effect at one point. Remember that manipulator batteries are good for twenty uses, irrespective of what each of those uses is, it seems. So, the only "power" requirement that scales to the use seems to be mental fortitude.
Not that this whole manipulator stealth idea isn't far too stupidly expensive to be worth it, of course.
You're partially correct. Standard manipulator batteries mostly draw their power from the eldritch stuff in them (See: Grate-3
2). However, they do output electrical energy too, and vastly more than you think they do.
They output four TPU, the same as a laser rifle battery. I know scientific calculators are powerful, but if they have the power of an anti-personnel laser, I've been seriously missing out.
we're talking about an automanipulator large enough to have the capacity to cool a decently large sphere to 2-3K, and in doing so shield that heat of life support, the automanips you would need to use for movement (the tyranny of the rocket equation is still in effect here, if you don't use them - you start to go a bit beyond 'fighter' scale if you plan to have any decent velocity, return capability, and manoeuvring capability), and the power source for all of the automanips.
Point one: It would only need to cool the external layer of the sphere. Which may or may not be cheaper than cooling the whole sphere. Heat buildup inside is perfectly allowed- in fact, if it does turn out that it can only stealth like this for a limited period of time, you could shove insulating material in to slow the heat transfer to the outside.
Point two: I wasn't suggesting putting automanips for movement into it. That's stupid. You have a space magic avatar sitting there, so why not use that? This also means that return capability is just "rest for a while, then expend twice the energy in the opposite direction to return". Alternatively, fire it from a cap. ship, and have the avatar park it in space and wait for pickup when it's done.
Point three: Why would maneuverability be needed? If this thing is shot at, something is wrong. And accuracy is negligible- you only need to get within a few
miles of the target.
Why do you think these automanipulators are any larger? I've never heard them described, but I don't see any reason they would need to necessarily be larger to do something like that. After all, you can basically nuke a town without even causing an overload with an amp, like Xan did once.
Also, isn't detecting a heat signature basically just detecting infrared light? Can't you just block that somehow? We've got all sorts of wacky metamaterials. Maybe get some interference going, you know? That kind of thing. Maybe you don't even need automanipulators, or maybe you need to use them in a different way?
Anybody who's played with VR automanips knows that they get bigger and draw more energy the more complex a task you tell them to do. PW has outright stated that the automanips that accelerate the cap. ship coilguns are the size of vehicles.
Hey folks! I was thinking about getting involved in ER, and I've put a character sheet below. Going for a very straight-forward, no frills sort of character. Any feedback, or see any issues?
Name: Taddok Find
Age: 31
Gender: M
Appearance: 6'1, built like a truck, and covered in tattoos. Shaved head, no facial hair.
Personal information:
Reason assigned to HMRC: (Murder, sedition, treason, etc) Underworld hitman; convicted on 27 counts of murder.
Stats:
Strength: 5
Dexterity: 5
Endurance: 5
Charisma: 0
Intelligence: 0
Willpower: 5
Skills:
(Currently floating the last point; I was thinking about putting the last point into either Med-tech or Aux systems. Was also considering Uncon weapons for a little more combat flexibility. Would like feedback.)
Speech: 0
Intuition: 1
Handiwork: 0
Conventional Weapons: 3
Unconventional Weapons: 0
Exotic weapons: 0
Auxiliary systems: 0
Medical tech: 0
Profession: Mercenary
Starting inventory would probably be a Gauss, open to suggestions on how to spend the other 3.
Sheet seems quite solid to me. I would recommend going either Handi or Med with the extra point, because AUX isn't very useful for non-specialists, and multiclassing with combat skills doesn't tend to go well. Preferably Med, because there's more fleshtechs than technicians.
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Topic: Einsteinian Roulette: OOC and NEW PLAYER INFO (Read 2542240 times)