sensors and things...

A thread of 2 messages, 30 April 1992 to 2 May 1992, in the order they were sent.

#4044 sensors and things...

Steve Higginbotham · 30 April 1992

Scott:

>Well, IMO, I can see there being reasons for both cases.  However, I
>can much more easily justify there being hardpoint restrictions for
>weapons than I can for sensors.  *Some* of the turret weapons have
>recoil.  Fusion/Plasma weapons, and to a lesser extent sandcasters
>and missile racks.  (In my games the missile racks use a grav ejector
>system to throw the missile clear of the ship before the engine
>ignites)

In our game, the missiles use grav propulsion (anything else would
give performance so poor that missiles would be useless), so grav
ejectors are pretty meaningless.  And if your grav ejectors produce a
6g kick, then the recoil from a 50Kg missile (661#) would be
comparable to that of a 20mm cannon.  Which is pretty trivial for a
1350Kl hull.  Especially since the ROF of your missile launchers is so
low (80RPM?)

>Similar arguments don't exist to limit the number of sensor type
>hardpoints.  The sensors (IMO) are going to be split up into small
>units spread over the entire available area of the hull.  Ok, I don't
>know how big an antenni an interstellar range EMS scanner is gonna
>be, but I would think that the hull of a 100 tonner could handle it.

I wouldn't think so.  Especially since all the existing ones (various
radio telescopes around the world) start at 490 square meters, and
work up (way, way, up!).  At 490M^2, you are talking about AT LEAST
half the skin area of a 100T ship.  Probably more, and that only lets
you see in one direction.


b>For the moment lemme stick to A-EMS ok?  IMO, A-EMS is going to have
>a series of small emmitters spread out over the hull like a large
>phased array radar.  The emmiters and collectors all spread out over
>the whole surface.  This is consistant with the damage tables in
>starship combat.  You don't knock out sensor arrays with surface
>damage hits.  Why?  Because they're *all over* the hull.  You hit one
>emmitter, and there are n minus one others still working just fine.

This I assumed also.  But if your array covers only 490 m^2 or so,
then you won't have an EMS array that will detect things at 2
parsecs.  Probably not even at 200 AU.


>Passive sensors work just the same.  Spread out the area and it works
>better.

True.  The same arguments apply.


>Now neutrino sensors are gonna be programmed to ignore the emmissions
>of the fusion plant that is built to power it, right?  I do not see
>why a densiometer could not similarly be programmed to ignore the
>grav field of the ship that it resides in.  Therefore I don't see the
>necessity for mounting them on booms.

I agree about neutrino sensors.  The ARTIFICAL grav generated on your
ship will mask out emissions from distant sources.  Remember that
"artificial grav" fields do NOT generate gravity, but rather something
similar.  And that densitometers (the Impy kind) do NOT work well near
an artificial grav source.


>While I can see the advantage of their being specific mounts (the
>booms) for sensors.  I don't see that there is going to be a great
>increase in surface area for the booms.  I don't think that it's
>going to be all that big an increase.  For instance, a passive EMS
>substellar could be mounted either on a 500 ton ship using hardpoints
>or a 100 ton ship using a boom.  A boom that expands to that size is
>gonna have to be *huge*, much larger than 135Kl.  It will also cause
>problems with fire control for ship's weapons.  You have a *huge*
>antenni next to the hull and it will act to restrict the firing arc
>of your weapons rather severely I would think.

Let's see.  1000 m^2 of solar panel has a volume of 5Kl.  SOunds like
a LOT of extra room to me.  Ignoring the fact that you actually aren't
looking for extra AREA, but extra RADIUS.  So a 50 meter boom would
give you the equivalent of 1960 m^2 worth of antenna.  If you stuck
the boom on the front of a 50m long ship, the apparent antenna size
would be 4 times as big as you would get without the boom.


>Now while that big a boom is gonna be a big thing in terms of radar
>cross-section, it isn't going to add to the Objsize as it is now
>computed.  Objsize is related to the ships mass only.  I think the
>only time it gets brought in is in densiometer scans, not Radar and
>A-EMS.

And here I thought that object size affected ActObjScan and ActObjPin
tasks too.  And if they don't, then SOMETHING should.  And it should
be affected by the booms.
w3

>Ok, philosophy time!  The following is my opinion on modifications to
>be made to Trav.  *I* think that the technolgy depicted in Trav falls
>short of where things would actually be.  The difference bettween TL
>15 and TL 8 is not the equivalent difference bettween TL 8 and TL 1.
>Nope!  No way!

True...


>There is also the argument that looking at the performance of the
>technology and downgrading it is going to devalidate all the work
>that was done before.  Thus, all the ships that have been designed
>are now totally useless.  A scout ship can no longer mount decent
>sensors *and* weapons?  No way!  Sorry!  I won't agree to that one.
>All the ships we have would have to be thrown out the window.
>Furthermore, since GDW isn't likey to adopt a modification like
>that, all the designs they come out with in the future will be
>incompatible.

(Devalidate???)
Also true...  (though I think the "scout ship" is the most ridiculous
waste of a design ever conceived by th emind of man)


>As a designer I may be prolific, but I'm not THAT prolific.

You're NOT?


>So, I will tend to disagree with notions that downgrade the
>performance of systems in the game.  If a system is more efficient
>than it might be in real life, I will be suspicious, but I will still
>tend to use it.  (fusion rockets)  But, if said system is less
>efficent than it should be I will change it.  (Nulcear fission)

I MOSTLY agree here.  I like to junk ANY rule that falls too far
outside the boundaries of reality, though.  Fusion rockets, for
instance, have an exhaust velocity of several times lightspeed.  They
are also more fuel efficient than thrusters.  SO they gotta be fixed.
Notice that if you change the hardpoint rules, AND add in Cynthia's
sensor rules, you have not NECESSARILY changed the game:  you have
made small ships with big sensor suites less common, or made them more
detectable to AEMS (but who uses AEMS in combat anyway?  SO who
cares?).  My feel for the sensor rules are that a "hardpoint" should
be allowed to be either (1) a sensor boom, or (2) both a turret and a
sensor point.  So scouts don't have good sensors AND guns, but a 600T
ship can have both, and a 200T ship can have both, but be easy to
locate with AEMS.


>BTW, Steve, on agility:  check out the archives.  Rob Dean and I came
>up with a couple arguments on it that (to us) make sence)
>Essentually, our definition came back from high guard calculations
>and Rob's thrust based maneuver calculations.  The upshot of it was
>that a ship will have an agility equivalent to the max acceleration
>of it's engines in G's.  By diverting power from the engines to
>weapons you decrease the acceleration you're pulling.

I read them.  I do not agree that they are meaningful at less than 2
light seconds range (and ALL MT combat is at less than 2 light seconds
range, since effective detection takes place at considerably less than
1 light second using MT rules.  Has Cynthia ever posted her Skynet
ship designs?  They are intended to deal with the problem of SHORT
detection ranges, mostly by making them VERY long (and VERY
expensive).

Later...

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#4058 ramblings

Cynthia Higginbotham · 2 May 1992 · reply to #4044

Steve Higginbotham writes:

>Also true...  (though I think the "scout ship" is the most ridiculous
>waste of a design ever conceived by th emind of man)

     I disagree. *I* think they are great little runabouts; they make
better
yachts than Yachts do.  (more jump, cheaper, less crew required).  And the
scout service hands them out FREE to its ex-employees...
     Speaking of which, I would like to propose some clarification of the
use
of "issue" ships that some career tracks get.  My personal opinion is that
government-issue couriers (Zhodani, Solomani, others), some yachts, and lab
ships (scientist) should be treated just like detached duty scouts: they
are
provided by and PAID FOR by the issuing organization, which in turn (a)
expects you to use it on their behalf now and then, and (b) owns title to
it,
so you can't sell it or make major refits to it without their permission.
I
never liked the picture of scientists and nobles grubbing for spec trade
cash
like merchants to pay for their ships...
     For scientists, the issuing organization is their university,
professional organization, corporate R&D division, government lab, or what
have you; the "strings" ((a) above) can be slightly different for each
issuer.  Have fun.
     Some yachts should be "family heirlooms"; that is, property belonging
to
the noble house in question, given to your particular young scion of the
line
for his private use.  Selling such a ship is unthinkable, and getting it
wrecked will make the PC very unpopular with the rest of the family.  And
sometimes Dear Old Dad the subsector Duke will want it back so he can loan
it
to some bigwigs in from the Sector capital...
     Of course, other yachts were bought by the noble himself, and paying
for
it is his problem.  (Although I wonder where they come up for the money for
a
down payment before play -- noble stipends still aren't anywhere near that
high!)
     Corsairs steal their ships, they don't buy them.  Hey, we're talking
heavily armed criminals here, or government-sponsored terrorists!  Either
way,
they're not the kind of guys who are going to walk down to Regni Yards on
Regina and put in an order for a "corsair"!  Criminals steal their ships,
or
con somebody into thinking they are a legit customer, and then skip out on
the
payments (steal the ship).  Terrorists either (a) are issued their arms &
ships by the sponsoring government, or (b) steal the wherewithal to buy one
from their sponsor, or (c) steal a ship like the criminals.
     Speaking of "corsairs", the vessel commonly called the "corsair" is
actually a high-performance merchant design, used both as a free trader and
as
a subsidized merchant in various places.   The class had certain design
flaws
that made it easy to hijack, so it became the ship of choice for would-be
pirates to steal, mount weapons on, install more bunking for prize crews,
and
go on a piracy spree.  The name of the game is to capture and sell enough
ships and cargoes to be able to pay off your initial investment and retire
comfortably before your luck runs out and the Navy/local System Defense
catches up with you.   Thus the nickname "corsair" for this particular
class
of ships...

Pauli Dale writes:

>You can also add lots of guns (you know the section in the ref's guide
that
>follows spinals, bays and turrents :-)  They are cheap and can pack a
decent
>punch.  Not as good as a real starship weapon, but still pretty good.
This
>would also be slightly more realistic.  I feel it is pretty absurd that
most
>small starships only carry the big weapons and forget about the little
>things.
>How many ships today only carry large guns?  From what I've seen they
usually
>carry a decent mixture of weaponary.

     We do. They're great for discouraging boarders and other people who
get
in visual range of your starship... like pirates who want to get close
enough
to cleanly shoot out your fuel tanks without blowing up your expensive-to-
replace drives & powerplant...
     Good for point defense against incoming missiles, too.  Keeps you from
tying up your big anti-shipping guns with PD duty...


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