sensors and things...

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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