Fusion Rockets and Missiles

Thruster plates are dead.

Fusion Rockets are in.

Well Ladies and Gents, you all outta know what that means.  The
only kind of sensor you'll need to detect these ships is the Mark-I
eyeball.  Fusion rockets are going to be blindingly bright.  You
will NOT need advanced sensors to find your targets.  And there is
almost NO possibility of using decoys.

As a sence of scale, let me point out that the lowest performance
engines here are those of the type S scout ship or the old type A
free trader.  These engines have about 1300 tons of thrust.  What
earthly rocket engines compare?  Well, that's about half as much
thrust as NASA's Saturn V (First stage) launch vehicle which took
the Astronauts to the moon.

I seem to recall a description of the Saturn V lift off as being
along the lines of "The Saturn V didn't lift off:  Cape Kennedy
Sank!"

I think Bertil & Wildstar are getting Far more complicated and
expensive than they have to with their missile seeker heads.
Passive is THE way to go.

Decoys will NOT be practical.  In order to copy the IR signature
you will need something as bright as a Saturn V.  In order to copy
the plasma jet you will need something hotter than a Saturn V.  In
order to copy the mass signature, you'll need some weird grav
equipment.  In order to copy the neutrino signature, you will need
a fusion reactor.

The only practical decoy that could copy the signature of a ship
well enough to fool the sensors and missile programming is...
another SHIP!

Ok, what counter measures can you pull against a missile with a
totally passive seeker head?

Well, you would have to turn to face it head on.  Using the bulk of
the ship to shield it's own engine emmissions.  This maneuver will
be almost completely impossible due to the closing vectors.  Also
you would have to know the precise location of the missile (at
which point you may as well shoot at it).  Furthermore, it will
only protect you from one missile.  If there is more than one
missile coming at you and they are in communication with each
other, it will fail.  Flying into the sun will present similar
problems.  The vectors almost certainly won't add and a bit of
programming should allow the head to distinguish between a ship and
a star.  Thus all you will need is a passive IR head.

Ok, what if he cuts his engines at a critical moment and causes the
missile to loose it's lock?  Well, a ship that is not maneuvering
is an easily found ship.  You already saw it's last vector!
KaBoom!

All right, now that you have this baby closing in, what do you
need?  A proximity fuse.  Well, you can use a densiometer to do
that if the IR has gone off line.  I'd prefer to avoid using an
active radar as a fuse.  It would make the missile easier to find,
and it can be fooled by a chaff cloud (Sand Caster).

In my opinion, a totally passive head will be VERY effective
against TNE Ships.  IR, Neutrino, Densiometer combination will be
EXTREMELY hard to beat.  Furthermore, the Neutrino and Densiometer
are just icing on the cake.  The main component needed is that IR
head.  And remember, that's just a plain old TL6 seeker.  We are
talking about a heavy version of the AIM-9 Sidewinder here!

Also, Bertil mentioned the idea of rolling bombs off the loading
bay manually to attack undefended targets.  Why get so complicated?
Strapped to the back end of your ship is the biggest bad-assed
version of a fusion gun you ever imagined.  We are talking about a
fusion gun that has a back blast like a SATURN V for heavens sake!

Scott 2G Kellogg