Drones and sensing passively IR

Drones:

I'd like to make a comment about drones: I wouldn't build them the way you
suggested. You can't invent something that can only be hit by PDS but has a
huge range of detection. Makes for bad balance IMO.

I'd say build them as either:
Missile sized - 6" detection range - targetable by PDS
OR Ship sized (no crew, allow fractional accounting, give them an FC and an
engine) and let them be targetted as normal. If you want to give them a
survival advantage, tack on a point of armour. Or something, but if they emit
(and they will in 'active mode') and they can see a long distance, then they
should be targetable.

In any case, fighters should be able to take em out.

Interestingly, the passive drone is more useful! It lets you see lots of areas
of space where you are not, and it would let you triangulate passive sensor
data for a high quality track on an enemy without going active. The
only EM would be tightbeam between the drone and the ship - which we
assume has little scatter if lasers can hit at 36,000km.

IR Detection:

Whereas I will agree that a modern IR telescope can pick out small changes
from ambient, I must ask a couple of questions as this discussion pertains to
detecting ships: How many objects are there in the scan of a scope, and
how many exhibit non-ambient IR? I don't know. But if dust and
meteorites and whatnot do, then you have a lot of things to watch.

Also, is there not a focal distance for the telescope? a band of range it can
monitor? I'm assuming it doesn't "see" all the IR from location of the ship to
the next solid object... or if it does, how does it distinguish between dust,
a close in meteor, a far away ship, etc that all may be superposed to produce
the composite IR reading for that bearing and azimuth? If it has any sort of
focal radii or focal band, then it has to sweep repeatedly (and I assume in
order to be as sensitive as we discuss, it has to do so *very slowly*) so it
might well be VERY hard to detect a ship from IR signature given the volume of
space the scan array has to examine.

Of course, it might not. Noam, Mark? Somebody know the answer to how these IR
telescopes work and care to make some projections about if a ship is
easily/quickly detectable from IR or if it will remain (for some
physical-law type reason) a slow task to scan for IR passively?

OTHER:

Someone pointed out they'd find it hard to imagine a hull 250 C lower than the
inside of a ship. And yet they can envision gravitic compensators and jump
drives... <heh>. That's funny.

I believe the comment made about lasers and hull penetration is spot on. Ship
lasers probably have to hit a bunch of times or stay on the same spot
for a period to burn through. Missiles with bomb-pumped lasers are of
course a different matter.

> "Thomas.Barclay" wrote:

Well, having read the most part of the thread pointed out by Nyrath, there
doesn't seem to be a clear consensus on this. Mostly, it seems to come down to
how much scanning work you need, how much processing work you need, how
quickly you can do the work, and, of course, how many detectors you have (you
need at least two for triangulation if you want to calculate distance). One
point which was pretty much conceeded (and backed up by calculations) was
that, using current technology, you could detect the Space Shuttle's
manuvering thrusters in the asteroid belt, and its main engines out beyond
Pluto. Thus, if you're using thrust, you can't hide. ( <
http://x34.deja.com/[ST_rn=ps]/getdoc.xp?AN=500531705&CONTEXT=955891876.
1444610054&hitnum=4> for a reference article). Regardless of strategic
detection (which this concentrates on), by the
time you're in tactical weapons range (say a few light-seconds, which is
almost certainly WAY beyond weapons range, but will work for comparison), no
one can hide. If you have two ships (for triangulation), you can detect
position VERY precisely (even more so, and including velocity, if the
opponent's using thrust), so detection is (IMO) more an issue for campaigns
than for tactical games. Pretty much, by the time you have a chance of hitting
each other, you'll know enough about your opponent's ships (mass,
acceleration, position, velocity, appearance, etc.) to fight them effectively.

> Of course, it might not. Noam, Mark? Somebody know the answer to how

That was me. Yes, a bit strange, but then I don't play with gravitic
drives (or reactionless drives of ANY type - they violate too much in
the way of conservation laws). As for jump drives, there's plenty of theory
that suggests that they're impossible, but there's also some theory that says
"maybe not." I'm willing to accept their existence provisionally, as long as
they DON'T appear to violate too many physical laws (I'm willing to allow
people to get around relativity for the sake of the game).

> I believe the comment made about lasers and hull penetration is spot

Not THAT different, and even less likely to hit initially. You can see the
designer's notes for "Brilliant Lances" (url provided earlier, findable
through www.grognard.com) for problems with laser focussing, as for
targetting, it's essentially a matter of how quickly you can move a
distance equal to your cross-section, versus how quickly your opponent
can detect you, fire, and have the shot arrive. STL weapons are, of course,
even harder to hit with....

Thomas B wrote
> Drones:
I did suggest that they have a limited operational life (same as MT missiles)
to offset their apparent invunerability. You are right though, fighters should
be able to take them out as well.