[FT] Lasers

I'm looking for an article on realistic useful range for lasers in space...I
remember something about focus problems making it difficult to do much beyond
X thousand kilometers but I don't recall the substance and evidently I'm not
asking Google for the right key words. Suggestions?

Try here it seemed to be talking about what you wanted
http://www.coseti.org/tps_02.htm

Jeremey

> On 24 Sep 2002 at 11:30, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:

The range varies with the wavelength of the laser and the size of the focusing
element. The range for a desired intensity of energy at the
target is the  proportional to  diameter of focussing lens /
wavelength of light.

So you need a big lens and small wavelength (i.e. UV is better than
visible, X-Ray is better than UV, etc.)

For reasonable SF figures of all the above you can get ranges of about 1000
km. Of course at that sort of range keeping your laser, with its big lens, on
the target for any useful amount of time is another problem.

Anything better than that requires either
* the ability to produce lasers which use very short wavelengths (X-
Rays or even Gamma rays) or * stupidly big lenses, or * huge amounts of input
energy most of which will be waste, or
* gravitational lensing (should be easy in any setting where anti-
/artificial gravity technology exists) or
* some other change in the laws of physics.

Steve said:
> The range varies with the wavelength of the laser and the size of the

so that gave me the right keywords to find
http://grognard.com/info/brillanc.txt, which is more or less what I was
looking for

> On 24 Sep 2002 at 14:22, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:

> Steve said:

> focusing element. The range for a desired intensity of energy at the

Ah yes. That article, or a version of it, was printed years ago in Challenge
(and mentioned in More Thrust) and, as well as my physics background, is what
I was remembering when I wrote my message.

On 24-Sep-02 at 14:24, laserlight@quixnet.net (laserlight@quixnet.net)
wrote:
> Steve said:

> focusing element. The range for a desired intensity of energy at the

No impulse control, that article made me go pick up "Brilliant Lances" on
eBay.

Oh well, I've been considering an old style Traveller game since the old d6
based rules are in print.

I hope you got it cheap, the FT based Power Projection is more-or-less
released.

> Roger Books wrote:

> On 24-Sep-02 at 14:24, laserlight@quixnet.net (laserlight@quixnet.net)
wrote:
> Steve said:

> focusing element. The range for a desired intensity of energy at the

> On 25-Sep-02 at 10:01, Michael Llaneza (maserati@earthlink.net) wrote:

> released.

Do you have any pointers to Power Projection? I've not heard of it. The links
I find on the net seem to be players as admirals of large fleets, not players
with one ship with a focus on roleplaying.

In message <ML-3.4.1032965173.3926.books@jumpgate.jumpspace.net>
> Roger Books <books@jumpspace.net> wrote:

> On 25-Sep-02 at 10:01, Michael Llaneza (maserati@earthlink.net) wrote:
Power Projection is available from:

BITS (British Isles Traveller Support) http://www.bits.org.uk/

The 'Lite' rules are now out, the full rules (which add spinal mount weapons
and other stuff) should be out soon.

I've played a demo game of it at Gen Con UK - it uses a modified form of
the Fleet Book vector movement rules (including vector drifting sand
clouds :-), and rather heavily modified Full Thrust weapon mechanics.

I'll probably get a copy of the full version, when its out.

That's the stuff. I'm ont he PP list, they're thiniking of renaming the Lite
edition to Power Projection: Escorts, since its a complete game, just with the
smaller ships. The new Lite rules would be the free
handout/PDF.

> Charles Taylor wrote:

> In message <ML-3.4.1032965173.3926.books@jumpgate.jumpspace.net>