Magical Traveller starship heat sinks discovered?
- Thread starter navanod
- Start date
Seen it. Again, too much faith in numbers and science, and too much belief that black and white paper analyses trump Murphy.
My real world experience at sea, where the same arguments are made, shows me that current tech isn't so infallible as the military-industrial complex would have us believe.
And I don't particularly buy the argument that so much sky can be scanned perfectly in such a short time. Nice theory, but in reality, those machines hiccup, they miss things, their algorithms dismiss discrepancies (see The Hunt For Red October's discussion on "seismic events"), and, above all, human operators attention wanders, they misinterpret what they see, or just don't see it as important - not when they're telling their buddy about their last liberty port or the argument they got into with their chief.
Surprise is often achieved when the enemy misses realizing what they saw all along. You can sneak up on alert guards in NVGs with cameras. You just have to be slow, cautious, and careful; all they have to do is miss or ignore enough to not notice in time. And guards or radar operators are almost always bored with their scanning.
I've seen it before. He's wrong. Reality isn't so clean and clearcut.
Murphy doesn't play favorites. If you're reduced to relying on Murphy to compensate for the adverse odds, you're clearly wrong.
Hans
You have your opinion, based on what you've been told. You're clearly not reading what I'm saying if you're seizing on Murphy as the crux of the argument.
I have mine, based on personal observation. Scientists build models, then assume when those models meet their tests that they know everything, and pontificate about what can or cannot happen. Since that's never as perfect as they think, they're clearly wrong when they say "It cannot happen".
Also, the assumption seems to be that the ship is attempting to stealth in a clear sky. There's background clutter all over. Your IR signature, even if close enough to pick up, which is NOT always a valid assumption, can be masked by all the other point sources in the area, especially if you try to approach with a planet or star behind you.
All of which means that stealth is possible, despite the claims to the contrary. Not that it's easy or guaranteed - hell, active stealth measures today aren't. And camouflage works, but is not perfect, either. Wear the wrong pattern cammies, and you actually stick out more. Wear the right pattern, but move too fast, and you blow the surprise.
And anything PCs can try, NPCs can also use against them. With lightspeed limitations, they can realize just as the enemy's powering up for the run to jump that they snuck across right in front of the PCs ship a couple of hours ago and are now half a lighthour away at top acceleration. By the time they get there, the bad guys are popping out.
That's due to atmospheric interference. Not an issue in space.
The amount of signal clutter in the bands at which a ship will radiate are few.
I seized on Murphy, as you put it, because you brought him up in a way that made it seem that he was the crux of your argument.
If you're going to dismiss any evidence that doesn't conform to your gut feelings, there's not really any point in discussing this any further with you.
Hans
And yet, our radiotelescopes and visible telescopes still have more trouble with finding lower spectra at a given range. It's partly absorption and partly the emission itself. Probes invariably get better data from close up than much larger telescopes back here, even in orbit, will find.
Try to pick out a green light against a white spotlight.
All the arguments so far have been too linear and too dependent on reality matching models. Logic is too rigid, and math doesn't define everything as neatly and perfectly as imagined. None of them matter worth a damn until we actually settle space and have warships patrolling the system. Until then, they're just models. And every generation, we find out something new, update the models, and pat ourselves on the back that we've reached the end of history and know everything knowable. Rinse and repeat a few years later.
Stealth is a marginal technique, not a simple matter of engaging a cloak and hiding. It's a game with the enemy. If you camouflage yourself correctly, do everything right, and / or they make a typical mistake (i.e., one 99.99% of all watchstanders do, IME), then you can get away with it.
Ships, boats, and aircraft that radar and / or lookouts should have caught appear way too late all the time. If they have hostile intent, then they achieved tactical surprise.
Then too, don't forget lightspeed lag. It takes time for them to receive the data, then interpret it, and for their data to reach you and for you to interpret it (negligible here, significant in space, and a point we rarely think about). This is part of the fog of war. They may see something that doesn't rise to detection threshold and ignore it. They may pretend to ignore it to draw you in.
This makes it more challenging. "Stealth can't work" is too strict a position to fit reality, and constricts play into black-and-white patterns. "Stealth just works" is as bad or worse ( for example, "my rogue makes his Sneak roll; the guards can't see him anymore" in broad daylight in an open field). "Stealth can work" can give players ulcers. They never know if they succeed until after the fact. They also don't know when I'm doing it to them. I've had them complain that they WOULD SO have seen a bad guy, just because they had NVGs. They're all sailors and stand watch; they should know better.
They've learned camouflage isn't perfect, but neither are the countermeasures. They tried buying "invisibility suits" and NVGs so no-one could see them and they could see anyone else, only to find it didn't always work.
In space, they've been surprised when they tried to go ballistic and the patrol wants to know why they're sneaking around. They've been caught with their pants down when someone else succeeded against them. And they've had a problem when they were out of fuel, on a ballistic arc, WANTING to be found, but too hard to pick out.
That, IMO, is not only the way it should be, but more realistic than all the wargamers who believe in cloaking devices and the math majors who believe it'll never work.
A part of it, not all of it.
Math isn't evidence. I have spent much of my life in the military, most of it at sea. I'm a navigation specialist. I work with math. It doesn't always work as advertised. If the math says I'm in one place and visual evidence says that's not the case, the math is wrong, even if it all adds up.
I've read all that stuff, and they discuss their model of reality, not the thing itself.
If all you have is that disagreeing with authority figures makes discussion pointless, then I suggest getting outside more.
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Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Darkwing, I only have two problems with your argument....
First, you discuss math as a model, then dismiss it because the models don't always line up with reality. But math is not a model. It is a language for describing reality. (And math is not science.) 2+2=4 will always be true in this universe. There's no getting around the math.
Second, you and the others here are talking past each other in one sense: stealth as spoken of here is not sneaking by someone, it is defeating the method the sensors are using against you. Sneaking by a guard could be seen as using measures that defeat the personal sensors of the guard, but if his back is turned and your shoes don't squeak, that's not really stealth. Yes, there are some things you can do to minimize your sensor signature, and then you can make plans to exploit that. But, hoping the enemy doesn't catch your very small radar signature isn't really stealth. (And, "hope" isn't a plan.)
(Did I post this twice? It sure looks like it.)
First, you discuss math as a model, then dismiss it because the models don't always line up with reality. But math is not a model. It is a language for describing reality. (And math is not science.) 2+2=4 will always be true in this universe. There's no getting around the math.
Second, you and the others here are talking past each other in one sense: stealth as spoken of here is not sneaking by someone, it is defeating the method the sensors are using against you. Sneaking by a guard could be seen as using measures that defeat the personal sensors of the guard, but if his back is turned and your shoes don't squeak, that's not really stealth. Yes, there are some things you can do to minimize your sensor signature, and then you can make plans to exploit that. But, hoping the enemy doesn't catch your very small radar signature isn't really stealth. (And, "hope" isn't a plan.)
(Did I post this twice? It sure looks like it.)
Fritz_Brown
Super Moderator
Oh, and if you're going to diss math as not always reflecting reality, then you have ZERO credibility unless you post a link to Abbott and Costello doing the 13 x 7 = 28 routine. 
When the GPS works out our position, and it doesn't match our visual posit, then we have to try other methods. The GPS works mathematically, but sometimes things happen, and the math doesn't match where we really are. If that reduces credibility on the internet, then the internet needs a dose of reality.
Winchell Chung is no authority on these subjects - and makes no claims as such. The blatant 'There is no stealth in space' is just a catchy by-line - not a factual statement (whether intended to be or not). If readers misconstrue, misinterpret and misapply them as 'authoritative' that is not his fault.
If one actually reads what is there, numerous caveats and assumptions are spelled out, like 'maximum range a ship with its engines blazing away can be detected with current technology is ... assumes about one hour for a full sky scan ... and 'For realistic rockets'. The math is mere grade school algebra with lots of assumptions. The 'sky survey' stuff (by a game developer?) is humorous and amateur at best - completely neglects resolving power, integration times, etc. Mr. Burnside exhibits a blatant ignorance of 'refrigeration'. And, the presumptions of long baseline observations for larger system coverage neglect to account for comm lag and the true volume of a stellar system (not just a 2D arc of sky)...
Yes, indeedy, space does affect the nature of stealth tech. Especially as one is able to ignore the interference of our atmo shield. But space is also vast - and its far from empty. Yeah we see a lot, but fundamentally the majority of it is still 'invisible' to us! Darkwing speaks from experience. Not space experience - but it translates pretty darn well in terms of principles.
In a Traveller game context, well with Classic Traveller, there is no stated reaction drive - just a gravitic drive that the rules have consuming mass only for power. This removes the biggest baseline assumption re thermal radiating - excepting a fusion reactor. Which is, unfortunately, still in the realm of fiction. Simple math calculating known H2 fusion does not suffice to give anything but an upper limit to how much thermal energy would be available for detection - since it must completely ignore the entire system (and volumetric integration). Further, with CT LBBs, neither sensor ranges, resolving power nor times are not stated nor are thermal issues with starships. 'RW' extrapolations really are not applicable anymore than they would be for the universe of Wile E. Coyote...
Enjoy!
If one actually reads what is there, numerous caveats and assumptions are spelled out, like 'maximum range a ship with its engines blazing away can be detected with current technology is ... assumes about one hour for a full sky scan ... and 'For realistic rockets'. The math is mere grade school algebra with lots of assumptions. The 'sky survey' stuff (by a game developer?) is humorous and amateur at best - completely neglects resolving power, integration times, etc. Mr. Burnside exhibits a blatant ignorance of 'refrigeration'. And, the presumptions of long baseline observations for larger system coverage neglect to account for comm lag and the true volume of a stellar system (not just a 2D arc of sky)...
Yes, indeedy, space does affect the nature of stealth tech. Especially as one is able to ignore the interference of our atmo shield. But space is also vast - and its far from empty. Yeah we see a lot, but fundamentally the majority of it is still 'invisible' to us! Darkwing speaks from experience. Not space experience - but it translates pretty darn well in terms of principles.
A very substantive element of modern military stealth aims to ensure that an enemy is unlikely to catch the threat significance of a reduced or deceptive radar signature - it is not about being 'invisible'.
In a Traveller game context, well with Classic Traveller, there is no stated reaction drive - just a gravitic drive that the rules have consuming mass only for power. This removes the biggest baseline assumption re thermal radiating - excepting a fusion reactor. Which is, unfortunately, still in the realm of fiction. Simple math calculating known H2 fusion does not suffice to give anything but an upper limit to how much thermal energy would be available for detection - since it must completely ignore the entire system (and volumetric integration). Further, with CT LBBs, neither sensor ranges, resolving power nor times are not stated nor are thermal issues with starships. 'RW' extrapolations really are not applicable anymore than they would be for the universe of Wile E. Coyote...
Enjoy!
As indicated above, it doesn't always correlate properly.
Yeah, I'm not talking about active stealth, where my craft tells your computer not to see me, or weird force fields that deflect sensors. I'm talking about measures to camouflage you from the enemy. Despite the theorists claiming that IR automatically picks it up, my real-world experience tells me that it doesn't always work, and there are things you can do to improve your chances of not being noticed. That's all I'm saying.
Since everyone else argued this out a long time ago, and agreed on the theoretical view, I'm in the minority here.
In the end, we each have to make our own decisions, and mine are based on what I've seen.
Oh, and if you're going to diss math as not always reflecting reality, then you have ZERO credibility unless you post a link to Abbott and Costello doing the 13 x 7 = 28 routine.
So true.
Easy enough - give me a set of filters and an interferometer.
However, in this case, it's a Green flare in front of a wall of candles 100' further back. Actually, the IR scope can easily find even voyager; it's just a matter of looking. Thing is, our orbital scopes have fields of view measured in arcs no bigger than single digit degrees, often down to triple digit seconds (at 3600' to the degree). What we lack at present is not the sensitivity nor the resolution - it's the coverage.
And "Room Temp" is an entirely different band than background 2.7° Kelvin... you don't need to supercool the instrument to see near IR, nor really even for far IR. It helps, but it's not absolutely essential, especially when one considers that all nearby objects are effectively not only radiating their own IR, but also reflecting solar IR.
Also note that the sensitivity needed to detect the background doesn't actually require being cooled below it; doing so makes it easier to do accurately by precluding noise signals from the instrument itself. Much the same as it being much easier to pick up a signal with your dish radio antenna when not putting it right next to a broadcast tower.
Is the watchstander using it?
And what coverage will the hypothetical enemy have? Depends on who they are, what they are, where they are. If you're waiting to meet a contact in the outer system, does anyone have the equipment pointed there? In a high-TL system, quite possibly. If there's a base, even more likely. If you're trying to ambush a merchant, they won't have the coverage, and are you stupid enough to do that in a system with a navy presence?
Further, who has the systems with the resolution desired? Is it worth paying for, or did the contractor shave a few credits off the price by using "good enough" equipment?
If my crew are in suits, with no atmo in the ship, what room temp?
Is your equipment hardened? WRN-6 is. When alongside a ship radiating radar, the civilian GPS freezes; WRN-6 is unaffected. In Traveller, how robust is your IR scope? Too sensitive, and you'll have false alarms all the time. How much does the operator interpret, and how much does the computer handle? How good is the software it uses? Remember the "seismic events" from Red October? All that affects how well it does what you want it to do.
Yes, here is what we do with crummy TL 7 stuff. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wide-field_Infrared_Survey_Explorer
"It was able to detect any objects warmer than 70–100 Kelvins. A Neptune-sized object would be detectable out to 700 AU, a Jupiter-mass object out to one light year (63,000 AU), where it would still be within the Sun's zone of gravitational control. A larger object of 2–3 Jupiter masses would be visible at a distance of up to seven to ten light years.[21]
At the time of planning, it was estimated that WISE would detect about 300,000 main-belt asteroids, of which approximately 100,000 will be new, and some 700 near-Earth objects including about 300 undiscovered. That translates to ~1000 new Main-belt asteroids per day, and 1–3 NEOs per day."
So, it easily picks up cold asteroids (small ones) from Earth. In other words, your ship is being tracked unless no one wants to track it...
You're not going to have a crew... at least not a competent one with decent morale.
To quote an underwater welding inspector of my acquaintance: "Comfortable welders are better welders. Uncomfortable welders are desperate or incompetent, and took the job solely for the lack of opportunity. The guy diving in a wet suit up here [in Alaska] is a [expletive] idiot who deserves to freeze his nuts off."
It's much the same issue. He's talking dry-suit vs wet-suit, as hard-suits are still rare, but the principle is the same. If the tech can make it comfy, you're not going to find a whole lot of guys willing to spend 3-4 weeks in suits eating paté through a straw who are competent, and if you do, it's because you're paying them insanely well. Plus, there's the issue of a suit having to be kept at 280°K±5° as well... and all their body heat will radiate through the rest of the ship. Same with their internal power systems, LS systems, and lights.
Every watt generated (including by the biologicals) eventually radiates out as heat above the baseline. Plus, in solar regimes, the sunward side isn't going to stay at 2.7°K unless you're pluming 2.7°K Helium or Hydrogen out the back, boiling it off to keep things cool.
At 1 AU from a G2 star, the average ship surface temp will be about 250-270°K, simply from solar insolation. The sunward side will be as much as 100° above that, and the dark side as much as 100° below, but parts WILL be radiating heat. And that's before accounting for the internal power needed to sustain life.
IR is how they find most asteroids these days. The problem isn't detection of the body - it's proving it isn't something else already catalogued due to the lack of coverage.
