Missing Tech in OTU

[rancke]

NOT there as far as real science goes.

Real science? Who needs real science? What I want is self-consistent science. Sticking to real science is a good way to get it, but it's not the only way when it comes to science fiction. The second part of that term is "fiction".

you REALLY think that as TL goes up, sensors get less powerful than today.

I don't, which is why I'm looking for an explanation that doesn't involve the sensors getting less powerful. Like (what a novel concept) the signal getting weaker.

It's not rocket science.


Hans

 

[HG_B]

Real science? Who needs real science?

It is the subject of the thread.

Let me know when you have an answer.

 

[rancke]

It is the subject of the thread.

Let me know when you have an answer.

You've had your answer. You just refuse to accept it. Well, if you're determined not to discuss the subject, I suppose your excuse is as good as any. But you can't expect a useful discussion if the parties involved cannot agree on the terms. Sensor technology isn't missing, and it's sheer nonsense to insist that it is. The rules for employing it may or may not make sense, but they're there. As long as you refuse to acknowledge that, any further discussion is going to be about as useful as a discussion between a Round Earther and a Flat Earther.

Let me know when you want to have a real discussion.


Hans

 

[Dragoner]

Relativity could be a defining limit on sensors, in that detection could work a long way off, but actual pinpointing the object would be more limited. Something as large as a Gas Giant would be easier to spot than a smaller object (ie like a ship) moving at a higher relativistic velocity.

The speed of light is a constant independent of the velocity of the source or the observer.
Events that are simultaneous as seen by one observer are generally not simultaneous as seen by other observers, so there can be no absolute time.
Each observer can define his own proper time -- the time measured by a good clock moving along his worldline.
Observers can assign times and positions to events not on their worldlines using radar observations.
Every observer will see his clock running faster than other clocks which are moving with respect to him, and this is a mathematically consistent pattern required by the properties of radar observations.
As a result, the unaccelerated worldline between two events will have the longest proper time of all worldlines connecting these events.
In the presence of gravity, the worldlines of objects accelerated only by gravity have the longest proper times.
Gravity requires that spacetime have a non-Euclidean geometry, and this curvature of spacetime must be created by matter.

http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/relatvty.htm

 

[hdan]

Dragoner - thanks for that link. It helped clear up a few misconceptions and confusions I had about relativity.

 

[Dragoner]

No problem.

I know relativity isn't explicitly mentioned in the rules, so to use it doesn't violate canon.

 

[BardicHeart]

Something else I think would have been interesting would be alternate technology trees. The existing tech tree is based on our own understanding of science. But science fiction has flirted with the idea of technology based on different principles. For example, a "bio-tech" or "organic" tech tree based on aliens who grow their technology (vehicles, buildings, starships) rather than build it. While not used in the Imperium setting, for those creating their own settings it would add a whole new dimension of flexibility in the game.

 

[Cryton]

Something else I think would have been interesting would be alternate technology trees. The existing tech tree is based on our own understanding of science. But science fiction has flirted with the idea of technology based on different principles. For example, a "bio-tech" or "organic" tech tree based on aliens who grow their technology (vehicles, buildings, starships) rather than build it. While not used in the Imperium setting, for those creating their own settings it would add a whole new dimension of flexibility in the game.

Would be very interesting indeed!

 

[samuelvss]

System Surveillance and Reporting Transponders

I do not remember it in canon anywhere, but IMTU I have made up the following:

Since radios and other transcievers become increasingly inexpensive, the boonies (systems with C - E starports) are patrolled sparsely enough for pirates to be a problem, some mechanization is necessary to assist the patrollers. This would be a combination of active (radar satellites around gas giants), and passive repositories (usually on moons and asteroids).

Some free trader needs to transit an E system and gets jumped by a CP, eitehr at the gas giant or main world, on the way to skim or wilderness refuel. The distress message, any sensor signature, and imagery of the CP is blasted out by the active satelites to the passive repositories. The free trader, alas, is subject to the whims of the evile pie-rats. Said evile pie-rats, however, are caught on candid camera. They can certainly spot the active sensors, and take them out, but they have no way of spotting the repositories. If they know what is good for them, they run fast or hide deep, becasue the next type S or T that comes by will query the repositories by coded tight-beam, and pass the information on to the next port, which will use fleet couriers and x-boats to blast it out. One such set of telemetry is unlikely to help, but the next place the evile pie-rats go a hunting, or even in transit, they likely get sensed. The sensor signatures, times and locations go into the big IN computers. The data always goes in a strait line, often at J6, and the evile pie-rats do not. Eventually, their profiles get far enough ahead of them that targetted patrolling makes life very hot.

This is one reason why simply taking cargo and leaving the ship to limp away is often the best course. The real killers (space the crew and passengers with no commercial or entertainment value, take the cargo, strip the useful fittings from aboard, and blow up the ship) will glow brighter on the IN's network, and cause more of a reaction.

Also, a missing ship can also be spotted, and may got into the same profile. (There are two places that a J3 ship could have jumped from here; a free trader was headed to one at the time when that jump 3 ship would have been there. This increases the chance that the ship is at systems A,B or C by [insert really complex algorythm here]). A free trader can blast a report to the network, transmitting in the blind, as it were, as to where they are from and heading; it will show up on the network, eventually, if they come up missing. May not be much help for them, but it may, and it may help find their killers if they are jumped.

Of course, if the Scout Courier gets jumped before it can jump out, then the message goes slower. IMTU, this is why the LBB1 scouts had such a low survival. They got jumped a good bit in their travels. The pirates would almost ALWAYS run from the navy, but jumping a scout might mean the difference between life or death. This is why ex-IISS and pirates have feelings towards eachother somewhat more hostile than the Russians and Germans in 1945, IMTU!