Perfect Adventuring starship?

[Strummist]

I like the idea that some spin-off from Jump Drive technology acts as a heat sink - as suggested by someone earlier in the thread. So that maybe "hyperspace" - which already has different physical laws to our universe - has a lower Absolute Zero, and it's something that's built into the "fiddly bits" of the ship. For it to be compliant with canon, probably not the jump drive, as AFAIK there's no stated rule excluding small craft.

Gives me an idea for a house rule - ships can "run dark", but do this for too long and you've "overheated Jump Space", with negative effects, perhaps a longer time to prepare for jump, longer time in jump, more wear and tear on the drive etc.

 

[Tobias]

Well, canonically there are technologies in Traveller which tap into this issue, namely black globe generators and pocket universes. Both of which are technically Ancient artifacts and thus fall into the "magitech" category even in-universe.

A black globe generator offers perfect stealth as far as heat emissions are concerned - while it is turned on. In fact, its main problem would be that it is too perfect, since it will noticeably occlude any object it passes. The other problem is that you can't see out.
Also note that the black globe converts all forms of energy, including heat, into a form of energy usable by the ship's systems.

A ship equipped with a pocket universe portal can simply radiate all its heat into said pocket universe. It would probably have most of the heat-generating equipment located there in the first place.

 

[McPerth]

As I see what I read, we all agree the energy produced in the ship will end as heat, and this heat would mount up and raise temperature unless somewhat disposed.

I've always thought (maybe a foolish idea) that part of the LHyd used as fuel was also used as coolant (as discussed on other threads about JD) and disposed into space. That helped me to accept the large amounts of hyd neded by a fusion plant (mostly in MT, where they are quite inefficient).

I don't know how much will that be seen with IR, if the amount of hydrogen trown away is small, but more or less constant.

As vaccum is a good insulant, I guess some form to absorb/dispose heat is needed, and, IMHO, one not dependant on external (to the ship) factors, or it wouldn't probably work while in jumpspace. Accepting the numbers Aramis ran about energy and its conversion to heat, unless disposed also while jumping, I guess after a week the ship would become unpleasantly hot, to say the least.

 

[aramis]

Some salient facts:

The hull must be impermeable, otherwise the the crew would be cooked, irradiated (which heat is just another form of radiation), etc. . This is solid, there is no way around this fact; otherwise as well we would see focused heat weapons and such.

The fusion plant doesn't generate power by physical work like generating stream for a turbine. So the technological answer is it turns radiant energy into electricity, like with photo-voltaic cells.

The ship can't radiate enough energy as it is (vacuum is a great insulator), so something must be happening. We have heat exchanger technology now, it isn't that much of an assumption that it is far more efficient. Most of the wasted energy today is in heat due to inefficient designs, poor management, etc.; so in the future, they would be looking to recapture that heat and use it for power. Electricity is the easiest to figure in room temperature supercondutors are most likely commonplace, which reduces the heat buildup of resistance; lighting elements and such, probably unknown today, but I doubt it is incandescent. Others it just goes on, what I don't know, but there are alot of assumptions inherent in the game and a lot of the tech really isn't that magic. Even anti-gravity, we do not know what gravity is, it would be that much of a leap of logic to think once we figure out how it works we would also be able to manipulate it.

Your pseudo-science is astonishingly & starkly implausible.

Your willingness to even read the accessibly translated-from-math-to-english stuff on Winchell's site, and obvious lack of grasp of the well established physics issues of entropy and blackbody radiation, pretty much establishes "invincible ignorance"...

Rock is readily detectable. Even magic bullshittium heatsinks don't break that all work eventually ends up as heat.

And Rock CAN radiate all that waste heat. It's a roughly 10m radius sphere, with roughly 1258m² of surface area. Which means that the 450MW is 357kW per m² to get rid of...

Which should result in a lot of IR emmissions.

 

[Dragoner]

Your pseudo-science is astonishingly & starkly implausible.

Your willingness to even read the accessibly translated-from-math-to-english stuff on Winchell's site, and obvious lack of grasp of the well established physics issues of entropy and blackbody radiation, pretty much establishes "invincible ignorance"...

Rock is readily detectable. Even magic bullshittium heatsinks don't break that all work eventually ends up as heat.

And Rock CAN radiate all that waste heat. It's a roughly 10m radius sphere, with roughly 1258m² of surface area. Which means that the 450MW is 357kW per m² to get rid of...

Which should result in a lot of IR emmissions.

Right, IR radiation through what medium? The fact you and the professor have turned to insults rather degrades your position, IMO it would be better to provide some proof. Your crew is fried in either a nebula or solar wind, sad for you I guess.

 

[MCEvans]

IMHO the IR signature would be treated as a sensor anomaly by a single ship unless searching for a hidden ship or just curious PCs. Now two + ships seeing the same anomaly but at a "different" location would cause triangulation and instant discovery. :devil:

Also CT does not, in what I can find, cover ANY sensors so the only presumed sensors are radar and visual. Thus Rock is a 'stealth' ship.
MT and afterward have sensors up the exhaust port. :toast:

As always the peanut gallery.

 

[aramis]

Right, IR radiation through what medium? The fact you and the professor have turned to insults rather degrades your position, IMO it would be better to provide some proof. Your crew is fried in either a nebula or solar wind, sad for you I guess.

IR needs no medium; all EMR transits vacuum just fine.

 

[Khan Trav]

This thread is beginning to remind me of the TV show, Big Bang Theory combined with some reality show where you hear a lot of bleeps in place of words....:frankie:

Other than that, it is an interesting thread. We are examining one slice of the game for realism.

 

[Dragoner]

IR needs no medium; all EMR transits vacuum just fine.

But what you are talking about is thermal conductivity of a vacuum, not all EMR.

http://www.eng-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=210603

 

[McPerth]

IMHO the IR signature would be treated as a sensor anomaly by a single ship unless searching for a hidden ship or just curious PCs. Now two + ships seeing the same anomaly but at a "different" location would cause triangulation and instant discovery. :devil:

Also CT does not, in what I can find, cover ANY sensors so the only presumed sensors are radar and visual. Thus Rock is a 'stealth' ship.
MT and afterward have sensors up the exhaust port. :toast:

As always the peanut gallery.

IIRC. CT assumed all ships detected at a certain distance that would be farther than visual, so I think it assumed IR and other sensors, radar and visual aside, just didn't mention them.

 

[rancke]

IIRC. CT assumed all ships detected at a certain distance that would be farther than visual, so I think it assumed IR and other sensors, radar and visual aside, just didn't mention them.

Did CT even deal with the different detection distances of ships using active and passive detection? Or the difference transponders make?


Hans

 

[MCEvans]

IIRC. CT assumed all ships detected at a certain distance that would be farther than visual, so I think it assumed IR and other sensors, radar and visual aside, just didn't mention them.

You now what happens when you 'assume' anything?

Radar is your distance.

 

[MCEvans]

Did CT even deal with the different detection distances of ships using active and passive detection? Or the difference transponders make?


Hans

TTA covers transponders.

 

[rancke]

You now what happens when you 'assume' anything?

Yes, you risk making different assumptions than other people who likewise make assumptions.

Radar is your distance.

A ship using radar for detection can itself be detected at far greater distances than a ship that only uses passive detection. Effectively it is broadcasting a huge "here I am" sign.


Hans

 

[far-trader]

A ship using radar for detection can itself be detected at far greater distances than a ship that only uses passive detection. Effectively it is broadcasting a huge "here I am" sign.


Hans

Not necessarily

I'd heard about this a while back and google popped up a decent link:

(science marches on... )

http://www.physorg.com/news70539481.html

 

[rancke]

Not necessarily

I'd heard about this a while back and google popped up a decent link:

(science marches on... )

http://www.physorg.com/news70539481.html

Interesting. But wouldn't the random noise signal increase the frequency of noise from one specific spot by a very large factor? If you get a thousand times more noise from one specific spot, wouldn't an ultra-tech computer be able to dectect it, even if the noise itself seemed random?


Hans

 

[Dragoner]

Passive visual sensors would work well, in space there is no atmosphere to obscure anything.

 

[aramis]

But what you are talking about is thermal conductivity of a vacuum, not all EMR.

Wrong. All items radiate EMR based upon their temperature. If that temperature is low enough, it stays in the IR range.

Thermal conductivity very different, and yes, it's near 0, but radiative conductivity isn't. The best thermoses' bottles are reflective in the low IR and vacuum between the two layers, so that only the neck (and often a single strut opposite - I've broken enough to know) are points for thermal conduction. The warmer bottle layer radiates more in the IR, and hopefully, the other side reflects most of it right back.

Space is a near-perfect conductance barrier. It's nearly absolutely transparent to IR.

 

[Tobias]

Not necessarily

Actually yes, if you add the important qualifier "... when using a similarly advanced passive sensor". If you can have a receiver and processor to make sense of the return signal, then you can have a passive sensor to make sense of the outbound signal. There's no way around it.

 

[Strummist]

I've looked up the specs of the Annic Nova and Rock mentioned in my original post and I find that I've made a couple of errors

We all know about the stealth issues with Rock (well we do now, anyway) - but I also falsely claimed that the Annic Nova lacked cargo capability. It has 150 tons, which is a fair amount for a 600t ship.

There is a further oddity to Rock & Pebble - the gravity on Rock is not on the same plane as the gravity on Pebble, which could lead to some amusing mishaps when shipping cargo unless the grav on Pebble is switched off.