Is it just me or are Traveller sensors "wimpy"

[Jak Nazryth]

Seeing as the "distant" range for sensors can't even detect a ship from the surface of the earth to the moon, doesn't that seem a bit... weak?
I was playing around with adding the cost of stealth jumps to my players ship when I realized the limits of sensors. When jumping into systems, especially in the "gas giant" regions of "most" solar systems (I know there are real and computer models of solar systems with gas giants close to their stars) the chance of a small ship being picked up by a systems security ships sensors could be very, very small. How accurate are current tracking systems? I mean, we are still tracking the voyager space craft and they are past the orbit of pluto....
just wondering if stealth jump drive are worth the 50% increase in price?
What about the cost stealth hulls?
I mean... you are already in long range if you are the distance equal to the diameter of the earth! And as mentioned before, completely out of range if orbiting our moon, not to mention the relative vast distances when jumping into the region of a gas giant.
I dont for a second want to tinker with the mongoose rules on sensor range... but doesn't it all seem kinda wimpy?
For some reason I kept thinking the range of sensors were far greater in earlier version of Traveller game mechanics.

 

[Jak Nazryth]

As an added question... how would ships sensors pick up the "ping" of a distress signal if it is out on the distant edge of a solar system? Or would that be covered via "communications" and not sensors?

 

[GypsyComet]

Active sensors lose useful range *very* quickly in real life as well. Passives are, on the other hand, apparently getting scary good at an amazing pace.

Picking up an odd weak signal would be Sensors to detect initially, and turn into a Comms roll to identify.

 

[rust]

The range of a passive sensor is theoretically unlimited, because it de-
pends on the signal strength, which is theoretically unlimited. One can
pick up electromagnetic radiation over astronomical distances with the
naked eye if the signal is strong enough (which is why one can see the
stars), and current CCD sensors are able to pick up a single photon of
the frequency they were designed for.

So, yes, Traveller's passive sensor ranges are far too low, probably be-
cause there was no mature technology of a "photon bucket" able to add
up photons from a source when Classic Traveller was written, about the
best way known at the time was as slow and as difficult to read out as a
photographic plate (actually still the standard of astronomy at the time).

Or would that be covered via "communications" and not sensors?

You could handle it both ways, a radio receiver is just a radio sensor.
I think to pick up the signal would be a task for the sensor skill, to un-
derstand the content of the signal a task for the communications skill.

 

[DFW]

The range of a passive sensor is theoretically unlimited, because it depends on the signal strength, which is theoretically unlimited.

On that note. A densitometer can detect the presence a 100 Dton ~(200 metric ton) ship out to ~10,000 km. Earth's moon is about 3,672,950,000,000,000,000,000 times as massive.

Can you say REALLY Long range sensor?

 

[alex_greene]

The range of a passive sensor is theoretically unlimited

Practically unlimited; passive sensors can scan to the limits of the observable universe, pick up traces indicating that planets exist around suns thousands of light years away - and analyse their composition.
CCDs did not exist in the Seventies. They do now, and are capable of imaging with frightening resolution.

The military would probably want to reduce the resolution of commercial sensors and bolster their own; but I wouldn't put it past the Scout service to develop sensors with resolution fine enough to allow a ship to determine that it's hurricane season on a mainworld thirty parsecs away, and to read the headline on a newspaper being read on the mainworld while the ship is still out in the system's Kuiper belt.

 

[locarno24]

Seeing as the "distant" range for sensors can't even detect a ship from the surface of the earth to the moon, doesn't that seem a bit... weak?

Yes.

What about the cost stealth hulls?

Well, the only effect of stealth hulls is preventing lock-on in combat, so that could just as easily be ECM as stealth. Being hit less in a fight is often as valuable as being harder to spot in the first place.

For example, DFW's standard response when asked about sensors is Passive IR (something which is coming into service at the moment on fighters as the answer to RADAR stealthy aircraft like the F-22, F-35, PAK FA and J-20).

A relatively low-power IR-frequency laser washed back and forth over the enemy ship won't 'hide' you, but it will milk out a sensitive CCD and as such make it hard to provide targeting data. This sort of system is used in a lot of airliners today to protect against heatseaking stinger/grail equivalents.

 

[Reynard]

Looking over the sensor entries I realize Mongoose greatly simplified things for immediate combat circumstances. Older Traveller editions have detailed semsors abilities and the Scout sourcebook shows sensors can gain a wealth of information about the system from the Oort region at the very edge of a star system, That means if you can see in then you also can see out.

Problem is, as the Scout book relates, the information can take a long time to amass and assess. Moving starships change their information rapidly so time is compressed and that means much shorter distances to detect, analyse and react.

Never really mentioned but it seems so logical that systems expecting trouble or just nosey would have Early Warning Systems featuring stationary monitor probes at important locations such as Gas Giants with jump particle detectors and other passive sensors. Detect incoming vessels, gather as much information as possible tthen transmit to proper authority. This information travels at the speed of light.

 

[DFW]

Never really mentioned but it seems so logical that systems expecting trouble or just nosey would have Early Warning Systems featuring stationary monitor probes at important locations such as Gas Giants with jump particle detectors and other passive sensors. Detect incoming vessels, gather as much information as possible tthen transmit to proper authority. This information travels at the speed of light.

Yes, so for pirates, stealth isn't the answer. Looking innocent until "the last second" is how you'd do it.

 

[Morte]

The best (i.e. only plausible) pirate attack I've ever suffered used a different kind of stealth. They hid a few armed men inside a carefully modified 1 dton cargo container and paid us to haul them as priority freight. They busted out in the middle of the night, donned vacc suits, and messed with the ships atmosphere controls to kill us in our sleep.

[One of our crew was some sort of nascent psion who had a dream about it happening or something like that, and woke up. The whole thing was the GM's way of introducing the psionic angle to the game.]

 

[GypsyComet]

Well yes. The nature of piracy and the forms of it that we often forget are grounds for fertile discussion.

Sensors also cause a lot of discussion. Real world passives seem to be getting to a point where, unlike the careful submarine duels we used to equate space combat to, the whole excercise is going to be more like duelling with grenades in a well lit parking lot while riding bicycles.

 

[rust]

Sensors also cause a lot of discussion. Real world passives seem to be getting to a point where, unlike the careful submarine duels we used to equate space combat to, the whole excercise is going to be more like duelling with grenades in a well lit parking lot while riding bicycles.

I think it fits in quite well with the originally intended Age of Sail feeling
of Traveller, the ships of that age usually also spotted each other long
before the actual combat started, and the tactical focus was on the ma-
neuvers during the fight, not on any "hide and seek" to achieve a sur-
prise before the fight. However, Traveller should have a combat system
which includes a lot more options for such maneuvers, currently it would
be slightly difficult to use even something as simple as "crossing the T"
with Traveller rules.

 

[locarno24]

However, Traveller should have a combat system which includes a lot more options for such maneuvers, currently it would be slightly difficult to use even something as simple as "crossing the T" with Traveller rules.

High guard helps - orders such as Defensive Posture and Focused Fire, for example.

 

[DFW]

However, Traveller should have a combat system
which includes a lot more options for such maneuvers, currently it would
be slightly difficult to use even something as simple as "crossing the T"
with Traveller rules.

That's because the nature of movement in space and the 3D aspects make for very limited options. It's just the nature of the medium. Not really anything a rule system can do about it without getting a bit ridiculous

 

[Reynard]

Yes, so for pirates, stealth isn't the answer. Looking innocent until "the last second" is how you'd do it.

"I don't know! Fly casual just don't look like you're flying casual."