Questions - Ship sensors

[PoppySeed45]

So, been reading, and I noticed that in the main book it lays out basic sensor suites and the like. This is fine.

Problem, where does the EM sensor fit in? Does every sensor suite have it (as I assume)? Or is it extra? If so, how much space and cost is it (since I don't seem to find it). I have HG and it's not listed there either.

Please help!

 

[Rikki Tikki Traveller]

I have always assumed the EM sensors (heat, optical etc) were standard on the most basic package.

 

[PoppySeed45]

And that's what I was hoping. I'm in the process of designing my first scenario for MGT and the sensors will be crucial to the thing. Thanks.

 

[klingsor]

EMS covers basically the whole thing from optical (a telescope) up and down the wavelengths so LADAR, RADAR, IR and others would be covered. A merchantman will like the range and capabilities of a warship but it will still have pretty amazing sensors by our current standards. Part of this might be down to something as simple as software - with scouts for example being interested in things of no interest at all to a merchant and pure science will add even more.

Some of the sensors might be conformally mounted on the hull or mounted on booms and deployed once in space - though doing both would allow to create a larger synthetic array which effectively gives you a larger sensor by combining lots of smaller ones.

Increasing sophistication adds more sensors but more importantly improves the performance of existing ones. The really big jump though comes in early spaceflight TLs when the addition of computers make sensors vastly more effective even if the sensors themselves do not change.

 

[PoppySeed45]

EMS covers basically the whole thing from optical (a telescope) up and down the wavelengths so LADAR, RADAR, IR and others would be covered. A merchantman will like the range and capabilities of a warship but it will still have pretty amazing sensors by our current standards. Part of this might be down to something as simple as software - with scouts for example being interested in things of no interest at all to a merchant and pure science will add even more.

Some of the sensors might be conformally mounted on the hull or mounted on booms and deployed once in space - though doing both would allow to create a larger synthetic array which effectively gives you a larger sensor by combining lots of smaller ones.

Increasing sophistication adds more sensors but more importantly improves the performance of existing ones. The really big jump though comes in early spaceflight TLs when the addition of computers make sensors vastly more effective even if the sensors themselves do not change.

That's basically what I thought (and what I hoped). The text wasn't super-clear but it seemed to assume (looking at the space encounter tables) that a ship would be in possession of various sensors, and that EM was one of them. Which is all I really wanted. I like how there are grades of sensors in the book, like military, advanced and so on - makes it easy to adjudicate, no?

 

[klingsor]

I quite agree. I would prefer a little more detail and crunchiness myself. Partly because that is my nature but also because it is nice to be able to say 'yes' or 'no' to players - and then show them where it says so in the book if they argue. I fear I would prefer a more complicated starship creation system but this is not the place for that discussion.

What I wrote in based on experience with the setting and some logical filling in. I am starting to believe that there is a need for something like the old Starship Operator's Manual from DGP to answer questions like that. In fact I would really, really like such a book.

 

[Klaus Kipling]

I am starting to believe that there is a need for something like the old Starship Operator's Manual from DGP to answer questions like that. In fact I would really, really like such a book.

I'm inclined to agree, although this would possibly open a can of worms, as Traveller's loose starship creation system allows for many interpretations, and to define it further might stir up the folk who see things in a different way.

Having said that, some deeper rules for sensor ops would be very useful indeed.

 

[AndrewW]

I quite agree. I would prefer a little more detail and crunchiness myself. Partly because that is my nature but also because it is nice to be able to say 'yes' or 'no' to players - and then show them where it says so in the book if they argue. I fear I would prefer a more complicated starship creation system but this is not the place for that discussion..

I agree the starship creation could allow for more detail. Now convincing them to do a "Total Traveller starship creation for the detail minded." book...

 

[PoppySeed45]

..would be painful for some of us (me, mostly). I hated the one for GURPS for example (GURPS 3e Space and the one for Transhuman Space, which was the "simplified" version!).

Though it would have been nice for the sensors thing. Or just clearer. It makes sense that everyone has EM sensors, since that's the easiest way to detect something in space: notice the heat against the big black void.

 

[Woas]

Hi. Figured I'd post in here instead of making a new thread on the same topic. Anyway, just wrapped up the weekly game a couple hours ago. I feel like I do my best thinking/planning for next weeks game just after we finish. In tonight's game the player's had their characters 'trail' a suspicious ship and the use of sensors were in demand. Specifically the processes of Jamming.

I've checked the rules and found the nice sensor table/explantion on pages 143-144. But I can't find anything in the rule book about jamming and what it actually does. Is it like the reverse of stealth, cripple a targets sensors so they can't tell who you are, but make it obvious that 'someone' is being hostile toward them or trying to cover their tracks? Is it an extension of stealth that 'eats' sensor data and returns false data? What kind of skills throws are involved? How far away does jamming work? Have I hit upon another troubled area in terms of lack of rules?

Any thoughts or information I may have missed?

 

[simonh]

Some of the sensors might be conformally mounted on the hull or mounted on booms and deployed once in space - though doing both would allow to create a larger synthetic array which effectively gives you a larger sensor by combining lots of smaller ones.

High Guard has rules for distributed arrays, which either have to be mounted on very large ships, or can be mounted on deployable booms, so this is covered.

Simon Hibbs

 

[alex_greene]

Of course, this is where sensor drones also come in.

If a vessel has a number of sensor drones, the ship can launch them in all directions, fanning outwards from the vessel to, say, a couple of kilometres around the ship, with the mothership in the centre.

If, say, the vessel decides on launching drones out to 10 kilometres out, or 100, or 1000 kilometres, this effectively turns the sensors into a dish with a radius of 10 kilometres, or 100, or 1000 kilometres. The resolution one can get already with even a smallish modern array enables astronomers to locate and even resolve images of exoplanets in distant solar systems.

Imagine what scout ships can do from a good distance away from a planet with a military base, or a survey vessel out looking for asteroids in an uncharted solar system's belt.

 

[Woas]

Nobody has any remarks on jamming?

 

[alex_greene]

Well, jamming's good for shorting out active and passive sensors that rely on non-visual frequencies. ECM is useful in scrambling the guidance systems of smart missiles and drones, and for knocking out the fire control systems of ship-mounted weapons.

Can't do a damned thing about pure visual observation, which is basically passive visible spectrum. That's what stealth hull configurations are for.

 

[Woas]

Do you have a suggestions what kind of ranges jamming works from and how it works game mechanics wise?

In the skills chapter, under sensors it lists as an example use of the skill 'breaking through interference'. Does jamming equipment 'just work' and requires the ship being jammed to work around it (make the check)? How obvious is it that one is being jammed? Can/should you be able to use jamming equipment to 'hide' your ship? Or is jamming more used when hostilities are already assumed to be held toward each other?

Well, jamming's good for shorting out active and passive sensors that rely on non-visual frequencies. ECM is useful in scrambling the guidance systems of smart missiles and drones, and for knocking out the fire control systems of ship-mounted weapons.

Can't do a damned thing about pure visual observation, which is basically passive visible spectrum. That's what stealth hull configurations are for.

 

[alex_greene]

Think of it as being like the fight scene in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, where the Enterprise and the Defiant were trying to outmanoeuvre one another in the Mutara Nebula. Neither ship could get a bead on the other through the usual means, and they had to rely upon their static-filled viewscreen.

Jamming is an active function, so it really works best at shorter ranges, unless the jamming comes from a capital ship with a power plant large enough to pump some real wattage into the countermeasures suite. Jamming affects communications, interferes with radar target locks and it could even affect a ship's guidance if the jamming suite locates the target ship's guidance radar frequency. This, in turn, could affect its ability to evade attacks aimed at it from the jamming ship.

In game terms, it's basically opposed checks (p. 51, Traveller): the jammer's Comms skill vs. the Comms skill of the target if blocking communications, or Sensors vs. Sensors if trying to stop the target vessel from getting a target lock. Sensors vs. Gunnery, or Sensors vs. a missile's computer (Intellect/Expert Gunnery or Expert Sensors?) and the highest Effect wins. Jamming only gives the target a negative DM to their roll to break through the chaff cloud.

At least, this is how I'd run it.

 

[klingsor]

It might be worth making explicit something that is implied in Alex's last post. Jamming is active - so it is pretty obvious where you are - and that you are making a move that is basically hostile - at best a defensive manoeuvre.

What makes it interesting are things like missiles set to 'home on jam' which means they are going to follow those signals back to their source, and they are likely smart enough to remember where the target is, and extrapolate it's current position if it was moving, even if it shuts down the jammer, this is TL 7 technology.

Barrage jamming - emitting on multiple wavelengths. Not subtle at all.

Somewhere I have some reference material on this, nothing fancy, but I have no idea where.

The one thing that seems obvious is that electronic warfare is going to be a very important part of warfare in space.

 

[alex_greene]

For another example of jamming in action, look at the TV series Firefly, particularly the episode "Out of Gas," where Wash has to set up a signal to broadcast on the nav frequencies in order to let someone know Serenity was there. The ship would have had to dig out the squawk from their nav pulse before they could go anywhere.

Those Comms, Sensors and Remote Operations skills could probably see a lot of use in the game.