Shields In Traveller

[Jeraa]

Travelller missiles have standard sizes, so unless there's a tech level handwavium, the warhead tends to get shrunk to make place for it.

At the velocities Traveller missiles reach, a warhead is mostly superfluous anyway. The kinetic energy alone would be enough to ruin the enemy ships day.

As another option, you could keep the warhead the same size and reduce the missiles endurance. Slower acceleration and/or fewer rounds of fuel. The multiwarhead missile, for example, deals increased damage at the expense of lower Thrust.

Fit a missile with a gravitometer, program it with the characteristic 'signature' of the targets' drive and launch. Should be able to home in through chaff, flares, pretty much anything. Modern day torpedo-launching mine systems can do something similar with submarines (although they use sonar and specific cavitation noises).

Could be simulated with the Accurate upgrade in High Guard. The +1 DM to hit would negate the -1 DM from chaff.

 

[Rick]

My point being that the missiles of MT/CT owe more to the torpedo and aircraft missiles of the early 1970's, and while the warhead, casing and propellant may not have changed much, the sophistication of the guidance systems has changed greatly. Modern torpedo's use active sonar homing, Stonefish and CAPTOR mines use magnetic and acoustic detection as well as final sonar homing, and all in the casing for a standard torpedo, with little loss in propellant or warhead. I would like to see a bit more done with this is all.

 

[Condottiere]

The Russians supposedly have a torpedo that chases after the ship's wake.

 

[Balfuset790]

Because I only picked up this topic today, I'd like to briefly, if people will allow me, revsit the concept of stealth in space.

Assuming that the vast majority of detection at vast distances happens based on heat signature, would it not be possible to turn off systems that create heat that cannot be channeled - such as the thrusters - and divert the excess heat from essential systems into a 'heat sink' that retains the ship's heat emissions until vented? Obviously one would need to vent regularly in order to keep the ship's internals and crew from frying as this heat builds up but wouldn't that reduce the ship's signature - at least temporarily - to background?

 

[Condottiere]

Insulate the hull, and once the heat sink is full, turn on the Black Globe and dump the heat.

Use the resulting energy to power ship systems.

Rinse and repeat.

 

[F33D]

Assuming that the vast majority of detection at vast distances happens based on heat signature, would it not be possible to turn off systems that create heat that cannot be channeled - such as the thrusters - and divert the excess heat from essential systems into a 'heat sink' that retains the ship's heat emissions until vented? Obviously one would need to vent regularly in order to keep the ship's internals and crew from frying as this heat builds up but wouldn't that reduce the ship's signature - at least temporarily - to background?

No. Heat sinks don't work that way. A heat sink is a passive heat exchanger that cools a device by dissipating heat into the surrounding medium. The "surrounding medium" is space.

 

[Solomani666]

Searches for the <Kill-Thread> button...

 

[F33D]

Searches for the <Kill-Thread> button...

Go here: http://forum.mongoosepublishing.com/ucp.php?i=main&mode=subscribed

and use the unwatch button

 

[locarno24]

Assuming that the vast majority of detection at vast distances happens based on heat signature, would it not be possible to turn off systems that create heat that cannot be channeled - such as the thrusters - and divert the excess heat from essential systems into a 'heat sink' that retains the ship's heat emissions until vented? Obviously one would need to vent regularly in order to keep the ship's internals and crew from frying as this heat builds up but wouldn't that reduce the ship's signature - at least temporarily - to background?

No. Heat sinks don't work that way. A heat sink is a passive heat exchanger that cools a device by dissipating heat into the surrounding medium. The "surrounding medium" is space.

Indeed. More importantly, anything which moves heat energy tends to create additional waste heat itself (like the pumps in the back of a fridge). Containing a ship's heat - especially with an active fusion plant aboard - is not really viable without "**** Physics" level ancient technology.


About the best I can come up with as an idea is actively (massively) cooling once face of the ship and radiating from the rest.

If you can cool the 'projected' face enough, then you can theoretically get a sort of thermal stealth on one facing; there's no hot backscatter from drive efflux from a gravetic m-drive and the radiated heat can't 'turn corners'. It's not a lot of use for sneaking around in a system, because you've got to keep the supercooled mask pointed at any observer - which is a problem if they're at multiple bearings relative to you - but it does work to hide you from an observer on a known bearing. In theory. Like Sub-Prime Mortgages, Soviet Communism and Tapioca Pudding.

If it has a practical use, then it might work for a spy satellite - if you are some distance out from a world, and you can define both your area of interest and area of potential threat by a fairly narrow angle, it might provide some practical benefit from thermal detection against someone not actively looking for you.

It's still probably easier to site your spy camera on an atmosphere-less asteroid or planetoid somewhere.