Ships - player owned... or not

[BP]

...Based on the formulae given on Atomic Rockets I did some BoE calcs that indicated that we, now, could get 'pirate base detection' coverage for the solar system out to the Kuiper Belt with ~1000 evenly distributed sensor platforms.

Traveller ships generally use 'gravitics' - which this site does not address - and MGT sensors don't work at anywhere near these ranges. As to the validity of this source, nothing is backed up... it also appears to assume that the ships are in open space - i.e. not obscured by any means. Not to mention that it doesn't take the volume of the search areas into account! Taking the start of the Kuiper belt as 30 AU (~ Neptunes orbit) - that is a sphere of ~113,097 cubic AUs in volume!

Space is HUGE - even in a Traveller universe!

Lets assume MGT sensors that could distinguish signs of a base/ship at 50,000 km(max of Very Long range) - so a sphere of 100,000 km diameter.

• The volume of a sphere is 4/3 * pi * radius cubed
  
  The volume of our sensor is ~ 524,000 billion cubic km
  
  One AU (diameter) is ~ 150 million kilometers
  
  Volume of AU sphere is ~ 1.71 million billion billion cubic kilometers
  
  That's room for ~ 3.37 billion sensors

So in a 30 AU radius sphere thats about 380 trillion very long range sensors! (Taxes just went up in th 3I).


Here's those numbers before I wrote them out:

• Sensor volume ~ 524,000, 000,000,000 km3
  AU ~ 150,000,000 km
  AU sphere ~ 1,710,000, 000,000,000, 000,000,000 km3
  Room for ~3,370,000,000 sensors
  30 AU sphere ~113,000 AU3
  Requires ~381,000,000,000,000 sensors

(P.S. - apologies in advance if my math is wrong - I'm a bit rusty on this stuff - and much more comfortable using exponents for these kind of numbers - but know that the numbers are huge!)

 

[rust]

Even our modest real world sensors would have no difficulty to spot a
heat source (infrared, passive) or a big moving object (radar, active)
at the distance of the moon, so the 50.000 km given as Traveller's ve-
ry long range are not exactly convincing. :wink:

 

[EDG]

It's not an assertion if its self evidently true - or, at least, if you have enough of an understanding of basic economic theory to understand that its true.

Whenever anyone says something is "self-evident" and can't be bothered to explain why, that usually means that they don't know what they're talking about.

Actually, I can't believe that someone could be so silly as to not grasp it - so I guess you're just doing it for the hell of it ...

I'm not, but you're clearly just wasting my time and everyone else's.

 

[EDG]

Also, how is connecting A&B ports "utterly random"?

It isn't - you didn't read what I said. The worldgen is what is utterly random, because there's no attempt to link starports with population. Hence you get idiocies like Pixie, which is a very low pop world with a type A starport.

I can build you a regression equation that will predict the last four lottery wins to 90% accuracy -but it wont make you a winner next time. It cannot track random variation, OR intentional variation -as caused by humans speculating on the same data.

I would say that if the market was as unpredictable (and truly random) as the lottery, we wouldn't be able to have a functioning economy.

As usual though, people are starting to make unfounded assumptions about my motivations and why I'm asking questions. And since I apparently don't know what I'm talking about about anything except science, I'm going to bow out of this thread again. :roll:

 

[BP]

Even our modest real world sensors would have no difficulty to spot a heat source (infrared, passive) or a big moving object (radar, active) at the distance of the moon, so the 50.000 km given as
Traveller's very long range are not exactly convincing. :wink:

If they had to search for it they most definitely would have difficulty - capability to resolve is very much different from the time it takes to search a given volume. The human eye is quite capable of seeing objects lightyears away - yet even with the best telescopes, the moons around our planets are still a mystery(and flybys find new ones all the time). And most sensors are blocked by matter. (Thermal is dealt with quite well even in todays tech - large part of stealth technology).

Recently, the U.S. sent a mission to the moon (LRO - my dad worked on the LAMP instrument) that will spend a good year mapping the surface (we will finally have good detail on the dark side of the moon)!

In my previous post - even with sensors capable of scanning every nook and cranny in a cubic AU it would take over 100,000 to cover to Neptune's orbit. (Granted - the objects in most systems would tend to be around a solar plane - so maybe a few 10,000s).

As for Traveller's very long range being unconvincing - keep in mind the volume - that's 524 million million cubic km (524,000,000,000,000) of space to scan in realtime!

 

[rust]

Oh, I agree with the point you made about the very high number of
sensors necessary to cover an entire system, I just wanted to point
out that 50.000 km as the verly long range of sensors in a future se-
veral thousand years from now is ... "underwhelming". :wink:

 

[BP]

...50.000 km as the verly long range of sensors in a future several thousand years from now is ... "underwhelming". :wink:

A better choice of words

And Traveller Visual/EM sensors do allow distant (50,000km+) - but since Traveller is based on physics as we know them - the limitations are really no different from what we have today. Given the nature of light/energy emmission and scattering - there is only so much information that can be obtained at a distance. Advanced processing can estimate details by accumulating energy and removing time lag (accommodating for moving objects).

Traveller distances may seem off with what we have today - till one accounts for the ability to 'scan' a 3D volume of space. Consider the spy satellite capable of resolving visual fine detail at 300 km for a relatively small swath of basically 2D (2.5D) land - compare that to MGT at 1,250 km and in full 3D space. I don't have enough info to give numbers - but MGT is many orders of magnitude ahead in this respect.

OF course, I'm not saying there aren't issues - for instance, I think allowing a detailed scan (aftere position/trajectory is found) should extend the range/resolving power - but then again HG does address this with its advanced sensor/processing suites quite nicely... And I'd allow skill levels to bounce up the fidelity at extreme ranges.

 

[captainjack23]

Also, how is connecting A&B ports "utterly random"?

It isn't - you didn't read what I said. The worldgen is what is utterly random, because there's no attempt to link starports with population. Hence you get idiocies like Pixie, which is a very low pop world with a type A starport.

fair enough.

but often the x-boat network is just completely made up witout regard to the worlds they're connecting

okay, just plug that into what I said, and the point is quite valid.
Thus:

Also, how is connecting A&B ports "just completely made up witout regard to the worlds they're connecting "?

There. happier ? Actually, it works better.

Did any of the rest seem to make sense ? I was trying to answer a question you directly asked.

I can build you a regression equation that will predict the last four lottery wins to 90% accuracy -but it wont make you a winner next time. It cannot track random variation, OR intentional variation -as caused by humans speculating on the same data.

I would say that if the market was as unpredictable (and truly random) as the lottery, we wouldn't be able to have a functioning economy.

Well, that's nitpickery, really. And not what I was saying, either. One was a comment about predictive models, and the other was about economics. I don't see where you drew a line from one to another.
Honestly, do you just stop reading the minute you have an editorial comment to make ? It's not encouraging when one is trying to answer a direct question.

As usual though, people are starting to make unfounded assumptions about my motivations and why I'm asking questions. And since I apparently don't know what I'm talking about about anything except science, I'm going to bow out of this thread again. :roll:

Well, bye. And you're welcome, I guess.
Try some of the references I suggested; they won't make assumptions about your motivations; although they might not always agree with you either. But at least you can toss them at the wall when they are difficult like that.

 

[GamerDude]

Hey Capt Jack and all...

When trying to think about predictive models for economic trends and events, I look at two things: The Foundation novels by Asimov and how well the world (national, whatever) economy is forecast today.

With the current situation our economists world wide do more arguing than any one (except maybe scientists determined to cram theories and opinions down another one's throat). Take 20 economists, give them the exact same identical sets of data, and you'll get fifty conflicting opinions.

In the Foundation series, the effort is at 'psychohisotry' or predicting the future behavior of a society. Even Hari Seldon, the creator acknowledged that the farther out from the time he was making his calculations and predictions, the greater the likelihood they'd be off or wrong.

No get into a setting like the OTU... where info only travels as fast as the fastest ship... the best anyone can do when dealing with off world matters is get information that's a week old, react immediately, and then wait another week for the reaction/decision to get back to the original world.

In my mind, that system doesn't allow for a great deal of accurate predictive speculation.

Yes, as Capt. said, building up a model to find patterns in the past is possible, but they are no guarantee of any accurate for the future. To argue otherwise is just sheer hubris and madness.

 

[captainjack23]

Hey Capt Jack and all...

When trying to think about predictive models for economic trends and events, I look at two things: The Foundation novels by Asimov and how well the world (national, whatever) economy is forecast today.

With the current situation our economists world wide do more arguing than any one (except maybe scientists determined to cram theories and opinions down another one's throat). Take 20 economists, give them the exact same identical sets of data, and you'll get fifty conflicting opinions.

In the Foundation series, the effort is at 'psychohisotry' or predicting the future behavior of a society. Even Hari Seldon, the creator acknowledged that the farther out from the time he was making his calculations and predictions, the greater the likelihood they'd be off or wrong.

No get into a setting like the OTU... where info only travels as fast as the fastest ship... the best anyone can do when dealing with off world matters is get information that's a week old, react immediately, and then wait another week for the reaction/decision to get back to the original world.

In my mind, that system doesn't allow for a great deal of accurate predictive speculation.

Yes, as Capt. said, building up a model to find patterns in the past is possible, but they are no guarantee of any accurate for the future. To argue otherwise is just sheer hubris and madness.

I wouldn't ever say its impossible, but there is always risk. And, unfortunately mistaking correlation for causation, or an error estimate for a guarantee is all too common - and thus the economy these days. Someday, if I get the time, I may try to figure out the variance in buy/sell rates in traveller.


Hari Seldon was a major inspiration/hero for me growing up. Go figure......

 

[CosmicGamer]

BP, Thanks for the effort, but between being stupid, lazy, and just plain old not caring about that level of detail, I aint's got no clue what the calculatings you done did are all about.

...I just wanted to point
out that 50.000 km as the verly long range of sensors in a future se-
veral thousand years from now is ... "underwhelming". :wink:

Lets assume MGT sensors that could distinguish signs of a base/ship at 50,000 km(max of Very Long range)

Why is the limit 50,000 km?

The table on page 144 indicates Distant has the same ability as Very long for Thermal sensing. They are both Minimal.

 

[CosmicGamer]

Whenever anyone says something is "self-evident" and can't be bothered to explain why, that usually means that they don't know what they're talking about.

Not defending the person you directed this to EDG, but IMO, this can be quite inaccurate.

It's "self-evident" to me that the Sun gives off light and heat. I couldn't explain it without looking it up but I don't wish to do the research. So, I can't be bothered to explain why, but does it make the sun any less bright or warm :?:

 

[BP]

...Take 20 economists, give them the exact same identical sets of data, and you'll get fifty conflicting opinions.

From 20 egos trying for media attention - the true back-room professionals probably do it a bit better...

... the best anyone can do when dealing with off world matters is get information that's a week old, react immediately, and then wait another week for the reaction/decision to get back to the original world.

In my mind, that system doesn't allow for a great deal of accurate predictive speculation.

Yes, as Capt. said, building up a model to find patterns in the past is possible, but they are no guarantee of any accurate for the future. To argue otherwise is just sheer hubris and madness.

There are no guarantees in a market system - just degrees of risk/reward (any security is at risk if governments collapse or currency exchange fails). As you pointed out with the economist statement - people will speculate regardless of the absurdity, even stupidity of doing so - including with money (maybe, especially with money).

And, as you stated, 2 weeks is the best case senario - market speculation for systems farther than J-6 gets really bad...
That said - some things depend on scale - mega corps spread across multiple systems have an inherent buffer in space and time - i.e. excepting super nova explosions, natural disasters would be isolated to individual systems and the communications lag would buffer many political and socio-economic factors.

I don't know much of the history of stock markets - but I believe trades date back to the 1600's and in the U.S. there was a crash just prior to the Civil War (~1850's) that spread to Europe. For markets and exchanges on a continent - news could travel but slowly - in the U.S. the pony express was probably the fastest service between East and West and it took like 10 days in the summer and 2 weeks in the winter (till the telegraph system replaced them circa 1860).

For international trade - say from Britian to the U.S. - the clipper ships were the fastest - and they did like 250 knots (to 400?) - so at least a week to cross the ocean probably more like 2 weeks. But they didn't arrive on the scene till the ~1830's.

Anyway, prior to the early 1800's most communications took weeks at best between and across continents... don't know much about the European history - which is obviously much older... nor how much speculative trading went on - but the economies and trade markets were quite active and quite lucrative during those times.

IMTU I ignore the whole stock market/economy thing excepting what's in the trade rules - but history appears to allow a model of how it could work in the Jump time seperated setting of the 3I...

 

[captainjack23]

- people will speculate regardless of the absurdity, even stupidity of doing so - including with money (maybe, especially with money).

One could argue that this is exactly why piracy (and most crime, actually) exists....... 8)

 

[BP]

Lets assume MGT sensors that could distinguish signs of a base/ship at 50,000 km(max of Very Long range)

Why is the limit 50,000 km?

The table on page 144 indicates Distant has the same ability as Very long for Thermal sensing. They are both Minimal.

Yep -and minimal probably won't let one distinguish signs of a base/ship - so I extended the range just to make the numbers a bit smaller

Even if one were to use Distant and extend the range by say 1500 times to cover a 1 AU sphere (>3 billion times the volume of data to sift thru) - that is still over 100,000 sensor platforms...

[Hint: had to edit the above]

BP, Thanks for the effort, but between being stupid, lazy, and just plain old not caring about that level of detail, I aint's got no clue what the calculatings you done did are all about.

Thanks, Neither do I!

(Just kidding - but I don't claim them to be infallibe).

But I do hope the idea came across - space is HUGE!

[And did I sound like Carl Sagan? - that was my main goal... ]

 

[BP]

...For international trade - say from Britian to the U.S. - the clipper ships were the fastest - and they did like 250 knots (to 400?) ...

For the record - I think I meant 250 knots per day...

 

[Galadrion]

One of the things I thought was cool in David Webber's "Honorverse" was the development of communications traveling on gravity waves. They couldn't use it for like, voice and video comm but it allowed sensor buoys to communicate virtually real-time with any RMN ships...

I say virtually because it was speed of light without the enemy (typically the 'peeps' from Haven) being able to detect the signals (and making the buoys harder to detect).

Technically, it was speed of gravitation - essentially instantaneous over any range the wave itself was detectable over. Also note that, while the propagation speed was, for the distances involved, essentially infinite, the data transmission speed was much more limited, thus the built-in limitation to pre-established coding and data which could be relatively simply encoded on the fly.

Such a system could be quite useful, admittedly, but its overall utility would be limited by the ability of the users to anticipate and plan for its use, and to thereby get around those limitations. Lady Harrington was a tactical and strategic innovator of high order on that count.

 

[EDG]

Technically, it was speed of gravitation - essentially instantaneous over any range the wave itself was detectable over.

(as a note, gravity travels at the speed of light. Just sayin').

 

[aspqrz]

It's not an assertion if its self evidently true - or, at least, if you have enough of an understanding of basic economic theory to understand that its true.

Whenever anyone says something is "self-evident" and can't be bothered to explain why, that usually means that they don't know what they're talking about.

Actually, deleting the rest of the post which provided clear pointers to the evidence that you are either too silly to grasp or disingenuously ignoringis simply a sign of your intellectual dishonesty.

Either that or you live in a sealed box with no access to the outside world except through the Mongoose Forums and are completely unaware of the effect with which organisations such as the FBI use paper trails (of economic activity) to track and prosecute organised crime figures.

No-one be that uninformed ...

But, hey, feel free to make a bigger fool of yourself by deleting the evidence again.

http://www.fas.org/irp/world/para/docs/rusorg4.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/case_gangland/clues.html

... and they're just from a quick Google search.

But you're not now, nor have you ever been, interested in the facts ... or you're foolish enough not to be able to recogninse them as facts ...

Phil

 

[BP]

(as a note, gravity travels at the speed of light. Just sayin').

Uh oh. (hastily trying to slam lid on can of worms...) Please refer to this... (Not you EDG!)

(Bad Doctor. Very Bad Doctor. ).