Space Combat - Did I miss something?

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Concealed manoeuvre drives are contained within ship bulkheads but must be within three metres of the accelerating surface of the ship. Concealed manoeuvre drives add 25% to the tonnage and cost of the drive. The additional tonnage comprises a system that contains and exhausts thruster plate ionisation out of specially designed ports, reducing their detectability to almost nil.

Put a holograph over them or a hull shape shift that exposes them when needed (like the nacelles on a Puddle Jumper).

 

[shirgall]

Gravitic drives still consume a lot power and produce waste heat, just not the same way as a chemical rocket that produces prodigious amounts of mass going out the bell.

 

[Condottiere]

Text implies it gets dissipated.

As regards to holographs or physical external alterations, that might disguise the concealed drives in a visual examination.

 

[Fluffy Bunny Feet]

Gravitic drives still consume a lot power and produce waste heat, just not the same way as a chemical rocket that produces prodigious amounts of mass going out the bell.

It may well also be directional (I'd expect it to be). If it is not aimed at the planet or a off planet sensor it would be missed.

 

[Condottiere]

I tend to think it's also a gravitational anomaly.

That gravitational signature, also being dissipated.

 

[MarcusIII]

How much waste heat does a gravitic drive produce?

The real question is, "How much waste heat does a multi-mega watt fusion power plant create?"

 

[collins355]

Not much if it is Cold Fusion, which is what we are told Fusion+ is.

 

[MarcusIII]

Not much if it is Cold Fusion, which is what we are told Fusion+ is.

Incorrect Cold fusion isn't actually cold. It is hot; just not as hot as regular fusion. Against the background of space it is a brilliant light shining for all to see.

 

[collins355]

Incorrect Cold fusion isn't actually cold. It is hot; just not as hot as regular fusion. Against the background of space it is a brilliant light shining for all to see.

Yes, true enough as far as we currently understand cold fusion if it worked, which it doesn't.

I do wonder though, about the difference between the 50-60 degrees above ambient the heat exchangers for the waste heat of a cold fusion powerplant would probably require and the kinds of things Atomic Rockets and the "no stealth in space" crowd have in mind, which are very much big honking fusion torches or chemical rockets spewing reaction mass out.

Could you insulate the powerplant and the ship when you're only dealing with cold fusion power? Maybe a double hull with some coolant running inside the outer shell? Keeping the outer hull as cool as possible?

Anyway, just as it is true that you would have to work hard to hide your emissions it is also true that actually space isn't a nice pure environment for sensors to operate in - in reality background noise is a constant problem for telescopes and other arrays trying to sense things in space.

 

[Condottiere]

There's no sound in space.

So stealth would be to not show up on sensors visually, gravitationally, or radioactively.