Space Combat - Did I miss something?

Condottiere said:
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.
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Put a holograph over them or a hull shape shift that exposes them when needed (like the nacelles on a Puddle Jumper).
 
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.
 
shirgall said:
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.
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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.
 
MarcusIII said:
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.
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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.
 
collins355 said:
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.
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At those heat levels a 30cm lens for your IR scope would spot your cold fusion ship out to ~Neptune (from Earth's orbit. A 3.5cm lens probably out to the Mars. You can work the formulas given (which are correct). I used to have a spreadsheet where one could enter the temp and square meter size of visible hull to get a detection range.
 
collins355 said:
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.
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The heat would still need to go somewhere. My understanding is that even if you could fully insulate the ship 100% it would heat up and become unlivable in short order. Maybe at higher TL you could block or absorb the heat for a time, but it eventually has to be radiated away.

FYI, I do ignore the physics of it as I agree that Stealth and sneaking around the system are part of the game. Not having it would be bad for my narrative, and is a standard sci-fi trope.
 
hopsnbaer said:
The heat would still need to go somewhere. My understanding is that even if you could fully insulate the ship 100% it would heat up and become unlivable in short order. Maybe at higher TL you could block or absorb the heat for a time, but it eventually has to be radiated away.
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Yes, this is foundational to how our universe functions. Thermodynamics. Without it you can't make a cup of tea. So for Trav "stealth" hulls I just make it more difficult to spot by 2. It doesn't stop detection but makes it a bit more difficult.
 
hopsnbaer said:
The heat would still need to go somewhere. My understanding is that even if you could fully insulate the ship 100% it would heat up and become unlivable in short order. Maybe at higher TL you could block or absorb the heat for a time, but it eventually has to be radiated away.

FYI, I do ignore the physics of it as I agree that Stealth and sneaking around the system are part of the game. Not having it would be bad for my narrative, and is a standard sci-fi trope.
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We can't get rid of thermal radiation, but we could direct it to a less conspicuous aspect (say into the wake of the ship which is probably going to be in gravitic turmoil anyway). It might require expelling hot gas, but the fusion drive produces a surplus of helium anyway that needs to go somewhere. The rapid dispersion of that hot gas over a large volume of space would probably be less obvious than the almost point source that would be a ship irradiating conventionally.
 
Directional radiation away from likely detectors would be needed for stealth against an enemy equipped to detect stealth. Civilian systems probably would be unequipped to detect stealth vessels by default.

But stealth is part of the game so it must be assumed that even though unspecified they have a way to do it. Just as ships are not shown with radar dishes facing in all directions (or any at all in most cases) it is assumed that they can use it in all directions to see an incoming ship.
 
If it's stealth, use the chill can.

If it's just heat removal, there's the fuel tank; and fuel, of course.

We don't really have details how this is resolved in Traveller spacecraft mechanics, but if I were forced to solve it, you dump the heat in the fuel tank, and jettison the fuel through the jump drive, en masse, when transitioning.

Other option being, installing a small rocket drive, preheating the fuel, and let it dribble out there.
 
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