New Manty ship ideas.

kzt wrote:

Relax wrote:Subject is ships not missiles. Kzt knows this damned well and purposefully changed the subject to missiles.

Given that I'm sure you'll easily find a mention in the text of radar used at tens of millions of kms, so why don't you post that example?

I suspect you'll find it harder than you think to find that example.

Here you go, from Echoes of Honor:
"On the scale to which God built star systems, active sensors had a limited range at the best of times. Officially, most navies normally monitored a million-kilometer bubble with their search radar. In fact, most sensor techs—even in the RMN—didn't bother with active sensors at all at ranges much above a half-million kilometers. There was no real point, since getting a useful return off anything much smaller than a superdreadnought was exceedingly difficult at greater ranges."

Oh, wait...oops, that says the exact same thing about ships as it does about missiles, doesn't it? My mistake.

Sigh. You guys are missing the point of my initial post.

You can't have gravitics give you loci, mass, acceleration, vector at 62c, and then have to "wait" for light speed confirmation of the same said point sources for class etc. Either it is gravitics or it isn't.

Fine, don't call said 'x' unnamed DW Handwavium sensor RADAR/LIDAR. Whatever long range sensor it is, works on light speed comm speed 300,000km/s and has far higher fidelity than Gravitics otherwise no one would wait for this confirmation and emission signatures.

If this were not the case, Honor would never be twiddling her thumbs for 10 minutes waiting for light speed confirmation as she is either sitting in system or coming into a system to figure out where everything is. All commanders would already know every ships class/orientation as soon as they had their wedge online. Instead we always see commanders waiting for light speed confirmation of every ship available. Gravitics just get it as a guesstimate of what is out there. If gravitics were the bomb, then RADAR/LIDAR would not exist on missiles. Especially not on CM's as it is beyond hopeless to use said sensors for target acquisition and tracking when MDM's are flying at you at 0.8c.

Clearly light speed sensors are involved for targeting information. And yes, you guys are right, they are not called RADAR/LIDAR, but they certainly exist and are light speed based at 10's of millions of kilometers, otherwise the FTL RD's and apollo wouldn't be needed... well if you can't fill in this minor logic step then this is beyond a hopeless discussion.

Besides, SoSag, Typhoon forward RADAR array was destroyed and this supposedly completely crippled its ability to defend. You have to track incoming missiles, even SDM's launch and vector your CM's at millions of kilometers.

To CRIPPLE Typhoon's missile PDLC defense, the array that should have been eliminated was its GRAVITIC array, but no, its its RADAR array that supposedly only works out to 500,000km where missiles will be VASTLY smaller targets than a starship and therefore it should be absurd to think a RADAR array that can barely see a ship at 1,000,000km under optimum conditions could even contemplate seeing a missile at 100,000 let alone 10,000km! 10,000 would be pushing it as its a radius square value and the size discrepancy is thousands of times larger for a ship over that of a missile. At which point that is inside detonation.

Don't be absurd in saying that missiles wouldn't be created from RAM materials if they knew that all they had to do was hide from their RADAR/LIDAR and viola, blitz past easy pleasy lemon squeezy.

I think DW twists missile engagements anyway he chooses without much in the way of hard rules at all.

Relax wrote:Sigh. You guys are missing the point of my initial post.

You can't have gravitics give you loci, mass, acceleration, vector at 62c, and then have to "wait" for light speed confirmation of the same said point sources for class etc. Either it is gravitics or it isn't.

Fine, don't call said 'x' unnamed DW Handwavium sensor RADAR/LIDAR. Whatever long range sensor it is, works on light speed comm speed 300,000km/s and has far higher fidelity than Gravitics otherwise no one would wait for this confirmation and emission signatures.

Visual, IR and other EM spectrum emissions from the target. We have a specific example in Flag in Exile of Shannon identifying ships as ex-PN prizes by the signature of the radar they were using. Those light-speed emissions are very useful for identifying who is a good guy and who is a bad guy, but they're not the "radar" that Lord Skimper referenced when this kicked off. They're passive readings, not active ones like radar and lidar.

Lord Skimper wrote:

Werrf wrote:If you're suggesting what I think you are, a system based on broken beams, you're ignoring the issue of the scale of a star system. You'd need an impossible number of detection rigs to get even a tiny chance of detecting something.

Beams or pulses of FTL beams as part of a system wide communications system with civilian signals being sent is a full sphere all around. 3 billion people on one planet encouraged to "phone" or perhaps "Skype" the 3 billion others. With all the tourists staying in system etc....

There's also no evidence that a spider ship would disrupt a communication.

The ship itself won't, as FTL communications are made with ripples along the Alpha wall. Physical objects should have no noticeable impact on those ripples. The Drive might have an impact but it's likely to be extremely minor. The Spider Drive (IIRC) is stated to be much weaker than a wedge, but ships using a wedge (which should have a much bigger distorting effect on the Alpha wall) apparently don't create enough interference to be worth mentioning. [IOW there's no statement in the book about difficulty transmitting near or through a formation of ships]


Now it's certainly possible that the same tech that lets the Manties have high bandwidth FTL communications could be adapted to detect spider drive usage. (Certainly people have been speculating here to that effect since the description of a spider drive 'spike' was published) But if so it's unlikely to be a customized modification; it's not likely to noticeably interfere with routing intrasystem comm traffic. (At least in my opinion)

You know what else is a light speed sensor? A telescope. I'm not saying that is what they use, I'm saying that just because it is called a senior does not mean it is an active sensor.

Relax wrote:Sigh. You guys are missing the point of my initial post.

You can't have gravitics give you loci, mass, acceleration, vector at 62c, and then have to "wait" for light speed confirmation of the same said point sources for class etc. Either it is gravitics or it isn't.

Fine, don't call said 'x' unnamed DW Handwavium sensor RADAR/LIDAR. Whatever long range sensor it is, works on light speed comm speed 300,000km/s and has far higher fidelity than Gravitics otherwise no one would wait for this confirmation and emission signatures.

If this were not the case, Honor would never be twiddling her thumbs for 10 minutes waiting for light speed confirmation as she is either sitting in system or coming into a system to figure out where everything is. All commanders would already know every ships class/orientation as soon as they had their wedge online. Instead we always see commanders waiting for light speed confirmation of every ship available. Gravitics just get it as a guesstimate of what is out there. If gravitics were the bomb, then RADAR/LIDAR would not exist on missiles. Especially not on CM's as it is beyond hopeless to use said sensors for target acquisition and tracking when MDM's are flying at you at 0.8c.

Clearly light speed sensors are involved for targeting information. And yes, you guys are right, they are not called RADAR/LIDAR, but they certainly exist and are light speed based at 10's of millions of kilometers, otherwise the FTL RD's and apollo wouldn't be needed... well if you can't fill in this minor logic step then this is beyond a hopeless discussion.

Besides, SoSag, Typhoon forward RADAR array was destroyed and this supposedly completely crippled its ability to defend. You have to track incoming missiles, even SDM's launch and vector your CM's at millions of kilometers.

To CRIPPLE Typhoon's missile PDLC defense, the array that should have been eliminated was its GRAVITIC array, but no, its its RADAR array that supposedly only works out to 500,000km where missiles will be VASTLY smaller targets than a starship and therefore it should be absurd to think a RADAR array that can barely see a ship at 1,000,000km under optimum conditions could even contemplate seeing a missile at 100,000 let alone 10,000km! 10,000 would be pushing it as its a radius square value and the size discrepancy is thousands of times larger for a ship over that of a missile. At which point that is inside detonation.

Don't be absurd in saying that missiles wouldn't be created from RAM materials if they knew that all they had to do was hide from their RADAR/LIDAR and viola, blitz past easy pleasy lemon squeezy.

I think DW twists missile engagements anyway he chooses without much in the way of hard rules at all.

crewdude48 wrote:You know what else is a light speed sensor? A telescope. I'm not saying that is what they use, I'm saying that just because it is called a senior does not mean it is an active sensor.

Has nothing to do with active verses passive. Could be active; could be passive. Fact is they are waiting on a EM spectrum light speed based signal.

A telescope can be used as an active sensor, just fine thank you. A telescope is nothing but a mirrored pair of lenses after all with sensor attached or in the case of higher frequency RADAR they use a waveguide and a "dish" combined instead of a pair of mirrors... What the bleep do you think AESA radar is? It is a ton of small RADAR Telescopes with a powered element that also acts as its data collection sensor as well! All An OPTICAL telescope is that it uses a longer wavelength of the EM spectrum and its corresponding lower resolution compared to RADAR. It is piss poor due its long wavelength, but can be done. What do you think LIDAR is??? LIDAR is a step down from RADAR in that it uses UV through IR EM spectrum. Note UV is above the EM spectrum that our eyes can see and likewise IR is a below the EM spectrum of wavelength our eyes see.

A telescope is a passive sensor. All it does is collect light.

A telescope combined with a spotlight is an active sensor. The spotlight's photons hit a target and reflect in ways that are now visible to the telescope and would not be visible if it was not providing the photons and the object wasn't there to reflect the photons.

All other sensors in other wavelengths, whether real (radio telescope vs radar) or imaginary (gravitic passive sensors vs FTL communication gear) have this distinction.

If it has an emitter as part of the apparatus, it is an active sensor. If it just passively detects emissions that are already present, it is a passive sensor. Active sensors normally have more resolution and passive sensors a higher degree of sensitivity for the same reason your eyes can see things you light up with a flashlight better than just relying on ambient light, even in if the latter case your iris is open wider and can collect more light.

Alternately consider the benefit of low-light goggles compared to turning on overhead lights. Low light goggles are like improving the sensitivity of the Mark-1 Eyeball. This approach doesn't give your position away and relies on improving the ability to collect photons around your eyes over what your eyes can do unaided.

Turning on lights relies on filling the area with photons and causing all objects in the area to reflect, in wavelengths perfectly suited to the human eye, without changing anything at all about the "passive sensor" the human is using to see what is in the room.

If the sensitivity difference doesn't buy you anything technically, you might use the same sensors for both active and passive (with passive being "I turn off the emitter") but in the Honorverse they're usually described as entirely separate. The analogy would be like wearing low light goggles in a brightly lit room. If the goggles had filters to prevent blinding you when the lights were turned on, you wouldn't have to take them off if you turned on the light. But they wouldn't be helping at all when the lights are actually on, and you're adding wear and tear on them, running down the battery, etc, so having the option to not wear the goggles when conditions are expected to be lit would seem to be an advantage.

In the end you'd want to weigh the tech advantages of building in sensitivity controls on your passive sensors robust enough to rapidly filter much more powerful signals when your emitter turns on, or having two separate pieces of equipment to handle different situations. Back in the day, flashlights and low light goggles weren't used at the same time, although I'm pretty sure I've heard of specialized lights visible only when you've got your night vision gear on, which would seem to be a happy medium.

I have no idea what 2013 tech is like along those lines. I didn't get past sophomore electromagnetic theory as my training was much more oriented to mechanical engineering and materials science...and that was back in the 80s when computing power was a fraction of what it is today and pattern matching and data enhancement tricks were utterly primitive compared to what I saw my colleagues doing even as soon as the early 90s.

As a Retired USN IS [ret 2003], that used to teach this.
Solberg is on the money.

Active = a transmitter with a receiver working together.

Passive = just a receiver.

Semi-Active = a seperate transmitter and receiver [ship's radar lighting up the target and the missile's radar receiver homing in on that target's radar reflection.]

Note that you can use active systems to passively collect data by turning off the transmitter but, you need your target to be active ATT.

solbergb wrote:A telescope is a passive sensor. All it does is collect light. SNIP quibbles after this first main point.

A telescope is NOT a sensor at all! Let alone a passive one! A telescope is 100% separate from a sensor or emitter passive or active!

Yes! Telescopes collect EM spectrum. Do not call it "light". "light" is a very minute portion of the EM spectrum. Telescopes can also SEND out EM spectrum along a fixed vector. All a telescope requires is an emitter. Just like in collection mode all it requires is a Data collection sensor.

Ye Godz, how do you guys think satellites work? They are all telescopes that send/receive information via their multiple "telescopes." Both active/passive sensors in the same stinking "telescope" using the exact same mirrors/lenses simultaneously! No, not all comm satellites have done so historically, but any semi modern one does as this allows vastly increased bandwidth. Its how Radio antennas work as well. They are doing so due to $$$ allowing one satellite to cover a larger area for uplink/downlink angles. Otherwise you cut your bandwidth in half. You lose a small portion of S/N ratio by doing so though as more power is coursing through the emitters/data collectors in question creating heat, noise. Active cooling is required(heat pipes transferring into massive heat sinks on said satellites that are also there for half of said satellite being exposed to the sun and the other deep space)

NO, active sensors do NOT have higher resolution than passive. What they do have is a higher Signal to Noise ratio! More signal is coming BACK. Noise either remains the same or goes up slightly due to active emissions. Resolution remains the same. Resolution is determined by the lenses used along with the sensor! Optics 101. The data is there, but with a higher S/N ratio, you get useful information instead of "fuzz."

No, DW does not differentiate between passive/active distinct sensors. It would appear that DW already knows this, or someone in BuNine pointed out that they are the same bloody thing requiring telescopes on said sensor/emitter apparatus to focus their beams and to collect data. For instance in SoSag, Typhoon lost its Entire front Radar capability.

Night flashlights for goggles have been around forever. They have improved in 2 ways though. The difference has been that night vision goggles have narrowed their spectrum emissions(rely more on IR) along with dynamic processing for blinding effect and therefore allowing one to place filters over flashlights that better block the EM spectrum that the night vision goggles use.

Montrose Toast wrote:As a Retired USN IS [ret 2003], that used to teach this.
Solberg is on the money.

Active = a transmitter with a receiver working together.

Passive = just a receiver.

Semi-Active = a seperate transmitter and receiver [ship's radar lighting up the target and the missile's radar receiver homing in on that target's radar reflection.]

Note that you can use active systems to passively collect data by turning off the transmitter but, you need your target to be active ATT.

Yup, minus the part about Solberg being right and minus your last point. With older tech, before 1980's you would be correct. Time marched on long ago.