T5 Only: Default sensors - really R=7? Hm
- Thread starter jawillroy
- Start date
Not quite blind. It means you can't get a weapons lock outside of short range. You can see that something's there and can tell what its vector is.
It's suitable for merchant ships serving a route. 50,000 km is indeed short range. Its true limitation is that you can't easily go on the offensive with default sensors. Again, merchant ships serving a route don't need to do that.
It's not at all suitable for Scouts, military, or anything custom. But that makes sense.
One possible exception: it may be useful, sometimes, for a pirate or Q-Ship that's going for the element of surprise, and is playing it so conservatively that it won't even swap out the sensors. So it waits until it's within short range before it springs its trap and tries to board the other ship.
It's suitable for merchant ships serving a route. 50,000 km is indeed short range. Its true limitation is that you can't easily go on the offensive with default sensors. Again, merchant ships serving a route don't need to do that.
It's not at all suitable for Scouts, military, or anything custom. But that makes sense.
One possible exception: it may be useful, sometimes, for a pirate or Q-Ship that's going for the element of surprise, and is playing it so conservatively that it won't even swap out the sensors. So it waits until it's within short range before it springs its trap and tries to board the other ship.
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These are the most basic of basic sensors after all; the Mark 1 Eyeball out the porthole and collision avoidance radar.
I think it was one of the Quick Ship Construction documents for T4 that described this kind of fit-out as the minimum allowed for a ship to legally achieve orbit.
IMTU thats what these sensors are.
I think it was one of the Quick Ship Construction documents for T4 that described this kind of fit-out as the minimum allowed for a ship to legally achieve orbit.
IMTU thats what these sensors are.
Whoops, did I say 50,000km? My bad. 50km.
R=7 equals S=2 equals 50km
Which is really REALLY close. In CT terms, nearly interception range.
But since they're free, eh. Why not? Just not sure yet how I'd play their use. There's an awful lot of book to digest.
Basic navigation, for instance, would rely completely on passive comms to receive signals from a navigational buoy. Failing that, the Mk 1 eyeball?
"You come out of jump: and as you suspected, there's no nav signal here. Wapapitame 5 is supposed to be a moon well within the gas giant's 100D radius, so your first order of business should be to spot the giant; once you've done that, you've got a few days to see where Wap 5 is... get cracking."
R=7 equals S=2 equals 50km
Which is really REALLY close. In CT terms, nearly interception range.
But since they're free, eh. Why not? Just not sure yet how I'd play their use. There's an awful lot of book to digest.
Basic navigation, for instance, would rely completely on passive comms to receive signals from a navigational buoy. Failing that, the Mk 1 eyeball?
"You come out of jump: and as you suspected, there's no nav signal here. Wapapitame 5 is supposed to be a moon well within the gas giant's 100D radius, so your first order of business should be to spot the giant; once you've done that, you've got a few days to see where Wap 5 is... get cracking."
Right.
Marc chose the ranges. I petitioned him for defaults, because the fastest way to build a ship is to default all the flashy bells and whistles.
Radar with R=7
It isn't so much for target acquisition but its useful for navigation (as opposed to astrogation).
- You can use it as an accurate radar altimeter from 50,000 meters up.
- It makes a useful weather radar in atmosphere.
- Approach control radar for when you're docking with a spacestation or ship.
- IFF interrogation of another ships transponder.
Of course all these things should be handled as routine functions that are carried out by the pilot or sensop without need for a task roll. The fun comes when the ship is operating without default radar or any other sensor.
Porthole R=6
The main idea of the porthole is to allow the characters to use their vision
- Vision can be augmented by a number of portable or handheld devices. For example telescopes or binoculars. IR or UV sensors can give you spectral information. You can even use a sextant (or is that a quadrant?) for navigation purposes.
- Vision allows a Pilot to fly a ship using the equivalent of VFR or visual Flight Rules. Imagine a completely blacked out shuttle making a covert approach under strict emissions cloaking. The Pilot can only fly by looking out the window.
- Vision checks also allow for crew looking out the window to make spot checks to notice details missed or at odds with other electronics sensors. Or the reverse; the pilot sees a psionically induced image of a med ship but the radar says its a Zho Raider.
Comms R=7
This is a transceiver that allows communication to and from orbit, which would be the minimum expected for achieving orbit on any world with controlled air/space.
- Remember comms are networked so if you are in R=7 of a bigger comm with S=12 you can communicate out to S=12.
- IMTU I assume comm/nav beacons on the 100D limit that allow traffic control to communicate with ships arriving or departing.
- A ship in orbit with a comm can also access any communications or data networks from orbit. In other words you can access the internet or planet net from orbit with a comm R=7 so your ship's computer can search for information or you can hack or whatever.
- Vacc Suits come with comm R=4 I think? So a character on a spacewalk can route his comm through the ship to talk to anyone within R=7.
Just some ideas :coffeesip:
However....
50 km is rather pointless for that sort of Communicator.
"[FONT=arial,helvetica]a transceiver that allows communication to and from orbit"
[/FONT] I think "Orbit" is a better distance for an Orbital Communicator. R=8. While we're at it, put the default Radar at R=8 as well.
I think that's good errata to throw on the pile.
50 km is rather pointless for that sort of Communicator.
"[FONT=arial,helvetica]a transceiver that allows communication to and from orbit"
[/FONT] I think "Orbit" is a better distance for an Orbital Communicator. R=8. While we're at it, put the default Radar at R=8 as well.
I think that's good errata to throw on the pile.
Except that range for receiving transmissions is dependent not on the range of the receiver, but on the range of the transmitter.
So while it's far from optimal, a ship jumping into a system with at least some manner of port control will be able to receive guidance and navigational instructions. That might be enough.
A ship with such limited sensors doesn't have any business going anywhere else, really.
Maybe it should go in the errata discussion pile first.
R=7 has a midpoint of 50km and a span of 25km to 250km
R=7 is 50km yes, but p.708 titles it "Low Orbit"
R=7.4 or 200km is "Typical Low Orbit"
"Low Earth Orbit" or LEO is defined as "an altitude between 160 kilometers (99 mi) (orbital period of about 88 minutes), and 2,000 kilometers (1,200 mi) (about 127 minutes)".
I think R=7 and R-8 together cover what we call LEO but on smaller and bigger worlds does it scale properly?
For SpaceshipOne style craft, small craft and basic "to orbit" craft maybe an R=7 package is all thats needed.
Making the default sensor package the bare minimum forces the ACS user to think carefully about balancing sensors, especially where they start competing for hardpoints and mounts.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
I could see that for up to translunar work, although I wouldn't want to be interplanetary with them (I would want longer range just for rock avoidance).
Most of CT has 50,000km range radio that is pretty cheap, that would be my minimum for translunar too. Keep in mind Apollo had a longer range, although of course not quite that 'cheap'.
On the other side of the equation, what is the maximum range that can be ship-mounted?
Most of CT has 50,000km range radio that is pretty cheap, that would be my minimum for translunar too. Keep in mind Apollo had a longer range, although of course not quite that 'cheap'.
On the other side of the equation, what is the maximum range that can be ship-mounted?
S=12 or Deep Space is the longest range sensor available in ACS.
S=12 has a mid point of 2.8AU, 420 million km, or 30 light minutes.
BUT!
You can make Comm or other sensor installations in ThingMaker, and Rob has already done an extended version of the Range Effects table here
Using that you can get up to parsec range installations.
Backtracking
Okay read this carefully. I shall say this only once. I was wrong
While going through the Equipment Chapter I noticed that the handheld Standard Comm at TL8 has a range of 1000Km or R=8.3 so obviously it no longer seems resonable to me that a spacecraft (or any aircraft for that matter) should have a default comm less than R=8. The default Radar should therefore be R=8 as well.
Both Comm-8 and Radar-9 come as Surface installaions with S=7, maybe thats the actual errata; S ranges not R ranges for both?
Okay read this carefully. I shall say this only once. I was wrong
While going through the Equipment Chapter I noticed that the handheld Standard Comm at TL8 has a range of 1000Km or R=8.3 so obviously it no longer seems resonable to me that a spacecraft (or any aircraft for that matter) should have a default comm less than R=8. The default Radar should therefore be R=8 as well.
Both Comm-8 and Radar-9 come as Surface installaions with S=7, maybe thats the actual errata; S ranges not R ranges for both?
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Lycanorukke
SOC-13
For 50km sensors even jump capability shouldn't be allowed, considering your ship can be flying along at several kilometers per second as you go to/from the jump point.
You might have just enough time to notice a contact on radar before running into it.
That would be a trivially easy fix, if Marc doesn't mind it. That would make them useful backups as well.
I suspect Marc was intentionally going for the very short range option. Granted that handheld comms are R=8, but Marc probably didn't think about that at the time.
Either way, there is errata.
The comms and radar listed on p341 for TL8 and 9 respectively are both S=7; for what it's worth. They're listed at 1Mcr. Maybe Marc really wanted to nerf the freebies, but they really don't play nice with the handheld options. I'd be inclined to say the basic sensors are supposed to be S=7, and that additional ones could be added for redundancy.
