Sensoring and Weapons

[TheEngineer]

Hi Sensor Operators,

in order to improve the hit resolution in my space combat software I could need some help

What does an attacked vessel know about an the weapons of the attacker ?

Ok. If it is hit by any weapon, it may guess the weapon type.
Is it also able to get the factor of the attacking weapon ?

If the attacker does not score any hit, does it recognize anything about the attacking weapons (except missiles, which might show up on the radar screen) ?

I need this information in order to see if its suitable to programmatically evaluate which
attackers weapon is most dangerous for the attacked ship and should be knocked out first.

Regards,

Mert

 

[Drakon]

Good questions?

Off the cuff, if it is a missile, then a defending ship, in theory, can observe the missile and determine its properties.

If its a beam weapon, mesons decay and scatter. Photons only scatter when it hits something, (same for masers or any other photonic or EM weapon) If you ain't in the line of sight, you can't see it, to tell what kind of weapon it is. You might see something if its a near miss with a meson gun. But otherwise, I don't think so.

As to a ship itself, it gets a bit tricky.

Any military organization needs intel on its opposition, both actual and potential. It also needs intel on its allies, so it does not mistake an ally for the enemy. It needs a large and disemenated catalog of ship profiles, with the best intel on what that ship is carrying. So that by visual or perhaps EM passive observation, one can determine what the ship is, whose ship it is and what it is carrying.

But then you have Q-ships. During WW1, Great Britian and other nations used to place guns aboard cargo ships, making them gun boats effectively. But gave the appearance of being just nice normal cargo vessels. When a German U-boat would surface, to use its deck gun on the frieghter, the "freighter" would drop its gunwales, reveal its own, more plentiful and sometimes more powerful deck guns, and demand the U-boat surrender.

 

[The Oz]

Drakon is right: military organizations recognize the ship, not the weapon(s).

Ship recognition is a matter of comparing sensor data to a database. You build up what is called a "Sensor profile" which is a compliation of everything your sensors have learned about the enemy: mass, volume, powerplant output, acceleration, the active sensors he has used (their type and characteristics), and anything else the enemy has done that might help ID him(launched small craft (kind and number), launched missiles (kind and number), etc. You should also be able to tell if the enemy fires a meson gun, and if he's used any fusion or plasma guns. I think particle accelerators and lasers might be more difficult to detect in space.

Your sensor operators will be constantly updating and comparing these sensor profiles (I imagine the computer does most of the work) to the database on enemy vessels. What probably works best to ID enemy ships is their active sensor profile. Not only will each set of weapon configurations tend to lead to a unique sensor profile for that set, but individual ships may be identified by unique characteristics of their sensor profile. Even though two ships may be of the exact same class, age, and service, the exact character of their active sensors may be just a little different. One's main radar might have a frequency just a little higher than it's supposed to be, while the other's lidar might have a pulse repetition rate that's just a little slow. It's possible for ships to even look unique to passive sensors, although that might be a little more difficult in the TRAVELLER universe.

Usually, anything done with passive sensors only tends to take longer and produce "fuzzier" data.

 

[Drakon]

Usually, anything done with passive sensors only tends to take longer and produce "fuzzier" data.

But it does keep the bad guys from knowing that you are there, usually. Important for when you are getting those sensor profiles to begin with.

One thing to remember too that such intel is only as good as the last time it was taken. Ships get modified all the time, and if your library is not kept up to date, you could have a problem.

 

[The Oz]

Originally posted by Drakon:
But it does keep the bad guys from knowing that you are there, usually. Important for when you are getting those sensor profiles to begin with.

And if you only use your passive sensors it makes it much harder for the bad guy to get a decent sensor profile on you even after he realizes you are there.

One thing to remember too that such intel is only as good as the last time it was taken. Ships get modified all the time, and if your library is not kept up to date, you could have a problem.

And this leads to interesting adventure leads where PCs are hired to go (perhaps even unknowingly) and update sensor profiles on enemy vessels.