Stutterwarp Discharge

[LemnOc]

Great points guys, I think Ive had a change of heart. The 40 hour minimum is probably a keeper, despite Traveller's declaration to the contrary. I think the fact that it takes that long, regardless of how much charge youve built up does lend toward some sort of process the ship has to go through to get the job done, rather than the simple presence of a gravity well.

Well, even if you declare that once an engine purge begins it cannot be stopped—and, yes, I do see the appeal of that—no need to assign the full 40 hours of purge time to even short interstellar hops. 20 hours of hell at the end of a 4 ly hop can be just as exciting as 40 hours of hell at the end of a 7 ly hop, and the discharge variable over time/distance is—for whatever that's worth—canon.

But, Y2300MMV.

 

[McPerth]

and the discharge variable over time/distance is—for whatever that's worth—canon.

It depends on the version you play. AFAIK, only MgT2300 talks about the discharge time depending on the distance traveller, while both T2300 and 2300AD specified it as 40 hours, regardless the distance travelled.

 

[McPerth]

Just to avoid more thread intermingling, I post this here:

Just to show a minor effect, let's imagine you are here (at Earth) and I am at Tirane. Let's say the courrier drones take 12 hours to go from Earth to Tirane, and there are three such drones active at any moment, giving upgrades for the net every 8 hours.

See that to attain this performance, being Alpha Centauri at about 4.5 LYs, at least 12 such drones (probably some more) should be dedicated to that, as after every trip the courriers must spend 40 hours discharging the stutterwarp, and while it is doing so 5 more drones have left for return trip.

If you're using the rule of 6 hours/LY, the discharge time is about 27 hours, reducing the minimum drones to about 10 to keep this shedule of 1 drone every 8 hours.

 

[LemnOc]

After giving it some thought, I agree that a rule that forces a stutterwarp drive to be offline while it discharges does create more opportunities for drama (adventure) than the alternative. The DG is pretty silent on this, but I concede the point.

It’s fascinating what the old GDW material thought was important and treated exhaustively, and what they never thought about that seems, in retrospect, much more important. [cough]deck plans[cough]

Here’s what seems to be known about stutterwarp (it is not an exhaustive list):

* A drive has three states: Off / On-Idle / On-Operating

* A drive cannot be completely turned off while it holds a charge. This is not stated explicitly anywhere, but seems to follow from what we understand about tug ships. The drive of a towed ship has to be turned off and partially disassembled to avoid the buildup of a secondary charge.

* A drive that is discharging is stuck in the second state. I concede this point.

* A drive puts out some kind of rumble that can be detected systemwide. (MgT2300)

* A drive can be flicked on and off as a signaling device (MgT2300). That might imply that a drive cannot hold a charge to function in this way. Some debate here.

* A moving drive creates a Doppler effect. This is obliquely suggested in a Challenge magazine article on stutterwarp, but it also logically follows that if a moving ship is putting out a rumble its position and motion could be detected.

* One might assume an idle drive produces no measurable Doppler effect and is therefore more difficult to localize. One imagines the Doppler on an ship moving at +C would be much larger than one produced by a ship drifting at conventional speeds.

Putting all this together seems to create some pretty nice submarine warfare effects.

A ship arrives at a system with listening ships. While it is in motion, its approximate position can be located. If it ceases motion, the ship is still going to produce an “audible” rumble while it holds a charge, known to be still in the system. If the ship begins a discharge, it is helpless through the discharge period. Once it has discharged, its engines can be switched off for silent running.

The smart captain, arriving at a hostile system, would idle the drive to simulate that he is beginning a discharge. Meanwhile, he is listening for the sounds of closing vessels. If he detects them, he can race off and again attempt to drift through the system from another vector to discharge his drive.

The smart adversary, meanwhile, would wait several hours before moving on a detected vessel, to make sure the drive is truly disabled in a discharge.

This could create hours of cat-&-mouse kinds of strategies as the arriving captain delays that discharge operation for hours while listening for enemy vessels. The enemy, meanwhile, knows the captain cannot ultimately leave the system. He is trapped there until he can discharge.

Drift. Listen. Drift. Listen. Take the chance, earn the consequences.

 

[aramis]

Small problem, LemnOc... anything livable is going to be a thermal bright-spot. Current small IR scopes should be able to detect a ship at a couple AU against a space backdrop. Big ones at a couple thousand AU. After all, even if the drive is 50% efficient, that's a signature of 50% of the rated power used having to be turned into waste heat...

The Rumble being noticeable and switching off, well, that pretty much means a hostile, and so immediate search with IR.

So your whole extrapolation is invalid, since you ignore that (1) in system travel is all STL (2) defensible regions are all STL-only, (3) even under stutterwarp, at STL velocities, your RF signature is far more accurate and unmaskable than the warp signal, and still propagates at C.

It's quite likely that the Stutterwarp shudder should propagate at C, tho I suspect it propagates faster in the MgT2300U. If it propagates only at C, then you outrun your target sensors by hitting them before they spot you...

 

[LemnOc]

your whole extrapolation is invalid, since you ignore that (1) in system travel is all STL (2) defensible regions are all STL-only, (3) even under stutterwarp, at STL velocities, your RF signature is far more accurate and unmaskable than the warp signal, and still propagates at C.

I don't see that it is entirely invalid. A ship moving at stutterwarp, even at STL speeds, is still a target moving very fast, hard to locate and hit.

I don't see that detecting a thermal bright spot against the backdrop of space is an effortless slam-dunk. Look at how long it took astronomers to locate WISE J104915.57-531906. Space is vast. Ships are small.

 

[McPerth]

The campaigns The Lone Wolf and Three Blind Mice (Challenges 33 and 37 respectively) have very good articles about sensors. As they tell, the main sensor for stutterwarp ships is the gravitational one, as the warp tunneling leaves a gravitic mark that can be picked by them.

 

[aramis]

I don't see that it is entirely invalid. A ship moving at stutterwarp, even at STL speeds, is still a target moving very fast, hard to locate and hit.

I don't see that detecting a thermal bright spot against the backdrop of space is an effortless slam-dunk. Look at how long it took astronomers to locate WISE J104915.57-531906. Space is vast. Ships are small.

And it's more than 180,000.0 times further, meaning you need 3.84E10 times the unit energy to be visible.

Not that it was hard for them to spot, per se, since the data was present in older surveys, but the significance was overlooked.

That "rumble" gives the significance and a direction to look... which really, is all that will be needed to track the incoming ship on IR.

There is no stealth in space... and the background is 3°K, the ship 280°K, the radiators some 2000°K to 3000°K, and the red star some 1400°K to 3000°K. The ships are equally as bright, albeit smaller, for a smaller absolute magnitude, but much much closer, for a net of brighter, and with higher apparent motion, and with other signature effects in other bands.


Turning off your stutterwarp is nothing like a sub submerging. It's more like furling the sails on a sailing ship... a slight reduction in signature, at best.

 

[LemnOc]

aramis, you're pretty condescending and dismissive for a site administrator, so perhaps small wonder this forum is so silent. Just an observation and comment.

The campaigns The Lone Wolf and Three Blind Mice (Challenges 33 and 37 respectively) have very good articles about sensors. As they tell, the main sensor for stutterwarp ships is the gravitational one, as the warp tunneling leaves a gravitic mark that can be picked by them.

Which raises the point of whether a drive only "rumbles" when it is actually tunneling. In other words, does an idling drive emit a signal? I noted this might be a debatable point.

The flicking on and off mentioned in MgT2300 might instead be engaging / disengaging the clutch so to speak, moving the ship and not moving the ship. It's debatable.

Would a ship entering a system that then stopped moving at stutterwarp immediately be identified as hostile? That's in fact what every ship would do—friendly, neutral or hostile—to begin the process of discharging the drive.

---

It's a game. And game conventions lend themselves to adventures.

 

[aramis]

aramis, you're pretty condescending and dismissive for a site administrator, so perhaps small wonder this forum is so silent. Just an observation and comment.

One which is both off topic, and just as rude as the behavior it claims problem with when in the open. If you have a problem with a post, be it admin or mod, report it, rather than thread crap.

Which raises the point of whether a drive only "rumbles" when it is actually tunneling. In other words, does an idling drive emit a signal? I noted this might be a debatable point.

The flicking on and off mentioned in MgT2300 might instead be engaging / disengaging the clutch so to speak, moving the ship and not moving the ship. It's debatable.

Would a ship entering a system that then stopped moving at stutterwarp immediately be identified as hostile? That's in fact what every ship would do—friendly, neutral or hostile—to begin the process of discharging the drive.

---

It's a game. And game conventions lend themselves to adventures.

If it's doing so outside planetary orbit, the likelyhood is that they are doing so to be able to escape if things go badly. Civil traffic has no reason to discharge away from orbit and the safety of local orbital defenses.

Apply some basic logic, and any ship not aiming for a place to do business is looking for a place to do mischief.

 

[rgrove0172]

Im wondering what, if any, being motionless costs the captain though in the fight? Movement plays no real part in avoiding hits. It seems that the only disadvantage to fighting while adrift would be you cant run if you start losing, or chase the loser if he runs. Add to this the fact that its pretty established on the forum here thats detection is more or less automatic when you enter a system, its only your ID and the ability to track you that is in question, and Im not so sure about the cat and mouse thing.

Its sounds awesome, and I wish I could introduce such into my game but the commentary here on the various technologies seems to preclude it.

 

[aramis]

Im wondering what, if any, being motionless costs the captain though in the fight? Movement plays no real part in avoiding hits. It seems that the only disadvantage to fighting while adrift would be you cant run if you start losing, or chase the loser if he runs. Add to this the fact that its pretty established on the forum here thats detection is more or less automatic when you enter a system, its only your ID and the ability to track you that is in question, and Im not so sure about the cat and mouse thing.

Its sounds awesome, and I wish I could introduce such into my game but the commentary here on the various technologies seems to preclude it.

I just ran some numbers in another thread, and it's worse than I originally thought - the stutterwarp hum is the most likely way to track... because the speeds and flicker rates imply 200+ kHz flicker rates, and moving more than the ship's length per flicker... so visual intensity of ships under stutterwarp will be reduced..

Visual, by a factor of about 10K, while IR sensors of today have 10kHz image cycles, so that would be a factor of 20; presuming 2300 is improved by 10x, that's still at least half intensity lost vs IR cameras...

The stutterwarp IS the submerged mode! But it's more akin to periscope depth, while non warp maneuver is akin to surfaced.

 

[LemnOc]

Im wondering what, if any, being motionless costs the captain though in the fight? Movement plays no real part in avoiding hits. It seems that the only disadvantage to fighting while adrift would be you cant run if you start losing, or chase the loser if he runs. Add to this the fact that its pretty established on the forum here thats detection is more or less automatic when you enter a system, its only your ID and the ability to track you that is in question, and Im not so sure about the cat and mouse thing.

Its sounds awesome, and I wish I could introduce such into my game but the commentary here on the various technologies seems to preclude it.

I'm not sure it's entirely precluded. Depends a lot on situation. Let's say you're trying to drift into Kaefer-infested Arcturus, Das Boot style. It's not an inhabited system and it is not going to be as rigorously defended and monitored as an established system.

Much also depends not only on the pseudo-velocity of stutterwarp but the actual velocity of the ship. A ship adrift with a high stellar velocity is a different kind of animal. Then there is also a question of how long it takes for a stutterwarp ship to come online—its zero-to-sixty factor, if you will.

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "movement plays no real part in avoiding hits." I think it is pretty well established that a stutterwarp ship in motion is very difficult if not impossible to hit, due to its probability cone. Could be wrong about this.

Somehow, I imagine tracking a stutterwarp ship is governed by something like the Heisenberg principle, where you can know its location or its speed but not (easily) both simultaneously. But perhaps that's just a fancy.

 

[LemnOc]

Let's say, for example, a stutterwarp "hum" can be detected at 26AU. I think I saw its range limit somewhere, but can't recall.

Let's further say that a stutterwarp only hums when it is tunneling, not idling.

You run up a high stellar velocity. You disengage the drive at 26AU distance and coast through the system at high velocity. As you go, you pick up the locations of stutterwarp ships operating in the system. At the right moment you switch on the drive—go live, so to speak—and start engaging and blasting these ships. Change your vector. Continue falling, silently. 26AU out, turn around and repeat, wolf pack style.

Is it perfect? No. Can it be countered? Probably; that's called drama.

But it would be a fun scenario to play.

 

[aramis]

Let's say, for example, a stutterwarp "hum" can be detected at 26AU. I think I saw its range limit somewhere, but can't recall.

Let's further say that a stutterwarp only hums when it is tunneling, not idling.

assumes a fact not in evidence.

You run up a high stellar velocity. You disengage the drive at 26AU distance and coast through the system at high velocity. As you go, you pick up the locations of stutterwarp ships operating in the system. At the right moment you switch on the drive—go live, so to speak—and start engaging and blasting these ships. Change your vector. Continue falling, silently. 26AU out, turn around and repeat, wolf pack style.

Is it perfect? No. Can it be countered? Probably; that's called drama.

But it would be a fun scenario to play.

You've visual signal is going to be higher when the drive is off... makeing you much easier to detect via normal sensors. Sounds like a sure fire way to get people quite likely to fly up and stop you.

 

[LemnOc]

assumes a fact not in evidence.

Yes. Yes it does assume a fact. That's what "Let's say" usually means.

You've visual signal is going to be higher when the drive is off... makeing you much easier to detect via normal sensors. Sounds like a sure fire way to get people quite likely to fly up and stop you.

If you're falling with engines off, who's going to be searching for you? Why and where? As I see it, you get one pass through the system for free.

 

[rgrove0172]

I'm not sure what you mean when you say "movement plays no real part in avoiding hits." I think it is pretty well established that a stutterwarp ship in motion is very difficult if not impossible to hit, due to its probability cone. Could be wrong about this.

.

I was speaking in game terms of course. I dont recall a modifier for a ships speed or lack of movement. It would seem, at least to the designers, that its not enough of a factor to make a difference. Odd, Ill admit... I have a house rule allowing for a positive modifier for ships not moving at least one hex.. either sitting still or moving very slowly when compared to stutterwarp norms.

 

[rgrove0172]

Your talking about a convnentional drive velocity before you engaged the stutterwarp. It would take a long time to reach anything I would call a high stellar velocity. A constant G burn over a few months maybe? Even then it would take forever to 'fall' across a system. Or am I missing something?

 

[aramis]

Your talking about a convnentional drive velocity before you engaged the stutterwarp. It would take a long time to reach anything I would call a high stellar velocity. A constant G burn over a few months maybe? Even then it would take forever to 'fall' across a system. Or am I missing something?

You're missing something... Stutterwarp ships carry their realspace vector preserved while stuttering...

Stutter out to, say, 0.0001G limit of a body. Let yourself fall free inbound, stutter back out before smash. Repeat. Do this at a larger gas giant for maximum efficiency.

Adjust your flicker rate to keep you in one relative spot, and the in-between flicker times build up a good bit of delta V...

Jon's Law - any effective interplanetary drive is a weapon of mass destruction. Stutterwarp itself isn't, but it certainly (by careful stutter and discharge cycles) can turn the ship into one hella-big kinetic impact weapon.

 

[McPerth]

Which raises the point of whether a drive only "rumbles" when it is actually tunneling. In other words, does an idling drive emit a signal? I noted this might be a debatable point.

As those campaigns (through their Notes on Naval Doctrine) tell about sensors, it seems the gravitic sensors detect the rip in space produced by tunneling. If so, an iddle stutterwarp would not be detectable by those means.

The flicking on and off mentioned in MgT2300 might instead be engaging / disengaging the clutch so to speak, moving the ship and not moving the ship. It's debatable.

As I understand it, this flicking is just adapting the tunneling to a specific sequence as a code for those that know it to recognize you. I see more as if you marched on a specific pace (let's say skip a step from out of 5 from your pacing rytm) to allow those who hear it and know the code that those steps are yours.

Would a ship entering a system that then stopped moving at stutterwarp immediately be identified as hostile? That's in fact what every ship would do—friendly, neutral or hostile—to begin the process of discharging the drive.

I guess as much as a plane suddenly disappearing on the radar. It either has crashed or is flying NOE to avoid you, and so has no good intention. In any case, smart money is that someone will be sent to investigate.