and if that is some sort of laser trailing the ship to radiate the heat, basically a big pointer to ship itself.
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A big, though presumably diffuse, pointer -- with the thermally-neutralized ship between itself and the adversary's IR sensors. At least they hope so.
Which is to say, any such IR stealth provided is at least somewhat directional.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
If you point a laser away from your eyes ... do you see the beam?
No, not unless there's smoke or dust in the air to reflect the laser light back into your eyes.
Trick question: How much "dust and hydrogen" is there to reflect stuff off of in interplanetary space?
Trick answer: Not bloody much.
Next trick question: How far away can your ship's sensor suite detect and resolve into imagery individually excited single atoms and molecules (not collections of them, singles)?
Next trick answer: Less than light seconds away.
Last trick question: Is there any "background noise" factor in interplanetary space?
Last trick answer: Ever heard of something called Solar Wind ...?
The resolving power of starship sensors is not ∞ ... and all you need to do as a "stealth" craft is blend into the background noise "enough" to be difficult to sort out from that background noise. For a time limited mission duration, it's possible to suppress the signature of a small craft sufficiently to launch a first strike missile attack before being detected by conventional (read: neutrino sensors) means, hopefully catching the defender by surprise.
It's not "invisibility" you're aiming for ... it's camouflage.
You can look right at something camouflaged ... see it ... and not recognize it for what it actually is.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
The other end of this is jamming: produce so much heat it erases the capability of sensors to discern the object.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Or a carefully controlled combination of both ...
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
I think this is where camouflage comes in.
Shoot the big laser at what is trying to see you. 
The Jutland deal still sort of holds true, fleets are going to either run at each other, or get chased away. I mean one can hide behind the primary on approach, that is an ancient tactic, to use cover; or keep another body in front of you. That is the advantage of being the attacker is that you have the initiative, you know where they are, if you are going after a planet. The other thing is sort of like, if you have not done good intelligence work ... and don't know what you are up against? That is your fault as well.
The Jutland deal still sort of holds true, fleets are going to either run at each other, or get chased away. I mean one can hide behind the primary on approach, that is an ancient tactic, to use cover; or keep another body in front of you. That is the advantage of being the attacker is that you have the initiative, you know where they are, if you are going after a planet. The other thing is sort of like, if you have not done good intelligence work ... and don't know what you are up against? That is your fault as well.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
The Germans had a plan to lure away a part of the Grand Fleet, and destroy it, evening the odds for the follow on full engagement.
It seems specifically aimed at the battle cruiser independent force, and they were probably hoping Beatty was reckless enough to take the bait.
The incursion into the North Sea at Jutland was intended to look like a reconnaissance in force, with the German battle cruiser based scouting force locating the British battle cruisers, and ambushing them with the rest of the Hochseeflotte.
It seems specifically aimed at the battle cruiser independent force, and they were probably hoping Beatty was reckless enough to take the bait.
The incursion into the North Sea at Jutland was intended to look like a reconnaissance in force, with the German battle cruiser based scouting force locating the British battle cruisers, and ambushing them with the rest of the Hochseeflotte.
Sure, and we High Guarded the Spinward Marches, rolling up massive fleet battles, and I lost! As the Imperial player, c'est. Learned my teenage self that trying to defend everything, one eventually defends nothing. Some of it was dice though, as I was also a Starfire player too, and was used to fleet combat.
I think fencing stolen property only applies if you're within the neighborhood--so to speak. You can run it to the Extents and sell it as your own for whatever price you want, or even places spinward of Norris's Domain, and spinward of the Imperium as a whole.
Even if you're within the Imperium all you need to do is find a port that has no knowledge of you or the cargo and you can off load it. The Imperium is not a "Federation" but a collection of "city state" like realms with their own governments. The Imperium, as has been mentioned, will get involved if you start screwing with shipping, but they need to find you. Otherwise world governments, unless they are strictly aligned with the Imperium lock-stock-and-barrel and flying the Imperial standard, probably won't care. You land with a load of stolen refrigerators or Play Station 258s or stolen vehicles of some kind, then they're yours to sell and profit off of.
Repercussions come in when you offed a friend of the local nobility, or, worse yet, someone with royal ties, then you're really screwed, because it won't just be bounty hunters going after you but elite Imperial forces. That's when piracy becomes untenable.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
Go out at night and watch a laser display, can you see the laser beams themselves shining away from you? Yes.
Space is not empty and as a result as your gigawatt laser bleeds off heat from your ship it will heat the hydrogen etc and from their emissions the laser can be tracked back to source - remember your laser is illuminating a light second's worth of dust every second.
By the way, using your laser generates even more waste heat in your ship...
Space is not empty and as a result as your gigawatt laser bleeds off heat from your ship it will heat the hydrogen etc and from their emissions the laser can be tracked back to source - remember your laser is illuminating a light second's worth of dust every second.
By the way, using your laser generates even more waste heat in your ship...
The laser-show beams are in a medium with 1.25kg/m^3 density.
The vacuum of space is a medium with a density of 6.25*10^-23kg/m^3. (sorry, that looks ugly without superscripts)
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
And what is the power output of a display laser vs a multigigaWatt cooling laser?
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Go out at night WHERE?
Some place with atmosphere?
A reasonably "thick" (albeit standard) atmosphere?
And you want to compare that atmospheric performance to what happens in the (relative) vacuum of space?
I mean, that argument "holds water" about as well as the notion that because there is atmospheric drag on aircraft performance at low altitude there is going to be identical atmospheric drag effects at ALL altitudes (regardless) ... so craft in the vacuum of space need to emit constant thrust to achieve constant velocity because of atmospheric drag (IN SPAAAAAaaaaaaaace!).
That kind of thinking is how you wind up with X-Wings (aerodynamic flight maneuvers) instead of Starfuries (newtonian dynamics flight maneuvers) in the vacuum of space.
1.250kg/m3 atmospheric density = 6.25-23kg/m3 vacuum density
According to @mike wightman ...
Um ...
I think I've found a flaw in the argument position of @mike wightman ... and it seems to be a (checks notes) ... more than 22 orders of magnitude difference between the density of a standard atmosphere versus the density of interplanetary vacuum.
if that same laser light display was more than (checks notes again) ... 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000x ... less visible (that's a mere 10-22 reduction in reflection to your eyes), would you still be able to see it?
I'm thinking ... NO.
What do you think?
Um ... EP=0 means ... what exactly to you?
If EP=1 means 250MW ... then it stands to reason that EP=0.1 means no more than 25MW ... and EP=0.01 means no more than 2.5MW.
Even if we take a generous approach of "EP=0.04 rounds down to EP=0 for notation purposes of gaming" ... that still puts a 10MW upper limit threshold on power production by a stealthy drift fighter type of craft.
Note that under CT Striker vehicle construction rules in book 4 on page 10 ... 1kg/liter of batteries can hold 1.25MW/sec of power at TL=8 (and higher tech levels only increase the power density).
10MW/hours of TL=8 batteries would thus require (10/1.25*3600)=28.8m3/28,800kg of batteries under Striker to supply EP=0.04 for 1 hour (or EP=0.01 for 4 hours).
A multi-gigawatt laser would require EP=8+ (by definition the minimum threshold for 2GW).
Turret weapon lasers use only EP=1 (250MW) for power and thus are, by definition, not multi-gigawatt even as turret weapons for inflicting damage.
Why are you jumping to conclusions that are so obviously farcical so quickly (and so determinedly)?
I mean, it's the equivalent of trying to stuff a spinal mount into a 100 ton Type-S Scout/Courier.
Good luck with being taken seriously when you try to argue that position.
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
And how do you remove the waste heat from your 8EP cooling laser?
It can not be done, you can't cool the ship down while heating it up lol.
There is no stealth in space - without magic technology.
It can not be done, you can't cool the ship down while heating it up lol.
There is no stealth in space - without magic technology.
Spinward Flow
SOC-14 5K
Hum, what is the resolution and frequency of your scan? At range your 300k or is less than a pixel of your decter then most likely invisible as it is lost in the margin of error. then there is what it looks like on radar. Then let’s look at it emissions profile if transponder is or do it’s emission look like what the transponder says it should look like?
Knowing what I know about remote sensing I strongly suspect that advanced sensors start with some flavor of radar before ladar or thermal imaging is involved.
The simple answer is Yes. In that I have used the rule to play small games. I also have used OTU stuff to fleshout the games I was running. So both and neither.
Anything that is picked up via the basic scanners (pick a flavor) will get run through and ever increasing number of filters to generate a profile. Check off enough boxes in the bad news department and it all turns into a disco tech in spaaaaace!
It really is no different in how submarines do their thing. The quieter you run (read cooler and slower) the closer you can get, but you cannot hide forever. At some point a sensor is going to pick you up. In space it is heat instead of sound. Heat, however is much harder thing to muffle or hide, considering there really isn't a convenient carpet to stash it under or a vargr to blame the horrible stink on.
It really is no different in how submarines do their thing. The quieter you run (read cooler and slower) the closer you can get, but you cannot hide forever. At some point a sensor is going to pick you up. In space it is heat instead of sound. Heat, however is much harder thing to muffle or hide, considering there really isn't a convenient carpet to stash it under or a vargr to blame the horrible stink on.
