| The
Black Magic Project The Story of Human Exploration and Discovery Beyond the Orion Arm The materials contained herein unless otherwise noted are the copyright of J. Austin Wilde, 1991 to 2009, all rights reserved. |
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SPACECRAFT
DESIGNS |
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| Sagittarius Colonial Atlas Ahriman (HM+31 0938 B) Amethyst (HB+32 3331 B) Angelique (HM-50 2602 B) Apollonia/Phyrigia (HD+35 2475 A) Aquilla (SAG+56 0107) Arkhangelsk (HM+41 2746) Atlantis (HM+52 0225) Aurora (HM+47 2620 A) Avignon (HM+31 3323) Baker's End (SAG-36 0528) Bellarmine (HM+36 1662 A) Bellissimo (HM+40 2827) Beowulf (HM+39 5516 A) Bounty (HB+38 0524 A) Buran (HD+32 1678) Cauldron (SAG+47 1522) Charybdis (HB+56 0404 B) Concordia (HM+00 2422 A) Cora's World (HM-40 2634) Daedelus (SAG+45 4907 A) Demeter (HM+31 3563) Destiny (HD+47 0309) Dustbowl/New Deseret (SAG-42 4503 B) Frontiera (HD+40 1336) Frostpile (SAG+43 2208) Fury (HM+53 0102 A) Gateway (HM+00 0000) Goldrush (SAG+33 2643) Gulag (HD+40 4019) Hecate's Hate (HM+32 3972) Hyperborea (SAG+44 1855 B) Ice Station Mike (HD+42 3267) Ice Station Oscar (HD+42 5807) Inshallah (HM+53 0608) Jena (HB-33 4139 A) Jewel/Sulfur Flats (HM+41 0955 A & B) Jin Xian (HM-45 4415) Jove/Fuzhou (SAG+49 2911 A & B) Libertad (HD-46 2312) Marino (HD-31 4687) Midgard/Muspellheim (HD+54 1018) Mirabilis (HM-45 1718) Neu Bavaria (HM+31 7329) New Anchorage (HD+35 3455 A) New Ares (HM+57 0405 A) New Havana (HM+55 1217) New Tanstaafl (HM+43 3626 A) New Taranto (HB+31 2685 A) New Zion (HD+47 0954) Paydirt (HM+36 2309) Porto Fria (HM-52 2716 A) Pu'huonua (HM+35 2017) Research Station Victor (HB+55 1522) Sakura (HM-31 0629) Sandovar (HM+34 0139 A) Santa Clara (SAG+31 0179 B) Scherzo (SAG+55 2007 B) Sheba's World/Neu Bayer (HD-51 1306 A) Tanner's World (HB-32 1052) Tartarus (HM+31 5806) The Alamo (HM+34 0552 B) Tortuga (HD-37 4529) Toulon (SAG+55 0823 A) Valhalla (HD+31 1168) Viracocha (HM+31 1175 A) Waypoint November (HM+31 1969 A) Waypoint Omega (HM-06 1121 A) Waypoint Tango (HD+41 4528 A) Waypoint X-Ray (HD-66 1619) Waypoint Yankee (HD+10 1721) Waystation Alfa (HM+34 1207) Xiamen (HM+48 2891 B) Zhengzhou (HM-27 9791 B) Encyclopedia Spacecraft Technology Classification Designs AMC Registry of Vessels |
The
spacecraft technologies and conceits listed here are for vessels which
can be found in Sagittarius or
whose construction templates are available to the colonists, and may be
created in the future if the resources and political will to build them
are present. The Full Thrust
rules from Ground
Zero Games are used as the baseline for combat actions,
further modified by house rules to better suit the nature of technology
in Sagittarius. Human Technologies in Sagittarius (Full Thrust House Rules) 1. VECTOR MOVEMENT All movement is Vector based, meaning a ship will continue on its current course and speed until it expends fuel to maneuver. For the purposes of Roleplaying, the in-game combat scale is 100 km hexes (MU) with turns lasting 200 seconds and every Main Drive Thrust point counting as 0.25 G of acceleration where 1G = 10 meters per second squared. Every hex (MU) change of velocity is equal to 0.5 km/sec of velocity and spends one Fuel Point of propellant while the drive is in Combat Mode. A spacecraft may execute a pivot maneuver to change its facing, this uses one point of main drive thrust to do, but allows the spacecraft to pivot to any facing desired, and consumes no Fuel Points. A spacecraft may make as many pivot maneuvers in a turn as its current available Main Drive Thrust divided by 2, and rounded down. Cruise Mode drive accelerations are for efficient intrasystem travel only, and as such are too weak to be represented by any change in velocity during spacecraft tactical combat. Spacecraft with no Fuel Points remaining, either due to expenditure or by battle damage to propellant tanks, may not change their course or speed, but they may pivot as normal. Spacecraft in interplanetary space are typically on hyperbolic orbits within the star system, so an inability to maneuver will probably spell their doom as they fly helplessly out of the system in the coming weeks/months/years. As a tactical consideration in combat scenarios, GMs should determine a required Fuel Reserve necessary for spacecraft to reach their destinations. Ships which exceed their required Fuel Reserves are in deep trouble unless they can divert to a destination that requires less fuel to reach or can be resupplied by another ship's reserves. The reality of Newtonian Vector Movement is that your fuel tanks are as much a weapon in battle as your beam batteries and antiship missiles. 2. PLAYER CHARACTER ACTIONS IN COMBAT Although the details will largely be up to the GM and the game system being used, there are some basic conceits that are tied up with the setting to consider. Since spacecraft weapons are by necessity controlled by automated Fire Control and gunlaying systems in order to accurately deliver fire to ships hundreds or thousands of kilometers away, a character's Gunnery skill (or equivalent) is not applicable during spacecraft combat. Characters with the Fire Fighting and Damage Control skill (or something along these lines) who are available as Damage Control parties may make skill checks to add a +1 bonus to the d6 roll to restore a damaged system. GM's should assign difficulty levels of Average (12) or higher for these checks. Only one character per DC party may make a skill check for the bonus, and the total number of characters who may make skill checks is limited by the number of DC parties the ship has. Hull damage boxes that contain a DC party where a player character or important NPC is present that are marked off during combat should face some kind of consequence - as the DC party is no longer capable of responding to damage, this can mean serious injury or death to one or more members of the DC party. Characters with tactics, spacecraft engineering, or piloting skills may desire to squeeze a little extra performance out of their spacecraft in combat. A crew may be considered to be exceptional and get more from their ship than a regular ship's crew might be capable of achieving. In these cases a Flex Point system may be implemented. Simply put, the GM may grant the ship an allowance of Flex Points at the start of combat based on crew experience and Player Character skills. We recommend that this value be around 3 points, and probably should not exceed 5 points in all but the most exceptional cases. By spending a Flex Point, one of the following actions may be taken:
3. ARMOR SAVES AND ARMOR SOAK Human spacecraft possess a charged particle defense in the form of magnetic fields to protect against the solar wind and cosmic rays, which makes a charged particle beam weapon relatively useless. Because of this, Human beam weapons are typically solid state or free electron lasers operating in the visible light to near UV spectrum. In place of Full Thrust style defensive screens, spacecraft have an Armor Save and an Armor Soak value. A spacecraft has an Armor Save value based on the fraction of the ship's MASS that is dedicated to armor protection. For every attack that does damage to the spacecraft, it may attempt an Armor Save. Roll 2D6 and add the results together. If the number rolled is equal to or greater than the Armor Save, that attack subtracts one point of damage done. If the attack only did one Hit of damage and is saved against successfully, the attack did NO damage! Attacks in which the Armor Save failed will do the amount of damage indicated to the ship's hull damage track. Ships also have an Armor Soak value equal to the amount of MASS dedicated to armor. Ships may sacrifice their Soak Value to remove additional damage suffered on attacks that were successfully saved against. This is done by checking off armor circles on the SSD instead of hull damage boxes. Some weapons do damage that may not be saved or soaked against, and are discussed further below in this document. The defending player may choose to Soak as much damage from an attack as he has Soak Value remaining, but can only Soak attacks he has saved against. For example, a frigate with an Armor Save of 8 and 8 points of Soak Value suffers a 3 point laser hit, a 1 point laser hit, and a 4 point kinetic hit. The frigate's player may make three armor save attempts, one for each attack. Rolling 2D6, he gets a 4, an 8, and a 10 – two of the three attacks were saved against. The 3 point laser hit was not saved against, so the frigate marks off 3 hull damage boxes on its damage track for the hit. The 1 point laser hit was saved against, and the frigate takes no damage from this attack. The 4 point kinetic hit was saved against, reducing the damage inflicted to 3 points, but because the attack was saved against, and the frigate still has Soak Value, the defending player may opt to absorb some or even all of the remaining 3 damage against his Soak. Instead of checking off hull boxes for the damage, he may check off some of his Armor circles instead. This is a tactical consideration: it may be more advantageous to hold onto your Soak for a later, more devastating attack to come in the next few rounds. On the other hand, soaking some of your damage now may spare you from having to make a Threshold Damage Check and allow you to stay at maximum effectiveness for the next round. Armor Saves and the revised Soak rules tend to make ships last longer in combat. If you desire a faster, bloodier resolution to combat, ignore the Armor Save rules and apply armor soak as normal for the Full Thrust rules. 4. SHIP DESTRUCTION Spacecraft which have had all of their Hull Damage Track boxes marked off are considered to be eliminated from play. They may not maneuver, fire weapons, use sensors or ECM, launch or recover small craft, or execute a stardrive jump. If the scenario demands it, such as one where a ship must be destroyed and all hands killed, or the ship which has been hulked happens to be the one an important character is aboard, a spacecraft reduced to zero or fewer hull boxes (from damage received that exceeds the amount of remaining hull boxes on the damage track) must make a Hull Save. If the scenario doesn't demand it, and the survivors of the combat are not interested in salvaging or otherwise investigating the wreck, the destroyed vessel is merely removed from play without any need for a Hull Save. A successful save means the spacecraft remains a drifting hulk, non-functional but more or less held together, and will continue on its last movement vector until it leaves the field of play or smashes into something. For roleplaying purposes, it may be possible to survive the loss of the spacecraft, and characters may abandon ship using lifeboats, escape pods, or just maneuvering clear in an EVA suit. Spacecraft which fail their Hull Save may break apart into numerous pieces of varying size or may detonate spectacularly at the whims of the GM. There is no escape for those on a spacecraft which has failed its save, and the ship is lost with all hands. Furthermore, any ship which has gone into negative hull damage equal to or exceeding its original hull points is automatically destroyed and all hands lost. A Hull Save is made by rolling 1D and consulting the table below:
Once a spacecraft has been reduced to zero or fewer hull boxes with an attack, each successive hit will force a new save. This means a volley of laser fire or a missile salvo that takes a ship to zero on the first shot will force a Hull Save on every following shot that does damage. In the event that this leads to making excessive die rolls during play, you may opt to make a single die roll based on the final hull damage value at the end of the firing phase, assuming it didn't exceed its original hull value in negative damage.
5. DOWNFIRING LASERS Any Beam Battery regardless of Class may be Downfired as a Point Defense Weapon against incoming missiles and small craft as long as they are within that weapon's firing arcs. The Downfired Beam Battery hits and destroys a single missile or small craft on a roll of '6' and gets a reroll as normal. Downfired Beam Batteries may be used at ranges greater than 6 MU (hexes) out to their maximum range by Class to attack hostile missiles and small craft, but must use one Fire Control System per missile volley/small craft squadron engaged which may not be used to engage targets with antiship missiles or other weapons during the Firing Phase. Downfired Beam Batteries may not be used that turn against spacecraft, nor may they be used in Area Defense mode. They may be double downfired at the cost of a Flex Point if you're particularly desperate. 6. WEAPON SYSTEMS BEAM BATTERIES As mentioned above, Human Beam Batteries are laser weapons. They function identically to Beam Batteries in Full Thrust, with the allowance of a lower To-Hit roll for ships less than 0.5 MU (or within the same hex) of each other. For targets at point blank range, Beam Batteries score a 1 point damage hit on a '3' to '5' roll, and a 2 point hit on a '6' roll and gain a reroll. MASS DRIVERS The Full Thrust Pulse Torpedo Launcher functions here as a large mass driver cannon firing a kinetic warhead with a limited guidance and maneuver capability. A Burst Pulse Torpedo launcher fires a spread of six smaller guided kinetic warheads, which improves the chances of a hit at long range, but do only 1 point of damage with each hit. These weapons are called Mass Drivers in the ship listings, but they should not be confused with the Kra'Vak mass drivers used in the Full Thrust rules. Mass Drivers in Sagittarius function identically to Pulse Torpedo Launchers in Full Thrust with the exception of Burst Pulse Torpedo Launcher firing six 1 damage point projectiles instead of three 1-2 damage points projectiles. MESON GUNS Humanity has recently fielded a fearsome weapon known as the Meson Gun, which fires a beam of relativistic pi-meson particles which can bypass armor and even the protection afforded by drive sails to some extent, and explode into a shower of radiation with terrible effect inside warships. Meson weapons may only fire in a single arc, usually forward, and are considered Spinal Mounts (they may not be fired twice in the same turn or used in a Point Defense role). The Meson Gun has range bands and To-Hit odds identical to the Pulse Torpedo Launcher, but ignores Armor Saves and Soak, and does 3D6 damage points on a successful hit. The Heavy Meson Gun is identical to the Meson Gun, but does 6D6 damage points on a successful hit. Divide the damage done by the remaining number of rows of hull damage on the SSD hull damage track and apply the damage evenly to all rows, starting from the first unmarked damage box on the left of each row. Any remainder damage is applied to the first intact row of hull damage on the damage track. This reflects the deeply penetrating damage done by meson weapons, which can appear minor at first, but conceals its true extent. A spacecraft with chunks taken out of all four rows of its hull damage track may find itself succumbing to multiple Threshold Damage Checks with one good weapon hit after the Meson Gun has done its work. NEUTRAL PARTICLE CANNON The second Spinal Mount weapon used in Sagittarius is the Neutral Particle Cannon, a very heavy spacecraft weapon that may only fire in a straight line directly from the bow of the spacecraft. In order to determine eligibility for attacks, the firing spacecraft must be able to draw a line from the center of its model/counter in the direction of the ship's bow to within 1 MU (or one hex) of the center of the target spacecraft model/counter. It is desired for gameplay that this weapon be difficult to use. To this effect, use of the Neutral Particle Cannon must be openly declared to all players during the Write Movement Orders phase of combat, and the player maneuvering his spacecraft may not 'check' to see if his weapon is eligible to attack his target while he is positioning it. He must pivot his spacecraft taking his best guess at where his target will be at the end of movement. If he is greater than 1 MU (1 hex) but within 2 MU (2 hexes), the player with the Neutral Particle Cannon may elect to spend a Flex Point to be eligible to hit, otherwise he is out of luck. If a Flex Point is used to attack the target player, the target player may also spend a Flex Point to avoid being attacked, and if this occurs, both players may spend away as many Flex Points as they desire or have remaining to them to achieve/avoid the attack. If the attacker spends Flex Points to attack his target, and his target matches every point spent, the attack fails and all points bid are spent. If the target is unable or unwilling to outbid his attacker, the attacker spends the Flex Points he bid to attack, while the target spends whatever Flex Points he bid up to the point where he conceded. If the weapon is eligible to attack, the firing player rolls the number of dice indicated for its class regardless of range band, and any die roll that meets or exceeds the Target Number (in all cases but Point Blank range, this will be 4 or higher. At Point Blank range this is 3 or higher), will score the amount of damage indicated on the die. Attempting to use a Neutral Particle Cannon at Point Blank range will automatically require the ship spend a Flex Point in order to line the ship's bow up against such a close target. All dice which hit will total their damage together as one attack for the purpose of Armor Saves and Soak. The Neutral Particle Cannon has one additional damage effect which may be used or ignored based on the desires of the GM and players for more or less complexity. For every three full points of damage inflicted in an NPC attack (round fractions down - an eight point hit does two points of damage as radiation), one of the damage boxes marked off on the SSD hull damage track will be a box marked with a star for a Damage Control Party. Start with the first intact DC Party hull damage box at the top left of the hull damage track, and mark off all the DC Party hull boxes indicated from top to bottom, left to right. The remainder of the damage is marked off on the hull damage track as normal, starting from the first intact damage box remaining and marking them off from top to bottom, left to right. DC Party damage boxes represent ionizing radiation damage caused by scattering and Bremsstrahlung effects of the particle beam against the hull and structure of the target spacecraft, which kills and injures the crew and damages electronic systems that assist with Damage Control. ANTISHIP MISSILES Antiship Missiles are guided seeking weapons usually carrying a thermonuclear detonation laser warhead, though conventional versions carrying multiple small kinetic kill seekers are also deployed by those who do not desire to use or cannot legally possess nuclear weapons. Antiship Missiles possess high thrust, often capable of sustained 3 to 6 G accelerations, and an endurance which allows them to chase down a maneuvering target. Antiship Missiles are subject to the same Vector Movement rules as other spacecraft. Missile launches are declared during the Write Movement Orders phase, and they have a starting vector identical to the launching spacecraft at the start of the turn. They are moved after Movement Orders have been written, but before spacecraft are moved. They may be moved 'on the fly' with no written orders, but must track their fuel expenditures and their movement vectors. Missiles with no fuel remaining will move along their final vector until they leave the field of play or until a target ends its movement phase within the engagement range. Missiles do not have to move their maximum thrust every turn. In order to launch a missile at a target, the launching spacecraft must begin the Write Movement Orders phase with one working Fire Control System per target spacecraft. Every missile launched at this target is considered to be part of a volley, and will this volley will move and attack as a single unit. If desired, more than one volley may be launched at a single target, but this will require the use of additional Fire Control Systems. These Fire Control Systems may be freed up for use by the ship's non missile weapons, but this places the missile(s) on automatic control for the purpose of determining target engagement. If desired, a Fire Control System may direct a missile or missile volley at a single target throughout the intercept, allowing the launching player to decide when the missiles engage. This Fire Control System will not be available for non missile weapons to use during the non missile weapon firing phase. Any deployed antiship missile or missile volley under automatic control and which has not engaged a target at the end of a turn may be taken up by any friendly ship's Fire Control System during the next Write Orders phase and act as if being directed. This requires the ship accepting the hand-off dedicate one of its Fire Control Systems to the missiles for the entire turn or turns they are being directed. Tactically, this can happen as a result of the launching spacecraft being jammed by ECM or losing its Fire Control systems to damage, causing a directed antiship missile volley to switch to automatic control. The volley cannot be returned to directed control in the turn it was lost, as taking over a volley can only be done during the Write Orders phase. Any antiship missile that is within 6 MU (hexes) of a spacecraft at the end of the Movement Phase may be engaged by that spacecraft's Point Defense Batteries. This is regardless of whether or not the missile(s) are engaging the target. Ships with Area Defense Fire Control may engage missiles with their Point Defense Batteries as long as the protected target is within 6 MU of the escorting spacecraft, as long as the missiles themselves are no more then 9 MU away. Antiship Missiles are defended against during the Point Defense Phase as with Salvo Missiles and Small Craft. They are destroyed by PD Batteries on a roll of 4 to 6, with a '6' result destroying two missiles in a volley (if present) and allowing a reroll, or a '6' result destroying a single missile and allowing a reroll if attacked by a downfired beam battery. Any missiles which survive Point Defense Fire may engage targets according to one of the following criteria:
Antiship Missiles which execute an attack automatically inflict damage based upon their range to the target. Each missile's damage is counted as a separate attack for the purpose of Armor Saves and Soak. Antiship Missiles using conventional (non nuclear) warheads subtract 1D6 damage, down to a minimum damage of 1D6.
Antiship Missiles with nuclear warheads also do some of their damage as radiation damage as with Neutral Particle Cannons above. Every full six points of damage (round fractions down, ten points of damage from a nuclear missile equals 1 point of radiation damage) inflicts one of these damage points against the first intact hull box with a Damage Control Party, with the remainder of the damage marked off as normal. Players with ships hit by nuclear warhead armed antiship missiles may and probably should choose to use the Soak rule to their advantage to minimize the amount of radiation damage they receive. For example, a missile hit doing 7 points of damage is successfully saved against, reducing the damage to 6 points. By choosing to Soak one more point of damage, the total is reduced to 5 points, which does NO radiation damage to the target's Damage Control Parties. Antiship Missiles are very powerful weapons, particularly if they are armed with detonation laser warheads. Their drawbacks are that they are expendable ordnance, and reloads for a missile equipped spacecraft take up a great deal of cargo volume, either on the ship itself or on a tender. They are more vulnerable to point defense fire than salvo missiles, as they typically take longer to reach their targets, and they must be skillfully maneuvered to optimize the damage they can inflict while minimizing their risk. SALVO MISSILES The salvo missile system is a smaller seeking weapon fired in volleys of six. Salvo missiles are high thrust and low endurance weapons, typically reaching fuel burnout in less than 200 seconds. Each salvo missile carries a kinetic kill warhead equivalent to a typical mass driver slug. Salvo missiles are played as they are detailed in the Full Thrust rules, although they are allowed to engage within 6 MU of targets even with Vector Movement to keep them competitive with antiship missiles. Their advantages over antiship missiles are that they are only vulnerable to Point Defense Fire at the end of their run, which takes only one turn, and their damage potential does not fall off with engagement range. Their disadvantages are the larger amount of MASS dedicated to the launcher system and missile magazine, and the lack of target discrimination (antiship missiles under direction from a Fire Control System can ignore escort vessels between them and the big prize, salvo missiles go after the closest target no matter what.) SUBMUNITIONS The submunition is a one-shot kinetic kill "shotgun" with a limited propulsion system that is deployed to a safe distance from the launching platform before firing. The warhead’s effectiveness depends on dozens of small minimally-guided interceptor projectiles that all together are capable of incredible damage - but only at close range to the launching platform. This makes submunitions ideal for small, agile, high thrust spacecraft like corvettes and gunboats. Submunitions cannot be shot down by point defense fire - the only way to take them out is to destroy the submunition carrier itself. The submunition is often treated as the poor man's nuke, as they can be just as devastating at close range as an antiship missile, but without the ramifications of possessing or using nuclear weapons. Even though submunitions are kinetic weapons, they are treated as Beam Batteries for determining hits and damage. The submunition gets a number of dice to roll based on the range of the target, and any rolls equal to or greater than the Target Number (3 or higher at Point Blank range, 4 or higher otherwise) score 1 point of damage, with '6' results scoring 2 points of damage and granting a reroll. All damage rolled for a submunition is totalled and counts as a single attack for Armor Saves and Soak. Submunitions can also be used in a Point Defense role similar to the Kra'Vak Scatterpack. The submunition gets the same number of dice to roll against incoming missiles and small craft as indicated in the table below based on their range to the submunition equipped spacecraft. '4' and '5' results on any dice destroy one missile or small craft. '6' results destroy two missiles or small craft and get a reroll. A submunition can only be used to attack one small craft squadron or missile volley/salvo.
7. REACTION MASS In a departure from the Full Thrust rules, ships represented here use reaction mass for their torch drives. Reaction mass is determined by allocating a Propellant Mass Fraction, which sets aside a percentage of the ship’s total MASS for propellant storage. This, coupled with the type of drive (HEPLAR or AMPLAR torch, military or civilian), and the operating mode of the drive (Combat or Cruise), will determine the Delta-Vee, or the maximum potential change in velocity gained by expending all of the propellant. Propellant is stored in tanks that hold approximately 10 to 25 km/sec of Combat Mode Delta-Vee worth of reaction mass. These tanks are subject to Threshold Damage checks like other systems. The first failure of a Threshold Check means a malfunction has occurred that prevents the ship from burning the reaction mass stored in that tank. A second failed threshold check means the propellant has been vented from the tank and lost. Propellant tanks that have not been repaired from a first failure must still make a second Threshold Check if one is called for due to battle damage. Propellant tanks that fail two Threshold Checks in the same battle are considered vented, even if they were repaired once during the battle. In a play campaign, ships are assumed to have consumed some portion of their propellant reserves prior to the engagement. Propellant tanks which are empty should be crossed out on the SDD at the start of play, and do not make Threshold Checks. When consuming propellant during maneuvers, the total amount of fuel points burned should be marked next to the Propellant Tank that is being used. Only one tank may be “online” at a time, but switching from one tank to the next is considered automatic as propellant is consumed or a propellant tank is damaged and becomes unavailable. A ship using its engines in Combat Mode burns one Fuel Point per 0.5 km/sec of Delta-Vee produced. At the Tactical scale, this corresponds to one Fuel Point of propellant consumed for every point of Main Drive thrust used to change the ship’s velocity. Main Drive thrust used to change the ship’s facing does not burn Fuel Points – the amount of propellant burned for a facing change is negligible compared to that consumed for velocity vector adjustments. Typical propellants include hydrogen rich compounds such as methane, ammonia, and water. While pure liquid hydrogen is the most efficient type of propellant for a fusion torch, its low density and cryogenic storage requirements make it less reliable and more expensive to use. 8. STEALTH and ECM There is no stealth in space. No, really. Even by the standards of 21st century technology, no spacecraft carrying humans in a shirt sleeve environment can hope to hide from infrared sensors in interplanetary space. Running some kind of power reactor will make a spacecraft shine like a light in the darkness. Using the main drive, even on the puniest Gunship class ship can be seen in nearby star systems (although light speed delay means this will happen years after the fact). It is impossible for a spacecraft to avoid detection. Unless you happen to have a celestial body obscuring you from prying sensors, everybody in a star system knows where everybody else is. If a spacecraft fires its engines (especially if it fires its engines) in any way, the ship's exact mass can be determined by a simple calorimetric calculation on their engines' drive plumes corresponding to their observed change in velocity. That said, in order to get an accurate fix on a spacecraft to shoot at it, the use of radar and/or lidar is required. This can be spoofed by both active and passive measures to make getting a good firing solution difficult. From your visible and IR wavelength telescopes you know the enemy frigate is there, you know his range, bearing, and velocity vector in approximate terms, but the pin point accuracy needed to get a laser beam properly focused on his hull or else hit him with the crudely guided kinetic slugs from a mass driver or a submunition simply isn't there. When passive means are used to defeat Fire Control Systems, it is called Stealth. When active means are used, it is called ECM. Back to Top Back to Spacecraft Designs Main Page |
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