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Post by newageofpower on Dec 9, 2016 2:43:30 GMT
Don't be ridiculous. Defendable garrison sites like L2 Earth will have massive, well maintained sensor arrays; gigantic super-Hubble sensor arrays (that cover huge chunks of the sky in a single scan) made economical through 0-G manufacture.
The disposable IR drones are there to spy on your Hill Sphere (say you are playing or Mars) and detect any hot launches. Their actual Navigational Hazard level is tiny; I don't think you understand how empty (and huge) space is at all.
Properly angled, a Vantablack probe can last for decades given a few tons of Hydrogen, but why bother? A missile with enough dV to kill one within a few weeks of being detected is almost as expensive as one of these drones; just give them a cheapo solar shade ala many of these space telescopes.
Better yet, launch a bunch of unstealthed versions, and stealth a few different types.
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Post by shurugal on Dec 9, 2016 2:56:14 GMT
If NASA is concerned about sub-softball-sized debris in earth-orbit, I think it is valid to say that saturating a planet's hill sphere with thousands of disposable sensors will piss a lot of people in a hurry. Although interplanetary space is huge and empty (which is kind of my point when I say that locating spaceships outside of local orbit will be a massive undertaking if they don't want to be found), planetary space is small and cramped. Also, if your long-range sensor station is at Earth-Sol L 2, then all i have to do to get to earth without you picking me up is make my burns from behind Mars. The odds against your seeing me coming are farcically small. If i sling my approach out of the solar plane, or pick a nice hot background event to line up with on the way... Launch a few disposable fleets on vastly different trajectories, and it all but guarantees that at least one will evade passive detection until it is too late.
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 9, 2016 3:04:10 GMT
If NASA is concerned about sub-softball-sized debris in earth-orbit, I think it is valid to say that saturating a planet's hill sphere with thousands of disposable sensors will piss a lot of people in a hurry. Although interplanetary space is huge and empty (which is kind of my point when I say that locating spaceships outside of local orbit will be a massive undertaking if they don't want to be found), planetary space is small and cramped. Also, if your long-range sensor station is at Earth-Sol L 2, then all i have to do to get to earth without you picking me up is make my burns from behind Mars. The odds against your seeing me coming are farcically small. If i sling my approach out of the solar plane, or pick a nice hot background event to line up with on the way... Launch a few disposable fleets on vastly different trajectories, and it all but guarantees that at least one will evade passive detection until it is too late. Yes, I'll totally only build one big sensor array. Absolutely. Please believe in these words, divide your fleets and send them at me, on vastly differing trajectories. Nothing can go wrong.*rolls eyes* The IR drones don't have to be in LEO; or even want to be in LEO. You'd send a few dozen-hundred through some Hohmman variation, a similar amount through the ITS to arrive later (stagger launch/arrival) and a bunch to flyby on their way to spy somewhere else. Some will grab a gravitational slingshot and go other places, some will not. Besides, modern nation-states violate each other's airspace all the time with spyplanes and whatnot. Russia and America made it a pissing contest in the Cold War. An American Command/Surveillance aicraft collided with a Chinese Interceptor during a game of National Chicken, killing both crews instantly. Is it stupid? Probably. Will they stop doing it? Nope.
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Post by amimai on Dec 9, 2016 3:13:18 GMT
The people pissed at you will be your own people fool... Kessler syndrome waits for no one!
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Post by shurugal on Dec 9, 2016 3:19:17 GMT
If NASA is concerned about sub-softball-sized debris in earth-orbit, I think it is valid to say that saturating a planet's hill sphere with thousands of disposable sensors will piss a lot of people in a hurry. Although interplanetary space is huge and empty (which is kind of my point when I say that locating spaceships outside of local orbit will be a massive undertaking if they don't want to be found), planetary space is small and cramped. Also, if your long-range sensor station is at Earth-Sol L 2, then all i have to do to get to earth without you picking me up is make my burns from behind Mars. The odds against your seeing me coming are farcically small. If i sling my approach out of the solar plane, or pick a nice hot background event to line up with on the way... Launch a few disposable fleets on vastly different trajectories, and it all but guarantees that at least one will evade passive detection until it is too late. Yes, I'll totally only build one big sensor array. Absolutely. Please believe in these words, divide your fleets and send them at me, on vastly differing trajectories. Nothing can go wrong.*rolls eyes* The IR drones don't have to be in LEO; or even want to be in LEO. You'd send a few dozen-hundred through some Hohmman variation, a similar amount through the ITS to arrive later (stagger launch/arrival) and a bunch to flyby on their way to spy somewhere else. Some will grab a gravitational slingshot and go other places, some will not. Besides, modern nation-states violate each other's airspace all the time with spyplanes and whatnot. Russia and America made it a pissing contest in the Cold War. An American Command/Surveillance aicraft collided with a Chinese Interceptor during a game of National Chicken, killing both crews instantly. Is it stupid? Probably. Will they stop doing it? Nope. The attitude is unnecessary and unhelpful, but I'll bite anyway. My point here is that hiding things in a great bit empty space will always be easier than finding them. The size of an array you would need to scan every practical approach corridor at sufficient range to allow adequate response time would eat up an enormous portion of your military budget (not to mention it would be rather difficult to keep secret, and there are only so many places to logically orbit such stations), and I can make that job harder just by assembling my initial strike from units that can exist on a minimum of expended power for the coasting phase. If you can make stealth sensor drones to orbit my planet and detect my launches, then I can make stealth missiles to attack your HVTs with and simply spam them out in a greater volume than you can track. I only need one to get through, after all. If you have sensors that can detect my missiles that are comparably stealthy to your sensors, then obviously I can use the same technology to detect your sensors and eliminate them as they enter my AO. The thing that keeps me from doing all this in this scenario is the same thing that kept us alive through the Cold War: You can do it too, and no one wants to take an action that will potentially bring about the end of the human race.
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 9, 2016 3:38:04 GMT
The attitude is unnecessary and unhelpful, but I'll bite anyway. My point here is that hiding things in a great bit empty space will always be easier than finding them. The size of an array you would need to scan every practical approach corridor at sufficient range to allow adequate response time would eat up an enormous portion of your military budget (not to mention it would be rather difficult to keep secret, and there are only so many places to logically orbit such stations), and I can make that job harder just by assembling my initial strike from units that can exist on a minimum of expended power for the coasting phase. If you can make stealth sensor drones to orbit my planet and detect my launches, then I can make stealth missiles to attack your HVTs with and simply spam them out in a greater volume than you can track. I only need one to get through, after all. If you have sensors that can detect my missiles that are comparably stealthy to your sensors, then obviously I can use the same technology to detect your sensors and eliminate them as they enter my AO. The thing that keeps me from doing all this in this scenario is the same thing that kept us alive through the Cold War: You can do it too, and no one wants to take an action that will potentially bring about the end of the human race. Passive sensors are cheaper (in both financial and mass/power terms) than weapons systems. This is even more likely to be true with CoADE level manufacturing tech, not to mention Zero-g manufacture. Missiles must perform significant dV manouevers to engage their targets. As they get closer, odds of detection rise exponentially, meaning missiles that wish to collide with a target (or get close enough for standoff payloads) that has any significant dV or point defenses need a large acceleration and/or dV superiority margin over the target. This is expensive (per missile, to boot) and as soon as you light up a missile drive, extremely visible. Launching drones for a "close enough" look can be done with a coilgun/sail/cold thruster combination, and requires minimum internal dV. This is very stealthy and dirty cheap (once you have the lasing element and/or coilgun set up) in comparison. My point is, three, five, or even ten arrays of ten CoADE Hubbles will be cheaper than, say, ten Gunships or ten LaserStars. If I can only afford 2 gunships or 2 hubbles, obviously buying the warships is better, but when I can afford a dozen warships the sensors become a steal in comparison. If you divide up your fleets to fly through different corridors I probably have enough local margin of superiority that I can probably defeat each in detail with relatively low casualties; otherwise I would be signing concessions instead of fighting a war. If you want to launch them so that they all arrive around the same time; that's multiple launches over a significant window where your fleets are *le gasp* not garrisoning your Hill Sphere. Either you are winning the war, fairly confident I am not about to gank you, or insane.
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Post by shurugal on Dec 9, 2016 3:42:27 GMT
Did you even read my last paragraph? I literally stated that such tactics would be mutually-assured destruction.
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 9, 2016 4:18:44 GMT
Did you even read my last paragraph? I literally stated that such tactics would be mutually-assured destruction. What? If I successfully defend against enough of your attacking forces and retain sufficient fleet, you have lost the war (as I'll counterattack your near-undefended Hill Sphere with an overwhelming advantage). This is difficult to pull off, but it comes down to the competence of the fleet commanders and relative margins they have. That's most certainly not Mutually Assured Destruction; you *may* have an advantage (depending on how long it takes my defended, active sensors to find your fleets) ranging from overwhelming attacker's advantage to huge defender's advantage. Have you ignored my entire post? 'Stealth missiles' have problems against anything with dV or that is defended (i.e. everything important) while spydrones work on a huge variety of stuff (and are likely to be able to say "RED ALERT, MARS GARRISON EMPTY!, unless your entire fleet is made of stealthships...). Passive spydrones can get work done at dozens-hundreds of mm while a missile has to intercept to zero (or a sub kilometer for most nuclear packages). The difference between them is gigantic.
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Post by amimai on Dec 9, 2016 5:09:50 GMT
1. Yes my entire fleet would be made of stealth ships... space submarines are infinitely practical in a war where armour is meaningless and the first attack is usually the only attack before target is dead.
2. My missiles are many, they are nuclear or hyper-V kinetic, and they point in saturation firing patterns at all your population centres... remember the Cold War? Like that but now with more missiles.
3. You can spot one missile, maybe you can even spot 10000, but I will simply drop de-orbit the asteroid belt into your planet! Where's your god now b***?
I may not kill you, but I will kill all you love, burn your fields, poison your lakes, and turn the very air you breathe to ash. Thus we have achieved mutually assured destruction, not war but genocide, mutually assured extinction.
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Post by The Astronomer on Dec 9, 2016 5:31:17 GMT
1. Yes my entire fleet would be made of stealth ships... space submarines are infinitely practical in a war where armour is meaningless and the first attack is usually the only attack before target is dead. 2. My missiles are many, they are nuclear or hyper-V kinetic, and they point in saturation firing patterns at all your population centres... remember the Cold War? Like that but now with more missiles. 3. You can spot one missile, maybe you can even spot 10000, but I will simply drop de-orbit the asteroid belt into your planet! Where's your god now b***? I may not kill you, but I will kill all you love, burn your fields, poison your lakes, and turn the very air you breathe to ash. Thus we have achieved mutually assured destruction, not war but genocide, mutually assured extinction. "Wow! Stealth ship fleets? With that, you can't even maintain a drone core! Forget about weapons and thrusters, your fleet will be just tanks which can still occult stars, be detected and get shot at without active defense." - Random military officer
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 9, 2016 5:44:51 GMT
1. Yes my entire fleet would be made of stealth ships... space submarines are infinitely practical in a war where armour is meaningless and the first attack is usually the only attack before target is dead. 2. My missiles are many, they are nuclear or hyper-V kinetic, and they point in saturation firing patterns at all your population centres... remember the Cold War? Like that but now with more missiles. 3. You can spot one missile, maybe you can even spot 10000, but I will simply drop de-orbit the asteroid belt into your planet! Where's your god now b***? I may not kill you, but I will kill all you love, burn your fields, poison your lakes, and turn the very air you breathe to ash. Thus we have achieved mutually assured destruction, not war but genocide, mutually assured extinction. Missile ships ala cryogenic Hydrogen Steamer are indeed powerful and useful. However, they are extremely fragile, have a limited payload to mass ratio, and are just impractical to mount powerplants on. You know those X GW laser battlestars Shurugal brags about that deletes drones/missiles? Minmaxed Coil/Needleguns that can hit 1km ships at 1000 km? Yeah... fight them without your own lasers. With only a few kw-mw of power available. With only 10% of your ship as payload (because the rest of it is cooling/etc) Fight them in giant 2.4km long hydrogen bags whose total acceleration is 170mm/day. Pound for pound, proper warships should beat stealthships. The problem is when the proper warship is docking for resupply. For when it's powered down for maintenance. For when it leaves garrison and you attack their capital city. Asteroids are not stealthy at all. Big asteroids can be seen coming from long distances. Small asteroids; you might as well save yourself dV and just bring your own KE impactors.
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Post by amimai on Dec 9, 2016 5:50:57 GMT
Weapons are missiles, anything particularly power intensive runs off capacitors and a potato battery... really stealth in space is simple, don't be too hot, don't be too bright, and be far enough away to be practicals invisible.
If you particularly feel it's nesesary you can load your boats up with a secondary reactor and boot it up to power weapons for close combat as nesesary.... it's not like once you start blazing away with rail guns stealth maters.
Space war for k2 civilisation are like that, it's either all stealth or so much city destroying weapons that nothing organic survives. After all meat bags are fragile!
You can't hit what you can not see, and missiles are the only weapons nesesary for a war where range and first strike is all that maters. You are still thinking in terms of "fleets" and "navies" when a lone ship launching nukes into your key population centres is what you are really trying to stop.
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Post by newageofpower on Dec 9, 2016 7:31:23 GMT
Weapons are missiles, anything particularly power intensive runs off capacitors and a potato battery... really stealth in space is simple, don't be too hot, don't be too bright, and be far enough away to be practicals invisible. If you particularly feel it's nesesary you can load your boats up with a secondary reactor and boot it up to power weapons for close combat as nesesary.... it's not like once you start blazing away with rail guns stealth maters. Space war for k2 civilisation are like that, it's either all stealth or so much city destroying weapons that nothing organic survives. After all meat bags are fragile! You can't hit what you can not see, and missiles are the only weapons nesesary for a war where range and first strike is all that maters. You are still thinking in terms of "fleets" and "navies" when a lone ship launching nukes into your key population centres is what you are really trying to stop. Stealth is never perfect. Nothing stops active scan; there is no known way to prevent a signal return from an X-Ray burst, even UV is problematic. Also, if you're just unlucky you can occlude a passive IR scanner's view of the background stars at the wrong moment and get flagged for active scan like that. When you get too close to a planetary body, sensors farther from it will see that you are too "cold" compared to the planet, and detect you. Similarly, if you "warm up" to better blend in against the planet, planetside & Low-orbit sensors will see an hot spot and detect you. Passive stealth is strong, but can be countered by a sufficient number of conventional defenders/active sensors. Massed active defenses can stop ridiculous, Macross-level missile waves under the right circumstances. Once a critical density of conventional defense and active detection has been reached, investing further into stealthships brings diminishing returns. Adding a second reactor to your stealthship makes it weigh more, reducing your mass ratio and dV, and increases the coolant you must carry or reduces your payload; it's very much the opposite of what you want as a stealthship. No, the perfect stealthship is one that maximizes stealth and carries pure autonomous weapons (missiles) loaded with a mix of standoff and close weapons for a deadly alpha strike that will deliver the pain even if the stealthship dies.
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Post by amimai on Dec 9, 2016 7:54:53 GMT
Hmm I think we are discussing different definitions of stealth ship. So let's clarify!
My stealth ship has a nano material anti-reflective coated hull My stealth ship cold runs, only doing burns deep in space My stealth ship has a massive radiator flush with its hull to minimise emissions visibility and ensure it can only be seen from one side(that faces away from your sensors) My stealth ship never enters closer the 40Gm of your ships My stealth ship launches missiles from high up in the gravity well with magnetic acceleration so they drop down like rain My missiles cold run only using compressed gas and initial magnetic acceleration to set approximate trajectories. My missiles get most of their velocity from falling into the gravity well My missiles go at roughly 10-50km/s just from riding down the gravity well My missiles are 100kg payloads with 100kg of rocket fuel and 5s burn time for last second trajectory adjustments My missile hits with between 5GJ and 100GJ of energy due to terminal velocity
That's my stealth ship
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Post by The Astronomer on Dec 9, 2016 8:32:52 GMT
Hmm I think we are discussing different definitions of stealth ship. So let's clarify! My stealth ship has a nano material anti-reflective coated hull My stealth ship cold runs, only doing burns deep in space My stealth ship has a massive radiator flush with its hull to minimise emissions visibility and ensure it can only be seen from one side(that faces away from your sensors) My stealth ship never enters closer the 40Gm of your ships My stealth ship launches missiles from high up in the gravity well with magnetic acceleration so they drop down like rain My missiles cold run only using compressed gas and initial magnetic acceleration to set approximate trajectories. My missiles get most of their velocity from falling into the gravity well My missiles go at roughly 10-50km/s just from riding down the gravity well My missiles are 100kg payloads with 100kg of rocket fuel and 5s burn time for last second trajectory adjustments My missile hits with between 5GJ and 100GJ of energy due to terminal velocity That's my stealth ship Second law of thermodynamics.
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