Post by sage on Dec 10, 2021 1:47:41 GMT
Right now, I am putting the finishing touches on my realistic space warship designs. Am right now trying to design stand ins for the space sensors and weapons guidance systems. In children of a dead earth, it is assumed that the galaxy is full of millions of tiny sensors. But after checking out the website and its corresponding blog for this game I found the following quotes.
Sensors and Countermeasures
As you can see from the blog it is assumed that our sensors are 10 cm in diameter. And I'm asking you if this is realistic? How much of space can we scan with a 10 cm sensor? And how far away does a ship have to be before we find it? The only other source I could find on this topic is from Attack Vector Tactical pg. A2.3
Does anyone know the real size, resolution, and range of an IR sensor, for tracking objects in space?
Sensors and Countermeasures
Visual resolution of a diffraction limited optic can be easily calculated using the angular diameter (follow the links for the relevant equations).
Here are a few example calculations to give sense of range:
Given a detector 10 cm in diameter (reasonable for a drone, missile, or capital ship) looking for visible (550 nm, green) wavelengths, what’s the visual resolution?
At 1000 km away (orbital distance, close missile launching distance), each pixel is about 7 m in size.
At 100 km away (very long range projectile combat), each pixel is about 70 cm in size.
At 10 km away (close range projectile, drone, and laser combat), each pixel is about 7 cm in size.
At 1 km away (only missiles about to hit and maybe close ranged drones would ever get this close), each pixel is about 7 mm in size.
In Children of a Dead Earth, capital ships tend to be at least 50 m in length, often around 100 m long, or twice that for the flagships. Drones and missiles tend to be 10 m long at most, and usually much shorter.
This means that at missile launching distance, enemy ships are a tiny blob of a pixels while missiles are single pixels on screen. At very long range projectile combat, the enemy ship might be distinguishable as a shape with radiators, while missiles will be a few blurry pixels. At close projectile range, you’ll get a nice view of the enemy and their missiles as your shots tear them apart.
Larger sensors will give you better feedback though larger sizes tends to be a problem for missiles and drones. Additionally, infrared sensors will have half the resolution stated above at best (since pixel resolution decreases as wavelength increases).
Visual resolution is rather important for missiles and drones, however, as their guidance systems need to be able to distinguish what they need to hit versus decoys. The better the visual resolution, the further away decoys need to be launched to fool the missiles.
Here are a few example calculations to give sense of range:
Given a detector 10 cm in diameter (reasonable for a drone, missile, or capital ship) looking for visible (550 nm, green) wavelengths, what’s the visual resolution?
At 1000 km away (orbital distance, close missile launching distance), each pixel is about 7 m in size.
At 100 km away (very long range projectile combat), each pixel is about 70 cm in size.
At 10 km away (close range projectile, drone, and laser combat), each pixel is about 7 cm in size.
At 1 km away (only missiles about to hit and maybe close ranged drones would ever get this close), each pixel is about 7 mm in size.
In Children of a Dead Earth, capital ships tend to be at least 50 m in length, often around 100 m long, or twice that for the flagships. Drones and missiles tend to be 10 m long at most, and usually much shorter.
This means that at missile launching distance, enemy ships are a tiny blob of a pixels while missiles are single pixels on screen. At very long range projectile combat, the enemy ship might be distinguishable as a shape with radiators, while missiles will be a few blurry pixels. At close projectile range, you’ll get a nice view of the enemy and their missiles as your shots tear them apart.
Larger sensors will give you better feedback though larger sizes tends to be a problem for missiles and drones. Additionally, infrared sensors will have half the resolution stated above at best (since pixel resolution decreases as wavelength increases).
Visual resolution is rather important for missiles and drones, however, as their guidance systems need to be able to distinguish what they need to hit versus decoys. The better the visual resolution, the further away decoys need to be launched to fool the missiles.
Stealth Doesn’t Work: Space is vast, but mostly empty. Space is also dark and cold; the average background temperature of space is 2-5 Kelvin. Ships with habitable life support sections, even with the engines off, will have a surface temperature of at least 200 to 250 Kelvin (ice melts at 273 Kelvin). For a typical habitable section of a ship, the radiated heat signature is in the range of a few hundred kilowatts, which is generally detectable out to 30,000 km in under a day using a full spherical search pattern with a broad-field IR-band telescope with an aperture of 3 meters.