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Some thoughts on stealth ships..


SgtToothpaste

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I would even take it a step farther, with countering stealth have something like optical motion sensors to pick up ships that arent visually cloaked, but with a fall off in effectivness with increased range.

 

for ships that are visually cloaked, as you said build scanners, probes and radars that will pick up the energy or other things like x-rays, heat signitures etc...

 

Just like in history with armor and weapons, they always balance eachother out, whatever has the edge today, someone will figure out a counter to it tomorrow.

I agree that would be quite interesting. Depending on how one obtains technology it could balance out. For example, let's say in order to "unlock" a tech one must (1) finder specific rare artifacts or something in order to "understand", (2) spend a significant amount of resources to create it and (3) wait a long time for it to be constructed.

 

Another piece could be that when you have found an artifact you can use it in more than one way. Like the actual tech and the sensor for it. Then because tech like this would be so rare only a very few people would be able to build it and detect it so one could sell the sensors or the stealth tech to others but still have the blueprints and be the only one that's able to make a good working model

 

I say good working model because it could possibly be a tech that others are able to reasurch and try to replicate.....but they would be faulty at times.

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Nothing like writing a long post, hitting back by accident, and losing it.

 

Sort version (I originally credited people for their posts, I assume you know who you are :) )

 

This all comes down to manipulating light, be it heat, radar, visual, but it is all light.

 

1) Visual cloak (look ma a romulan warbird!). Lots of energy needed to do this -- it takes the gravitational pull of a singularity to bend light like that.

 

2) Active sensor cloak. This is hull shape and material to reduce the profile of the object from things like radar. A massive ship could be made to reflect like a small meteor, but someone watching their sensors might notice a meteor isn't going in a strait line. Newtonian physics would help here as a stealth ship could just coast.

 

3) Passive sensor cloak. Everything emits heat and space is an awesome insulator. The iSS has radiators on it, without it the internal temperatures would cook the astronauts alive. There are a couple of methods to reduce this. Reduce or turn off sources of heat, such as power (photovotaic solar power would still be fine), and heat sinks. In the Expanse books there is some mentions of the martian stealth ships using heat sinks to store the heat generated by the ship and its crew. Eventually that heat has to be radiated out, making it very visible to this sensor type. These heat sinks are also very massive -- this is counter to the quick and lithe trope for stealth ships. If you want and quick ship then you wont have the mass for anything else.

 

To expand on the white noise concept, in the Expanse books ships were also equipt with IR and radar lasers, not to cause direct damage but to blind the other ship sensors.

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Nothing like writing a long post, hitting back by accident, and losing it.

 

Sort version (I originally credited people for their posts, I assume you know who you are :) )

 

This all comes down to manipulating light, be it heat, radar, visual, but it is all light.

 

1) Visual cloak (look ma a romulan warbird!). Lots of energy needed to do this -- it takes the gravitational pull of a singularity to bend light like that.

 

2) Active sensor cloak. This is hull shape and material to reduce the profile of the object from things like radar. A massive ship could be made to reflect like a small meteor, but someone watching their sensors might notice a meteor isn't going in a strait line. Newtonian physics would help here as a stealth ship could just coast.

 

3) Passive sensor cloak. Everything emits heat and space is an awesome insulator. The iSS has radiators on it, without it the internal temperatures would cook the astronauts alive. There are a couple of methods to reduce this. Reduce or turn off sources of heat, such as power (photovotaic solar power would still be fine), and heat sinks. In the Expanse books there is some mentions of the martian stealth ships using heat sinks to store the heat generated by the ship and its crew. Eventually that heat has to be radiated out, making it very visible to this sensor type. These heat sinks are also very massive -- this is counter to the quick and lithe trope for stealth ships. If you want and quick ship then you wont have the mass for anything else.

 

To expand on the white noise concept, in the Expanse books ships were also equipt with IR and radar lasers, not to cause direct damage but to blind the other ship sensors.

Good points. Another form of visual cloak is to use a plating that in therory has cameras and "monitors". Cameras from one side of the ship would transmit the picture seen to monitors on the other. Thus creating the impression of a see-through ship.

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Good points. Another form of visual cloak is to use a plating that in therory has cameras and "monitors". Cameras from one side of the ship would transmit the picture seen to monitors on the other. Thus creating the impression of a see-through ship.

that is along the lines of what in the military we called active camoflage, using projectors and cameras to try and make something appear to dissapear. It has its advantages and dissadvantages. Examples are, if the object is moving there is normally a bit of lag in the images displayed or if a camera or sensor fails, image becomes distorted or fails in an area. However at slow speeds or while stopped this could be an extremely effective camoflage device.

 

I suppose that is my point with all this, there needs to be advantages and dissadvantages to any options so that there is a way to counteract them, and as you progress through the universe you could find different materials and fuels or elements to make it better, but still never perfect.

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Regarding visual camouflage, we have even today a nanomaterial that is able to bend light, without power usage. I don't know how its called or how its working, i'm not even certain that the scientists how created it are know how its working exactly and its surely not ready for mass production, but in the future we could be able to build visually cloaked ships.

Years ago i have seen a reportage about it, but i do not really remember, the only thing what i remember is that its exist.

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Regarding visual camouflage, we have even today a nanomaterial that is able to bend light, without power usage. I don't know how its called or how its working, i'm not even certain that the scientists how created it are know how its working exactly and its surely not ready for mass production, but in the future we could be able to build visually cloaked ships.

Years ago i have seen a reportage about it, but i do not really remember, the only thing what i remember is that its exist.

the material that your referencing consists of concentric rings that add up to many times the size of the object that it is trying to hide. As of right now the only thing that it can hide is very small objects from the non visile spectrum such as x rays and UV, its a cool concept that if condensed and refined might actually be viable one day.

 

That being said the downfall with that theory is of you have to surround a ship with metalic rings to make it bend light to cloak, a cage of steel tends o block vision and electronic signals as well creating whats know as a feraday cage...

 

disclaimer: dont mind my typos it just builds character, and im on a touchscreen phone with fat fingers.

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that is along the lines of what in the military we called active camoflage, using projectors and cameras to try and make something appear to dissapear. It has its advantages and dissadvantages. Examples are, if the object is moving there is normally a bit of lag in the images displayed or if a camera or sensor fails, image becomes distorted or fails in an area. However at slow speeds or while stopped this could be an extremely effective camoflage device.

 

I suppose that is my point with all this, there needs to be advantages and dissadvantages to any options so that there is a way to counteract them, and as you progress through the universe you could find different materials and fuels or elements to make it better, but still never perfect.

I agree with your point that there should be advantages and disadvantages in using stealth tech like this. Additionally, I hope the devs understand that implantation of something like this also has to be useful. Let me explain, say you are in a stealth ship that masks pretty much anything, you turn on stealth mode and enter a system. However, the opposing side has sensors for anything. As soon as you enter the system your detected because they can detect thing out the wazzo. This makes your "stealth" useless.

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I agree with your point that there should be advantages and disadvantages in using stealth tech like this. Additionally, I hope the devs understand that implantation of something like this also has to be useful. Let me explain, say you are in a stealth ship that masks pretty much anything, you turn on stealth mode and enter a system. However, the opposing side has sensors for anything. As soon as you enter the system your detected because they can detect thing out the wazzo. This makes your "stealth" useless.

like i said their should be a circular flow chart of "stealth" tech and countermeasures. countermeasures should have limits such as effective ranges, variances, and so forth. Basically the farther away you are from a countermeasure or sensor in your stealth ship, the safer you are. Using this im not saying that they wouldnt know that you are in the area, but maybe your far enough away that they dont know who you are or where your at because your past the max effective range. This would still allow you to conduct covert ops and recons, but would also give your target the ability to try and hunt you down at the same time, this would creat a cat and mouse dynamic on a massive 3d scale. This of course would be if your target is set up to scan for everything. If they are not then you could in theory park your ship next to the station and watch for as long as you want.

 

The other thing that hasnt been touched upon is i think that you should not be able to fire weapons or raise a shield if you are visably cloaked. This of course is for obvious reasons it would give a huge advantage to the cloaked player. They should have to uncloak, lock the weapon and fire then they can re cloak. That would give the target at least some chance to defend themselves.

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And i throw in the next real world tech that could inspire the stealth mechanics: Vantablack, but it would come with the disadvantage of convert the absorbed light into heat.

 

Sorry that i don't really discuss, but this is a topic which is although interesting for me, but would not really apply to my gameplay and as such it isn't interesting enough to keep me thinking about.

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And i throw in the next real world tech that could inspire the stealth mechanics: Vantablack, but it would come with the disadvantage of convert the absorbed light into heat.

 

Sorry that i don't really discuss, but this is a topic which is although interesting for me, but would not really apply to my gameplay and as such it isn't interesting enough to keep me thinking about.

lol right now for me its just interesting to see how other people think the game should progress or what others think it should include. I am not a big covert ops player typically, i prefer maximum guns and explosions, but i normally value intel on what im about to fight that normally comes from someone in a covert ops role. Vantablack is an intruiging idea for a coating on a ship, downside is if your in a system or nebula where space isnt black...

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i tend to play the roll of a rogue or stealth type player. i would like either a system cloak or a visual cloak but not both at once

i think if you thought carefully about ship design and coloring options, you could do a good system cloak and still make the ship hard to see just from an arcitechtural standpoint. But i agree it should be impossible to do both completely at once.

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like i said their should be a circular flow chart of "stealth" tech and countermeasures. countermeasures should have limits such as effective ranges, variances, and so forth. Basically the farther away you are from a countermeasure or sensor in your stealth ship, the safer you are. Using this im not saying that they wouldnt know that you are in the area, but maybe your far enough away that they dont know who you are or where your at because your past the max effective range. This would still allow you to conduct covert ops and recons, but would also give your target the ability to try and hunt you down at the same time, this would creat a cat and mouse dynamic on a massive 3d scale. This of course would be if your target is set up to scan for everything. If they are not then you could in theory park your ship next to the station and watch for as long as you want.

 

The other thing that hasnt been touched upon is i think that you should not be able to fire weapons or raise a shield if you are visably cloaked. This of course is for obvious reasons it would give a huge advantage to the cloaked player. They should have to uncloak, lock the weapon and fire then they can re cloak. That would give the target at least some chance to defend themselves.

 

The effective range idea makes perfect sense. Onto your idea of weapons and shields. I agree that you should not be able to have a visual cloak while still having weapons and shields online. Additionally, if your cloaked then your shields should not be online. Once you decloak then you have to wait a minute for your shields to come online and protect you. Also as for weapons, because they already stated that you will have to lock on to fire let's say that you are unable to lock on while cloaked but as soon as you are fully decloaked you can lock on. Just like you stated ODIN.

 

Now there is the matter of unclog king fired and recloaking. My idea, because I feel like you should be able to cloak for as long as you want in a system, is that once you decloak it should have a reset time. Thus allowing you to engage but not be OP.

 

Also a stealth ship isn't going to have massive weapons. Maybe some missed bays, torpedos, and a light arangment of weapons

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The effective range idea makes perfect sense. Onto your idea of weapons and shields. I agree that you should not be able to have a visual cloak while still having weapons and shields online. Additionally, if your cloaked then your shields should not be online. Once you decloak then you have to wait a minute for your shields to come online and protect you. Also as for weapons, because they already stated that you will have to lock on to fire let's say that you are unable to lock on while cloaked but as soon as you are fully decloaked you can lock on. Just like you stated ODIN.

 

Now there is the matter of unclog king fired and recloaking. My idea, because I feel like you should be able to cloak for as long as you want in a system, is that once you decloak it should have a reset time. Thus allowing you to engage but not be OP.

 

Also a stealth ship isn't going to have massive weapons. Maybe some missed bays, torpedos, and a light arangment of weapons

thats pretty much my sentiments exactly, but i do like the idea of essentially a stealth bomber. Come in get somewhat close, uncloak launch some sort of powerful slower moving weapons turn tail and get out while re cloaking.

To counter this type of attack make the weapons slower moving and targetable.

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i think if you thought carefully about ship design and coloring options, you could do a good system cloak and still make the ship hard to see just from an arcitechtural standpoint. But i agree it should be impossible to do both completely at once.

honestly id just paint my ship the same as the sky box for space flight and hope for the best lol

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  • 2 weeks later...

Just adding another thought to this, what if you did not have to necessarily equip your ship entirely for stealth and instead were able to hide it behind something like a moon? Theoretically you could hide some signals (like radar and visual) from the enemy by just hiding behind a large enough object and turning off your engines and radio equipment or having active or passive shielding on them. I was thinking of something like season 8 episode 2 of doctor who where the ship the episode takes place on is hidden in the asteroid belt (they say shielded but it seems to be blocking visual since you can see them). That is just my thoughts though.

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Termodynamics. Learn them.

You can't hide a ship in the absolute zero temperature of the vacuum. And mAss Effect's physics on the Normandy are bullshit, same goes for Star Trek Romulan stealth. Your HEAT cannot be contained on a ship for a prolonged period of time as travelling through space requires. So no, "Heat Stealth " is impossible in itself.


What you can do, is go for steath on smaller crafts, like jetcrafts. They could be small and sleek enough to avoid sending back pings of their location when scannd and when they came closer, then you go into "techical stealth" as the jetcraft "hacks" your radar and makes itself invisible there. 


FYI : Space view in a ship should be treated the logical way, that it is a "technical rendition of space" to the ship's driver/captain, as noone in their right mind would ass a window - any type of glass or super-glass - to a ship that can possibly go half the speed of light. Therefore, the "tech stealth" is an applicable concept, instead of In-Atmosphere Coatings of paint (the idea proposed by the OP, of "Passive Stealth" ) is not applicable in space. The only real stealth, is hacking/tech stealth, which should be limited to jetcrafts ,or at least, be taxing n the ship's power core, ergo not allowing you to move at high speeds while you maintain the Hacking Transmission signal. See? It all works out. You could even upgrade such an array or apparatus to include a small group of ships and thereforce having the enemy to adapt to such tactic by having a scanning mini-game when it came to PvP.

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Space is not absolute zero, absolute zero is the temperature that all atomic movement stops (Third law of thermodynamics since you seem to like them so much) and is impossible due to quantum mechanics (Heisenberg uncertainty principle).

 

Also, since space is the closest natural approximation of a vacuum (due to no vacuum being perfect) heat would have an incredibly difficult time travelling through convection, conduction, or advection, and would travel mostly through radiation which would make it incredibly difficult to travel entirely through a moon and get to wherever the ship searching for the ship hiding is and then have them figure out it is a ship and not radiation from the moon itself. Also, if the ship hiding turned off unimportant heat generating machines, he would be even more concealed! All he would have to do after that is turn off active sensors and communication! In conclusion, Heat stealth is completely possible.

 

(Also on the whole super-glass thing you could probably use some form of light sensor considering it would be quite useful)

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@rmhenn

Not everyone knows of quantum mechanics and Heisenberg's principle of uncertainty. You watned to me to write a thesis on near absolute ero or convey the meaning? SHIPS = HOT, VACUUM OF SPACE = COLD. 'kay? Like thermal scopes operate, same principle.

Also, just because a ship has a radar installed, doesn't mean it can see and detect everything billions light years away. Which is what I explained in the jetcraft stealth section. Small jets could utilise coated surfaces and hacking signals to pass undetected. Also, the power/heat management you described ,that's a cool game mechanic, but it should force the player to make choices when it comes to how many guns he would carry on his/her ship, given that many guns require large surfaces, therefore you could have a ship like a super star destroyer from star wars, but still be crispy clear visible even with your engines turned off. 


Stleath should be a trade-off, not a utility. That's why I proposed the hacking mechanism. It would require you to maintain the signal going to maintain your stealth, but you would have to reroute power off your thrusters, therefore simulating the good ol' "rogue stealth" from traditional fantasy MMOs. Errr, sorta, hopefully you won't get a stealth bonus damage just cause you play with stealth. An opportunity, sure, but not extra damage out of nowhere.

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There technically isn't a way to completely remove your heat signature (like it has been previously stated). However, there are ways, even in the vacuum of space to make it more difficult to detect a ship via heat signature. First of all, although space is cold due to it is a vacuum it does not mean heat (radiation from stars) isn't going through space. This fact means that a person who isn't trained in detecting that a specific shape or temperature of a heat signature = a ship.

 

Secondly, there is special platting that can (1) leach heat out in a way that it doesn't pop up as a ship as easily and (2) can reflect heat in a way that it makes the ship look cooler. Additionally, due to the fact that the engines are the primary heat exhaust location people could potentially"unlock" a upgraded exhaust manifold in order to keep the engine cooler due to heat evaporatoration.

 

Also turning off your engines or generator and only using battery power would almost completely hide you. The downside to this is you can not move and this falls into the lines of what have been said before about balance.

 

This is just a couple ideas and ways to reduce (not always completely obscure) your signature. And not offense to you Captain but putting out the argument that because space is "cold" and ships are "hot" you can not hide your signature isnt very well supported. (However I do understand some of your points and agree with a few )

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@Shadow_1


On the leaching heat paint, it's a neat idea, but it would have to be set as a "durability" charges system. Meaning it would need repair after it is fully depleted. It's too harsh on the player imho. 

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I am not saying that we cant use stealth technologies, I had meant for this to benefit ships that were not designed completely for stealth.

 

An example of this would be a trader being chased by pirates, he gains a lead and hides behind the nearest moon and cuts his engines and nonessential systems. The pirates meanwhile, have lost him and are on the other side of the moon, even though they are scanning they cannot see where the trader went because the moon has absorbed too much of the different forms of radiation from the trader's ship and eventually give up and leave.

 

while technological stealth is something that I agree with, I do not feel that that should be the only way to hide

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You can't hide a ship in the absolute zero temperature of the vacuum. And mAss Effect's physics on the Normandy are bullshit, same goes for Star Trek Romulan stealth. Your HEAT cannot be contained on a ship for a prolonged period of time as travelling through space requires. So no, "Heat Stealth " is impossible in itself.

 

the thermodynamics for the normandy work out fine for the most part, though.

they couldnt maneuver with any kind of thrust, but coasting with offline engines while actively refrigerating the hull of the craft and dumping the heat into an internal heat sink works for limited amounts of time.

how long exactly depends on many factors, including heat capacity of the dump medium and the breakeven heat generation of the main power systems

the less heat you produce internally and the larger the capacity of your dump the longer you can stay cold.

 

you certainly cant fire antimatter engines while staying cold, but just drifting on on inertia would work for a while.

 

 

and please, is that huge pink font really necessary? :V

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