Miscellaneous Loroi question-and-answer thread

[Cthulhu]

Not trying to annoy you but unless every Umiak missile is shielded from radiation... a real world counter to them would be nuclear EM pulse.


Loroi may even be crafty enough to engneer a radiation em pulse beam that disables missiles without blowing them up.

Then after winning a battle, load up thw umiak missiles and take them back to base for study and or reengineering.

Arioch has said that the Umiak torpedoes are quite sturdy, so they should be protected against EM as well. Especially since most weapon shots (blasters, pulse cannons) would emit such radiation, too.

[Bamax]

Not trying to annoy you but unless every Umiak missile is shielded from radiation... a real world counter to them would be nuclear EM pulse.


Loroi may even be crafty enough to engneer a radiation em pulse beam that disables missiles without blowing them up.

Then after winning a battle, load up thw umiak missiles and take them back to base for study and or reengineering.

Arioch has said that the Umiak torpedoes are quite sturdy, so they should be protected against EM as well. Especially since most weapon shots (blasters, pulse cannons) would emit such radiation, too.

Fine... if I were a Loroi weapons designer I would sandblast those missiles at 50% speed of light, a wide sandblast cone to hit several at once.

May not kill them all, but will surely mission kill lots of them and make them way easier to dodge.

[Cthulhu]

You'd need a lot of sand to saturate an area. Even the standard engagement range of a light-second is a cone of almost 300.000 kilometers length and perhaps 10.000 km diameter. The biggest torpedoes are 30 meter long and maybe three or four meters in diameter, so this sandblast needs to be super-dense relative to volume. A single grain won't do enough damage to a missile anyway.

[Bamax]

You'd need a lot of sand to saturate an area. Even the standard engagement range of a light-second is a cone of almost 300.000 kilometers length and perhaps 10.000 km diameter. The biggest torpedoes are 30 meter long and maybe three or four meters in diameter, so this sandblast needs to be super-dense relative to volume. A single grain won't do enough damage to a missile anyway.

You don't need to fire it at range.

You fire the sand blast when the missiles are incoming... as in ten seconds from impact.

At that range you wreck the missilew because several grains of sand at 50% lightspeed is kinda like being hit with several baseballs at orbital velocity.


Missiles should get wrecked enough for Loroi to dodge them.

[Tamri]

EMP is much less effective in space than in the atmosphere. First, due to the absence of ionization of the atmosphere, for obvious reasons. And secondly, the hull of any ship or rocket is in itself an excellent screen for EMP, like the hull of a submarine.

Any kinetic shrapnel in space is ineffective, except at a distance really "point-blank" - from a distance of a kilometer, well, five.

Because the distance is enormous, the targets are small (relative to the volume of space), and the shrapnel is even smaller. In addition, given the self-evident problem of micrometeorites and, accordingly, the default protection of interstellar ships from them, it is unlikely that the target will be hit by shrapnel at all.

[Cthulhu]

1. Accelerating matter to half c will turn it into a particle stream, and those tend to disperse rather quickly. The blaster shots have a carrier/focusing component to prevent that.
2. You could tip the AMMs with cluster munitions, but even then, small fragments are apparently not strong enough to disable torpedoes. Those may also maneuver, thus requiring the KKV to maneuver for interception as well.

Essentially, you are proposing for additional micro-blasters to increase the point-defence capability. If the Loroi could do that, they would.

P.S. The only thing that I'm not getting, is why there are no small Loroi AMMs, similar to the Umiak Gimlet. Are the Umiak torpedoes sturdy enough to shrug them off, or what?

[Bamax]

1. Accelerating matter to half c will turn it into a particle stream, and those tend to disperse rather quickly. The blaster shots have a carrier/focusing component to prevent that.
2. You could tip the AMMs with cluster munitions, but even then, small fragments are apparently not strong enough to disable torpedoes. Those may also maneuver, thus requiring the KKV to maneuver for interception as well.

Essentially, you are proposing for additional micro-blasters to increase the point-defence capability. If the Loroi could do that, they would.

P.S. The only thing that I'm not getting, is why there are no small Loroi AMMs, similar to the Umiak Gimlet. Are the Umiak torpedoes sturdy enough to shrug them off, or what?

You don't need half-c at close ranges of less than 100 kilometers.


Even 100g-300g sand blasts would wreck oncoming missiles. Which I reckon os low enough to keep them as sand.

Or really iron grains. Iron sand, since I would just fire it out an accelerator with an adjustement nozzle for divergence at the end.

When an 60g missile oncoming is hit by iron grains at 300g, it's going to take damage.

[Tamri]

No. They will not receive.

Micrometeorites. There are a bunch of them in space, and the proploid Naam, for example, is a huge pile of dust and gas.

If you even fly an interplanetary spacecraft - protection from micrometeorites, as well as protection from oncoming radiation - this is an alphabet, the same integral part of the structure as the supporting structure, engine, tanks or sensors.

And if EVERYTHING you build for flying in space is protected from micrometeorites and oncoming radiation (in fact, not only, in space you have are enough "fun" operating conditions), then you can hammer a bolt on all weapons like shrapnel, ball bearings from an anecdote, and indirect or too scattered strikes of energy weapons.

Just because your defenses are CREATED for shit like this - and much worse.

Seriously, modern ISS armor is superior to WWII naval armor in some places!

[Werra]

Again, a dud would be what, the same torpedo, but with a slightly reduced fuel load? That doesn't make any sense. A torpedo requires a reactor and a starship-class drive system, or it won't have the necessary acceleration.

A dud torpedo wouldn't need any armor and could also do without effective maneuvering thrusters. You want the duds to be hit afterall. You can also save on the targeting system and on anything that arms or explodes the warhead. Since you also don't really care about losses, the materials and production quality needed is far lower.
If you can manage to cut costs by half, you could present 100% of targets to the Loroi at 75% of the cost.

[Cthulhu]

Again, a dud would be what, the same torpedo, but with a slightly reduced fuel load? That doesn't make any sense. A torpedo requires a reactor and a starship-class drive system, or it won't have the necessary acceleration.

A dud torpedo wouldn't need any armor and could also do without effective maneuvering thrusters. You want the duds to be hit afterall. You can also save on the targeting system and on anything that arms or explodes the warhead. Since you also don't really care about losses, the materials and production quality needed is far lower.
If you can manage to cut costs by half, you could present 100% of targets to the Loroi at 75% of the cost.

The decoy needs:
1. To display roughly the same characteristics as the original concerning speed, acceleration, maneuverability, because otherwise, the deception will be seen through.
2. It still must be protected against micrometeorites, radiation and needs to be sturdy enough to handle acceleration. You can't use inflatable tanks, that cost 1% of the original.
3. The most expensive components will be the reactor, drive and fuel, so it's going to be like 5% cost reduction, at best. But even if it's 25%, a dud/decoy is only effective if it costs a small fraction of the original, otherwise why not go for the real deal?

[Arioch]

A decoy torpedo wouldn't be any less expensive than a normal torpedo. It would need the same reactor, engine, fuel and guidance systems, which is where all the cost is. The limiting factor on armor isn't cost, it's weight.

[Keklas Rekobah]

This might be where ECM/ECCM comes into play.  A few small drones that can send out enough radio noise to mimic high-priority military traffic, and possibly return radar echoes that mimic large monitor craft.  The enemy might target these "ghosts" and this waste missiles and torps on non-existent spacecraft.

“All warfare is based on deception.  Hence, when we are able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must appear inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.”

[Tamri]

Again, the problem is that the ship's hull is not the primary detection tool in space. The main detection factor is the huge and very bright torch of the engines, which is easy to spot from the other end of the system and the signature of which is much more difficult to fake than to imitate the signature of the hull.

In fact, in order to imitate the signature of a ship at cosmic distances, you first need to fake the signature of its engines, and for this, as a rule, these same engines are needed along with the reactors that feed them, which already make up 60% of the cost of the ship, or even 70%.

It is better to make a full-fledged ship instead of trickery.

[Keklas Rekobah]

You seem to have not served in any real military.  Unless maintaining strict radio silence, concealed enemy forces are usually detected first by their radio emissions.  Even then, an object emitting only IR/heat at only about 294°K (~70°F/~22°C) is easily detectable from a light-second range against the backdrop of space (at ~2.7°K), with or without a thermal exhaust.  A human emits IR/heat at about 310°K, which is even more likely to be detected.

A ship need not be under thrust to be detectable at distance, as recent events with the Highland-7 can attest.

[Tamri]

The shuttle was discovered because the umiak knew its trajectory and speed when it disappeared from radar. Having this data, it is absolutely trivial task to reduce the search area to reasonable values.

Any movement in space is a completely different matter. First, the exit from the hyperjump in Jim's Universe generates a very "loud" burst of various radiation, including in the optical, radio and infrared ranges. A flash that can be clearly seen from any edge of the system, unless, of course, we are in a proploid like Naam.

Secondly, if any body is somehow visible in the radar range from a distance of one or two light seconds, the lidar will probably see the target from three seconds, then the most primitive telescope will see the torch of any engine from a distance of at least a light minute. and more specialized sensors - from a distance in light hours, if not astronomical units. When we talk about the torches of engines that accelerate ships in hundreds of metric kilotons with a force of 20 + G - the torch will be visible by any sensors through the entire system.

And if it is still hypothetically possible to secretly penetrate the system, then go through it and jump into the next one - no. Because, one way or another, to correct the course and accelerate for the next jump, you will need to turn on the engines, and as soon as this happens, the ship will be seen by everyone at a distance of at least an astronomical unit, if not from the entire system.

This is especially unrealistic for several ships, because the increase in numbers inevitably increases the risk of failure, and it is completely non-linear. The fleet, on the other hand, will not even be able to get out of the jump covertly, because no camouflage measures will be able to hide a large number of flares.

[Cthulhu]

I doubt that any of us have served in the space forces or have any experience in flying a spaceship.

The exhaust of an engine that can deliver 30g of trust for hundreds of meter long ships, especially if amplified by the floater drive mechanic, will be seen from anywhere in a system. You'd have a very energetic, but also rather distinct, signature that will be rather difficult to fake. It's not the same as with modern inflatable decoys, where metallized weave and a simple heater unit can generate believable radar and IR signatures.

1. A decoy would need roughly the same energy output, which means that it should have a comparable taimat reactor.
2. A big enough hull, which also needs to be rather sturdy.
3. Don't forget the inertial dampeners, or the g-forces will crush it.
4. Emitters strong enough to fake the presence of screens.
5. Powerful engines to deliver trust.

That's almost an entire ship already. Overall, the best thing you could do, would be to refit civilian ships to act as duds if mixed with a big fleet. With enough luck and some ECM witchery, the enemy may get confused about your real numbers from a very big distance.

[Zorg56]

A decoy torpedo wouldn't be any less expensive than a normal torpedo. It would need the same reactor, engine, fuel and guidance systems, which is where all the cost is. The limiting factor on armor isn't cost, it's weight.

Oh no.
The idea that torpedo can resist being hit by AA changes everything.
The best way will be to go with spherical kinetic killer then actually give it any payload.
Amount of damage collision will do is ofcourse much less, but still catastrophic to the recieving vessel, they have to be intercepted anyway.
If opposing side will account for that it will have to put on way bigger, heavier AA mounts thus reducing number of AA at hand.

[Cthulhu]

This KKV needs to be accelerated, so how is that different from a normal AMM? Or, if you are proposing for a mass driver, those are actually worse than blasters. Anyway, kinetics are simply too slow for firefights at those ranges.

Now, if you could make slugs out of some unobtanium for them to withstand accelerations of half a c, that would be truly deadly. That's science-fiction, though, even in-universe.

[Demarquis]

"AA"?

[Cthulhu]

"AA"?

Anti-AircraftShow