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[Trantor]

Yeah Arioch... I hope our enthusiastic support of the forums have inspired you to more frequently publish new pages!

Its a small part that we can do but I, at least, hope it helps!

Don´t you ever do that again!

[NOMAD]

A long-range scout starship is a very expensive, cutting-edge piece of hardware, especially for Humanity. Traveling these distances is not routine for humans; they don't have any cheap "rust-bucket" starships that can travel farther than any human vessel ever has. The people manning these ships are the best and brightest, because their mission is critical. They are doing hazardous duty, and losses are expected, but they are hardly "expendable." Humanity has only 10 such ships (well, 9 now), and no replacements in the pipeline.

Is that '9' left an official number or yet to be declared?

yep, 5 Bennet class scout ( two modded/refitted to Yorktown class specs, one complete the other is in the shipyard ) and 4 Yorktown (as built)

check the insider terrain class page:

http://www.well-of-souls.com/outsider/fleet_terran.html

[Mjolnir]

Forced comas followed by revivals are also likely, but I'm just guessing here, to be medically unfeasible unless you had some sort of simple, psychically-active, cyborg brain attached to a coma-switch; such biotech might 'burn out', possibly rather quickly, and require replacing a more-or-less disembodied and fatally abused sentient brain. And I'll take a further guess and presume that the Loroi might find this idea a little abhorrent.

It wasn't a serious suggestion, not for the Loroi anyway. I've pointed out before that the Umiak would get a lot more out of telepathy...

Now, if they figure out that bottled Loroi brains can be used for instantaneous interstellar comms, they might hold back on exterminating the species, and settle for complete subjugation instead. Sure, the brains might burn out fast...but Loroi breed fast.

[Karst45]

Still even with all that i think it kind of ridiculous to just leave boey behind.

There some many thing that could go wrong. Damage from radiation / debris to getting picked up by the wrong hand. not to forget you have to send another ship to pick it up.

[fredgiblet]

Radiation isn't a concern, debris is only a tiny concern. If it's set up like Mjolnir suggests then the chances of it getting picked up by someone else is miniscule. As for retrieving it the setup Mjolnir is suggesting wouldn't need to be retrieved, all you'd have to do is jump in, ping it, receive the data and jump out. Self-destruct systems would likely be standard to prevent tampering and to provide for elimination of evidence once their purpose is served.

[Mjolnir]

Radiation isn't a concern, debris is only a tiny concern. If it's set up like Mjolnir suggests then the chances of it getting picked up by someone else is miniscule. As for retrieving it the setup Mjolnir is suggesting wouldn't need to be retrieved, all you'd have to do is jump in, ping it, receive the data and jump out. Self-destruct systems would likely be standard to prevent tampering and to provide for elimination of evidence once their purpose is served.

Exactly. We've already got all sorts of probes and satellites operating in space for decades on end, here in the real world...they'll have had the needed technology for about two centuries. Radiation isn't a problem, debris is only likely to be a concern in a system like Naam...you might want to launch a few buoys, but that's fine, they'll be dirt cheap, probably cheaper than mass driver rounds. They're incredibly unlikely to get picked up by the wrong people, and could easily be built to destroy anything of value if tampered with.

So none of the given downsides are actually of any significance, and such buoys would greatly assist coordination and scheduling by removing the need for ships to be in the same system at the same time, and allow for records of any findings to be recovered in case a ship is lost. Doesn't fit my definition of "ridiculous".

[bunnyboy]

So, you have a scout ship seeding space probes in different systems. It is actually good way to study many systems with low resources.

But it's still better to equip the scout ship with all edge of technology and have they pick it up themselves.
When they have launch timetables and rudimentary knowledge of heavenly bodies of system, they can pick it up back easily even after of years.

Just for the remember the opinion involved.

I doubt the scouts themselves got any upgrades. Scouts are by defintion expendable. No reason to spend resources on it. A single scout cost less resources to build and mantain. And you're going to send it into hte unknown to make contact with a potentially hostile alien race. Makes more sense to spend resources upgrading your true warships with state-of-the-art tech, not the scouts.

I'd immagine Bellarime makes periodic reports, or can leave navigational bouyos of some sort. It's not like humanity is sending scouts wiht the purpose of expansion anway. Note that a replacement scout can be built a lot faster than a replacement heavy cruiser. And if the native turn out to be hostile, you want your best tech on the heavy hitters, not scouts. Better use of resources and you don't show the potential enemy your best cards.

And when the natives turn out to be hostile, how you know it, when your exploration is involved to have some losses and the plan for gathering any information is have someone else picking up their "thrashes". This is a bad plan. Bad plan. Bad plan!

[bunnyboy]

Tried little math for drifting. Because I can count with paws only for 4, I write up a program do it for me.

SpoilerShow

Code: Select all

<HTML>
<HEAD><SCRIPT>
function start() {
	spd = 0;
	r = 150000000000;
	for (i=0; r>700000000; i++) {
		a = 134000000000000000000/(r*r);
		r = r - spd*60 - a*1800;
		spd += a*60;
	}
	time.innerHTML = i/1440;
	dist.innerHTML = r;
}
</SCRIPT></HEAD><BODY onload="start()">
<FORM name="laskuri" action=""><TABLE>
<TR><TD>Time</TD>    <TD ID="time"></TD></TR>
<TR><TD>Distance</TD><TD ID="dist"></TD></TR>
</TABLE></FORM>
</BODY></HTML>

It says that object with no speed at all, will collide on sun in 65 days if they are 1 AU distance.
It was only to highlight that everything moves in space and if you don't know where your buyo is going, in time it gets harder to find.

[Mayhem]

It says that object with no speed at all, will collide on sun in 65 days if they are 1 AU distance.
It was only to highlight that everything moves in space and if you don't know where your buyo is going, in time it gets harder to find.

Just toss it into an elliptic orbit with the star at 1 focus and the other in the middle of the jump zone.

[fredgiblet]

You don't NEED to find it. All you need to do is ping it with the code and it'll tell you where it is.

[Mjolnir]

It says that object with no speed at all, will collide on sun in 65 days if they are 1 AU distance.

So even if they do about the stupidest thing possible, short of actively throwing it at the sun or dropping it from even deeper in, it's still good for 9 weeks. They could also drop it from further out or throw it outward so it falls into the sun after a couple months or years to prevent capture (24 months fall from 5 AU), but since there are essentially no natural objects on such trajectories (for obvious reasons), this is more likely to catch unwanted attention.

If we assume they aren't complete incompetents and can put the message buoy in orbit rather than on a collision trajectory with the sun, the time limit is the power source.

It was only to highlight that everything moves in space and if you don't know where your buyo is going, in time it gets harder to find.

It's the only thing in the system blasting an "I'm over here" signal at the ship. It's only hard to find for people it's not meant to be found by.

[bunnyboy]

I suppose it is on clever enough to find sun, and use it to point its antenna toward jump point, which is basic trigonometry. And it can do small maneuvers while looking totally innocent. Because the finding of exoplanets is so easy, we know already every planet on the system and have calculated perfect orbit, which is loaded on to every ship in our fleet. Our expendaple scout is still accurate enough to come below lightsecond from calculated arriving point and make a succesful launch, before natives goes angry.

So fetcher will come too on the same point, which is totally leaved unguarded. It defines it's own placement from the stars and planets, and calculate direction on to brobe, which don't take even a second. Then it sends the activation ping on narrow aimed pulse, which is undetectable even on 1 degree aside. The probe will activate instantly and sends back everything it has gathered. You just wait in maximum about 10 minutes for signal travel back. There is nothing, which can go wrong, eh?

[Mjolnir]

I suppose it is on clever enough to find sun, and use it to point its antenna toward jump point, which is basic trigonometry. And it can do small maneuvers while looking totally innocent. Because the finding of exoplanets is so easy, we know already every planet on the system and have calculated perfect orbit, which is loaded on to every ship in our fleet.

It probably won't need an aimable antenna to pick up a scout ship's radar pulse. There's no need for it to maneuver beyond possibly pointing itself at a ship it's about to contact, and the existence or nonexistence of exoplanets in the system is completely irrelevant. You'll certainly have good estimates of the star's mass before you jump into the system, and don't need anything close to a perfect orbit, you just need the buoy to hang around in the system.

Our expendaple scout is still accurate enough to come below lightsecond from calculated arriving point and make a succesful launch, before natives goes angry.

...what is this supposed to mean? It makes no sense.

So fetcher will come too on the same point, which is totally leaved unguarded. It defines it's own placement from the stars and planets, and calculate direction on to brobe, which don't take even a second. Then it sends the activation ping on narrow aimed pulse, which is undetectable even on 1 degree aside. The probe will activate instantly and sends back everything it has gathered. You just wait in maximum about 10 minutes for signal travel back. There is nothing, which can go wrong, eh?

Are you paying any attention to what people are actually writing? The ship does not need to know the message buoy even exists, it certainly doesn't need to calculate where it is. These are scout ships, they have equipment for scouting. Among that equipment will be things like long range radar. They're going to sweep the system with such anyway, and it's trivial to encode identifying information into the pulse so any buoys will be activated by this survey.

[bunnyboy]

What? Instead of sending one good scout to doing a job, are you sending lot of them, hoping that one day someone of them gomes back.

That is very bad planning if your scouts don't even know, that they are going on to visited systems.

[bunnyboy]

Our expendaple scout is still accurate enough to come below lightsecond from calculated arriving point and make a succesful launch, before natives goes angry.

...what is this supposed to mean? It makes no sense.

Scouts are by defintion expendable.

I haven't see if you agree or disagree, but because you have taken his place, I think you agree.

When you make a jump, you arrive somewhere. I assume that isn't some fixed point, but depend on your starting point and accuracy of jump.

Lighsecond is distance, what light can travel in second. It's about 300 000 km.

Launch is when you send the buyo.

Angry natives are the bossible aliens living in the system, which will attack and destroy your scout, when they finds them. Mentioned here:

And you're going to send it into hte unknown to make contact with a potentially hostile alien race.

And if the native turn out to be hostile, you want your best tech on the heavy hitters, not scouts.

Edit: I know that Arioch's scouts aren't expendable, but this is different set up. Correct me, if I'm wrong, so I stop biting myself.

[Mjolnir]

What? Instead of sending one good scout to doing a job, are you sending lot of them, hoping that one day someone of them gomes back.

...exactly how does this follow?

That is very bad planning if your scouts don't even know, that they are going on to visited systems.

Setting things up so you can handle unforeseen circumstances and effectively coordinate multiple ships to adapt the mission to new information is bad planning?

I haven't see if you agree or disagree, but because you have taken his place, I think you agree.

Point out one post that implies I have taken his place. Everything I've said has been to point out that the arguments against message buoys are nonsense. I don't agree that scouts are expendable, but that is entirely irrelevant to the point I'm making.

And that gibberish statement about angry natives and light seconds is still gibberish. I know what a light second is, I have no idea what your objection is. Apparently that message buoys aren't much good in a system with a fleet of hostile ships waiting to ambush anyone who enters...so what? It's not like the fate of the first scout ship will be a mystery to another ship that pops in and encounters that hostile fleet.

[bunnyboy]

Ok. I had wrong picture of situation. I'm sorry.

[Trantor]

IOur expendaple scout is still accurate enough to come below lightsecond from calculated arriving point and make a succesful launch, before natives goes angry.

You mean a jump back to the system you came from? As i understood it, you have to break first, then re-accelerate to the direction of the system where you came from?

[Trantor]

And that gibberish statement about angry natives and light seconds is still gibberish.

Keep in mind that bunny is no native english speaker.

[Ktrain]

And that gibberish statement about angry natives and light seconds is still gibberish.

Keep in mind that bunny is no native english speaker.

Just wanted an excuse to point that out