Maximum speeds [FT]

A number of interesting points were made. What are sensors in FT? If
they are grav sensors that detect engine cores or something, then I'm
sure they have a long range. If they are standard visible spectrum
sensors, then their range is much more finite. Passive further than
active, except that active is a far better solution.

Anyone on the list have any practical idea of what might be the
limitation of radar style active sensors (lidar or radar or maser or
whatever)? Presumably since the volume of space covered increases as a
function of radius, and the energy density in a non-linear fashion, and
there is a maximum amount of power you can probably jam through an array
(even if it is hideous by today's standards), the sensors if they are
not fancy sci-fi PSB sensors, must have a maximum range.

I think the range in the book is probaby for ship sized targets. A fast
moving asteroid with a small cross section and no powerplant might well
not be detected until it was inside of 25% of the range for ships - and
it might do enough damage to destroy small vessels and mess up large
ones bad.

Anyway, maybe you figure with your PSB that you can see people anywhere
in the system. That's a little too high tech for my taste. I like
standard active and passive sensors (even if they are gigawatt lidar
arrays...). And they probably have a detection threshold. And you don't
fly so fast as to put your ship at risk. If my enemy did this, I'd tend
to try to guess where he's coming and pollute that area of space a bit.
He wouldn't be able to dodge.... he'd be going to fast.

I take Tom's point about the size of your target object. Small objects
could be dodged with ease, others not so. With no scale except an
arbitrary one we like for time or distance, and no real idea of sensors,
we pretty much have to fit our own tastes. I don't mind fast ships... I
mind suicidal captains. And I too like a reason to have scouts out
front, though if you played on a map of the solar system, a scout with a
72" radius superior sensor would still need lots of friends even to make
a dint in that vast body of space. As the HHGTTG pointed out, the
distance to your corner store is peanuts to space.

Anyway, I just like a sanity limit on speeds that allows tactical
options, but not to the point of silliness. And I like the idea of small
ships being able to go faster due to better manouvreability. And I like
the thought of ships with better sensors going faster too. So it just
suits my PSB. :)