Re: FT Stealth

>OK - fine, though ship size may be insignifigant compared to other
factors.
>Emissions are the key, not size.

My off-the-cuff suggestion is to take the cube root of the ship's mass,
square it, and divide by whatever constant you like (which will be
determined by how broad a spread of factors you wish).	If you pick,
say, 10
as your constant, then a mass 64 cruiser would have a factor of 16/10 =
1.6,
round to 2.   Square of the cube root is to represent the ship's
cross-section.	I think that allowing both positive and negative
construction stealth modifiers would then let you quanitify how well you
designed your cross section.

However, it might be better to say "you get +1 to be detected  for every
(level of screen active x 50 mass) and for every (thrust used x 50
mass)" or
something similar.

My thought is that bigger ships will emit more and thus should be easier
to
detect.

>>b) bogey--"we can't pin it down, but there's something there"
>>c) range, vector, firing solution
>>d) ship class ID
>
>I feel that c & d should be combined to KISS

OK.  Main thing I want is the ability to maneuver against targets which
are
not yet identified.  "Is that a battlecruiser or a frigate?" "I don't
know,
sir, we're just tracking the thrust plume."

>I favor the following:
>Level 0 - no info
>Level 1 - detection, number of ships in sensor range
>Level 2 - approx size class, place in log based mass scale
>Level 3 - all info

The max should be "details of enemy damage" as in "sir, their screens
are
down!"--note that this should come AFTER "firm ship class ID".

>Basic [sensors] should be inherent to all vessels to prevent the
necessity
for
>redesign of current vessels.

Of course.

>After that, I rather like the idea of making them in classes, just like
>beam batteries.
>
>Then your ECM and ECCM "fire" and score "hits" which can give
>bonuses/penalties.

Next step: work out the mechanism for this.