Re: Sensors

Ryan M Gill wrote:

> I'm inclined to pick something like 105 MU for passives detecting a
> ship that has drives doing basic maneuvers, but that seems pretty
> short really. A large ship doing thrust 3 and 4 burns would likely
> show up like a small comet to any good telescope up to about an
> Astronomical Unit.

The quick and dirty method is too define the detection range for a ship
with one
(1) mass factor of drives as X.  The detection range of every other
other starship
that is no more, or less, stealthy than the reference vessel is the
square root of
its drive mass * X.  So the Bonaparte, with 48 mass factors of main
drive, is
detected at 7X.  Better sensors effectively replace X with (X+y), and
cloaking
replaces X with (X-z).

For a more nailbiting game, instead of mass of drives, use mass of
drives needed to
produce the thrust used to maneuver, and vessels can try to coast
towards a target
with the engines off (better add a fudge factor to account for the fact
that ships
are still warm, add crew factor to drive mass).  Then the range will
vary from turn
to turn.