[FT] Some thinking on sensor and operational level games

Hi all

Just thinking about sensors and a game at a 
higher level than the tabletop FT. By higher, I 
mean longer time and distance scale, with more 
hide and seek. Brian posted his ideas and I 
skimmed them, but I'm working on my own so I 
thought I'd quiz the list intelligentsia. 

Specifically:
1) At what range could one likely detect a 
starship with good passive sensors? By that, I 
mean optical (visible and not visible spectra) 
and other similar systems. Something that 
doesn't rely on "wazoo newtech". 

2) How much does the answer to 1 depend on 
if the ship is thrusting? 

3) How much does the answer to 1 depend on 
if the ship has activated some kind of active 
sweep sensors or firecontrols?

4) How much does the answer to 1 depend on 
mass of the vessel?

5) How much does the answer to 1 depend on 
EMCON levels employed? (is silent/black running 
of any use in space?)

6) I assume there are three phases to 
engaging an enemy:

1) gross detection - there's something out 
there, even if it is too far away to tell what or 
how many
2) fine detection - we can tell how many, 
perhaps what thrust, what mass, are any 
emitting
3) lock-on - we  have a fire control solution

I assume passive sensors will generally take you 
through phase 1 and maybe phase 2, but you 
definitely need to "go active" 
(sensors/firecontrol) to get 3. 

7) Does using active sensors increase your 
ranges for the first phase of detection? Or are 
they long enough that your pathetic amount of 
emitted energy just has no effect? I am sure 
active sensors would have some impact in the 
second stage, and obviously firecontrol is the 
third stage. 

8) How feasible are recce fighters or stealthed 
drones or missiles with sensors and a link back 
to the ship to extend your active or passive 
detection radius? Would communications with 
such a drone or fighter not become 
problematic beyond <insert arbitrary range>?  
Or if you had to suddenly manouvre in combat, 
thus breaking  your hard to detect presumably 
direct laser link? 

9) If I have ECM or an area jammer, I assume 
that I'm making detection level 1 easier and 
detection levels 2 and 3 harder. Turning on the 
jammer systems would mean people would 
quickly discover something was emitting out 
there, but exactly where (more than a general 
few mu area) might be significantly more 
difficult to pin down than without the jammer. 
So you'd never use ECM or Jammers until such 
time as you thought the enemy already knew 
you were there (otherwise why give up your 
invisibility). Is this right? Or don't I get how real 
EW jammers/ECM	work?

This is just some starting points for my thinking. 
But any input from people with solid ideas or 
some sort of domain expertise (or a keen 
interest) would be worthwhile.