Hyper Footprint
(Copied straight from .XML 'backup' file, needs formatting and corrections. ZM User (talk) 20:15, 22 April 2024 (PDT))
Hyper Footprints
by Akarge
This article is based upon a collection of observations from an email exchange. Participants were Thinker, Zen Master, Nukie, Alan Pentarin and myself, Akarge.
The first portion is what we know. Canon. This covers both the 'science' and the 'practice'.
The second section is a suggestion for a system that generates some numbers that can be used to figure out how far away we can detect hyperspace exits. It is totally mine, so don't yell at anyone else if you do not like it.
Ships in hyperspace are not normally detectable by outside observers on other ships in hyperspace, ships in normal space, installations or planets. The only exception to this is that a ship that is nearby in realspace can detect another ship that is entering hyperspace and can 'follow in it's wake'. It is possible that this is how the Swarm Fleets travel to a common destination.
When ships exit hyperspace, they come out of FTL speeds and have an intrinsic normal-space velocity equal to that which they had when they entered hyperspace.
Ships can choose when to drop out of hyperspace, however, they are nearly blind until they do so. We cannot really steer past planets and such, but we can detect planetary and solar bodies as we are getting very close. The Swarm have even worse sensors, so generally they only come out at a pre-calculated point.
Per Thinker:
They were being cautious, but they don’t have full nav charts on the system, etc. WE can get a good deal closer because we have better drives and know where we are going, and THEY are totally blind in hyperspace. We don’t do much better, but we can pick up the secondary disturbance caused by a ship in hyperspace on sensors. A hive ship, due to its mass, is going to have to emerge further out, but when you compare it to the Moon, well, it wouldn’t be THAT much further out. But they still have to know where they’re going first.
Note Thinker's comment that "we can pick up the secondary disturbance caused by a ship in hyperspace on sensors."
A later clarification follows:
Besides, that fails the smell test: If the purpose of hyperdrive is to move faster than light; how would there be an indication of where you are going before you get there? I've gotta agree with George: No warning at the destination until they pop out.-ZM
I’m willing to go along with that…Thinker
So. No detection of ships in hyperspace. However, We can detect them as they exit hyperspace
I’ve indicated before that we can see a ‘footprint’ using sensors – kind of a ripple in real space – it isn’t anything amazing, but should give a short advance warning of emergence.
Thinker
The following comments by Nukie are also relevant:
In "Obligation" it is implied that the Sa'arm force, in hyper, can be detected. While the Sa'arm *could* exit earlier than we expect (as they did) most of that is due to the limits of having biological devices involved where electronic timers would be far more precise. I'm not sure whether multiple Sa'arm ships flying "together" (FSVO "together", when it comes to hyperspace) are able to work as a single unit, so exiting from hyper should have been far more ragged and poorly coordinated than seen in "Obligation", so, unless this is explained better, I suspect we need to work out "canon" w/r/t Sa'arm "fleet" coordination in hyperspace. (The only way I see them as capable of any level of coordination is if the light vessels,
despite having their own hyperdrives, ride within the hyper envelope of the Hive sphere and breakway as soon as they emerge, allowing the whole gestalt to stay together. Granted, one good hit from an HSIT and the fleet/flotilla is history.
The above would imply that the Sa'arm cannot be well-coordinated for the jump to normal space from hyperspace... which works against them when going against a hardened enough target but for them because, while the ships do not arrive like a "time on target", the first ship to face action, being apart from the others, allows the ones further from the hardened site to learn from the first engagement(s). While they may be defeated in detail, this still gives some of the other ships in the "formed gestalt" an opportunity to jump back out.
Sadly, there is some Zen for the Sa'arm: their perceived weakness is also a strength.
Here is my proposal for numbers.
The way it works (IMHO) is this:
As the ship exits hyperspace, there will be a massive burst of of signals. gravitic,electromagnetic spectrum, electrogravitic, magnetogravitic, Unified field spectrum? Who knows. Probably all of the above. We will assume, for now, that most of the signal travels at light speed . The bigger the ship and the bigger the generator, the noiser it will be. Whether you can read it will depend upon range (inverse square law will apply, of course) and the sensitivity of your receivers. Distance travelled should make no difference, but you may be able to make a trip with minimum power levels which will be sneakier. The slower you go, the quieter.
The Swarm are not innovators. They will have some examples of captured shipboard detectors. I would expect us to have receivers that are mulitiple times better than theirs. Lets say 10 times, for the sake of argument.
Ok. just to fake some numbers up:
Signal strength is mass of a ship (in tons) times cruise speed (or actual speed if higher) (in light years per day) of the ship divided by the range squared (in light minutes) to the exit point.
M * S / r^2
An emerging Castle at 20 light minutes.
2200 tons * 28 /20^2 = 61600/400 =154 (The Swarm would only get a signal of about a 15)
A Hive conquest sphere at 100 light minutes
500,000 tons * 5 /100^2 = 2,500,000/10,000 =250 (but we can perceive it 10 times better, so 2500)
If we assume that we, (but not the Swarm) can also detect the gravitic based signals. (which would travel at higher-instantaneous? speeds) We would only get about 20 percent of that signal strength; we can detect openings in real time, but still have to wait for the lightspeed signal for a stronger signal and fuller data.
Questions? Confusion? does anyone want to use something like this?
(Someday this will be a navigation template. It will provide a bar across the bottom of each article with useful navigation links. Until then, this is just a placeholder to get rid of all the red "broken link" indicators. -ZM User (talk) 10:00, 3 May 2024 (PDT))
