Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Discussion regarding the Outsider webcomic, science, technology and science fiction.

Moderator: Outsider Moderators

Post Reply
User avatar
White
Posts: 73
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:26 am

Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Post by White »

Just some miscellaneous questions. I wasn't sure what thread to put them under so I made one to place them in.

1) At this tech level, what sort of spy technologies do the combatants have? Would they be able to install micro cameras/microphones on people without their knowledge for example?

2) How do spacebattles work in Outsider? Just point me to a resource if there's already one, but I wanted to know about the spacing of ally and enemy ships as well as what tactics might be used. I might be mistaken, but it seems to me that, in systems unobscured by dust, lining up your ships and unloading at the enemy would be the general strategy, with most of the finesse happening at the individual ship/group level.

3) How damaging would a single Umiak torpedo (say, from a missile ship) be in a worst case scenario. For example, let's say an Umaik torpedo travels a very short distance, thus expending very little of it's fuel, and gets an unmitigated hit on a super heavy, would said super heavy be slightly damaged, completely crippled, or death starred?

4) About hyperspace jumps, would it be possible, even in theory, to fly towards the local star and make a jump to another star that is in the same direction as your velocity vector but on the other side of the local star you are heading towards? For clarification by "local star" I mean the star who's system you are traversing.

5) On average, how big are the transit and entry points for hyperspace jumps? I imagine this would be variable, and the insider article on this had some picture that showed them taking up a significant amount of the angular volume near a start, but I wasn't sure if this was exaggerated for clarity.

6) Would it make sense in a setting like outsider for there to be "major battles" around singular stars? I get the feeling it might make sense for an attacker to concentrate a majority of their forces in one singular star rather than spreading their forces out, at least for an initial attack or for a key system where taking the surrounding systems isn't as important.

7) Do ships maintain their relative positions when making jumps? It's noted in the insider that controlling at what precise location you exit can be difficult, but would a fleet of ships all jumping at, or near, the same time and place exit in formation, or would they be scattered around the entry volume of the destination star?

8) I remember reading that the Umaik are ruled over by a bureaucracy and, at least publically, eschew any over titles of ruler ship. Is it known how Umaik ascend to these leadership roles?

9) How many stars constitute the defensive area around which the Loroi have concentrated their forces?

10) How many people does it take to pilot a Loroi or Umaik ship? I understand they have large crew complements, but I am assuming that these are mainly for maintenance and other long term considerations. So, assuming you got a Loroi or Umaik ship flying and you reduced it's crew complement only to what was strictly necessary to steer the thing and fire the weapons, how many individuals would be on that ship, and how for long would that ship be able to function?
Last edited by White on Sat May 25, 2019 6:52 am, edited 1 time in total.

Krulle
Posts: 1413
Joined: Wed May 20, 2015 9:14 am

Re: Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Post by Krulle »

White wrote:
4) About hyperspace jumps, would it be possible, even in theory, to fly towards the local star and make a jump to another star that is in the same direction as your velocity vector but on the other side of the local star you are heading towards? For clarification by "local star" I mean the star who's system you are traversing.
No. According to the insider essay about the Jump Drive, you'd jump on the wrong side of the reality plane (spacetime) right away, as you're starting downwards.
Image
(imagine a continuation of the "deep jump"green arrow to get what I'm trying to say.)

A different drive technology might work in the negative space, but no current player seems to have such a drive...
Vote for Outsider on TWC: Image
charred steppes, borders of territories: page 59,
jump-map of local stars: page 121, larger map in Loroi: page 118,
System view Leido Crossroads: page 123, after the battle page 195

User avatar
White
Posts: 73
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:26 am

Re: Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Post by White »

Krulle wrote:
White wrote:
No. According to the insider essay about the Jump Drive, you'd jump on the wrong side of the reality plane (spacetime) right away, as you're starting downwards.
Image
(imagine a continuation of the "deep jump"green arrow to get what I'm trying to say.)

A different drive technology might work in the negative space, but no current player seems to have such a drive...
I'm not sure if I'm understanding you, but I was talking about making a jump while heading towards your local star and coming out on the near side of the destination star. "Short jump" or "Deep Jump" according to the picture you showed.

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Post by Arioch »

White wrote:1) At this tech level, what sort of spy technologies do the combatants have? Would they be able to install micro cameras/microphones on people without their knowledge for example?
At this tech level, small sensors and transmitters are extremely easy to conceal. However, without faster than light communication, any intelligence gathered is limited to the current star system, without a starship to receive and spread it.
White wrote:2) How do spacebattles work in Outsider? Just point me to a resource if there's already one, but I wanted to know about the spacing of ally and enemy ships as well as what tactics might be used. I might be mistaken, but it seems to me that, in systems unobscured by dust, lining up your ships and unloading at the enemy would be the general strategy, with most of the finesse happening at the individual ship/group level.
This is a complex question without a simple answer, but most weapons are limited to a practical range of 1 Light Second (~300,000 km), and within that range, acceleration and position are still important tactical factors.
White wrote:3) How damaging would a single Umiak torpedo (say, from a missile ship) be in a worst case scenario. For example, let's say an Umaik torpedo travels a very short distance, thus expending very little of it's fuel, and gets an unmitigated hit on a super heavy, would said super heavy be slightly damaged, completely crippled, or death starred?
A single direct torpedo hit has the potential to destroy any known spacecraft.
White wrote:4) About hyperspace jumps, would it be possible, even in theory, to fly towards the local star and make a jump to another star that is in the same direction as your velocity vector but on the other side of the local star you are heading towards? For clarification by "local star" I mean the star who's system you are traversing.
With the technology available to the major combatants, this is not possible. Trying to jump past the local star usually ends you up either inside the star or wildly off course.
White wrote:5) On average, how big are the transit and entry points for hyperspace jumps? I imagine this would be variable, and the insider article on this had some picture that showed them taking up a significant amount of the angular volume near a start, but I wasn't sure if this was exaggerated for clarity.
It varies according to star mass, but there is a significant factor of uncertainty as to how far you deviate from your intended arrival point. This is the danger to making jumps without an adequate safety margin.
White wrote:6) Would it make sense in a setting like outsider for there to be "major battles" around singular stars? I get the feeling it might make sense for an attacker to concentrate a majority of their forces in one singular star rather than spreading their forces out, at least for an initial attack or for a key system where taking the surrounding systems isn't as important.
The potential problem with stacking your defenses is the danger of the enemy simply bypassing them. The Loroi have been mostly able to avoid this problem through the use of their farsensing ability. The Umiak have no such ability and therefore must spread their defenses across a wide front.
White wrote:7) Do ships maintain their relative positions when making jumps? It's noted in the insider that controlling at what precise location you exit can be difficult, but would a fleet of ships all jumping at, or near, the same time and place exit in formation, or would they be scattered around the entry volume of the destination star?
Ships in formation tend to be drawn toward the common center of mass during jump, and so formations entering jump usually do so staggered by several milliseconds each. It's true that this attraction is usually insignificant compared to the spacing of a typical formation, and both of these are insignificant compared to the uncertainty factor of jump exit location, but it still seems like a practical precaution.
White wrote:8) I remember reading that the Umaik are ruled over by a bureaucracy and, at least publically, eschew any over titles of ruler ship. Is it known how Umaik ascend to these leadership roles?
The Umiak who are periodically captured by the Loroi don't know the answers to these questions, and so they are a matter of some conjecture and disagreement.
White wrote:9) How many stars constitute the defensive area around which the Loroi have concentrated their forces?
The main front between the Loroi and Umiak stretches for about 100 light years or so. That's a lot of star systems.
White wrote:10) How many people does it take to pilot a Loroi or Umaik ship? I understand they have large crew complements, but I am assuming that these are mainly for maintenance and other long term considerations. So, assuming you got a Loroi or Umaik ship flying and you reduced it's crew complement only to what was strictly necessary to steer the thing and fire the weapons, how many individuals would be on that ship, and how for long would that ship be able to function?
A ship can be theoretically piloted without a crew. It would be able to function until something went wrong that required fixing, which would not be very long.

Automated systems without the backup of living operators have limitations, and are especially dangerous when you consider the hacking ability of certain virtual personality constructs who are currently allied with the Loroi.

User avatar
White
Posts: 73
Joined: Tue Feb 14, 2017 9:26 am

Re: Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Post by White »

Thanks for the quick answers. I have some more clarification questions on some of them since I'm interested in stuff like this.
Arioch wrote:At this tech level, small sensors and transmitters are extremely easy to conceal. However, without faster than light communication, any intelligence gathered is limited to the current star system, without a starship to receive and spread it.
May I ask how small? Microscopic or is the method of concealment done through some measure other than just making the sensors really small?
Arioch wrote:With the technology available to the major combatants, this is not possible. Trying to jump past the local star usually ends you up either inside the star or wildly off course.
I understand the combatants don't have the technology to do something like this reliably, my question was more long the vein of weather this is even physically possible according to the physics of Outsider. Something like when people ask if the sun can quantum teleport.
Arioch wrote:The potential problem with stacking your defenses is the danger of the enemy simply bypassing them. The Loroi have been mostly able to avoid this problem through the use of their farsensing ability. The Umiak have no such ability and therefore must spread their defenses across a wide front.
That makes sense, but I was wondering more about the perspective of the attacker. In this case, would an attacking army have any reason to spread their forces across multiple stars rather than zerg rushing one particular system.
Arioch wrote:Ships in formation tend to be drawn toward the common center of mass during jump, and so formations entering jump usually do so staggered by several milliseconds each. It's true that this attraction is usually insignificant compared to the spacing of a typical formation, and both of these are insignificant compared to the uncertainty factor of jump exit location, but it still seems like a practical precaution.
I'm not sure I understand. I might have not stated my question clearly, but I was asking more about weather ships that jumped as a unit would keep formation once they exited hyperspace at a destination star. In this case, would the millisecond difference between jump times cause them to be scattered randomly throughout the entry volume of the destination star?

User avatar
Zorg56
Posts: 196
Joined: Thu Aug 30, 2018 10:59 am

Re: Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Post by Zorg56 »

Automated systems without the backup of living operators have limitations, and are especially dangerous when you consider the hacking ability of certain virtual personality constructs who are currently allied with the Loroi.
I cant see how crew can do smething about it.

If system is hacked and controls shut down what are you gonna do? Slam it with a hammer?
I remember this type of situation in Dark Empire comics, when only thing that crew was able to do after Silencer-7 main computer was hacked is to shut down system completely.

User avatar
dragoongfa
Posts: 1920
Joined: Mon Jan 26, 2015 9:26 pm
Location: Athens, Greece

Re: Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Post by dragoongfa »

Depends on how the systems were constructed, the tools available and the training of the crew. Closed systems (i.e. without input mechanisms) are impossible to interface with and as such they cannot be corrected if they start to 'misbehave' however systems where the users have a multitude of controls and in depth access to the workings of the programs are only limited by the training of the crew operating them.

You cannot really hack a system that allows its credited user full access and control of its programming when said user has mastered said system, you may be able to cause some shenanigans but you cannot really affect the system the same way a tech with root and physical access to the system can.

User avatar
icekatze
Posts: 1399
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 8:35 pm
Location: Middle of Nowhere
Contact:

Re: Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Post by icekatze »

hi hi

Gotta have something for characters to do in a story. :)

While I have every expectation that AI will eventually outpace human intelligence, even if it is just replicating a human mind with faster circuits, and assuming that our civilization doesn't crash before that happens; I think any story people try to write that takes into account the consequences of that revolution is likely going to end up looking as silly as some old predictions of the future.

User avatar
Arioch
Site Admin
Posts: 4486
Joined: Sat Mar 05, 2011 4:19 am
Location: San Jose, CA
Contact:

Re: Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Post by Arioch »

White wrote:May I ask how small? Microscopic or is the method of concealment done through some measure other than just making the sensors really small?
I doubt they'd be microscopic; I think the physics of optics limits how small a camera's aperture can be and still see anything useful.
White wrote:
Arioch wrote:With the technology available to the major combatants, this is not possible. Trying to jump past the local star usually ends you up either inside the star or wildly off course.
I understand the combatants don't have the technology to do something like this reliably, my question was more long the vein of weather this is even physically possible according to the physics of Outsider. Something like when people ask if the sun can quantum teleport.
In a universe in which precursor civilizations had absurdly high technology, it's problematic to say what is or is not physically impossible at any tech level. All I can say is that it's not possible for the major combatants in the story.
White wrote:That makes sense, but I was wondering more about the perspective of the attacker. In this case, would an attacking army have any reason to spread their forces across multiple stars rather than zerg rushing one particular system.
There's no simple answer. It depends on the goal of the attacking force and the disposition of the defenders.
White wrote:I'm not sure I understand. I might have not stated my question clearly, but I was asking more about weather ships that jumped as a unit would keep formation once they exited hyperspace at a destination star. In this case, would the millisecond difference between jump times cause them to be scattered randomly throughout the entry volume of the destination star?
The delay in jumps is so the ships don't collide while in hyperspace. Ships that synch their vectors and jump as a group arrive in a scattered cluster, as seen on page 125.
Zorg56 wrote:
Automated systems without the backup of living operators have limitations, and are especially dangerous when you consider the hacking ability of certain virtual personality constructs who are currently allied with the Loroi.
I cant see how crew can do smething about it.

If system is hacked and controls shut down what are you gonna do? Slam it with a hammer?
I remember this type of situation in Dark Empire comics, when only thing that crew was able to do after Silencer-7 main computer was hacked is to shut down system completely.
Unlike the control systems in Star Trek, realistic control systems must have manual overrides that actually work. And if all else fails, there is always the off switch.

folti
Posts: 66
Joined: Fri May 18, 2018 10:24 am

Re: Some Questions About Outsider Tech and Ship Mechanics.

Post by folti »

Zorg56 wrote:
Automated systems without the backup of living operators have limitations, and are especially dangerous when you consider the hacking ability of certain virtual personality constructs who are currently allied with the Loroi.
I cant see how crew can do smething about it.

If system is hacked and controls shut down what are you gonna do? Slam it with a hammer?
I remember this type of situation in Dark Empire comics, when only thing that crew was able to do after Silencer-7 main computer was hacked is to shut down system completely.
In the real world, and any competently written SF that don't repeats this 60s legacy trope, the various sub-systems of the ship are separated from each other, and even the various levels of control systems inside said sub-systems can, and should be separated.

And in case of an intrusion, or malfunction, there must be ways for the crew to shut down the misbehaving part, and if all else fails, go back to use the ten-finger interfaces, and talking/sanzai-ing each other. It's not going to be as effective as the fully automated systems, but beats being said systems dead, or sabotaged completely.

(Not that partial hacks can't be douseful, if woven into the story properly. In one of Randolph Lalonde's Spinward Fringe books, taking over an enemy ship's entertainment systems, and the articulating systems of the captain's chair was caused enough confusion for the green crew, that the protagonists' nominally weaker flotilla could beat a stronger opponent. This was also a one off trick, that depended on the IT crew of said ship screwing up.)

Post Reply