Targetting AI extended sensory systems

100% SE1 turret AI can see through walls.

So you're suggesting repeating the same nonsense in SE2?

No, I am suggesting scanning technology.

Mr Spock had a job to do and the tools to do it.

If we're looking at realistic it wouldn't be hard for a future AI to identify external components, internals would be more a question of what could reasonably be seen through the hull.

Realistically I could see:

-Antennas or other wireless communications equipment,

-Active-detection sensor equipment,

-Radioactive materials (depending on shielding around it),

-Anything that should logically be warping space-time around itself (gravity gens, FTL systems).

One could also argue that while identifying a specific type of device is difficult or impossible, it would be reasonable to detect large electromagnetic fields and/or thermal hot-spots consistent with active equipment vs inactive blocks (suggesting as an example where may be an active fusion-reactor near its upper end vs where is just a water storage tank).

Tael - I agree.

Antenna systems must necessarily be located on the ship's surface.

Likewise, the active components of optical devices (including IR and UV) must be on the ship's surface. They are therefore visible.

Radioactive materials—probably not; no radiation escapes even from large nuclear reactors (no matter what green activists claim). Only neutrinos escape—and those cannot be detected or used for detection.

Detection of spacetime distortions—not for targeting purposes, and certainly not with a resolution comparable to that of devices inside a distant ship.

Thermal differences in the image of target ship—it would work, but it is also the area that is easiest to mask and deceive the enemy, because a spaceship, by its very nature, has a very powerful climate control system with heating and cooling. So cold and warm areas may not correspond to what is under the ship’s hull.

You could hack into the vessels wi-fi system and get the position for life forms.

-Internal antennas are quite common where concerns about damage to the antenna or aerodynamic issues take precedence over having the highest quality signal, agreed on optical transmitters though.

-I wouldn't expect significant radiation to escape from a reactor, but I find there's generally a difference between "safe" and "none". I also imagine a small reactor capable of putting out 20MW would potentially be more prone to neutron-leakage, but that's just opinion. That said I specified "radioactive materials" not just reactors, so I'm also thinking material in cargo containers, ammo that requires radioactive components to make, and if they add a fusion-thruster (thinking SE1's prototech thruster) then such thrusters would remain radioactive after use even when turned off (though we're back in to external comps unless Keen wants people using internal thruster banks again).

-Spacetime distortions... we will have to agree to disagree. We have fairly small machines now meant to analyze gravity, and while they certainly couldn't pinpoint a target (at the moment), they are sensitive enough to detect that something as gravitationally small as a human standing close to it. Given a few hundred years and a micro-gravity environment as the background to contrast against it wouldn't be unreasonable for a purpose-built sensor to be able to identify the center of a field of sufficient strength as to warp spacetime like a gravity generator or FTL equipment might.

Indeed thermals can be fooled, but that takes a level of effort most people won't intentionally put in unless they expect to need to... which coincidentally just happens to drift in to the area of messing with hostile detection and targeting in much the way SE1's decoy blocks could have been imagined to :)

To Tael

Just so we're clear—a gravity anomaly detector that detects the presence and position of an alien ship near a space station is fine by me.

But a detector that maps the layout of equipment inside an alien ship is not okay. Not at a distance greater than the length of the alien ship.

Here’s a nice experiment—measuring the swing time of a reversible pendulum (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kater's_pendulum).

It’s an experiment sensitive enough to measure, within about 5 minutes, the difference in the Earth’s gravitational field intensity between the first and second floors of the same building (a pendulum about half a meter long and a classic stopwatch). A set of three simultaneous measurements with the pendulum planes rotated by 0°, 45°, and 90°, repeated over a 24-hour period, allows for an approximate determination of the directions toward the Sun and the Moon.

Translated with DeepL.com (free version)

@Semtex

I wouldn't expect a gravity-sensor to detect the exact layout of an entire ship, just the bits that are specifically distorting spacetime in ways that would IRL require things like negative-mass or hauling around a black-hole. It would be much the same as our previously discussed antenna-detection that could spot an active antenna through the hull, and with the same vulnerabilities such as use of decoys to draw fire off, or possibly turning the block off to hide it from detection (with the assumption that it has at least a short startup period before it can be used once re-enabled to make such a decision for concealment mean something).

I have no idea if or how this translator will handle it...

When measuring a gravitational field, you measure the intensity and the direction of the normal to the gravitational field (which points toward the center of mass that creates this field). You perform the measurement at a single point or at multiple points (spaced at distances limited by the size of your ship). The gravitational field of a point source has spherical surfaces of equal intensity. The gravitational field of two point sources, A and B, has surfaces of equal intensity given by the sum of the intensities of the gravitational fields of the individual point sources, and the normal vector points between these two points, toward the center of mass of the system of two points A and B.

The shape of the surface of equal intensity of the gravitational field of the two points A and B at a measuring point at a distance comparable to the distance between points A and B resembles the gravitational field created by the center of mass of the system of points A and B.

It is like waves on water created by a pair of stones that hit the surface simultaneously. Based on the shape of the wave, it is impossible to tell, even at a short distance from the point of impact, whether two stones or a single stone hit the surface.

Moreover, in the case under discussion, the situation is even worse—you “cannot see” the whole picture, but only a portion of the wave, within a small section determined by the size of your ship, which is comparable to the distance between the points of impact.

In other words, even based on numerous measurements of the gravitational field’s intensity over a small section, you are unable to calculate the distance between the two material points that create this gravitational field.

The "real-world case" is even worse—the gravitational field of a macroscopic object is generated by a large number of material points. So it very quickly takes the form of a spherical surface of uniform gravitational field intensity with the source at the center of mass of the macroscopic object.

Moreover—measurements of the intensity and direction of the gravitational field of a distant macroscopic object are extremely affected by the gravitational field of your own ship...

edit:

A good example came to mind:

Imagine a large, very elastic rubber sheet. You have two dumbbells, A and B (each consisting of two weights connected by a rod of a defined length).

Place both dumbbells on the sheet at some distance from each other. They will sag downward and form funnel-shaped depressions (the walls of the funnels are, I believe, parabolic or hyperbolic—simply curved in some way). Let the distance between the dumbbells be such that their “funnels” partially touch or overlap.

The problem we are discussing consists of determining the direction, distance, mass, and dimensions of dumbbell A based solely on measurements of the slope of the rubber sheet around dumbbell B.

We assume that we know the properties of the rubber sheet and that we also know with sufficient accuracy the shape of the "funnel" created by dumbbell B on its own, without the influence of dumbbell A.

It is, in fact, a two-dimensional simplification of a problem that is to be solved in three-dimensional space

@Semtex

I'd say it translated rather well.

That said, we aren't limited to two points of measure, our gravity-detector block could be a whole 7.5m^2 sheet of smaller detectors if Keen wanted, easily becoming hundreds of points of measure.

Additionally we are not required to rely exclusively on the gravity-detector. The wording of the initial idea suggests that such a detector would be supplementary in nature, meaning it would be paired with a more conventional detection-system. Such a pairing would allow for conventional detection to serve as a range-finder and provide approximate center for your metaphorical wave / ripple / distortion, allowing for the wave-front to be analyzed for abnormal distortions such that their center-points could be localized in a target construct.

As for your own ship, it would be a known value for which the detector could compensate, and which could subsequently be potentially a source of interference should said known-value somehow suddenly change (such as if your ship were to suddenly gain or lose mass via hostile action).

The suggested detection-systems don't nessicarily need to be equally capable, small, or even uniform is size, and I'd find it rather more interesting if some of them had lower resolution and ability but fit on almost anything while others were more precise, more capable, and required dedicating a sizeable section of a large ship as it would push people designing combat ships to decide between something small and efficient but with limited capabilities or large and inefficient but and capable of doing it all. Even better if we also get a data-link system allowing for one ship to share target-data with others in a way that would encourage variety in fleet-composition.