Spacecraft subSystems

Power Grid and Batteries

A ship's power is normally generated by its engine. Burning fuel releases the energy, which can be used to create thrust, or it can be stored in ship's batteries. Batteries continue to provide power to ship's systems even when engines are offline until their energy is depleted.

Power systems are extensive throughout a ship's frame, and are necessarily volatile, so they require constant maintenance. They are also prone to shorts, overloads, or disruption from electromagnetic weapons. Excess power production tends to produce overloads as well, so unused systems are often powered down or put on standby in order to conserve energy and reduce malfunction.

Transponder

Spacecraft transponders are devices which, when receiving an identification request from another spacecraft, automatically transmit a message containing the ship’s name, registration number, and any affiliation.

By law, all ships in Schema space are required to have an active transponder, otherwise they will be intercepted and detained. To ensure this, all crews must register their ship in order to purchase a Zipp Drive. The transponder comes attached to the Zipp Drive, and any attempt to remove it or alter the signal it transmits will trigger an overload of the Zipp Drive, disabling the craft and then transmit a wide-beam distress call.

Outside of Schema space, it is at a crew’s discretion whether to have the transponder active, however any ship detected in space without an active transponder, is usually assumed to clandestine or hostile, and are often fired upon as a precaution.

While most pilots are reluctant to reveal their identity and business to any stranger they meet in space, there are some organizations who find mandatory transponders to be controversial.

The Union of Private Space insists that transponders infringe on the privacy of individuals and businesses. Legitimate business, they claim, are hindered by unnecessary procedures just as much as illegitimate business. They also point out that anonymous spacecraft are less likely to be victims of opportunistic pirates since a potential attacker runs the risk of taking on a ship with concealed armaments.

The Gor Adukk Ma are also contemptuous of the use of Transponders. However, they wholeheartedly support the practice of a craft identifying itself. The difference is that in orcish tradition, any craft that comes into transmission range of another must announce their ship’s name, captain’s name, affiliation, intention, and any recent or notable adventures. Ships captained by orcs are often muted by passing craft, as the wide-beam radio transmissions tend to be long-winded and boastful.

Shields

Shield generators create protective energy fields that can either be oriented in a flat plane, or as a spheroid, preventing the desired material from entering or exiting through the barrier’s perimeter. Shields require constant power when active, and the more stress is placed on a shield, the more power it uses. If shield stress exceeds its maximum power throughput, it shuts down and goes into a cooldown period before it can be reactivated.

Shields can be configured to provide protection against two distinct types of material: energy and matter.

Energy shields prevent harmful energy from penetrating the barrier. This includes laser beams, plasma, and dangerous radiation. Energy shields can be tuned to accept or deny certain varieties of energy, and can reverse the directionality of the shield to contain energy or mask engine signatures. An energy shield is easy to identify from the glowing blue barrier.

Kinetic shields deflect accelerated matter from penetrating the barrier. This includes objects such as meteors, bolts, coil guns, missiles, and other ships. This also helps to prevent collisions. However, unlike with energy shields, force in excess of the maximum power throughput is not absorbed, so two ships with kinetic shielding colliding at speed often results in both being destroyed. Kinetic shields can be tuned to accept or deny a certain amount of force per projectile, and can reverse the directionality of the shield to contain objects such as atmosphere or debris. A kinetic shield is nearly invisible to the naked eye, but under stress flashes with a faint white glow, and dust often parts to avoid the barrier.

Most shield generators can project both types of shields at the same time, since both are necessary for safe space travel, however sustained activity of shielding is often tuned only to deny harmful cosmic radiation and small spaceborn projectiles, meaning that most spacecraft are vulnerable to sudden bursts of weapon fire while underway.

Sensors

Sensors are instruments that analyze objects and environments and transmit the resulting data. Because each property, such as mineral content, distance, radiation, topography, or speed, is normally tested using a different instrument, a collection of sensors is often called a “sensor suite”.

Depending on the relevance of certain data, different classes of sensor suites may contain different instruments. As an example, mining ships contain sensors useful for identifying the shape of terrain as well as the location and quantity of valuable resources. Whereas a warship is more likely to contain sensors that assist in identifying the type and configuration of spacecraft, as well as target-tracking.

Sensors suites also come in a variety of sizes. The larger the ship, the larger and more powerful sensors it can contain. Larger sensors provide more data, at a greater range, and with a greater accuracy.

Because certain sensor instruments are confused by obstructions they are often externally mounted, but covered by protective casings when not in use.

Sensors run in a number of different states: Passive Scan, Active Scan, and Focused Scan

Passive Scan - Passive scans reveal basic details to a crew any time the Sensor system is powered. While it has the highest range, it provides the least amount of information.

Objects, their location, velocity, size, and temperature
Environments such as radiation, nebula or atmosphere density, gravitational attraction
Heat signatures including spacecraft engines, weapons fire, zippways, incoming focused scans, or explosions

Active Scan - Active scans must be initiated by a crew on a particular object or environment. While active scans are limited to targets within the same system, they can provide significantly more information than a passive scan.

Object type, exterior composition, topography, properties
Ship transponder, class, status, heat level

Focused Scan - Focused scans are intensive processes that must be initiated by a crew on a particular object or environment. Focused scans must be on nearby targets, may take time to complete, and may be detected by the target's passive scan.

Object's interior composition including structures
Life signs, health, number
Ship weapon configuration, upgrades, damage state, active systems, computer vulnerability
Environments such as stealth objects, differentials such as artificial amidst natural

Sensors may also use photographic instruments to take detailed images of nearby objects or distant objects alike. However, it is important to note that the scanning process rarely requires any visual contact by the crew.

Transmitter/Receiver

Most forms of communication utilize radio transmissions. A ship with a transmitter can record a message and transmit it. Any ship with a receiver that is within range of the transmission will record it for playback.

A transmitter can also send a hailing signal, which is a request for two-way communication. If the receiving ship accepts, then both craft can converse normally until one side terminates the transmission.

Transmitters can also broadcast in two different modes: wide-beam transmission and tight-beam transmission.

Wide-beam transmissions are long-range signals that radiate out from the craft in most directions. Any receiver within range will get the transmission. Wide-beam transmissions are most commonly used for public communication.

Tight-beam transmissions are short range directed transmissions. Only receivers in range and in the path of the beam will get the transmission. Tight-beam transmissions are usually used for private communication, or to reduce comms traffic.

Transmitters can also be used for jamming. Jamming transmits a powerful wide-beam interference that prevents receivers from successfully interpreting signals across most frequencies. Jamming requires a lot of power and prevents communication for all ships in the effected range. Jamming can be circumvented by boosting a signal until receivers can differentiate it from the jammer's interference, or by transmitting on a frequency outside of the jammed range.

Life Support

The planet we evolved on had a mixture of mostly nitrogen and oxygen in its atmosphere. To make habitats livable, we use environmental conditioning systems called life support that reproduce that atmosphere. These systems circulate breathable gasses from pressurized storage tanks and filter out toxic gases or contagions. More advanced life support systems can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen and carbon and can also control interior temperatures and humidity. Life support can be supplemented with flora which can also convert carbon dioxide into oxygen.

Since life support uses a limited resource, it is critical that pressurized chambers are not exposed to vacuum. To prevent this, ships employ a number of safeguards. One feature is an airlock system. Airlocks are antechambers with exterior hatches that can be pressurized or depressurized before opening to vacuum. By ensuring that only one airlock hatch is open at any time, this prevents a ship's atmosphere from being compromised by exterior conditions. Another system are bulkheads. Bulkheads are doors that close when internal sensors detect an emergency such as fire, depressurization, or interior weapons-fire. Because they are meant to withstand exposure to vacuum as well as sustained attack, they are thick and generally do not open again until the control system is reset or the hazard is no longer detected. One final system is idle-depressurization. Some ships when left idle for a significant period of time, or if it detects a significant atmosphere leak, will pump the atmosphere back into its storage tanks, leaving the ship's interior depressurized. This means that craft that are abandoned or put into storage, are often capable of restoring life support even after extended periods of disuse.

Artificial Gravity

Before the discovery of hoglium, spacecraft had to use centripetal force or acceleration to simulate gravity. Now, hoglium is used in the construction of artificial gravity generators which are capable of generating a gravity well. This gravity field is oriented around the gravity generator, however when distributed by a network of gravity plating along a ship's decks, it can serve to create an artificial gravity environment where crew can navigate normally as though on the surface of a planet. This allows spacecraft decks to be laid out along the length of a craft's structure, or in other orientations. The fields are also capable of anticipating extreme acceleration and reducing the affect of inertia, keeping crew and cargo safe from sudden changes in velocity, or acceleration so extreme that it would cause physiological distress. Because they must be powered, and are extensively implemented, artificial gravity generators are prone to malfunction. Some problems are as simple as the loss of gravity and inertial dampening, but in other scenarios may generate a stronger or weaker gravity field. In some cases, they may reverse the field entirely. Salvage crews use the term hanged for getting caught between a functioning gravity plate, and an inverted inverted gravity plate in the deck above.

Computer

The complex operation of a spacecraft relies on a certain degree of automation and computation. Most spacecraft have a central computer that is connected to all systems and provides information readouts and an interface for executing functions. Normally, the computer itself is housed deep in the spacecraft to protect it from damage, but terminals can be located nearly anywhere in a spacecraft. Some spacecraft have backup computers in case the primary computer is compromised.

A ship's computer can be enabled to receive commands through transmission. This is called slaving and can be useful for tugging a craft that you do not have the crew to pilot. However, this can also be exploited by tweakers if they can bypass the verification process. If you believe your computer may have been compromised by a tweaker, it is advised that you shut the ship's computer down, initiate a system reset, and then restart the ship's computer. While this may remove custom configurations, it restores the ship's computer from firmware, effectively purging any tweaks.

Helm

Although a ship's flight computer can perform many advanced maneuvers with more precision than a biological pilot, almost every spacecraft larger than a pod has a pilot. These pilots interface with flight controls the helm, and uses them to perform burns, maneuvers, landings, and docking, and other ship functions.

Depending on the complexity and crew of a spacecraft, the ship's functions may be divided among any number of terminals.

Unlike the majority of ship's interface terminals, the helm is hard-wired through an armored, shielded, redundant, and heavy-duty set of data connections to ensure that it is unlikely both unlikely to fail, and quick to repair.

Heat Management

Most operations on a spacecraft generate thermal energy. While exposed to the cold vacuum of space, this heat will radiate off of a spacecraft, however, should prolonged activity generate more heat than can be managed, it can damage systems or make a spacecraft uninhabitable to its crew.

To combat this, most ships use a combination of heat sinks and coolant systems.

Heat sinks are arrays of fins and pipes that greatly increase the surface area of a high-temperature system, making the passive cooling properties of vacuum more efficient. In emergency scenarios, heat sinks may be ejected to avoid overheating.

Coolants are liquids oumped through high-temperature systems, which conduct that heat elsewhere, either to a refrigeration unit, or to a heat sink. Coolant systems may also redistribute their use to prioritize certain systems, and may also increase the pump rate.

Zipp Drive Inhibitor

The Zipp Drive Inhibitor is a modification made to a Zipp Drive. Instead of opening a gateway into Zipp Space, it targets an existing gateway and destabilizes it. In effect, this will either shrink an open gateway, or will hinder the expansion of a new one, potentially making it too small for the gateway's ship from entering Zipp Space entirely.

How exactly an inhibitor does this and what limitations it may have are a closely guarded secret of Experifact, but its rising prevalence among ships in the Schema fleet suggest that it is not only a viable technology, but will tighten Schema's stranglehold on reliable interstellar travel.

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