 November 19, 2013 - 6:18am | So... intercom's are a thing on a ship. Like... why? wouldn't everybody use there chronocoms? Or do you think there is a reason Chronocoms don't get used like Star Trek communicators? I was wondering if the ship's hull might interefer with the signal but you would think they would just build that into the ship (as in some sort of voice over IP style addition to the computer network). Granted our game came out before the rise of the cell phone. Why in star trek TOS did they rarely use communicators instead of the ship intercom system? I'm thinking it was just the culture of the time the show was being produced. My possible explanations are... they work but dialing a Chronocom takes liek 10 - 30 seconds and the default for intercom terminals is when you hit the button it sends your voice message to the bridge. Maybe come areas of the ship do interfear with a chronocom signal (like nearer the engines) or my last reason might be that they could build voice over IP style tech into the ship but they just choose to not do it on older/smaller UPF ships but customs ships and maybe newer destroyers might have that sort of thing. Any other thoughts? When I run my "Big Ship" game for my players I'm certain this will come up. ----------------------------------------------- |
 November 19, 2013 - 8:05am | A good question would be have we set up local cell service on our current aircraft carriers? I do not see an engineering reason why it would not work. The only thing I can think of is a military need to be radio silent. Thus the need to stick to wired communications. -iggy |
 November 19, 2013 - 8:18am | I think it depends on the "feel" you want to create. I think alot of sci-fi ship life and operations is based on WWII Navy films and operations. So if you want that more gritty feel, limited communication is one aspect of that. But in modern real life right now I can safely say there are alot and I mean alot of smart phones and iphones that have accidentally gone overboard US Navy vessels, by slipping out of pockets. Thus modern sailors have individual communication devices that they could use in an emergency, however they do not use them while on duty and do communicate with the ship's systems or face to face and there are places use is forbidden or does not work well, but if people where trapped and in some sort of emergency and had no other means to communicate I bet you money they would a least be trying to text/call shipmates or someone for help, but you have to have service in the area the ship is in to be able to get a call in or out, no bars is bad in an emergency. I do have a friend who is alive because she was able to get bars in Afganistan and call her command on Roam for help on her personal cellphone. In TOS I think they did use communicators a few times in emergencies on ship or sneaking around other people's ships. Monitoring communications seems to have been part of ship security on military vessels in general on Star Trek. So maybe the Chronocoms work similiarly, people have them but maybe they are limited some way either by ship/company rules or by interference or support issues or range issues or maybe they mostly work on the ship just not in specific areas or under specific conditions... the void could interfer or maybe reception is great when the ship is in a populated system but out in the no where there is no service except short range or ship to user and maybe even the ships orbit has an effect, if the ship isn't zipping by overhead or nearby on land no signal. You could have mutiple reasons as why the Intercom is prefered. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
 November 19, 2013 - 10:33am | The new BSG made a big deal about wireless systems being vulnerable to the cylons. Thus Galactica had a very WW2 feel to it, including the fact that it was due to be decommissioned as a museum ship. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 19, 2013 - 4:17pm | I always assumed chronocoms were more like walkie talkies and not like a cell phone, meaning they broadcast their signal and other handsets in range pick up the signal. That way they work on an asteroid. That would also mean you can't call you orbiting ship with a chronocom (which I don't know if I want). I guess it always said 5 km range limit so nobody was ever able to phone the ship from planet surface using their wrist chronocom. Perhaps a vehicle would have a more powerful radio on it? Like an explorer. ----------------------------------------------- |
November 19, 2013 - 4:21pm | I believe I will go with them not working well due to the hull metal and engines interference ----------------------------------------------- |
November 19, 2013 - 4:23pm | Actually on trek I think they have used communicators before while crawling through maintenance areas of the ship before. ----------------------------------------------- |
 November 19, 2013 - 6:05pm | I have it so that intercoms are used if you need to communicate by wire, and chronocoms (just called "coms") if you need to communicate by transmission. The ship's communication systems would allow coms to linked into a network. Each section (made up of the crew and their section head) would have their own channel, which allows everyone within that channel to freely communicate. The intercoms are used by section heads to communicate directly to the bridge. Normally, the crew would communicate in person, unless they loss sight of each other, in which case, they would use coms. In battle, everyone puts on a suit to depressurize the hull, so coms (that are built into the suits) are the only way to communicate. Suits are able to connect directly to an intercom, comset or another suit by built-in retractable plugs. |
November 19, 2013 - 9:24pm | Depressurize the hull? why would they volentarily do that? Its just a precaution in-case the hull gets depressurized right? ----------------------------------------------- |
November 19, 2013 - 9:40pm | I generally treat a ship as a transmission relay tower. Clearly the game designers has some influence from Star Trek and other sci fi properties with both intercoms and communicators and may have not thought out ramifications for what they were doing. Example magnetic boots? are the hulls of space craft iron? mag boots are possibly the legacy of JFK ordiering that we would go to the moon and NASA had a blank check. NASA entertained any idea and invention and magnetic boots were invented during that time. The prototype pair ended up on History Detectives and it turned out that no review NASA said, "No." For the simple reason that space craft hulls were made of much lighter material and they didn't want the electrical field of the boots near the skin of the craft and potentially interfering with the instruments. I'm sure someone heard about them and simply included them in the game. So I dont see a reason to prevent coms from working on ship. And if you can use a com do you really need an intercom? I also dont see a reason that the engines would interfere either. The one thing that you could say is that star ship hulls in SF are a lot tougher that real world hulls. and the setting points the way to explain that: mythical federanium metal/alloy that is mentioned without telling us what it is exactly. I would say that it was included to be a Frontier equiv to titanium and thus probably highly desired for space craft hulls. its simply a new generation of materials that can be hand waved to explained things like tougher hulls, potentially interfering with transmissions from coms and perhaps explain the use of mag boots on space ships. I dont know that you need to explain anything but you could use the above. If a federanium alloy hull does interfere with coms I would still allow for using coms within the ship its just that the com signal does not penetrate the hull. The ship's radios must have an external transmitter and ships like a star liner might have a relay that picks up a com signal and re-broadcasts it out side the hull. For myself I like the idea of using a chronocom more like a cell phone and personel locator like in Aliens. Come to think of it I like the idea of a military issue skien suit with biometric pick ups and a blue tooth feature to broadcast life signs through the com to CnC station or medical station. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 20, 2013 - 6:13am | Another thing from real life to consider... The Intercoms could be either wireless or hardwired... if hardwired they actually add a level of security that wireless devices do not have. For instance I have wireless phones in my house as a result I will not discuss certain info on my landline as an easly purchased scanner can be used to monitor my conversations... no SS# info, no credit card info ect. I know this because a friend of mine accidentally discovered he could do this. Now if all my phones in the house where hardwired into the wall the scanner would not work on them, they would have to be tapped proper or bugged. So in a society worried about Corporate Spies and Sathar Spies I could see old tech and new tech being used. I am sure their would be scrambled coded stuff too. Just a random thought on the security end of low tech versus high tech. "Never fire a laser at a mirror." |
November 20, 2013 - 7:08pm | Depressurize the hull? why would they volentarily do that? Its just a precaution in-case the hull gets depressurized right? Yes, in the Knight Hawks rulebook, they note that prier to battle, everyone jumps into a spacesuit so they can depressurize the ship, so it would get ruptured by a hit. How I have it in my games, the air pressure is low, but not a near-vacuum. The crew operate in light-pressure suits, but not in bulky spacesuits. Also, I have Masking Screens (a cloud of water vapors used to disrupt laser fire) as ejected life-support water. This is only used in emergencies, and was a tactic on older, pre-UPF ships. If a ship ejects both it's primary and secondary life-support vats, the crew would be stick having to use the suits until they can refill and recharge the vats. |
November 21, 2013 - 7:16am | OMG... my post got lost a second time. I give up for now. ----------------------------------------------- |
November 21, 2013 - 10:40am | Trying this again while in line at Wendy's First. I see you are correct, I found that section. I'm question that as being a good choice though. Wouldn't needlessly creating a hazardous environment also bring with it it's own dangers? I figure the people in danger of violent depressurization also be at risk of bouncing off a wall or desk edge and having their suit punctured while also being injured? ----------------------------------------------- |
November 21, 2013 - 1:04pm | First. I see you are correct, I found that section. I'm question that as being a good choice though. Wouldn't needlessly creating a hazardous environment also bring with it it's own dangers? I figure the people in danger of violent depressurization also be at risk of bouncing off a wall or desk edge and having their suit punctured while also being injured? Yeah, even Atomic Rockets advise not to fight in such an enviroment - mostly for the bulk, encumbrance and discomfort of spacesuits. Actually, getting a rip in your suit is not that bad. You loose no air pressure as your suit ejects air (this is from having vary little internal volume in the suit) and you can seal it up with duct tape (it solves all problems ;) ). The only danger is that your air tanks would get lower, and you may not be able to treat a nasty injury with the suit on (unless the Frontier invents some kind of magic foam in a can). The real danger of space battles in the Frontier, is how each hex moved is over 2g of force, and warships tend to move really fast! Punctured suits would be the least of your concerns - bumping around would be downright fatal! |
 November 22, 2013 - 6:54pm | Since the starship and system ships have subspace radios - I assume that the crews chronocoms can be picked up with this. Therefore, the crew can communicate with the ship while on planet. I like the Star Trek / away party idea. If the radio can call from Pluto to Earth, it can call from Earth's orbit to the surface. As for working in the ship during combat - the shipsuit is VERY helpful! (SF9, p 23) Shipsuit Spacers wear this suit as a standard uniform. It consists of a layer of shock-absorbent gel between two layers of skeinweave integrated into a lightweight exoskeleton (half the weight of a standard exoskeleton). Both the gel layer and the exoskeleton compensate for the effects of high-gee acceleration, allowing for normal manual dexterity and movement under thrust while helping to negate the adverse effects of acceleration. The layers of skeinweave protect as a military skeinsuit, protecting from physical damage, while the built-in exoskeleton provides no additional benefit other than allowing normal movement under thrust. In the event of decompression, an inflatable hood of clear skeinweave can be pulled up from the back of the suit collar, over the head and back down to the front and sides of the collar, where it can be zipped securely into place. A tank of compressed air at the rear of the suit provides up to ten hours of breathable oxygen. The suit also has a 50 SEU beltpack and uses 1 SEU/turn of operation. The shipsuit costs Cr 1,500 and weighs 3.5 kilograms. |
 November 22, 2013 - 7:50pm | The ship's radio could probably call down to the surface but the chronocoms can't call back up. Remember that the stated range of a chronocom is 5 km (3mi) and low orbit is several hundred kilometers above the surface. It just doesn't have the power to broadcast a signal further than that. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
November 22, 2013 - 8:53pm | My current plan (because I want the away team to be temporarily cut off from the ship due to a special quality of the planet) is to say the explorer I hope to be able to fit inside there shuttle has a powerful radio without going full subspace radio on it. That the standard method would be for the shuttle or explorer to handle pushing a signal back up to the ship. Do you think a shuttle would be hard to explain why it doesn't have subspace? ----------------------------------------------- |
November 22, 2013 - 9:09pm | Actually power is not the really the issue it is the antenna efficiency. I have worked 5W QRP stations who were talking on 20m from Seattle to New Zealand. These same setups can reach the ISS. Now this experience is all using antennas that are too large to carry around. A handheld radio necesitates a short antenna and this limits the frequencies that can be used. The shorter the antenna, the higher the frequency, the shorter the propogation distance. And the problem is with transmission not reception. Handheld ham radio overcomes this with repeaters. An away team could have their communication going to their landing craft which relays to the starship in orbit. As most of us do not use bap bins (transporters) this fits. Then there are our existing satellite phones which we have to consider. I have not checked on what frequencies they operate on or if the antennas are directional or not. These are more of what would be advanced into the chronocom issued to away teams needing to communicate to their starship. @Jaxon, Thanks for bringing my attention to the shipsuit in SFman 9. -iggy |
November 22, 2013 - 9:16pm | There is also omni-directional antenae. With some radio cable, an antenae and a radio; you can GREATLY increase the range of a radio. The PRC we had was 20-30 kn but, the OD kit bumped it up to 50-100 km. The problem is the radio only gets the boost in one direction. |
November 22, 2013 - 9:25pm | The equipment section has a radio unit with a 1000km range. The ISS orbit earth at around 500 km so 1000 km is enough to phone the ship from a vehicle or shuttle based unit. A shuttle would likely have even greater range more. ----------------------------------------------- |
November 23, 2013 - 8:11am | The equipment section has a radio unit with a 1000km range. The ISS orbit earth at around 500 km so 1000 km is enough to phone the ship from a vehicle or shuttle based unit. A shuttle would likely have even greater range more. Yes, I was going to mention this but you beat me to it.  The radiophone overcomes the 5km range. It's bulkier but could be mounted in a vehicle or carried if necessary to provide communication to orbit. They point is you're not going to use the chronocom to do it.And iggy is right, it is the small antenna size. That's what I was thinking about when I said not enough power but it's been decades since my electromagentism classes so I'm a bit rusty  and couldn't express it quite properly.Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
November 25, 2013 - 8:11am | You should also consider the period of a ships orbit and have the ship out of contact when it goes below the horizon at the very least if not there is only a small window when its overhead that you could report in.
( just watched Oblivion w/ Tom Cruise and when LOS was broken with the TET as it went below the horizon was pretty integral to the story). I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 25, 2013 - 9:25am | Yeah I'm planning LOS as a method for bad guys to approach the planet if the PC's fail to stop them from getting word from a traitor among the indigenous population so I will have to have them make decisions about orbits. They can easily establish geosyncronous orbit if they want to. ----------------------------------------------- |
November 25, 2013 - 10:08am | OR, have a small commo satellite onboard the ship and it can be launched and recovered. It should not be hard - something like an Atmoprobe. I mean we have had commo sats for over 60 years. A 1950's sat would do the trick for a small away team - nothing big or advanced. This would increase radio duration but, there still would be a "black out" window, unless you put about 8 sats in orbit. Then only 3-4, at a minimum, would be available at all times. BUT, that is a little much and it is nice to have a black out window. (This is how the GPS sats work.) just food for thought. |
November 25, 2013 - 11:27am | I am slightly worried one of my players might stumble his way to these forums so I don't wanna give away any more details. But I am thinking as landing assault teams is not this Frigate's primary mission I'll keep additional equipment like that to a minimum... but yes it would be conceivable they would have little satelights they could deploy and recover to blanket a planet with radio connectivity. I'm thinking if I was putting together a big ship more focused on supporting ground action that would be something I might do. ----------------------------------------------- |
November 25, 2013 - 12:00pm | KHs has atmo-probes which are a specialized satellite when you think about it. So i allow for com probes as well. They can be dropped in open space or put in orbit. They can act as a signal relay or beacon or be set to go live and transmit a message when they detect the right ship in the vicinity (like say any ship with a Space Fleet IFF beacon if launched by a military ship. Basically the atmo probe launcher is now a probe launcher and you can load it with a variety of probes: com, atmo or survival package: ship which cant land loads an empty probe shell with specialized survival kit and fires it at a specific spot on planet to aid stranded people it cannot land and pick up. Kit would include radio, survival shelter, water purifier, survival rations, and potentially weapons. Stuff that would give people stranded on the surface a fighting chance of survival. Someone with appropriate skill would need to make a skill roll to plot its re-entry path (Astrogator) so ensure it lands close to target. Descent is by parachute. I would allow, in extreme circumstances, for a space suited figure to be loaded into one and shot at the planet. Probe shell has enough heat shielding but the character requires their own LS. And perhaps spray foam padding to lock them inplace to prevent injury on landing. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 25, 2013 - 1:17pm | lol like ODST Yeah I agree if you wanna give it the cargo hold space they could certainly have that sort of equipment, i'm just not making it standard issue. Atmo-Probes are not a standard thing either, I think they are more like something you would see on a research vessel. ----------------------------------------------- |
November 25, 2013 - 1:24pm | lol like ODST Yeah I agree if you wanna give it the cargo hold space they could certainly have that sort of equipment, i'm just not making it standard issue. Atmo-Probes are not a standard thing either, I think they are more like something you would see on a research vessel. That is sort of the point, why carry an atmoprobe unless it was an exploration craft. Still a ship can have 1 probe per point of HS with no impact on ADF and MR or the ammount of weapons carried. But still why carry them. I think the launcher can be considered to be standard and other kinds of probes loaded into it. see new thread on probing questions of probes. Almost certainly a Space Fleet Assault Scout will carry a probe launcher with atmoprobes- if the mission called for landing an exploring a new planet those probes will come in handy checking the atmosphere first. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
November 25, 2013 - 1:40pm | I picture that a ship with torpedo launchers can is that to launch probes. maybe smaller torpedo-less might have to have smaller probes? How big are we thinking they are... the probes? Really this comment belongs in your new thread. ----------------------------------------------- |
November 25, 2013 - 1:52pm | They can easily establish geosyncronous orbit if they want to. But again you'd have the radio issue. Both geostationary orbits (which is more likely what you'd want rather than geosycronous) and geosyncronous orbits are really high up, between 25-80 thousand kilometers depending of the mass of the planet and it's rotation rate. So your radiophone with only 1 thousand km range isn't going to reach that high, it only gets into low earth orbit (LEO) ranges and in that case you will have blackout periods unless you have multiple comm satellites as has been mentioned. Ad Astra Per Ardua! My blog - Expanding Frontier Webmaster - The Star Frontiers Network & this site Founding Editor - The Frontier Explorer Magazine Managing Editor - The Star Frontiersman Magazine |
