On 1/22/2018 2:16 PM, Caleuche wrote:
> The discussion about low population worlds got me to wondering from an official TU sense (but also might turn into an IMTU question), what kind of sensor systems do main worlds have available when those main worlds are low population or low tech?
>
> Reading through the T5 rules on sensors, it seems mostly oriented to ship to ship or ship to surface detection. I presume the same rules can be applied for surface to space detection, or a world could build a satellite packed with detection systems, but I haven't seen reference to how typical that is.
>
	I sat down with the GURPS Vehicles rules at one point and designed a missile
sized satellite which contained: a small thruster for orbital maintenance,
folding solar panel for power, a set of orbital range laser communicators for
building a planetary communications array, a set of passive sensors tuned for
either ground or space, a cellular radio communicator for ground-orbit
communications, and a GPS clock/transmitter for positioning.

	They were missile sized so the free trader that showed up to deliver them to
your low-TL planet could also serve as the launch platform. For MCr1.5 you could
have 50 of these in different orbits around your planet. They would serve as
space monitors for your Class D/E port, global communications, weather
prediction, and GPS positioning.

> Is it possible for Travellers to "sneak into" a system and land on a world undetected? I imagine that a TL0 pop 5 world would be blissfully unaware of the activities or even existence of starships throughout the system or even coming and going to points on the surface not immediately adjacent to a population center and given that Traveller ships don't (seem to) undergo meteoric reentry that further enhances the ignorance of the activity on a world like that.
>
> Or own TL8-ish Pop 9 world is just getting to the point that automated (optical telescope) survey is catching things like 1I/Oumuamua sailing through the system and lacks the capacity to image that as anything other than a point of light. It could have been imaged by goldstone radar if it were considerably closer, but it wasn't all that far away and radar imaging was not possible.
>
> So, in short, how aware are typical worlds of their near-space and deep system surroundings?

	Given how cheap something like this is, I would say unless there is a specific
reason why the world does not have this system, there would be something like
this in place.

--
         Thomas Jones-Low
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