Can You Hide Thruster Plumes ?

[Killer_Rabbit]

So I have been very busy recently posting on these forums about various aspects of ship design including stealth. Now Frozenbyte have said it is very unlikely stealth tech will ever appear in Starbase which means different solutions such as camouflage would have to be used to conceal a ship. However as far as I can tell the main giveaway that there is a ship somewhere is the brightly coloured plume of fire that highlights to anyone watching any ship that is even trying to be remotely stealthy. As such I was wondering would it be possible to build a skirt around the and along the length of the exhaust plume to hide it from observers (obviously not covering the back) or would such a thing simply be melted away.

 

[CalenLoki]

If it's wide enough, and you don't turn too rapidly, it should be doable.
But that may be very large and heavy, so it may be better to just use manoeuvring thrusters instead, as they are almost invisible in comparison.

 

[Killer_Rabbit]

Well it depends about the heavy because it doesn't need to be really strong it could just be a lightweight material with a decent connection to the rest of the ship

 

[CalenLoki]

Thinnest available plate is 12cm thick. Lightest available material is probably around irons mass. Plumes seems to last at lest 1 second, so up to 150m long.
We're talking tens of tons here. If not hundred for faster stuff.

Of course I'm just guessing.

 

[Verbatos]

I think if you had enough material to, you could easily make a cover for thrusters.
Of course we dont know the exact measurements of thruster trail length, width or even where exactly the thrust comes out of! (I mean it could come out of the centre like in SE or it could come out of the whole area.)
I'd say wait until the game comes out and just test it out a bit yourself.

 

[quantin]

That's not reasonable to hide it，I think in physics

 

[Burnside]

you can reduce the plume, certainly, but outright hiding it requires really deep installation, so something like the valiant or centurio would have to place its thrusters almost totally toward the nose to hide a good portion of the length

 

[CalenLoki]

I actually think it's an viable strategy now.
My previous nay saying was based on asdumption that corrosive trail is not straight tube. But sadly it is.
So you can put thruster section in front of the ship, around central axis, and build other modules around it.

Not only the plumes will be invisible, but also thrusters almost impossible to hit.
Works best for large ships.

 

[Burnside]

my thoughts exactly, it does sort of make a large ship very fragile and space-inefficient, but then "stealth ship" fragile and inefficient sounds like something prototypical of the role

 

[CalenLoki]

If you planned spaced armour anyway, it won't affect space efficiency or SI. Just run thruster trails under single layer of armour.
And additionally it'll act as death layer for anyone trying to break in. So an "covered comet" design.

Only weakness is turning - with single layer the visible trail will probably clip through.

Hmm... Now I need to redesign Freki with spaced armour and hidden plumes...

 

[CalenLoki]

Big fingers, small screen, short time...
I'll just call it "art"

It shows the idea, and that's the whole point.

 

[Burnside]

Bit of an oof.

 

[SuperbBuffalo]

If you planned spaced armour anyway, it won't affect space efficiency or SI. Just run thruster trails under single layer of armour.
And additionally it'll act as death layer for anyone trying to break in. So an "covered comet" design

It could be used to block the main entrance, for example, you could have two main doors one going in the side that leads to another door on the other side of the fume. It would make people have to cut through the side of the ship instead of the door. But you or any of your friends wouldn't be able to get in or out unless the pilot wanted them too.