That is true though. A computer run probe could do this run much better than a crewed ship.
But then, after some examination, I was approaching the conclusion that anything not a commercial ship is probably better computer run. Stealth or no.
We're in complete agreement on this one, though the conclusion depends a lot on how much maintainence the systems require.
Although your comment about in-system transit times probably won't apply to Newtonian Aurora. You can always use normal engines to get incredibly high speeds and simply jump to your target system with whatever speed you need. I would say it could even make relativistic missiles possible. (although there is no point in Aurora since nukes are super-effective and the advantage of relativistic missiles is that you can't see where they are since you can't get the information in time. Aurora having FTL sensors kinda kills that.
Then again, you can get much higher yield per ton with relativistic rocks than nukes.
EDIT: also that kilo-ton range "missiles" do more damage than a nuke. It's like a small asteroid impact.)
This is true, but relativistic rocks are also really expensive. After you go so fast (somewhere on the order of 2x exhaust velocity) kinetic energy starts to fall off. Unless you have antimatter drives, those aren't in the cards. The entire device was an answer in search of a solution.
Radar absorption is already present in original Aurora though. The original "cloaking device" only works on actives and makes the mounting ship appear much smaller. Which could end up (with alot of RP investment) with kiloton range ships that need an anti-missile sensor to find. (bigger resolution sensors don't even generate a contact)
-- Also to note that covering a system with anti-missile level of active sensor coverage is basically impossible
Hopefully, by the time they spot your "stealth" missile with high-res sensors on the planet, it'll be too late to try shooting it down. Especially in Newtonian Aurora where missile flight times have increased alot.
I am aware of that. However, the best cloaking devices are (IIRC) about .5%. A 10,000 ton ship would look like a 50 ton missile. However, if your opponent is of a reasonably comparable techlevel (and if he isn't, why are you doing this?) he can detect you at several hundred million kilometers if he has a reasonably-sized sensor available. And he then shoots you full of missiles. Your vessel can't take a stand-up fight, so you lose.
The point is to hope to conceal what your current position and velocity is so that even if they try looking, they'll have to scan large portions of the system before they can find you. They know where you *were*, but can't tell how fast you were going.
EDIT: if you were aiming at a planet, and they knew that, then they'ld have to scan a cone leading from your current position to plausible intersections with the orbit of the planet. That's too much to scan even with Aurora active sensors. At least if they need anti-missile resolution. Anti-ship resolutions can scan out to Mars orbit pretty easily.
That doesn't really work. If they know about where you are, and approximately how fast you're going, they will be able to find you. They know your current position just by seeing you, and Aurora ships are fast enough that they can get to your location before you can move, particularly when you're using a slow drive.
Nope. The 2.4GJ example railgun fires a 1ton shell with a momentum of 2 ton km/s. It also looks like a low tech railgun.
The way it looks like is that multiple small railguns would the way to go in designing a railgun-drive.
They're still better than the drives we have in RL.
You're confusing momentum and acceleration. My number was 1 km/s/day, which is the acceleration the ship can put on. Yours was a change in momentum. To get from yours to mine, we have to divide by the mass of the launching ship, then multiply by the number per day. Let's take a look at a ship of 10,000 tons (for a nice round number).
2 tonkm/s / 10,0000 tons = 2e-4 km/s or .2 m/s per shot.
1000 m/s/day / .2 m/s/shot = 5000 shot/day or 3.47 shot/min
2.4 GJ/shot * 5000 shot/day = 12 TJ/day or 138.9 MW.
139 MW is the power of the drive. While that's rather low, the problem is that, particularly if you're using a thermal reactor (which is pretty much a given, as all the reactors in Aurora are thermal) you have to get rid of waste heat. For a thermal reactor, 416.7 MW of it. That's a lot, and it assumes all other components are 100% efficient. Which they won't be.
You now have to get rid of all that heat. Heat sinks won't work for an significant length of time, which leaves you having to radiate quite a bit, which makes it you easy to detect.