CGT sensors and Star Trek cloaking devices

[Sarevok]

CGT sensors detect ships using gravity. However gravitational waves travel at lightspeed. At long ranges such within a system gravity from a cloaked ship could take hours to reach the sensors. At typical interstellar ranges this would be years. So does this mean CGT sensors would not be very effective detecting cloaked trek ships unless they are at point blank range ?

[The Kernel]

No, if CGT sensors use some sort of superluminal partical to detect gravitational emissions (they call it a "mass shadow") then the sensor wave can shoot out, impact with the graviton (or whatever it is zeroing in on) and return back to the ship faster than light.

[HRogge]

Mass shadows can be detected while flying through hyperspace, so it seems to be a FTL sensor system.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Mass shadows can be detected while flying through hyperspace, so it seems to be a FTL sensor system.

Are the Crystal Gravfield Trap Sensors not very expensive and rather uncommon? I always thought they use another sensor system in Hyperspace.

[Striderteen]

They are; CTGs are normally used only in extremely high-security installations as a countermeasure to cloaked ships.

[PainRack]

There isn't any evidence to suggest that CGTs can scan very far in the first place, however, we do know from hyperdrive "mass shadows" and a singular incident in the NJO that they can scan for gravitic anomalies at interstellar ranges, so............

[teleguy]

The relevant quote (from The Last Command) :

[Crystal gravfield traps were] designed to zoom in on the mass of sensor-stealthed ships from thousands of kilometers away

[Lord of the Farce]

The relevant quote (from The Last Command) :

[Crystal gravfield traps were] designed to zoom in on the mass of sensor-stealthed ships from thousands of kilometers away

IIRC, there is a quote from another source which indicates that CGT could pick up things from the opposite side of a planet, which implies that the range is actually more in the lines of tens of thousands of kilometers.

[Patrick Degan]

It's a moot question. A ship which is hours away by lightspeed detection poses no sort of attack threat. And cloaks won't mask a ship's mass or its waste heat or ion residue; which leaves at least three avenues of detection by passive sensors. A ST ship would have to come within a far closer distance than thousands of kilometres to strike, which puts passive detection into play for the Imperial crew.

So even without CGT sensors, a ST cloak will not provide an advantage against an Imperial ship.

[teleguy]

A ST ship would have to come within a far closer distance than thousands of kilometres to strike

Why do they have to come closer than thousands of kilometers to strike? ST ships have weapon ranges of at least several ten thousand kilometers ( "A Matter of Honor", "Elaan of Troyius " , "Journey to Babel ") to several hundred thousand kilometers ("The Wounded") .

And cloaks won't mask a ship's mass or its waste heat or ion residue;

ST ships can detect ion residues as seen in "The Battle" and in ST VI yet they are normally unable to detect cloaked ships. In "Face of the Enemy " we hear that the emissions of cloaked ships are carefully monitored to avoid detection. If it were that easy to find a cloaked ship don't you think the Federation could do it too?

[teleguy]

Another point:
Since CGTs detect the mass of a cloaked ship or the fluctuations that that mass creates , mass-lightening should have an impact on the effectiveness of CGT sensors.

[Sarevok]

Why do they have to come closer than thousands of kilometers to strike? ST ships have weapon ranges of at least several ten thousand kilometers ( "A Matter of Honor", "Elaan of Troyius " , "Journey to Babel ") to several hundred thousand kilometers ("The Wounded")

Usualy most Trek combat takes place within a range of few kilometers. The weapons may have high range but Trek fire control systems dont allow long range combat.

[teleguy]

Those episodes I mentioned are examples of long range combat.

[Lord Revan]

Those episodes I mentioned are examples of long range combat.

long range combat has been against a single target only IIRC, fleet combat has been in ranges of few km.

[Ghost Rider]

Those episodes I mentioned are examples of long range combat.

And this means what again with a cloaked ship?

Also Federation vessels have been shown to need to get with a few kilometers of the vessels, possibly due to counter measures or interference.
To say look they can thousands of KMs does nothing considering most of the Dominion war was done in tens of kilometers to barely that.

In the end...their cloak tech is detectable by even their opponents(why the Scimitar's was impressive...it's was able to shot and undetectable), and has been noted throughout TNG to give off specific emissions.

[teleguy]

Also Federation vessels have been shown to need to get with a few kilometers of the vessels, possibly due to counter measures or interference.

So there were no countermeasures or interference in "The Wounded"? Is that what you are saying?

To say look they can thousands of KMs does nothing considering most of the Dominion war was done in tens of kilometers to barely that.

To say look the Deathstar can destroy a planet does nothing considering most of the time it only destroys ships.[/sarcasm off]

In the end...their cloak tech is detectable by even their opponents(why the Scimitar's was impressive...it's was able to shot and undetectable), and has been noted throughout TNG to give off specific emissions.

What emissions?

[Ghost Rider]

Also Federation vessels have been shown to need to get with a few kilometers of the vessels, possibly due to counter measures or interference.

So there were no countermeasures or interference in "The Wounded"? Is that what you are saying?

Would be nice then to show that you can aptly demonstrated in why in the Battle for Cardassia they had to go point blank.

To say look they can thousands of KMs does nothing considering most of the Dominion war was done in tens of kilometers to barely that.

To say look the Deathstar can destroy a planet does nothing considering most of the time it only destroys ships.[/sarcasm off]

Good to know you throw away anything that disagrees with you.

So you care to address the point or just look stupid given it's a documented fact.

In the end...their cloak tech is detectable by even their opponents(why the Scimitar's was impressive...it's was able to shot and undetectable), and has been noted throughout TNG to give off specific emissions.

What emissions?

A so you can prove a cloak gives off no energy signature and the fact that the Federation looked for such when the Romulans were invading is just hyperbole.

[Alan Bolte]

This does bring up an interesting scenario, though. Technically, it would be possible for a large fleet of, say, Romulan Warbirds to move slowly towards a stationary target, say a small station or ground base, or an immobilized warship (a warship ready to move should see the torps and move well before they got there), fire a massive torpedo volley from tens or hundreds of thousands of KM, and slip away undetected until they're far enough away to go to warp. Seeing as I think it's generally agreed here that a photorp is or can be similar in power to a light turbolaser, such a fleet could successfully engage targets no other similar tech-level ST force could. This, of course, is assuming that ST cloak is undetectable by standard SW sensors at that range, which may or may not be the case, or may only be the case with the latest Romulan warships.

[Ghost Rider]

Still falls under the problem...is that it would even scratch the hull of anything except the smallest cruisers and most out of date installations.

And given SW sensor for detecting in far higher ranges then even the most generous of ST firing examples, they put shields up...thus the cloak's purpose is negated in a hard way.

Also the counter attack would not be in the favor of the enemy since SW has also shown far greater firing ranges as well...NJO goes into many more thousands of kilometers.

Literally it would like spitting paintballs at a battleship....if they hit.

[Praxis]

In a couple episodes they claimed to be firing from many kilometers away...but whenever we saw the camera outside the ship, the ship was firing at the enemy from only a couple klicks away.

[Sarevok]

A good example would be the Voyger episode "Human Error". The target missile was supposed to be thousands of kilometers away yet when Voyger opened fire it was right behind Voyger !

[teleguy]

Would be nice then to show that you can aptly demonstrated in why in the Battle for Cardassia they had to go point blank.

That they did doesn't prove that they had to.

Good to know you throw away anything that disagrees with you.

So you care to address the point or just look stupid given it's a documented fact.

It's also a documented fact that they fired at longer ranges . If your point is, that firing at shorter ranges in several instances somehow disproves that they fired at long ranges then its just stupid. A weapon that has a range of 200000km can hit something that is 10 km away but a weapon that has a range of 10km can't hit a target that is 200000km away.

A so you can prove a cloak gives off no energy signature and the fact that the Federation looked for such when the Romulans were invading is just hyperbole.

I can't remember the Federation ever detecting the emissions of a fully functional Romulan cloaking device "throughout TNG" as you said . In later series (DS9,..) after the Federation aquired a Romulan cloaking device perhaps but during TNG a Romulan cloak was pretty much undetectable.

[Ghost Rider]

Would be nice then to show that you can aptly demonstrated in why in the Battle for Cardassia they had to go point blank.

That they did doesn't prove that they had to.

So you deny the fact that attack at these thousands of KM range wouldn't have been benficial and made their formation useless?

Good to know you throw away anything that disagrees with you.

So you care to address the point or just look stupid given it's a documented fact.

It's also a documented fact that they fired at longer ranges . If your point is, that firing at shorter ranges in several instances somehow disproves that they fired at long ranges then its just stupid. A weapon that has a range of 200000km can hit something that is 10 km away but a weapon that has a range of 10km can't hit a target that is 200000km away.

Then showed a ultra high end that is no longer used given that visual evidence says other wise.

[teleguy]

A good example would be the Voyger episode "Human Error". The target missile was supposed to be thousands of kilometers away yet when Voyger opened fire it was right behind Voyger !

You can't accurately display thousands of kilometers on screen without making the ships nanometers in size. That wouldn't be very watchable ,would it ? So the only way to convey such distances is dialogue.

[Ghost Rider]

A good example would be the Voyger episode "Human Error". The target missile was supposed to be thousands of kilometers away yet when Voyger opened fire it was right behind Voyger !

You can't accurately display thousands of kilometers on screen without making the ships nanometers in size. That wouldn't be very watchable ,would it ? So the only way to convey such distances is dialogue.

Too bad visuals have always trumped dialogue since Visuals are objective versus dialogue which is subjected to hyperbole.