Communication

Communication is one of the foremost technologies. It enables coordination over long distances, enabling decision-making in real time and remote operating of drones and facilities. There are a myriad of communication systems available, most of them still operating on old and proven technology. One tech in particular has the chance to revolutionize communications, quantum entanglement devices. These are available and promising, their bandwidth is miserable to say the least, as is the price tag. Let us have a look at the different technologies and their uses.

Communication mediums

First, we have to differentiate between the different communication mediums and their different properties. We begin with the most common and trusted, the radio wave.

Radio Waves

Radio Waves come at different frequencies and are radiated omnidirectional from the transmitter. They fall into a frequency range of 30Hz to 300GHz and have the ability to reflect off surfaces and diffract around obstacles. Their speed is around the speed of light. On planets with an atmosphere, very high frequencies can bounce off the ionosphere, making them useful for very long-range communication. Inside metallic installations or in subterranean environments, the range is extremely crippled, sometimes almost to the line of sight. Radio waves do not travel far underwater, about 20-30 m for very low frequencies. Security is maintained by encrypting information because radio waves are easily intercepted or jammed.

Laser Communication

Information transformation between two fixed points can be established be laser aka tight beams. Very high bandwidths can be achieved, and the connection is only two directional. Interception of a laser link is almost impossible. Typically, the communication is encrypted to provide an additional layer of security. Laser links cannot be established underwater.

Microwave

The microwave lies somewhere between radio waves and laser communication. They are typically used to connect satellites with the surface. They can carry more bandwidth than standard radio waves, but are more susceptible to environmental interference. Microwaves cannot bend around objects as radio waves are, making them useless faster in fixed enclosures. Their directionality is somewhat tighter than the radio wave, but still relative broad to make them interceptable if you are facing the general direction.

Acoustic waves

A special contender in communications are the acoustic waves. They are the ones we naturally communicate with and the ones that work especially well underwater. They ore omnidirectional and easily intercepted. Underwater they are easily reflected and travel pretty fast with a speed of 1.5 km per second.

Quantum Entanglement

Quantum entanglement is a different beast from all the other communication forms. You basically take the particles and look at their state. As an allegory, imagine they can turn clockwise or counterclockwise. Now you entangle and synchronize the state. Both turn clockwise, for example. What happens after entanglement is, if you change the state of one particle, the other will follow suit. The frightening part is, that this works over distance, vast ones. So, for communication, you could exchange entangled particles embedded in a receiver and a transmitter. Changing state in the transmitter will also change state in the distant receiver.

Communication devices

We can handle communication devices in a pretty fast way. All of them are technical marvels that come in different sizes and qualities. All of them can either send, receive or do both and this is where the important things come in. Mostly, the range depends on the power of the signal and the sensitivity of the receiver. Both qualities go hand in hand with the size and cost of the device. Robustness has its cost in size and weight too. So, what can we expect from the communication devices? This will be no exhaustive description of everything available, we will just focus on the most essential aspects, personal communication devices. For personal communication devices, radio waves are the medium of choice. A typical handheld device has a range of about 10 km under the open sky, around 3 km in a forest or urban environment and in a building just inside that. In a space station, it could be just to the next bulkhead.
For simplicitie’s sake, the range of a man pack radio worn as a backpack has about thrice these ranges. If this was all, communication would be in a sorry state. This is why a good deal of additional hardware is available in a modern communication system. This can be the use of repeaters, portable antennas and even more robust units portable by multiple individuals. In space stations there is a system called the leaky feederin fact, a hyped up antenna running along corridors. A comm device can just be hooked up and piggyback this system should one be in a hostile environment. High security stations do not employ this technique.
We can think along the repeater way with microwave satellite links. Using this way, a planetwide communication can be achieved with no problem.

Intersystem communication

Intersystem communication is a issue in the Abyssal universe. The stellar projectors do not allow the passage of electromagnetic waves, so intersystem communication is not possible without bodily carrying the information through a projector hole. So a ship has to carry it through. This is a costly endeavour, in time and money. And it means that you have to entrust your communication to a third party if you do not happen to own a ship yourself.

Gameplay considerations

What does this all mean for gameplay? We can make some simple deductions. First, in normal situations, being in a well-developed systems there are well-developed communication systems that enable comms from almost every place. The lag can be significant, being about 4.5 hours from Pluto to earth, roundtrip 9 hours. Much can happen in 9 hours. Situations change in remote systems. If you do not happen to possess a quantum entanglement device, you could be out of luck. Establishing communication along the vast distances within a planetary system without established relay stations to propagate signals and signal targets is hard work for a communications officer on a space vessel or a space station. High power directional beams are needed to cross the gap in space. Calling for help out of a system is almost impossible. Big corporate facilities sometimes employ emergency ships with powered up Projectors to make a quick getaway. But this is for the big fish only.