Life & Temperatures on Titan

[DataPacRat]

Current musings: how much to draw on from 3e Vehicles to add options to 4e UltraTech's sonar-comms, to complicate whatever comm network exists in the subsurface ocean. Eg, VX1 suggests tight-beam and (very) sensitive, which could let somebody reach the 5,000 miles to talk halfway around the planet. (With a bit of delay, given sound's ~1.5 km/s speed in saltwater.) Or could make it easier/cheaper for someone at the top of the ocean chat with someone at the bottom.

(VLF radio doesn't seem to penetrate deeply enough, ELF needs miles-long antennas and has terrible bandwidth, and THS Under Pressure's notes on water transparency put the kibosh on lasercomms of more than half a mile or so. And I'm not using the sort of superscience that permits neutrino comms.)

VX1 also has some numbers for sonar GPS beacons and receivers, though neglects to mention their useful range, or how many should be planted in any given area.

I suspect one of the less-expectedly important factors is how much slower the sonarcomms are than radio, especially for AIs running at faster than realtime...