A Little Help with Signaling Devices

[pmulcahy11b]

While working on a special request from Legbreaker for signaling devices (specifically flare guns), I bumped against a problem -- the brightness of a star cluster (you're not going to illuminate a large area with one), vs. the distance at which you can spot one (which can be tens of kilometers).

Flares are simple -- the burst radius is the radius of illumination. A Star cluster, however, could have two such radii -- the small size of the actual illumination provided, and the distance at which they could be spotted. I'm not sure how to stat that out. Maybe something like "C0 B5/10000," but it seems cumbersome.

Just for now, I've put a space on my charts that lists the candlepower of the star cluster, but that's not going to hold up for long.

If someone has a clever idea, let me know.