H2O.

I too think that space war is a non-sense with the current state of technology. I even think that space war will not occur with warp. Even a warp ship can not know where his target is because in order to plot a trajectory, he will need informations about the ennemy localisation. Since information cannot travel faster than light, a moving target is impossible to reach at a reasonnable distance. So whe are left with the possibility of bringing an orbital weapon station close to a planet. But there come again the vulnerability of such weaponnery. So hurray ! No wars in space ! Wait a second, the uselessness of a weapon has never stopped anybody to build it (stealth fighter and beyond visual range missile for instance). Well, so much for space peace...

Your heatshield will have the same temperature as the rest of your ship. The only reason it could be cooler than your ship is an active cooling system. An active cooling system will consume an awfull lot of energy, therefore you need a electric generator system. Electric production produce heat too, therefore your will have an enormous quantity of heat to radiate. If you want to radiate heat on the opposite direction of your heatshield it will cause a problem : big radiators are required. They will be so big that your ship will probably be big enough to be spotted on a classical radar. On the problem of thrust. It is not needed to thrust continuously to be spotted. Even a very small thrust can be spotted at very large distance. And you will have to do an insertion burn, which will never be a small burn. And that is assuming you have plan your trajectory way before entering the planetary system your target is in. But stealth is a combination of low detection chances and speed. If you are coasting in the direction of a planet, coming from another planet or another planetary system it will take months before you are at firing range. As time goes by, your chances to stay hidden are dropping (you will pass in front of a star with your gigantic-radiator-over-equipped ship for instance). An other issue is that to fire you will have to turn on your active sensor, revealing your position. And an orbital ship is far more vulnerable than a ground-based weapons system.

Not that is impossible, but your ship mass will only be radiators. Even if you manage to hide yourself behind a heatshield (which by the way will radiate heat, there is no way it can be perfect), how will you direct your vessel without any trust ? It is impossible to assume that your target will not move for days.

So as the title says, hello everybody! This game is really interesting, and so fun to play I thought I may as just have a little talk with those who are interested in space and science in general. Greetings from France!