Starfighter, Inc. - it talks the talk, but does it deliver?

[Tyko]

On 12/14/2017 at 8:15 AM, mikegarrison said:

There was a game called Terminus that really tried to have realistic space physics. No orbital mechanics, as I recall, but other than that it seemed pretty good. It did have a SAS-type mode where you could indicate a direction you wanted to go in and the ship could try to thrust such that it killed velocity in all other vectors. But you could also turn that off and play it so that you were entirely responsible for your velocity vector.

Anyway, the space combat was hard as hell to get right, because typically you would fly past your enemy and then spend a lot of time trying to just get back to them again, at which point you would fly past them again, etc. It turned out to be not terribly fun gameplay.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminus_(video_game)

I don't know if you realize this, but the expanse started out as online, forum-based role-playing game. The authors built up so much backstory for their in-game universe that they ended up writing it up as a novel.

Terminus was pretty cool...you could design your own ships and outfit them for all kinds of whacky missions. Normal flight was very fast, but not FTL. There were gates near all the inner planets to facilitate jumping, but nothing kept you from slow-boating from one planet to another. The craziest thing I ever did was to send a ship to the ice giants - there aren't any gates out there. I had to build a ship that could go for days. If I remember correctly it took something like 5-6 real-time days for the ship to fly to Uranus and I just had to leave the game running and hope it didn't crash. 

Sadly when I arrived and fired up my sensors there were no easter eggs...I was a bit let down that the devs couldn't have dropped an abandoned base or pirate base out there for me to find.

Edited December 19, 2017 by Tyko

[mikegarrison]

6 hours ago, tater said:

As in any debate about a SF warfare premise ... Also, crew is pretty pointless. Crew don't direct any weapon system in space combat, the computer does. Crew only weaken the capability of the craft, frankly.

Well, as you point out, it all depends on the premises of the tech. For instance, if you disallow FTL communication and fully-realized AI, then it may be worth the penalties of crew if that means you have decision-makers on the spot. It helps if you also have magic gravity, so the crew can take the same kind of accel levels as the ship itself. You end up with something like David Weber (although in his later books he develops some FTL com systems).

Speaking of David Weber, his "Honorverse" stories always assumed right from the start that gravity was instantaneous and felt everywhere, so his FTL communication is based on gravity pulses. Also, just about every battle in every book starts when gravity sensors detect a "hyperwave footprint" at the edge of a system, and then the clever admirals have to decide how to position their ships to trick the invaders. But if gravity is actually transmitted by waves that move at lightspeed....

Edited December 19, 2017 by mikegarrison

[DAL59]

39 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

And who needs stupid space missiles?

Lasers are easy to dodge(lightspeed delay), railguns won't always be lethal, but missiles can home in.  

40 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

How could a ship tell that it is surrendering when it even has no rope to rise a white flag?

Radio...

[kerbiloid]

Just now, DAL59 said:

Lasers are easy to dodge(lightspeed delay)

Fighters are not for AU-distances.

[DAL59]

40 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

I would first try to hit the Jupiter magnetosphere with a superbomb. Maybe, it would be enough.

Interesting.  Wouldn't get Callisto though.   

[kerbiloid]

Just now, DAL59 said:

Wouldn't get Callisto though.   

Would get the magnetospheric infrastructure, which would make troubles for the fighter operations.

[DAL59]

Just now, kerbiloid said:

Fighters are not for AU-distances.

Actually, a single light second might be enough for a maneuverable small drone.  

[kerbiloid]

1 minute ago, DAL59 said:

Actually, a single light second might be enough for a maneuverable small drone.  

And what could do a small drone from 300 000 km, including targeting?

[DAL59]

Nothing.  It would be approaching a target.  

And it would be hard to hit a small drone from 300,000 km away.  I know TANSIS, but that doesn't mean you can actually target the drone.  

[kerbiloid]

8 minutes ago, DAL59 said:

And it would be hard to hit a small drone from 300,000 km away. 

To make something, fighters should get closer to the target.
Then the hedgehog aims at all of them at once with its needles and detonates a megaton, hitting all of them by gamma-rays.

[Tyko]

This video does a great job of exploring issues of space warfare - especially stealth and issues with targeting. Totally worth the watch

 

 

[DAL59]

2 hours ago, Tyko said:

This video does a great job of exploring issues of space warfare - especially stealth and issues with targeting. Totally worth the watch

 

 

Yes, it is very useful.  Another useful site is project rho.  

[kerbiloid]

Btw, a self-propelled gamma-laser hedgehog can point all its needles as at multiple targets at once, so at a single big target.
And of course nothing stops from using the hedgehog as a bomb, detonating it in a target close proximity.
So, it's both assault and mass defense weapon. And I would not be surprised if the main future combat spaceship were a hedgehog medium-weight carrier.

(The idea of gamma-laser hedgehog is from the SDI pictures, not mine).

Edited December 20, 2017 by kerbiloid

[magnemoe]

15 hours ago, tater said:

As in any debate about a SF warfare premise, the underlying tech needs to all be on the table for a given setting. I was responding regarding it as a realistic thing. If the game has magical space drives with tons of dv in a tiny package, etc, then realism is out the window, but small craft might in fact be more useful.

OTOH, if you make fighter-sized craft capable of huge dvs, then I need to know how much dv I can potentially give any spacecraft in that SF universe. What % of c can I obtain with their drives? "Fighters" start looking like KE weapons pretty quickly. Also, crew is pretty pointless. Crew don't direct any weapon system in space combat, the computer does. Crew only weaken the capability of the craft, frankly.

I don't see an space fighter being useful, it would have limited endurance. Even with touch ships missions will be week and months, have fun an an small cabin. 
You want crew for strategical and political level decisions. Also nice for repairs and maintenance. 
My guess is that small ships will be more in the line of an missile torpedo boat, replace most of the weapons with fuel and you have an recon craft 
Smaller and you use drones as you can command them from a distance. 

40 minutes ago, kerbiloid said:

Btw, a self-propelled gamma-laser hedgehog can point all its needles as at multiple targets at once, so at a single big target.
And of course nothing stops from using the hedgehog as a bomb, detonating it in a target close proximity.
So, it's both assault and mass defense weapon. And I would not be surprised if the main future combat spaceship were a hedgehog medium-weight carrier.

(The idea of gamma-laser hedgehog is from the SDI pictures, not mine).

Yes but you can send in two waves with missiles. the hedgehog can just hit one of them. 
The tricks also work both ways, note that you can stealth an drifting warhead pretty well, not saying the hedgehog would be useless it would be nice against an swarm attack for one. 

[kerbiloid]

9 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Yes but you can send in two waves with missiles. the hedgehog can just hit one of them. 

Yes, and if you have a Rocinante-like ship with several hedgehogs, you can distribute them between defence from the attacking waves and your own assault target.

Also this is why they would be used on a ship: it will not just carry them to the distant target, but also protect from single attacks with its gun/missile turrets (when it's too expensive to spend a whole hedgehog).

Edited December 20, 2017 by kerbiloid