Bad science in fiction Hall of Shame

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

7 hours ago, magnemoe said:

An rocket engine is not an very effective weapon. Niven was wrong here. 
The problem is that the flame from the engie disperse pretty quickly so any artillery will out range it.
Space combat will be long range fighting even more so than naval warfare has become.
Now the engine will be an very good close in weapon system, hitting missiles or shells with the flame will take them out fast and having high spread is nice in this setting, simply burning away from them will generate an kill zone far wider than the ship. 

Not as a torch, but as the drive for a ramming ship. If your sci-fi universe has drives that are cheap and fast, then you have mass produced cheap missiles that could easily destroy an undefended space station or other ship, and most sci-fi settings like that allow anyone (Han Solo) to own them. In Star Wars it's particularly bad, since they just demonstrated that the FTL that practically everyone owns can be used as capital ship-destroying weapons.

[magnemoe]

16 minutes ago, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

Not as a torch, but as the drive for a ramming ship. If your sci-fi universe has drives that are cheap and fast, then you have mass produced cheap missiles that could easily destroy an undefended space station or other ship, and most sci-fi settings like that allow anyone (Han Solo) to own them. In Star Wars it's particularly bad, since they just demonstrated that the FTL that practically everyone owns can be used as capital ship-destroying weapons.

The star wars ramming was stupid, just fill an large freighter with rocks and ram stuff like the death star. crew it with an battle droid. 
it might even make the death star redundant as it pierce shields so it should be able to penetrate planetary shields and obvious regional shields like the one protecting the rebel base in the empire strikes back. 

Now if you ram you missiles bulk mas would survive the rocket flame.
You could have the AI in missile calculate if it would ram or fire the bomb pulsed x-ray laser who would be destroyed passing the exhaust. 

[Bill Phil]

6 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Its that an realistic design? Yes Niven used an photon laser engine on the starship but the ships in the man- kziin war used fusion engines.
Something like that would generate very hot plasma but again it would disperse before weapon range. 

It's theoretically possible. The necessary power to get high thrust, however, makes it effectively a spaceship strapped to a laser weapon. If it has external power sources, those are basically laser turrets.

In Man-Kzin wars, after the first one, they have FTL, so...

 

Edited September 8, 2018 by Bill Phil

[magnemoe]

13 minutes ago, Bill Phil said:

It's theoretically possible. The necessary power to get high thrust, however, makes it effectively a spaceship strapped to a laser weapon. If it has external power sources, those are basically laser turrets.

In Man-Kzin wars, after the first one, they have FTL, so...

Took humans some time to get gravity drives who let you do +100g burns. 
First drive was not used again and the Kziin went into boarding range assuming the target was harmless and yes in this setting an reaction drive as weapon would work. 
Note that boarding stopped being an thing during the US civil war. Weapons was so powerful and had so long range it did not work anymore. Both range and firepower increased magnitudes up to WW1. 
Note that boarding is still done but then under the guns of an warship or an war plane who will sink you if you don't allow the boarding or if boarding is ambushed.  
This would still work the same way in space. 

[Bill Phil]

19 hours ago, DAL59 said:

You don't need Hohmann windows if you have nuclear gas cores, so it wouldn't necessarily ruin plots to have some orbital mechanics.

Also, this new series has a unique non FTL method of interstellar travel, where gates accelerate crafts to near-relativistic speeds(not a problem, because the stars are in a cluster, so they are fairly close together).  However, what makes no sense is how the craft slow down before the destination gate is in place.  

It seems like the gates themselves slow the vehicles down at the other end. It's stated somewhere that using a single gate is inaccurate compared to having two on either end.

2 minutes ago, magnemoe said:

Took humans some time to get gravity drives who let you do +100g burns. 
First drive was not used again and the Kziin went into boarding range assuming the target was harmless and yes in this setting an reaction drive as weapon would work. 
Note that boarding stopped being an thing during the US civil war. Weapons was so powerful and had so long range it did not work anymore. Both range and firepower increased magnitudes up to WW1. 
Note that boarding is still done but then under the guns of an warship or an war plane who will sink you if you don't allow the boarding or if boarding is ambushed.  
This would still work the same way in space. 

Well, the Kzin have a culture geared toward fighting. I could see them trying to board a ship...

Edited September 8, 2018 by Bill Phil

[Xd the great]

4 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Took humans some time to get gravity drives who let you do +100g burns. 
First drive was not used again and the Kziin went into boarding range assuming the target was harmless and yes in this setting an reaction drive as weapon would work. 
Note that boarding stopped being an thing during the US civil war. Weapons was so powerful and had so long range it did not work anymore. Both range and firepower increased magnitudes up to WW1. 
Note that boarding is still done but then under the guns of an warship or an war plane who will sink you if you don't allow the boarding or if boarding is ambushed.  
This would still work the same way in space. 

Dude, who will board when you can just use a missile to blow ships up?

[kerbiloid]

2 hours ago, Xd the great said:

you can just use a missile to blow ships up

Then collect the floating goods, pass to the closest planet system, and sell them.

Spoiler

 

Edited September 9, 2018 by kerbiloid

[DAL59]

11 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

Then collect the floating goods, pass to the closest planet system, and sell them.

  Hide contents

 

That game was ahead of its time in terms of gameplay content, but the graphics make it so hard to play.  Elite 2 was way better, and also had newtonian physics, making it possibly the first orbital mechanics game, and the first game with brachistochrones.  If you want to play Elite 2, but with modern graphics, check out Pioneer.  If you want to play the original non-newtonian Elite, but with modern graphics, play Oolite.  

[p1t1o]

On 9/9/2018 at 5:26 PM, DAL59 said:

That game was ahead of its time in terms of gameplay content, but the graphics make it so hard to play.  Elite 2 was way better, and also had newtonian physics, making it possibly the first orbital mechanics game, and the first game with brachistochrones.  If you want to play Elite 2, but with modern graphics, check out Pioneer.  If you want to play the original non-newtonian Elite, but with modern graphics, play Oolite.  

Elite II also had a procedurally generated galaxy with thousands of start systems, and it came on two floppy discs!!

This was one of the first games I ever played

But godDANG was the combat hard! 

[kerbiloid]

Elite for ZX Spectrum had iirc 8000 star systems in 8 galaxies (or 8+1), and occupied just 42 kbytes,

[p1t1o]

Not to mention fully seamless (and to scale IIRC) between planetary surface and space. Ahead of its time is an understatement! 

Elite is to space games what Dune II is to the RTS and Wolfenstein to FPS.

[kerbiloid]

The Elite size in turn makes to think: how much place is occupied by our Milky Way galaxy if it is procedurally generated.

Some old scratched noname CD forgotten somewhere in an old notebook near the galaxy center.

And it's a pirate copy of a golden one.

Edited September 11, 2018 by kerbiloid

[DAL59]

On 9/9/2018 at 12:26 PM, DAL59 said:

making it possibly the first orbital mechanics game

If your pedantic enough, the second game ever made was an orbital mechanics game, the famous Spacewar! which is actually pretty fun.

[p1t1o]

On 9/8/2018 at 10:36 AM, magnemoe said:

An rocket engine is not an very effective weapon. Niven was wrong here. 

Niven did not say a rocket engine is a good weapon, he said that the effectiveness of any propulsion system is proportional to its effectiveness as a weapon.

In terms of advanced space propulsion, chemical rockets are at the bottom end of the scale, and so is their effectiveness as a weapon.

Now lets look at a 4000TW photon drive...

[magnemoe]

20 hours ago, kerbiloid said:

The Elite size in turn makes to think: how much place is occupied by our Milky Way galaxy if it is procedurally generated.

Some old scratched noname CD forgotten somewhere in an old notebook near the galaxy center.

And it's a pirate copy of a golden one.

If something is procedurally generated it tend not to take up any space, you are using an random generator with an fixed seed, then using the result as next seed, this way you get an infinite long list of random numbers you use to generate the world. 
Next task is to use the numbers to build the galaxy like the type of star from brown dwarfs up to supergiants, if its an double star or more, then add planets. 
You must use rules so generated planets has realistic orbits and so on. 
But the beauty is that the same random seed always give the same galaxy. Change it and you get an totally different one. 
In an game you will typically add stuff on top, like earth and our solar system. 

[DAL59]

On 9/11/2018 at 12:23 PM, kerbiloid said:

The Elite size in turn makes to think: how much place is occupied by our Milky Way galaxy if it is procedurally generated.

Some old scratched noname CD forgotten somewhere in an old notebook near the galaxy center.

And it's a pirate copy of a golden one.

Creating a seed from data is a lot harder than the reverse.  Thats how some cryptography works.  

 

On 9/12/2018 at 9:24 AM, magnemoe said:

If something is procedurally generated it tend not to take up any space, you are using an random generator with an fixed seed, then using the result as next seed, this way you get an infinite long list of random numbers you use to generate the world. 
Next task is to use the numbers to build the galaxy like the type of star from brown dwarfs up to supergiants, if its an double star or more, then add planets. 
You must use rules so generated planets has realistic orbits and so on. 
But the beauty is that the same random seed always give the same galaxy. Change it and you get an totally different one. 
In an game you will typically add stuff on top, like earth and our solar system. 

Space Engine is a great and free example of procedural generation done right.  It also has all known exoplanets.

[K^2]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

Creating a seed from data is a lot harder than the reverse.  Thats how some cryptography works.

I don't think saying "all cryptography" would be a stretch here. Though, you'd have to stretch definition of RNG a little.

On the topic of procedural generation, it's important to distinguish between stateful and stateless generation. Minecraft is stateless. Map consists of just the seed until you start visiting chunks and start messing with them. Once you approach a chunk, that chunk is generated and recorded, and from there on remains on disk. Dwarf Fortress is stateful. The entire map has to be generated upfront, with geological processes simulated, weathering applied, etc. Because of this, the entire map has to be in memory during generation, and offloaded to disk once created. But the upside is that DF won't have conflicting features that just happened to cross, like you see in MC.

[kerbiloid]

This raises a question: how much defined are those chunks of our galaxy which are still not visited or observed.

[Diche Bach]

On 9/14/2018 at 11:37 PM, kerbiloid said:

This raises a question: how much defined are those chunks of our galaxy which are still not visited or observed.

Heisenberg and Schrodinger are speeding down the highway when a state 
cop pulls them over. The cop walks up to the window and asks Heisenberg,
"Do you know how fast you were going?"
Heisenberg replies, "No, but I knew where I was."
The cop says, "You were going over 90 miles per hour!"
To which Heisenberg replies, "Fine. Now we're lost."
Thinking this answer is a little strange, the cop decides to investigate
the vehicle. He begins by opening the trunk. Shocked by what he finds, 
he shouts, "You have a dead cat in here!"
Schrodinger answers, "Well I do now!"

[kerbiloid]

The Noah's Ark Principle

Space Shuttle docks to the orbital station with its nose. Some arms or clamps catch its nose from aside.

***
Also, this movie (though as well as Dark Star and some others) highlight a specific problem of the artificial gravity.

When the brave spacemen live in zero-G they keep their habitat clean, throw rubbish into bags or cans, never smoke in bed, wash the plates and glasses, and so on.
Because any portion of dirt floating in midair will be sooner or later caught by their own faces.

Once an orbital station has an artificial gravity (and normal circulation of air), the sci-fi crews start behaving like pigs.
Unwashed plates and clothes across the room and table, the smoking right in the cabin, rubbish in every corner, and so on.

So, if you will be designing a spaceship, think a hundred times before adding a centrifugal habitat.
Just for greater Ordnung und Disziplin ^(tm).

Edited September 29, 2018 by kerbiloid

[DAL59]

Why is the meteor just cruising along like a plane?  Why does it look like a ballistic missile at 0:05?  Also, according to online calculators, the heat and air blasts would hit long before the tsunami.

[KG3]

1 hour ago, DAL59 said:

Why is the meteor just cruising along like a plane?  Why does it look like a ballistic missile at 0:05?  Also, according to online calculators, the heat and air blasts would hit long before the tsunami.

Ah, well it was 1998.  They didn't have on line calculators back then.  Also they probably thought a tsunami would be more dramatic and cinemagraphic than people being incinerated and blown to bits.  I seem to recall that New York City was hit by several tsunamis in the movies around that time.  

  I think the parts showing the impact from space were way too fast.  The shock wave should have been moving slower right?  

[Superfluous J]

2 hours ago, DAL59 said:

Why is the meteor just cruising along like a plane?  Why does it look like a ballistic missile at 0:05?  Also, according to online calculators, the heat and air blasts would hit long before the tsunami.

I know more like shallow impact amirite?

1 hour ago, KG3 said:

Ah, well it was 1998.  They didn't have on line calculators back then.  Also they probably thought a tsunami would be more dramatic and cinemagraphic than people being incinerated and blown to bits.

Also James Cameron et al had spent a lot of money trying to figure out how to cgi water for Titanic, so it makes sense they'd sell that tech to other studios and they'd (over)use it in their movies.

Disclaimer: I liked Deep Impact actually.

[DAL59]

On 9/8/2018 at 4:19 PM, Mad Rocket Scientist said:

the FTL that practically everyone owns can be used as capital ship-destroying weapons.

Usually there are interdictors though.  The real question is why there were no interdictors in TLJ's fleet.

[kerbiloid]

It should have title Shallow Impact.