The KSP Naval Academy

[camulus777]

Just think of the poor Kerman that you are condemning to death.

[Valley]

what are you talking about? I can hit a target with a missile going 250 m/s on the first try... and causes massive damage. I don't see your problem.

Well, wait. Your missiles are light as heck. My lightest one is 2.5 tons. Weight is everything. i cannot say it enough.

Yes and no. I am still working on my Frigate's weapon system. Yes, it is weak. But I also downloaded one of the destroyers from the Spiritwolf/Hanland thread - selected for its armor - to be my target. I picked one designed to be a ram so it is slightly tougher than the other smaller capital ships. I just have to find the correct combination of range and, as you say, weight. It is, after all, my first large ship so I have some things to learn.

[Gauss H2K]

Gauss H2K your SSTO's are very cool. I love the smaller one its gota F-22 look to it.

I call it the falcon, since I made it to be the all around fighter while the other two are supposed to utilized in more specialized roles. I also think it looks more like the YF-23 than the F-22. I like how the biggest one [The Night Hawk] looks.

I mean look at this

[IcarusBen]

Just think of the poor Kerman that you are condemning to death.

Between 1 kerbal and the fate of the planet, I choose the kerbal. Muhahahaha! Seriously, though, a battering ram is a good strategy.

[camulus777]

Anyone got a corvette design?

[Caldari Navy]

May I make a few suggestions?

A save for each theater of operations? A save file for battles around Duna. A save file for Kerbin. And so on...

Also from a fleet point of view. Do we need carriers? During the World Wars, as the danger of aircraft hit many navies over the head with a hammer they were forced, sometimes against their will, to build carriers. BUT they also tried to extend the life of their older ships by trying to place small platforms on them to launch or land small fighters. Could capital ships also have a fighter or two attached to them for use against other small strike craft? The carrier the Spirit of Kerbin only carried a few fighters. That number could easily be carried by a few capital ships and launched before combat.

Drones?, I mean instead each ship should have certain drone capacity.

.

[camulus777]

I love drones, I just finished designing my drone frigate and have to make the rocket to launch it. Carries up to 6 of the little guys. And i finally got all the kinks worked out with my drop pod, with its part count reduced considerably. The video of that should be up by tomorrow as well as the first episode of KSP Naval Academy.

[Valley]

What stops players from using all unmanned ships? And replacing fighters with armed drones?

Edited August 8, 2013 by Valley

[Spartwo]

Double post!!!

[Spartwo]

What stops players from using all unmanned ships? And replacing fighters with armed drones?

no reason whatsoever.

[camulus777]

Something should. A restriction on what drones can do or on the size of an armed drone. Or maybe there will be corporations that use only AI units or an AI antagonist that is bent on wiping out Kerbal kind. This is no contest so i don't think that its going to be to big a deal, Macey gets the last say in what goes in his show. A battleship sized drone will probably not go over to well.

[camulus777]

though if it were a RTS I'd make up a rule that limited the size of combat AI. The computer power necessary to operate a ship that size and engage in advanced combat maneuvers would be pretty extensive. Remote controlled ships would still need a command ship to control them and that ship would have to be rather close to send real time commands with anything less than a two second delay. All one would have to do to neutralize these ships would be to destroy the command ship or even more simply bombard it with a wide band of signals and burn it out.

[camulus777]

In Battle LA that is exactly what the marines do to take out the enemy air power. They took out the command and control ship and the alien drones fell to the earth. When the Enders Game movie comes out the humans will defend earth the same way. Take out the command ship and the dependent drones will just die off.

[CaptainCrunch]

In Battle LA that is exactly what the marines do to take out the enemy air power. They took out the command and control ship and the alien drones fell to the earth. When the Enders Game movie comes out the humans will defend earth the same way. Take out the command ship and the dependent drones will just die off.

Which ironically is an absolutely terrible design for an invasion army which Hollywood created so humans can repeatedly beat technologically superior alien forces who were stupid enough to design everything around one tiny point of failure.

[Valley]

Funny thing is they are making aircraft that can fly themselves at this point so in the near future I can see them allowing the aircraft and unmanned armored cars and tanks to pick their own targets. So taking out a command center or command ship may not do anything in the next decade or so. Just program them with the same logo they tell soldiers - 'When in doubt win the war'.

[Valley]

though if it were a RTS I'd make up a rule that limited the size of combat AI. The computer power necessary to operate a ship that size and engage in advanced combat maneuvers would be pretty extensive. Remote controlled ships would still need a command ship to control them and that ship would have to be rather close to send real time commands with anything less than a two second delay. All one would have to do to neutralize these ships would be to destroy the command ship or even more simply bombard it with a wide band of signals and burn it out.

Once again maybe a size limit? Drones can only control ships of such-and-such a mass. There would have to be a difference between drones and missile use also. And yes, I assume Macey isn't going to use half or a third of the ships and craft submitted on the thread because of mass, design style, and so on. I assume SpiritWolf and Hanland have different ideas of the merits and flaws of ship design.

[camulus777]

The ones the navy and army are using are still controlled by a central command and satellite network so you just take out the sat and they drones are crap. Picking targets can be dangerous because a FOF system has to be better than a human operated one otherwise there will be political backwash. Not to mention we are vary wary of crating an army of machines that can be hacked. Simply flooding an aria with radio waves can seriously F up a drone squadron. Some nations are attempting laser operated drones but there are major disadvantages to that type of system, one being line of sight.

[camulus777]

drones are equip with weapons, droids are not, and cruise missiles are not but are used to ram targets. I have a missile i have been testing for the last few hours that can hit a target on a planet with or without an atmosphere. > any bases in range are ash.

[Valley]

I think of drones as small unmanned craft. Never thought of using the term droid for those unarmed ones that work at the stations and carriers. Also maybe we should make a 'Ram' Class for those ships designed for ramming and 'Monitor' Class for ships who are designed to fire from long ranger (which I am seeing a lot of) - kind of space going artillery in other words.

[camulus777]

this is why i made this post, because people with good ideas can make them selves heard.

[stallion x1]

Yeah i think having craft specialy designed to ram is a good idea because it adds another layer of strategy becuase a player facing one would have to choose between shooting of its enginges or taking a risk and destroying the whole thing

[Valley]

The video of that should be up by tomorrow as well as the first episode of KSP Naval Academy.

Where can we find this videos?

[Spartwo]

Let me just change the subject.

Safety in numbers

Otherwise known as swarming it's been a tactic which has served me well so far.The sheer thought of going up against say 100 fighters no matter how small is usually enough to even eliminate the thought of attacking.It even works in nature

Discuss:

Edited August 10, 2013 by Spartwo

[Gauss H2K]

I don't think it will work well in KSP due to part count limitations, but the numbers advantage has its appeal. I designed one of my SSTOs to be a simpler, lighter craft so that 5 of them would be just as complex, and carry just as much as a combination of the other two (3 vs 5). The thought was there are going to be engagements where having more fighters is more important than having a deadly ambush.

These next arguments are ignoring certain attributes of KSP that given the "rules" are somewhat cheap.

If droids/AI/unmanned vessels are used en bulk, as mentioned earlier there should be a "central drone command" "controlling" them. Otherwise they could be too powerful, and if/since this is the case the swarm strategy is limited by the command vessel where if its taken down, the drones become inert. The other way could be small, simple one kerbal fighters, but then a plethora of problems accompanies that. First most is gathering all the kerbals (unlimited "recruitment" aside) the next is building simple ships, the simpler the ship the more that can be used, but since they're manned, and you "have" a limit on kerbals, you want to make them reusable, which means more parts, and less ships. Then you have to arm these ships, and if they're to be rearmed (something most people would want, as oneshot fighters aren't efficient in the long run) that means the armament has be simple, yet be able to be reloaded.

In short: If "droids" are used then the risk of the command center being targeted means you still have to worry about maintaining and protecting valuable ships, and if manned vessels are used you want to make sure that the vessels aren't just flying coffins.

However I think a "swarm" smaller manned fighter ships with a central command hub/refueling station/carrier is more cost effective than larger ships with more firepower, since the less overall losses are incurred when one small fighter is destroyed vs a larger vessel. Where the larger vessels come into play are destroying other larger vessels like the refueling station/ central command hub/ carrier, severely reducing the longevity of the fighters.

[camulus777]

The first episode of my new KSP Naval Academy series. I decided to start off big with the carrier. The episode is called KSP Naval Academy: Ep1 Carriers here is the link. tell me what you think plz. Also join us for tactical assessment on out forum post KSP Naval Academy.

Edited August 10, 2013 by camulus777