The KSP Naval Academy

[Gauss H2K]

You are absolutely right about there being no stealth in space, but there can be tactics and equipment designed to hide certain craft from other vessels. When I first suggested "Stealth" I mentioned ships already motionless waiting for a target, like a trapdoor spider. They would have to be concealed in a "debris" cloud, and the other vessels that weren't supposed to be hiding would do everything in their power to draw all the attention to themselves, so the feint could work. Stealth doesn't conventionally work in space, but deception does.

[Sliinty]

Read the page. It does not. Any active or not even recently active piece of electronics will make your crouching tiger ninja ship radiate energy in ways that rocks and twisted metal do not. The distraction ships just get pew pew'd first.

Personally I quite like the idea of emps and hacking, cyberwarfare and such causing warships to have to revert to analogue, and it all goes to ww2 submarine style combat. Sci fi authors, make it happen.

[Valley]

If the maps in the game did not pinpoint every ship, probe and piece of floating junk in the system the idea of trying to hide by using planets, moons, and distance might work inside the game. Heck, I sometimes can't even see my own ships on the dark side of planets - I don't put lights on my military craft.

Course, that would also make it hard to aim.

And also dangerous to change orbits after the battle has been engaged - the chances of slamming into debris would increase with every exchange of fire.

You would even need scouts and fighters to expand your eyes to see where everything was.

Maybe we need a mod that removes tracking information?

[Sliinty]

Trust me I know all about debris after that exchange with zekes I had. 4 ships went down, 3 of which got torn to shreds (the combined mass of all 4 was ~680T) the 18k orbit around dres in that save is just insane.

Also considering the current early days state of pvp, we have bigger fish to fry in terms of rules.

[camulus777]

in KSP like i said before stealth is unlikely in the conventional you can see me sense however. If we are talking about stealth in space as a real combat tactic to say that it is impossible and that no one will ever come up with it is a bit presumptuous. I can think of a number of ways with today's technology to thwart active and passive scanning systems. One is to look like a natural event rather than a ship the other is to jam the hell out of your opponent till their scanners are flooded with random static.

[Sliinty]

If were talking about todays systems I would go even further, and venture to say jamming, electronic warfare and hacking far outstrip any actual weapons or armour in potential effectiveness.

[Joshiewowa]

Would you be allowed to use guided missiles? Like equip the missile with a probe core and guide it toward the other ship?

Edited August 12, 2013 by Joshiewowa

[Sliinty]

Would you be allowed to use guided missiles? Like equip the missile with a probe core and guide it toward the other ship?

Yes, you're allowed to do that.

[Joshiewowa]

Sweet! I'm going to start designing my ships now.

[Joshiewowa]

There should be a thread to arrange battles.

[Spartwo]

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/42925-Naval-battle-thread

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/45793-Kerbal-Powers-Roleplay

[Joshiewowa]

I feel shamed.

[iueras]

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.

Off topic but holy crap they are making Ender's Game into a movie? When can I throw my money at them?

EDIT: Just found the release date, Kingsley as Mazer? Perfect. Can't wait, thanks for the mention, I had NO idea this was in the works (I don't watch TV).

Edited August 13, 2013 by iueras

[camulus777]

yes i am excited about Ender's game as well. Especially since half the book is about space tactics and three dimensional thinking. Now for entertainment's sake i doubt they will cover half the stuff in the book but it will still be worth the 8 bucks to go see it. I may even take the wife. Ill just tell her it's about a little boy who overcomes challenges in a life of hardship and a military upbringing where he manages to cling to the ideals of childhood and still succeed in his goals. Think she will fall for that? lol

On a ksp note I've managed to make a triple layered armor hull on a torpedo cruiser that can take a direct hit from a full sized rocket booster taking no damage. It ways a lot and has an insane part count but it is indestructible. I even thought it was a fluke so i shot three more at it. No effect. It is not till after i fire off my weapons that it is vulnerable. There are some major restrictions to it including the fact that it has very little Delta V so its not practical as a warship at all but all the same it's kinda funny.

[Sliinty]

There should be a thread to arrange battles.

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/showthread.php/42925-Naval-battle-thread

EDIT: Ninja'd too bad.

[camulus777]

ok so i planned a mission to the mun and have 3 modules that arrived close together. I wanted to tape the landing of this new colony command module that i designed and got everything set up i was all set for touchdown at 4.5 kps or so and when i reached the ground it was not there. I just kept going through it. I passed through about 100m and hit with a boom. What the hell is going on. I have made dozens of landings on mun, and the planet Kerbal as a similar problem in that when i have a kerbal walking on it he goes chest deep into the terrain. Ne thoughts?

[Sliinty]

ok so i planned a mission to the mun and have 3 modules that arrived close together. I wanted to tape the landing of this new colony command module that i designed and got everything set up i was all set for touchdown at 4.5 kps or so and when i reached the ground it was not there. I just kept going through it. I passed through about 100m and hit with a boom. What the hell is going on. I have made dozens of landings on mun, and the planet Kerbal as a similar problem in that when i have a kerbal walking on it he goes chest deep into the terrain. Ne thoughts?

restart the game. beta is beta, ksp is glitchy sometimes.

[Valley]

Where is the next KSP Naval video? Is it up yet?

[camulus777]

in 2 days should be. I just got fraps so the quality should be a lot better i just hope i can manage to put some good music to it when i need to. Some of the free stuff is a bit lacking in length and I've got to do some fades with the sound. Its a better program but i wish it had some of the stuff ezvid came with. Oh well, i'll figure something out.

[camulus777]

Ok I've got a question for everyone. Who here uses destroyer sized ships and what is their part count? I want a good benchmark for my Diamondback class destroyer.

[camulus777]

Ok i finally got the second episode of Naval Academy up. Sry for the delay I gots two kids under two years old, and recording without getting them in it is like going to see the LA Phil Harmonic and not recording the horn section whilst they play Beethoven: Symphony No. 3.

[Stinger771]

Ok I've got a question for everyone. Who here uses destroyer sized ships and what is their part count? I want a good benchmark for my Diamondback class destroyer.

What kind of weaponry does your ship use? Sometimes weaponry can heavily effect part count. The destroyer I'm currently working on will probably end up around 500 parts...

[camulus777]

It is a modular design it can carry either 24 light torpedoes, 8 Panther missiles, 2 Thor Torpedoes, or 2 Hell-storm Torpedoes. I am also working on a cruise missile launching system for planetary bombardment. The missile is done and i can hit a target the size of 20t lander but the launch system is proving finicky. I also have a mine layer but that's more of a defensive weapon.

[camulus777]

KSP Naval Academy Wants You

I'm going to have a new episode about destroyer class ships and want to feature other people's designs. You will get full credit for your design of course, as well as an honorable mention. If you would like to, add a paragraph describing your vehicle with a history of its classes service or a specific ship and her crew, maybe even a captains log about the qualities of the ship. I will also reference your corporation if you have one and if you have any web links or forums you want to direct to add a few of those (no more than two please, I've got to fit all this stuff in a 29 min show. If your ship cant make it to orbit on its own that's fine just add that in your description so i can make preparations, if it can make sure your rocket is attached so that i can demonstrate it at launch. I won't go through the whole launch but this way those less experienced with getting heavy objects into space can learn from your unique designs (Also please include a brief launch description if there are any special launch instructions.). No Mods please. I think some of the mods are cool and all, but I don't use any at the moment. If you use mods you can still submit just make the ship out of stock parts.

To clarify a destroyer according to the KSP Naval academy forum is no less than 65.1t and no more than 80t. I know that's a small window for a ship class but considering "most" huge ships are only 200t, unless you are zekes then you have to make it bigger just out of principle, the destroyer is in the lower middle of ship sizes.

Courtesy of the KSP Naval Academy a privet university funded by AlTi AD inc.

So you guys know what kind of show it is. I've fixed my video quality problem as you can see in the second episode and will have better sound next time.

[Sliinty]

Where did you get 65-80T from? KIDA and the rest of the nav-com thread agree on 50-150T, looking more to the top end of the spectrum. A 65T ship is gonna have a hard time with dV or acceleration lugging around armour and any weaponry worthy of the title "destroyer" imo (you would hopefully expect a destroyer to have decent weapons...), "Huge" ships dont really exist, the only dreadnought thats seroiously been designed is zekes' 1kT monstrosity, so calling something less than 1/10 that size a destroyer is pretty weak...