Interplanetary WAR!

[Scotius]

Or, alternatively you can do some math, point your gun in specific direction, wait for right moment and fire couple dozens of bullets on a trajectory crossing the orbit of your target. And then wait until laws of physics and orbital motion do the job for you.

If i would want to take out an orbital target, i would use traps. Basically small drones disguised as pieces of orbital junk, able to operate for months on very low power. Of course they would have to be deployed in advance on orbits close to targets, but not too close - as to not provoke thrash-cleaning activities. When my drone would drift close enough to enemy ship or space station, it would activate - either blowing up and spraying neighbourhoood with shrapnel, or would speed towards the target for kinetic kill.

[KASASpace]

Yes, however, I was explaining orbital dogfights are feasible, however they aren't exactly practical.

Traps sound good, but you would need a lot of them, and it would have to be _low power.

[peadar1987]

I'm guessing for ship-to-ship combat, lasers would be used (or else traps), in theory, you could dogfight, but why bother getting close enough to use guns when you could just destroy the enemy with a laser from a few hundred kilometres away?

[xcorps]

Pardon the dramatic title, but it is germane. I am working on a "hard" sci-fi tabletop RPG (pen & paper). The project is actually one of the things that drew me to KSP! The setting is early 22nd century Earth and solar system. There are no lightsabres, little green men, or warp drives. Mankind has moved out to other planets and moons, as well as the asteroid belt. One of the things I was considering including in the setting is some good old-fashioned war between factions. The question becomes this: in a realistic fictional setting, what are the challenges to something like this? Is it even possible? Mankind has always been his most creative when it came to killing other men, can he rise (or sink) to this challenge?

Imagine that –for whatever reasons– people on Mars were fighting with people in the asteroid belt. How would they go about it? The distances and travel times –while faster than current-day technology– are still daunting. What other issues might bloodthirsty off-worlders face? How would you overcome it while still obeying the laws of physics, etc.?

May I suggest you check out the Traveler RPG from the 1970's? In particular the High Guard and Trillion Credit Squadron modules. You may find some interesting ideas for inspiration in that excellent game.

Traveler 5 was released, but I haven't looked at it so I can't recommend it but at 600+ pages it's got to have a lot of stuff to ponder.

http://www.farfuture.net/Contents%20CDROM%20T5.pdf

[Red Iron Crown]

May I suggest you check out the Traveler RPG from the 1970's? In particular the High Guard and Trillion Credit Squadron modules. You may find some interesting ideas for inspiration in that excellent game.

Traveler 5 was released, but I haven't looked at it so I can't recommend it but at 600+ pages it's got to have a lot of stuff to ponder.

http://www.farfuture.net/Contents%20CDROM%20T5.pdf

Love that game, I played a lot of Traveler: The New Era as a teenager. The space combat system is abstracted a fair bit, but is reasonably realistic while keeping the math required to a minimum.

[xcorps]

We played the black books. I remember staring at the orbital charts in Scouts for hours wondering how anyone could ever figure it out.

[Red Iron Crown]

We played the black books. I remember staring at the orbital charts in Scouts for hours wondering how anyone could ever figure it out.

I spent a fair bit of time doing the same, I remember making a fairly large planetary system from scratch and being disappointed at how long it would take to get anywhere. It also introduced me to delta-V as a concept, the ships' fuel capacity was measured in G-hours.

Looking back on it now, our campaign was an almost perfect replica of Firefly (which was more than a decade away). Run down ship, a psionic character, the tough guy, the mechanic, the pilot and the leader. No wonder I loved that show so much.

[bighara]

Traveler is a fun time. We played it a fair bit back in the 80s. I seem to recall hours plotting out vectors in a "dogfight" with sandcasters and missiles. I'm hoping for a slightly less complex system for the game I'm designing. As I mentioned, the actual warfare part would be more plot device and source for challenges rather than part of the gameplay. If the PCs got involved in Clausewitzian politics, it would probably fall under the normal combat rules.

[KASASpace]

I'm guessing for ship-to-ship combat, lasers would be used (or else traps), in theory, you could dogfight, but why bother getting close enough to use guns when you could just destroy the enemy with a laser from a few hundred kilometres away?

Well, that could be considered a space "dogfight" as well......

Although on a bigger scale.

Although, I don't know about lasers being used, as they aren't exactly energy-efficient.

[Comrade Jenkens]

Would nuclear or fusion drives be available? This would both shorten travel times immensely and offer more options for space based combat.

[Spartwo]

The biggest issue would be getting close to the target.Once you see a ship coming all you have to do I change inclination and they have to wait till the original ETA to change orbit.The only option would be lasers but it would still be very difficult to get a hit(I'd reckon 10 times easier than the laser used to measure the moons distance from earth hitting the mirror)

[KASASpace]

The biggest issue would be getting close to the target.Once you see a ship coming all you have to do I change inclination and they have to wait till the original ETA to change orbit.The only option would be lasers but it would still be very difficult to get a hit(I'd reckon 10 times easier than the laser used to measure the moons distance from earth hitting the mirror)

Lasers, or particle weaponry.

LHC has particles that move at a good speed for that, and with enough velocity, you can effectively make a straight line orbit.

However, you can change your inclination to get a new intersection point, and then whoever has more Dv wins, as it's essentially a chase.

[peadar1987]

Well, that could be considered a space "dogfight" as well......

Although on a bigger scale.

Although, I don't know about lasers being used, as they aren't exactly energy-efficient.

True that, although they're probably still

more energy efficient than constantly changing orbits to try and intercept a target that doesn't want to be intercepted.

[bighara]

Would nuclear or fusion drives be available? This would both shorten travel times immensely and offer more options for space based combat.

The idea would be ≈0.25 - 0.3g linear acceleration is attainable with interplanetary flight.

[KASASpace]

The idea would be ≈0.25 - 0.3g linear acceleration is attainable with interplanetary flight.

That's actually fairly quick.

[KASASpace]

True that, although they're probably still

more energy efficient than constantly changing orbits to try and intercept a target that doesn't want to be intercepted.

Yeah, but even with future tech you would want a lot of power. Plus, it would punch holes in the enemy, or force them away (evaporated particles propelling it away).

[tychochallenge]

My guess is that private space agencies today will eventually develop to form factions as space travel becomes the norm and will essentially take over state/national governments. They may fight battles and wars in or around other planets to gain control of off-planet factories and mining stations. Some will give up society completely probably becoming space pirates raiding anything they can within a certain radius. That is my view of what may happen.

[andrew123]

I just hope that we can eventually make the forerunners look primitive. Not too hard in my opinion.

Plus... singularity. Nuff said.

[bighara]

That's actually fairly quick.

Yes, I know. From a gameplay perspective, I'm shooting for the idea that travel from one world to the next won't take months or years, but also isn't like just flying from NY to LA (a few hours). Also, it allows to semi-realistically hand-wave a few of the Zero-G issues travelers would experience on long trips, while still letting them be inserted into an adventure under the right circumstances. e.g. your engine efficiency is badly damaged. Your one shot at getting back to civilization is a low energy Hohmann transfer, but you'll have to set the ship tumbling just right to simulate any g's. This make the layout of the ship screwy and adds challenges of its own, and so on.

[KerikBalm]

Incorrect. While your science is correct in terms of black bodies, you are forgetting that not everything is a black body. So you are incorrect, because you are thinking far too isotropically. If you know what direction an enemy observer will be observing you from, then you can hide yourself using a thermal shade/panel.

(sorry for the very late reply)

Yes, you could, I've thought about this as well as a counter argument to the "no stealth in space" arguments...

But if stealth depends on knowing where the enemy is, then the enemny and you can't both have stealth at the same time, or it becomes just a roll of the dice.

Note that the narrower your radiation cone(s), the less heat you can radiate, and you'll need to radiate a lot to cool the sides you're presenting to the enemy to about 3K/cosmic background radiation temperatures.

I suppose the first side to get an observation array with full 360 degree coverage along every axis (well, assuming a radiation cone is not less than... say 30 degrees) wins the conflict. It can destroy any opposing IR observatories that are launched, while remaining hidden.

Unless, both sides get such an observation array up before the war commences... then there's no stealth. Knocking down the observation arrays is like knocking out sam radars to allow non stealth planes to operate safely.

But for current purposes, pretty much everything is orbiting in the same plane, you could just have a supercooled ring in the same plane as the planets orbit, and radiate "north" and "south"...

But once you start having military activity in space, those will likely cease to be safe directions to radiate.

And I suppose you could deploy an observation network even if the opponent has one up already using mass drivers firing supercooled, dormant payloads, they could get quite far out before warming up to detectable levels.

And any fusion reactor powering lasers firing terajoul -> petajoule pulses is going to make so much heat that any heat sink will be quickly overwhelmed, a "stealthy" rate of fire would be pretty low.

Of course, this all breaks down once your ship has to move.

While you can do directional radiation for your ship.. it has to expell reaction mass... and unless you propell your ship with a mass driver firing out little probes that also have that directional radiation system, your hot exhaust will give you away.

The maneuvering thrusters on the shuttle would be visible from the asteroid belt... when you try to move a ship, the exhaust will give it away, and then its simply a matter of plotting its course, and firing at the right place in the darkness at the right time.

If you tracked it accurately enough from its initial burn, you'll fire, and not even see the thing until it explodes

Edited April 20, 2014 by KerikBalm

[KASASpace]

Of course, this all breaks down once your ship has to move.

While you can do directional radiation for your ship.. it has to expell reaction mass... and unless you propell your ship with a mass driver firing out little probes that also have that directional radiation system, your hot exhaust will give you away.

The maneuvering thrusters on the shuttle would be visible from the asteroid belt... when you try to move a ship, the exhaust will give it away, and then its simply a matter of plotting its course, and firing at the right place in the darkness at the right time.

If you tracked it accurately enough from its initial burn, you'll fire, and not even see the thing until it explodes

Well, what if you used pressurized gas?

I mean for only minuscule burns. It's obviously too low Isp for anything large. But it can be done.

You keep the gas cool-ish and then expel it at high pressure. Of course, problem with that is it will heat up quickly, so that's why it would be cooled down to a liquid, and then "gasified" before being shot out.

Of course, it would probably not be a great idea.

[KerikBalm]

yea... cold gas has a terrible, terrible ISP...

I suppose you might be able to do a burn when outside of weapons range, and then fire a supercooled gass thruster, or even use a solar sail to alter your trajectory sufficiently, that when the enemy opens fires on where they expect you to be, they'll miss, but I wouldn't count on it working, and once you fire any weapons, your heat signature will likely be too big to hide.

And the gas would be detectable anyway...

It may not be stealth so much as camoflauge. It may be hard to tell an enemy ship from a space rock that has something subliming, but it will be detectable, but perhaps not identifiable.

But during war, if there is something drfiting close to your planet, better to be safe than sorry, and zap it with a pulse of a few gigajoules from a terawatt laser.

Edited April 21, 2014 by KerikBalm

[WH40krules]

Hey guys. This is a topic I've been thinking about allot, and I want to hear your guys opinions. More specificaly, stuff like the tactics and new weaponry and spacecraft needed for warfare in space. I have some of my own ideas, but I will see what you guys have first.

I apologize if this has been already brought up. Also, this is my first post. Thanks so much guys!

[Sillychris]

First strike would be everything.

[Nibb31]

There is already a complete thread just below yours. Please research before posting:

http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/threads/75141-Interplanetary-WAR!