Ships of the size for just transport sounds reasonable but considering that space is devoide of matter, ship speed would be irrelivent. Nommater if it was an engine put on smaller craft or some sort of ultra battle platform, they should move at relativly the same speed. Giving that smaller craft would probably still have a manuverability (which could possibly make them viable for defence if anything) its speed (which is an advantage smaller craft have enjoyed in most space combat related entertainment) will be the same and with it constantly making twists and turns instead of basicly one strait direction, they would fall far behind larger ships in offence due to the objective in most offensive senarios are based on advancing forward making them almost useless. The only use i can currently think up of is just a pilotless long range missle platfrom so it doesnt nessicarily have to keep up with a fleet. Opinions?
My knowledge of nukes comes from working for the NNSA, but my personal background is largely irrelevant. There's no point in discussing credentials in what is a completely anonymous conversation.
I can't even begin to describe how many things are wrong with those two statements.
-Dr. B
EDIT: The much dreaded double post.
The only reason for fighters/Missles i can think of would be the visibilyty. Sure you can easily blast away any Missle or fighter with a lasercannon, but you have to see them first. Space is a pretty vast area with lots of background radiation. So there is a good chance to hit a Cap on long ranges with an undetectable low emmision warhead. One possibilyty would be to launch the warhead with an super-cooled mass accelerator towards the enemy ship. As they dont expect to be attacked its unlikely that they change course. For small adjustments of the missle alignement it would be neccesary to use a cool engine like liquid hydrogen-repulsion to avoid detectable heatradiation.
This kind of space battle would be quite boring. One ship detects another ship and launches a misslie across several thousands of kilometers and tada! hours later the enemy ist dust....
That's Electromagnetic Reactive Armor. To understand how that stuff works, you need to understand how modern shaped-charge HEAT(High-Explosive Anti-Tank) warheads work.
HEAT warheads work by using a conventional explosive to convert a mass of solid metal(usually copper) into a fast-moving jet of very hot liquid that can cut through armor like a hot knife through butter. These warheads are easy and cheap and can be used in tank shells, anti-tank missiles and rocket-propelled grenades(RPGs).
Now, weapons and defenses go through a constant shift of balance, a game of cat-&-mouse where they're always being developed further to counter the enemy's most recent innovations. The initial method devised to counter shaped charges was Reactive Armor. Reactive armor works by setting off a counter-explosion when hit by a shaped charge, increasing the effective width of the armor because of the outward force of the explosion and dissipating the metal jet before it can harm the vehicle's hull.
Of course, it's a one-shot defense. A second attack on the same place will have no problems punching through. This was the philosophy of tandem warheads, which work by triggering off the counter-explosion and then detonating the shaped charge. Also, another major issue is that reactive armor is very bulky and can significantly increase the weight of a fighting vehicle.
The next innovation in defenses is Electromagnetic Reactive Armor. EMRA uses a totally different method - instead of an explosive filament, it uses a bank of capacitors charged by the vehicle's engine. When hit by a shaped charge, the capacitors discharge and release an electric shock that vaporizes the metal jet and stops it in it's tracks. The picture shown below shows a British test vehicle fitted with EMRA getting hit by a shaped charge. The vehicle was unscathed and was driven away later.
It probably takes a bit of time to recharge though once used. How it performs against tandem warheads, I don't know.
Well, technically we can have "plasma weapons". Charged particle beams are feasible, and if your using highly energetic ions as your ammunition, then technically you are shooting a "plasma" weapon. It ain't the plasma-ball you often see in SciFi, though(which is fictitious nonsense). Just a particle beam with a badge on it that makes it sound cooler.
Force fields are also possible. You can call use a strong electromagnetic field to deflect or slow down enemy particle beam fire. The term "force field" has also been used occasionally to refer to electromagnetic reactive armor. Again, neither of them are your SciFi invulnerability fields, but rather much more humdrum pieces of technology that can be given cool names.
Methinks it's a dumb idea to have any manned space warships, except for maybe a command ship with very heavy defenses that is used to coordinate the drone fleet(sort of like modern-day AWACS). Lugging people around is just a plain dumb idea that ruins your ships' performance whatever the size or class it may be of, when you can have semi-autonomous AI do the piloting for you. By then AI will be significantly more advanced and much smarter than it is now. Even today, the AI in the Global Hawk, X-45 J-UCAV and the X-47 Pegasus are pretty damn good.
You can't use Sins as an argument point when people like Bigglesworth and Mansh00ter are trying to argue about a realistic scenario. Sins is blasphemous fantasy fiction in space.
well, cheapness could be a factor, but it also could be the other way round. just look at todays developement, high-end aircraft like the f-22 can only be afforded by a few states and cost a huge sums of money, so it is not impossible that small fighters simply would be useless because of the bad cost:use ratio, compared to larger ships.
the point that they could be usefull to defend minor facilities could also be valid - and not. a) i really really dont think that there will be "space-pirates". it´s not that they could simply sneak up on you in space (there is basically no stealth in space) so you´d hardly be taken by suprise and furthermore, and i really really dont think that a small group of indiviuals (or even a larger group) could afford the technologies for pirating, i.e. ships, repairs, weapons, fuel, etc.... space-travelling wont be cheap (probably)
2. Fighters are good at killing other small craft.Fighters make for an excelent counter agaisnt other fighters. As stated in Point 1 small groups are likely to almost exclusivly use fighters making having more fighters a simple counter. Fighters are also good at attacking dropships, merchant ships, and other reletivly unarmed targets.Outside of large battles fighters and move around and pick off enemy ships as they go about their buisness (think Subs in WW2). You wouldn't want to send a cruiser to attack an enemy transport thats close to their defensive lines, Renforce ments might arive and destroy your more valuable cruiser. Even if they don't you still moved a much more usefull ship out of formation and weakend your lines, annd the cruiser would be over kill for an unarmed transport. However moving a squad of fighters wont really weaken your lines and if your fighters are destroyed their lost cost makes that mostly unimportant. And you can always add more fighters until there is enough to destroy the target without overkilling it.Inside of Battle fighters can move around and attack the enemies troop transports and other soft targets without reducing the strenght of your main fleet. if the enemy wants to keep those ships alive he will need to move other ships to defend them or move them closer to the actual battle. Assuming the enemy does the same thing then you will need to have fighters on hand to help counter his fighters.
this one is in my opinion totally invalid. fighers would be as easy to detect as anything else, probably easier because they have to burn more often, otherwise they will fly in a straight line and can be picked up without any difficulty (read this: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/rocket3w.html#nostealth). any ship armed with beam weapons, i.e. lasers could take them out in an instant. even with todays technology - and even more so with future technology - you´d have a hit-chance of 99%, as it is hard to imagine that the fighter can maneuver as fast as the speed of light .
also, i think you have to get away from the impression that space-warfare will be fought at a few kilometers distance. even today, fighter pilots train mostly in bvr-combat, that is "beyond visual range". in space, where detection is so much easier, you´d probably would shot at the most outer level of your weapons range and try to hit your opponent from huge distances (and i mean huuuge), perhaps with laser weaponry but for such extreme distances things like rail guns or coil guns, that reach extremely high velocities, would be more feasable (since unlike lasers they dont loose energy with larger distances).
this point means that there will be no need for fighers swopping fast past anything or doing dog-fighting maneuvers (which wouldn´t help them against laser-weapons)
last but not least, big ships might be overkill but laser weapons can have their energy levels adjusted quite easily, so they might be used just as scalpels to simply destroy certain systems on certain ships, or only disable them, so i guess that counts overkill out as well.
3. Fighters are still ships and still need to be shot.While fighters are nowhere near as powerful as larger ships, they still have weapons and must be dealt with. The enemy can't just ignore them or they will get severly damaged. Point defense weapons, while small will still damage larger ships, even capital ships. Wile the enemies point defense are keeping your fighters at bay, they wont be shooting at your ships. While the fighters are occupying the point defense they will also still be cuasing some damage on the enemy.
see above
4. Fighters are the only ships that can effectivly enter a planet's atmosphere.
point for you
Fighters will be the only things that can escort dropships onto a planet. without fighters to protect them the dropships will get destroyed by anti-air fire and enemy ground bassed fighters. After they escort the dropships in they can even aid the ground forces with air cover.And since we can't discount the possibilty of planet bassed weapons that can shoot ships in orbit, fighters are the only things that can take this weapons out with out taking heavy casualties, and without bombarding the surfase of the planet and causing massive collateral damage.
well, i wouldnt discount the possibillity of taking out planet-based weaponry via planetary bombardement. i dont mean that you need to completely waste the entire planet, but rather pin-point surgical strikes from space.
the same thing is often used today, well...i guess most of us have seen a guided bomb or rocket hit a specific building in cnn. just like today having the control over air-space before launching a ground-based operation, they same thing would probably apply to...space-space but i think this might be really a point where strike craft would be usefull, as you could not take out any enemy position with your large battleships, it simply wouldn´t be "economic" and here fighter planes might actually be usefull.
semi-edit: well, i just thought of something. fighers wouldn´t necessarily be able to enter a planets atmosphere. if they could, they would loose effectivness in space. the thing is, space-only fighters would look nowhere near something like in sins, of star wars. they would much more resemble the star furies from babylon 5 or the fighters from the game nexus. a really good design would look like that, and that hardly looks like it could fly in an atmosphere.
5. Fighters (and other small ships) are the only things that will be able to move effectivly inside of a plenets gravity well. (probably)
well, depends on how close to the planet we are thinking. if only in the outer levels of the gravity well, even a big ship could do that, close to the atmosphere - probably only fighters, but generally, that would probably be quite fuel-exhausting.
Bringing capital ships right next to a planet is probably not going to work. Unless some kind of tech reduces the affects of gravity large ships are going to have a really hard time moveing around next to a planet.
free-fall the same thing the iss does without crashing to earth (though they probably wouldnt move around a lot, but it is possible, just look at the space-shuttle)
6. Fighters (and other small ships) are the only thing that you would want anywhere near a planet.When a fighter gets shot, assuming it isn't completly destroyed, its going to drift into the plenet's gravity and get pulled in. it probably wont make it past the atmosphere but if it does it will amount to nothing more than a small meteorite hitting the planet. When the Super battleship (think a Kol) gets shot its going to do the same thing. Except its not going to burn up in the atmosphere, its going to land and take out a continent atleast. Then its engines and any war heads are going to go off and thats going to make matters worse. If your defending a planet your not going to want your ships or the enemies anywhere near it. IF your trying to conqure the planet the point will be lost if you accidentaly make a crator the size of australia on it.
Not only are falling dead ships a problem but you also have to deal with missed shots. when a fighter misses and the shot goes wild nothing is going to happen. even if it does hit the planet it wont have any greater effect than if the fighter itself was on the planet when it shot the attack. When a batteship shoots a slug from a mass driver thats the size of my house its going to mimic the same effect that a planatary bombardment would have had. If your goal isn't to destroy the planet your going to want to avoid accidentaly firing huge missile, energy weapons or kinetic weapons at it, or accidentaly crashing a ship on it
indeed a fighter going down to earth will be much less devastating than a big-cap ship (especially if the big ship has perhaps a nuclear reactor or something like that on board). but it wont take out a whole continent. assuming it ins´t blown into pieces (as you said) it still probably will disintigrate into several smaller parts while falling down, but yeah, the damage might be very extrensive except it hits an ocean or has some kind of self-destruct.
7. Fighters can be built easily, quickly, and in huge numbers.First Speed. Fighters manialy due to their size can be build very quickly. In times of war when your manufacturing capacity is maxed out it isn't unreasonable to assume that a medium grade fighter could be built in a few hours. A empire that makes use of fighter craft could drasticaly increase the size of its fighter forces in very short amounts of time. as the war wears on it can easily recover its losses of its fighter squads where as the building of frigate, crusiers, and battle ships will take much longer.The ease of which they can be build and the amount kind of go hand in hand. The needed facilites to make a fighter could proabably fit inside of a small autobody shop. New Jersey alone pobably has enough facilities that could be converted to fighter production with in a week that within another day it could produce 10,000 fighters.Your frigates and crusiers are going to need orbital facilities to atleast ground based ones with some form of transportation aid to help them get of planet. technicaly the frigates and smaller crusiers, if properly prepared, could be built on planet and transported into space in large numbers and releativly fast, but not even coming close to comparing to the rates fighters could. The facilities to build the frigates and cruisers are also going to be more costly and harder to make and the parts are going to be more costly and harder to find.
While the frigates and crusiers can still be made relitvly quickly and with some degree of ease and in decent numbers the massive capital shis can not. Capital ships are going to take years to build in times of peace and in times of war could be rushed into service in a matter of months, a far cry from the few hours fighters can be built in. Capital ships will require an orbital shipyard to be built; the shipyard is going to be just as costly and difficult to build, if not more, than the ships it builds. Most shipyards are only going to be able to build a few ships at once and not all planets will have a shipyard at all. Not only that but becuase of their stratagic value shipyards will be a prime target for enemies. and even more so if there is a ship in construction inside of it.
well, again i´ll disagree. if the fighers are build as the one linked above, they won´t be able to get into space by themselves. they also wont be able to go far away from a planet, simply because they lack everything that is needed for that, i.e. fuel, food, etc. you´d still need a carrier-ship for that and that would cost a lot of ressources again, like today where carriers are the most expensive military ships travelling the sea.
furthermore, i dont think a fighter would be build within hours, though i cant say it would be impossible. in that case, even the bigger ships (i dont like differencing them in frigates, cruisers and cap-ships, technically even a frigate is a cap-ship, that is, if space-vessels will be categorized in such manner at all) would be build much faster than todays, so months - yes, years - no
8. Fighters are less demanding on personel resources.A fighter is probably not going to have more than 2 people in it. That paired with their low tactical value they will be veiwed as almost disposable. new pilots can be trained and combat ready in as little as 1-2 weeks. You could easily have an entire division of fighters trained with in a month. In comparision the Cobalt light frigate has a crew of 350, that includes technicians, communications officers, damage control teams, weapons control teams, navigators, and the bridge crew. The Kol Class carries 2500 people. Not only do these ships need various experts in different fields but it also needs a good bridge crew to command the entire crew. Captians who are skilled enough to command entire ships are usaly pretty rare and a valuable resources.
while i cant say how many pilots space-fighters would have, i reaaaaalllllyyyyy doubt the could be trained in as little as two weeks. do you know what it takes to train a good fighter-pilot today? it takes years and hundreds of flight-hours until you have a good pilot. and look above, does that thing look easy to fly to you? space-pilots wont have to care about a few things our pilots have to think of, like gravity (UNLESS they fight inside a gravity well!) for example. but they have to think of so much more, for example: where am i going to and where am i looking to, since both things are not the same in space - unlike here. the stress from high g`s would be much higher in space, orientation a dozen times more difficult.
things might be different if you speak of the sins universe, but sins isn´t exactly realistic
that said, i think if there will be such a thing like space-fighters, they´re gonna be drones/like uavs, that is, computer guided (no limits on the g`s, can do more things at once, etc...)
ps: sorry for any grammatical or spelling errors in my english ^^
At the BEST, you will see high power technology in the hands of private corporations and industry. Just look at supertankers, tunnel diggers, building cranes, trucks that can carry schools, chemicals that can melt anything, diseases that can kill anyone, and factories that can crush carbon into diamond. Many of these things have the potential to cause catastrophic damage if they are loosed upon the world. Why, a local company wants to put giant ass tankers full of natural gas through an undersized and overused channel. Those things carry enough energy to devastate anything in a multi mile radius. Take a REAL mining truck of today, don't even mod it, and you can utterly rout Napoleon's armies. Yet in EVERY one of these situations, I don't see a single piece of populace threatening technology in the hands of an individual.
Also, who NEEDS a personal spaceship? Just look at today; who NEEDS a personal airplane? All the major uses for an airplane have been taken over by industry. You have personal transit, cargo transit, and even sightseeing tours. None of those things require that you get your own airplane. None of them require that you pass the many aptitude tests required to wield one. You don't need to ask FDA permission to do it, either. The same thing applies to modern boats, although personal boats are more easily accessible and less destructive. So what makes anyone think that will space be such an empty drab whole that you can't accomplish anything without your own ship? Why would anyone think that space is going to be a lawless hellhole where any jackass can get close enough to a planet to be a hazard, without getting turned into space scrap?
So no, I don't see where you think that such power will be in the hands of everyday civilian use. It will NEVER come to that, because
A ) That power will be bought up by industry first. If it's so cheap that anyone can get it:
B ) That power will be strictly controlled. It may be a simple aptitude test, perhaps a criminal background check. Maybe you have to work in tandem with local zone and law enforcement (Zoning laws, FDA, Space control, etc.) every step of the way. Even if you still get a nuclear tipped missile for cheap:
C ) People who abuse that power are still mortal. You're going to be shot by guns more valuable than that discount missile, from fighters more powerful than your cargo ship. Good luck.
D ) Supply and Demand. There's a reason that missile was cheap. No one else wanted it! Wallow in your last vacuum sucking folly as your low cost planet destroying investment proves its low value.
2 People seem to know what they are talking about with the Electro Magnetic field. I confess i got the plasma weapon thing from Wiki so it could be wrong, but Wiki usaly has atleast some grain of truth, it isn't flat out lies.
Well even if people aren't actualy used an AI that runs a ship that needs 350 people to operate is going to be signifacantly more complicated and expensive that one that controls a 1 man fighter. I think the size, cost and complexity of the AI scales up with the number of people its replacing.
Even if the fighters become hugely expensive they will still cost less compared to larger ships. an F-22 Raptor costs 137 Million, A Nimitz Class Carrier cost 4.5 Billion. Not every one uses the Raptors, most goverments are fine with lower end american fighters, soviet style fighters, or the own design. These all work fine against anything but a Raptor.
And even if the Frigate is a better use of money, getting you more bang for your buck, it wont actualy get ou anything if you can't afford all of it in the first place.
In regards to your second point about the cost of space technology being to much, thats not something we can even begin to guess on. I assume that as space travel becomes more mainstream and we colonize many different worlds the cost will come down. Just like originaly air tavel was super expensive.
As for the pirates, i think they can make it. When space travel just starts to get going there will be enough people who can get some ships out there with weapons and enough targets to hit, but not enough things to defend them all. Even if we can all see the pirate ship moving to highjack a transport there really isn't anything we can do if the closest ship is hours away. and Sensors are only going to give you a heat signature and maybe the ships size, not its make, model, and licesne plate.
And when space travel becomes common place there will be so many ships flying around that pirates will blend right in. Unless the pirates right in big letters "PIRATE" on the side of their ship how can any one tell the difference between a civilian transport and a small pirate frigate.
Detecting isn't the same as destroying, Even if the merchent ship my fighters are going after and the war ship over at the next planet detects the fighters both of them can't do anything about it. The war ship wont make it in time and the merchant ship has no weapons. IF the merchant ship managed to flee i still forced him to turn back and thats technicaly a win on my side. And if i force him to arm and armor all of his non-combat ships then he just wasted tons of money.
Yes fighters would be sluaghtered against a fleet by them selves, but thats not what i am saying they should do. they should operate like WW2 Subs and hit weak targets, and protect your own weak Targets.
If the fighters stayed inside of the carriers or atleast behind them and those ships closed the distance, since there is really no reason for them not to. the fighters could be released at a range where they can get into their firing ranges without first getting torn apart.
While there is no real reason for fighters to do what we typicaly thing they do today, there would be reason to have them move around the enemy craft. they would fly out of the firing arc for one weapon and into another, which would require more targeting on the enemy's part.
And for the over kill thing, even though you can weaken the lasers that doesn't change the fact that you just pulled a much more valuable ship out of formation to go hit the space ship version of a dump truck.
And some where the Enemy in a fleet movement has soft targets that fighters could hit. Even if they have to loop around they can come in from behind and atleast damage those targets.
Thats for point number 3 and i answered that while responding to number 2, so See above. I do want to add again that point defense lasers could still be used agianst the larger ships, so if they are busy shooting at fighters they wont be shooting at the capital ships.
While your capital ships probably could do pinpoint strikes on a planet, i see planet based weapons as huge, long range anticapital ship weapons. so while you could get you battleships into position and pinpoint these weapons they would also be shooting back.
And putting wings and even an engine designed for atmoshperic use wouldn't really reduce the fighters effectivness in space. since there is no resistance in space i can essentialy shape my space ships any way i want. i would need to take into account a aerodynamic design which could be things a little less effeicent, but not greatly so. more than anything that would increase the cost. But you could have 2 sperate squadrons of fighters, one normal space based one and one for attacking planets.
Also i couldn't actualy view those pictures.
You Basicaly Agreed on points 5 and 6 so i have nothing to say here.
If fighters can't make it out the atmosphere by themselves all they need to do is be placed on a large civilian tanker, think modern day oil tankers. For fighters to be deployed they need a dedicated carrier but all they need is a tanker to tansport them to where they need to be. Fighters are definatly going to be short range ships so they wont be able to travel to other planets by them selves, but they can be shoved in crates and transported pretty easily.
A fighter probably could be built in hours in times of war if the service was being really pushed on. its more likiely that it will take about a day. And bigger ships could be pressed into service faster in times of war but it will still take a while. And the matter of years on the really big battleships was durring times of peice when it wouldn't be rushed at all. in times of war they probably could get it out in a few months.
I am thinking that fighters will be the foot soldier of space. Not that every one would do it but look how the russians used their foot soldiers in WW2. The pilots would need just basic abbilities to fly it and that would be enough. Other groups could have highly trained elite pilots that would take more time i do not think most will. Either way when the war has been draging ong for a while new fresh recruits could be sent out in a few weeks, probably to die but atleast they are there.
Bobucles, you are trying to counter my arguments by invoking the rules which apply in today's world, when I am talking about a world which has as much in common as our has with ancient Greece. Supply and demand? Yes, I actually took that in acount. Marx stipulated that the advance of technology shall one day spell ruin for capitalism. It's actually quite simple - the basis of all costs is the amount of effort and energy required to produce a given product. If you have a source of nearly unlimited energy, you can do practically anything. You could even do alchemy, something which possible today but is impractical because of energy concerns. If you have unlimited sources of energy, and efforts are underway to accomplish just that (fusion-based powerplants which use hydrogen for fuel - in other words common water), you can dispense with capitalism because suddenly, the very basis for setting prices is lost. As I said, even material supply and demand is gone because you can use vast amounts of energy to simply dance across the periodic table, making proverbial "gold out of lead". So the whole "supply and demand" argument does not make sense when placed in the context of a technologically highly advanced society.
Perhaps you misunderstood me on the "thermonuclear device" - it's partially my fault for using the term, although "thermonuclear" does not mean "using fission". What I meant is an equivalent, any equivalent of such a device, whether it be a fusion power plant, or some as yet unimaginable device for storing vast amounts of energy in a small package. It would not have to be a bomb. It could be something mundane, such as a powerplant for your personal spaceship (and yes, I would like to have my own personal spaceship, just as everyone would like to have their own personal car and not have to rely on public transportation. Just the fact that nowadays its too difficult to obtain, maintain and pilot your own plane does not mean that there would be no demand for a cheap, easily pilotable equivalent of a personal jet).
Furthermore, you speak of controlling the distribution of such items when our goverments are woefully unable to control even the distribution of regular firearms. In a world where technological advance has led to mass production of incredibly powerful sources of energy, such regulation would be utterly impossible, just like it would be impossible to control who can buy batteries in a store today. Also, keep in mind that the destructive, criminal elements of our society do not particularly care for laws and regulations and are frequently able to circumvent them. In fact, the only thing which is preventing nuclear weapons to fall into their hands is that they are, as you said, very rare and difficult to produce and therefore highly accountable.
If things were different, if we had the technology to produce (for example) firearms which use cheap basis for fuel/ammo and unleash destructive power far greater than that of a regular cruise missile with each shot... I leave the rest to your imagination. And I assure you, a civilization which could bridge the gap between the stars would have access to levels of technology far greater than that.
If we can't handle weapons that kill half of the population we will never get to weapons that kill all of it. So we will keep screwing up with the Half weapons until we become mature enough to have and possibly use them without destroying half the population.
And your take on supply and demand forgets to take into account demand. Why exactly would i need a small thermonuclear device at home anyway? Assuming i can turn any material into any material i would still need to do something with that material, a lump of steel and iron is alot different from a car even though they are the same materials. people will still need to make finished goods since most of use can't get by on raw materials alown. Even if i could use pure energy to shape the materials i still would need to know how, and for that matter i would need to know how to just change the materials. Your also forgeting the concept of time. Sure i can turn some raw sewage into dimond but it will take time
It does not matter for what I would need such devices, it matters only that they would be available. Maybe to power your home teleporter? Or just as an autonomous energy source for all your energy needs for the next few decades.
"If we can't handle weapons that kill half of the population we will never get to weapons that kill all of it. So we will keep screwing up with the Half weapons until we become mature enough to have and possibly use them without destroying half the population."
That is what I am saying. Therefore space combat will never happen. If we try to go to space with our weapons, you can be assured civilisation will not survive.
In any case, humanity will, by necessity of survival, either end up as an enlightened, peaceful species, or as an extinct one.
the point of an ai would be, that you dont need 350 people to monitor it, it´s the other way round (one person for lots of ai's). furthermore, an ai would be simply a computer(programm) - that could be copied by the millions for a buck - how could that be more expensive than raising a training a human pilot that once is dead, is dead - whereas the ai was just a cheap copy. plus, even with the processing-power today, we can simply (like really simply) outclass even steven hawking, all it lacks is the software (i.e. the ai). an ai would probably be really cheap, extremely capable and almost if not fully automated.
right now, "all" a modern fighter pilot does is adjust speed, heading, height - basically (simplified). without a computer, most modern planes would fall from the skies, because it is so difficult (due to their instability which makes them more maneuverable) to adjust everything the way it needs to be in order for the plane to even fly
also, perhaps most important: you would not havy any restriction on accleration. any human pilot would be restricted in his maneuvers by the g's they put on him, an ai would have no trouble with that and could simply outmaneuver anything except fellow ai's
well, i think we can estimate that it is going to be hugely expensive, the technologies that will be needed will be very complex, that is something you can count on. you can´t simly compare that to the early days of flying.
the first plane was build by a couple of brothers, the first satellite was build by one of the most powerfull countries in the world at its time. right now, fifty years after sputnik was launched, space-fare is basically still limited to the esa, nasa, the russian and chinese space-agencies. notice anything? yeah, those are all agencies of extremely rich and powerfull nations and the richest and most powerfull of those cant even manage to get a manned reusable space-craft intime into space (i´m talking about the shuttles), not even speaking of a modern replacement.
the only thing that could be counted as civilian space-fare is perhaps the space-ship one - and that is basically a plane flying at a very high altitude...
futhermore, how do you expect colonization to go on? we are still far away from setting up a station on the moon or mars, and lightyears ahead of even colonizing it. we dont even have the proper technology to really do that right now and if we would, most likely there wouldnt be enough money on good ol' earth to pull that off. apart from mars, we also dont have any real planets to colonize, counting out the many moons in sol. and the next habitable planet is.....so freaking far away. and unlike sins, we dont have anything that allows us to even go near lightspeed (and reaching lightspeed is like...impossible, literally) (though i´ve got to admit: build a rocket with all the fuel we have and some day it might get near the speed of light )
As for the pirates, i think they can make it. When space travel just starts to get going there will be enough people who can get some ships out there with weapons and enough targets to hit, but not enough things to defend them all. Even if we can all see the pirate ship moving to highjack a transport there really isn't anything we can do if the closest ship is hours away. and Sensors are only going to give you a heat signature and maybe the ships size, not its make, model, and licesne plate.And when space travel becomes common place there will be so many ships flying around that pirates will blend right in. Unless the pirates right in big letters "PIRATE" on the side of their ship how can any one tell the difference between a civilian transport and a small pirate frigate.
i doubt that it will be possible to simply go out there, buy a ship and a few weapons and go hunting. space is not the coast of somalia furthermore, space is...big, like really big. you´d see any ship days, weeks, heck months before it will get into your range. even if the infrared signature of a ship wont tell you its model, the crew that wont properly identify itself would be a dead give-away and ...if you know where they are you could simply take a look at them...with a telecope that is. ships wouldnt blend in, since they would have weapons...which civilian ship has weapons?
additionaly, once a pirate is identified you could simply radio that to everyone - and everyone would know that this particular ship is a pirate, and you´d constantly know where he is unless he hides behind a moon - but hey, why not just avoid that moon? there are just so many things that dont add up with pirates in space, i´ll simply provide a link later
why wouldnt the warship make it in time? even nowadays, the military could easily pursue any civilian ship that is comparable to its class. so except the pirates are not flying right next to it, there shouldnt be anything that would keep them from doing it. (yet, it should be possible that this might be the case, i´d just think in that case the freighter pilot was very careless)
but okay, lets assume that help wouldnt make it in time...help wont, but rockets, rail gun projectiles and laser-beams would. you see, if you cant hide, it is very difficult to avoid getting shot at. and if the pirate escapes...well just go after him, as i said he can only hide behind something, there is no way he could simply cloak himself.
Yes fighters would be sluaghtered against a fleet by them selves, but thats not what i am saying they should do. they should operate like WW2 Subs and hit weak targets, and protect your own weak Targets.If the fighters stayed inside of the carriers or atleast behind them and those ships closed the distance, since there is really no reason for them not to. the fighters could be released at a range where they can get into their firing ranges without first getting torn apart.While there is no real reason for fighters to do what we typicaly thing they do today, there would be reason to have them move around the enemy craft. they would fly out of the firing arc for one weapon and into another, which would require more targeting on the enemy's part.And for the over kill thing, even though you can weaken the lasers that doesn't change the fact that you just pulled a much more valuable ship out of formation to go hit the space ship version of a dump truck.And some where the Enemy in a fleet movement has soft targets that fighters could hit. Even if they have to loop around they can come in from behind and atleast damage those targets.
you wouldnt be able to come from behind. -n o w a y - as i said, you would be able to pick up enemies from hundreds of thousands of miles, heck, perhaps millions - unless you take a nap for a couple of days you would not get behind someone. the ranges will be, most most likely, extreme.
submarines in ww2 relied on their stealth, they would suprise the enemy, fire a few torpedos and hide again as soon as possible as they stand almost no chance in a direct battle. how do you want to do that if you cant hide, but are even weaker?
if figher-weapons would have weapons that have a higher range than big ships, they would need huuuuge weapons, basically bigger than anything on a capital ship. if those are energy based weapons, they would need generators with a higher outpout than those of capital ship. think of it, as an f-22 armed with the cannons of an iowa class battleship.
as for the targeting, there is no problem in making for example a very powerfull laser-turret. you´d have the basic gun inside and just "steer" it via mirrors into a small turret that simply has a mirror in it too, reflecting the laser upon the strike craft. it´s like saying you´re outmaneuvring a tank-turret by running around infront of it. and targeting itself would be very easy, you know where the ship is, you know how fast it is and you know where it heads - add to that a weapons firing with the speed of light and good bye evasive maneuver.
as for the last parrt, with pulling out a ship of formation...what formation? again, this wont be star wars or enterprise or sins or homeworld, ships wouldnt have to stay in a close formation, that would even be bad as it increases the chance of being hit. you´d simly select another target from right where you are, no need to maneuver (unless you use a fixed rail gun that goes along one of the axis of your ship)
Thats for point number 3 and i answered that while responding to number 2, so See above. I do want to add again that point defense lasers could still be used agianst the larger ships, so if they are busy shooting at fighters they wont be shooting at the capital ships.While your capital ships probably could do pinpoint strikes on a planet, i see planet based weapons as huge, long range anticapital ship weapons. so while you could get you battleships into position and pinpoint these weapons they would also be shooting back.
what would keep you from constructing equal wepaons for strike craft? also, firing projectiles with extreme high velocities from a planet is much more difficult than doing it from space. you´ll have to take into account, friction, gravity, rotation of your planet, etc. if you dont have any satellites in orbit (perhaps they´ve been destroyed) you could have a hard time even detecting the enemy.
- you still have mass in space
- you would need more room, making yourself bigger of taking away from for armor/fuel/ammo/etc.
- you have more area which can be hit, making you more vulnarable
basically, you can make any plane go into space (porvided that the engine doenst need O2 or the fuel contains the necessary O2), but not the other way round. if you use the most logical drive-layout (heres the pic), you will have a really hard time making that flying in an atmosphere. if you make it feasable for atmosphere, you loose out on maneuverability
i wouldnt think of a tanker, i´d think of a carrier rocket, similiar to those we use today carriers would be useless because of all the pointsdescribed earlier...basically, if fighters dont make any sense, a carrier for those would be even more useless
umm...that is kind of a strange comparison, foot-soldiers and pilots. this is a little bit too far catched for me. i have to see one modern country yet, that uses pilots like the russian used foot-soldiers, to pilot mulit-million dollar aircraft...they probably wouldnt even get the plane to start. if it would be that easy to fly something in space, than we wouldnt need pilots at all, than you could even use an ai that was made in our time that would do the job a dozen times better - with of the shelve technology, a ps3 would be probably more than enough.
here is the link i´ve talked about and which to my surprise has already been posted and cited a lot on these boards. it´s a really good read, quite complex though, but even if you cant understand all of the mathematic formulas (like me ^__^) it is very "entertaining"
-------> http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html <-------
(for fighters look at propulsion and perminilary notes)
I see.
We already have grenades that can destroy entire city blocks; they're called propane tanks.
Spaceships have a lot more energy in them. However, space is also much much bigger. An antimatter cargo freighter going critical in the middle of a run hurts no one (maybe the occupants). An antimatter cargo freighter docking on world is going to suffer a world of hurt from NIMBY mobs displeased with the previous colony to disappear.
Oh yeah, NIMBY. I forgot about that. In this decade, a local town is having a NIMBY battle over those giant tankers of propane going through a narrow channel. As long as humanity remains fairly constant throughout its minimal time to evolve, future man will also object to just throwing raw energy any damn place you feel like. Now imagine NIMBY concerns for even more fanstatic forms of highly dangerous energy. "Not on my Continent! Not on my Planet!" may become a future catch phrase for the latest in space warping matter pulverizing power generating collosus. Just because it's possible, does not mean that it is reasonable to be immature with its application.
An individual is not going to be in possession of personal alchemic nanofabricating technology. I boldly say this because I am confident there will be more people than PANTs hanging around. Also because people do not need PANTs to get food from the fridge, or to watch on demand TV, or to have sex with their robotic mistress.
So no, unlimited energy is not going to be everywhere. Besides, unlimited resources and war are paradoxal; who the hell would wage war if they already have everything? It defeats the point of discussing future war.
However, modern governments are slightly better in controlling the ownership of small items such as cars, houses, industrial plants, power plants, highways, intercontinental jets, and space craft. No matter what age of divine galactic mastery humanity is at, space craft are going to be big ticket items, well above terrestrial vehicles and terrestrial trinkets in terms of importance.
I'll wrap it up on something Peter Parker's uncle Ben said. Well, I forgot what he said, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't "With great power comes doing whatever the damn hell you please." No wait, that's actually how the real world often turns out... maybe it was more like "With great power, but less power than those with REALLY great power, comes your balls in a vice." That's more like it.
Sacbutserpent,
While I disagree, I have no logical ground to base an opinion on, other than my opinion that like you and i now play games and get quite adept at manuevering the 3 axis control for locating ships and planets in this game, which when i started, i was going all over the place trying to just get the mouse close to what i wanted, after several weeks, i can get exactly where i want with largely not even thinking about it. So too, in the same way, pilots using craft with various and many jet ports for propulsion to manuever themselves may seem daunting at first look, but no doubt would prove as easily mastered as you and i master the mouse 3 axis control system. I am not saying it is not hard, or even daunting, given if this were real we would have inenertial feedback and perhaps disorientation due to our frame of reference changing from one moment to another (at least in game our reference is always the screen in front of us, and therefore somewhat stable) hmmm... what if we put a screen in front of our real pilots and had them focus on that, it may be easier for them to orient themselves against a single point of focus instead of everything around them. Well.... just a thought. But i thought it might prove a manageable solution to have pilots using systems that could accomodate them, and bring of course the more discriminate human mind into the equation when using such a weapon as a fighter or bomber aircraft, be it in atmosphere or in orbit. The old adage still applies, at least to my mind it does... a human mind can think and evaluate and make choices no program or piece of hardware has yet been programmed for. In that way it is the best "tool" for use in unknown circumstances.
Just my two cents,
-Teal
Yikes, this moved on a lot since I last read.
Couple of comments.
Nukes : Someone presses the button and sends nukes at another country. Is that country going to say "Oh dear, game over, we lost." ? No, they will fire their own in retaliation, or they will ask an ally to fire theres if they havent got any. The world still has enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on this planet many times over, and anyone who thinks they can win a nuclear war is kidding themselves. The desire for revenge runs deep in the human mindset, and when everyone has finished revenging themselves against the first nation to launch a nuclear attack (all dont in the heat of the moment of the first launch), there will be so many explosions, that the radiation will kill anyone not taken out by a blast. This is the only reason they have not been used, because those who have their finger on the trigger realise that pushing it is an extinction level event. If this was not so, then they would ahve been used many times in the last 50 years, as surgical strikes. But they cannot be, since one launch would be all it took to start a global response. Its only terrorists and nutters who believe that starting a nuclear war is a way of winning.
Once humans get into space properly, there will be a percentage who choose to live in space. For them, the fighter (or something a bit larger), will be like the family car is now. A slightly larger fighter with living space for a single person or couple could be like the mobile homes or car with caravan of now. And something a bit bigger would form the personal trading ship. (Privateer 1 and 2, X2 and X3, for examples.) In X2 and X3 you live on your ship, and while it has its disadvantages in game play, the actual senario feels right to me.
I like your "Humans living in Space" theory. It sounds reasonable and it fits the circumstances we probably would be facing when we get there. In game it could make for an interesting scenario if we ever get Sins to a micro level, where we can have "characters", fathers, mothers, children in game, they're interactions, like going to school, moving off planet in a caravan to another world etc... (while it isn't exactly the space shooter we have now, it could be very interesting and playable and perhaps even popular.
How many space games approach the episode complexity or enjoyment of Star Trek Next Generation or BattleStar Galactica or Babylon 5? Now that would be some game yes? shoot em up and die hard drama at the same time. Haha... eventually games will need to cross that line in the entertainment media where they are more than just finger twitch shoot em ups. Of course some out there already are. And maybe more as time goes on. Sorry I got carried away...
Why, then, do people invent theoretical space fighting machines? Most of the resources available in space are available in abundance, and there is certainly no lack for room.
You people don't realize that, do you. The only thing in our solar system worth fighting over is Earth, and that happens to already be inhabited. Technical issues aside, there is no reason for space fighters. What in the hell kind of factions would be separated by distances in outer space, and why in the hell would they fight each other?--It's a rhetorical question. Don't try to come up with an answer, or you'll sound like an idiot.
...
Case closed.
Do you actually READ any science fiction books at all ?
Do you actually play any of the serious colonisation based games at all ?
Honestly, you come accross as someone who has not the first clue about anything to do with science fiction and thus has absolutely no clue as to what is possible and what is not.
You actually sound like you dont beleive in anything science fiction.
You just argue from a very limited fixed position and assume everyone else is an idiot because we do read a lot, play a lot and we beleive !
Well this 'idiot' feels sorry for you !
So your argument is a personal attack, and contains nothing relevant to the point. You didn't even consider the opposing argument. You have raised no points in favor of space war, and believe that you can trust science fiction to be an accurate teller of the future.
Science fiction, in itself, is a genre of books/movies/TV shows where the creator thinks up a fantasy universe as the background for the story, which he/she thinks could be possible with future technology(or actually, expects a hapless audience to think so, and bends the world in such a way as to attract maximum audience). For some reason, anything to do with space gets a Science Fiction badge, regardless of how realistic it is in accordance with the physics known at the time.
The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is "Science Fiction". By your argument, if SciFi is so correct, we should be able to cross 2 thirds of the galaxy in under a minute because of Bistromathics Drive, a super FTL starship drive that revolves around the functioning of a restaurant. Planetary economies should collapse under Shoe Event Horizons and there should be superintelligent shades of the color blue and all that other "sci fi" comedy stuff.
I think we should all just calm down, and remember this is just another internet debate. No need for anyone's feelings to get hurt.
If you want my opinion though, it's that any accurate prediction of space warfare must take into consideration several variables. The first would be human stupidity. That a big one. Just because something may be cheap or better doesn't mean someone will use it. The second would be ecomnomics. Just because you can use the super planet cracker, doesn't mean you should. Your enemy may use the floating chunk of dirt, but thats one big floating chunk of dirt. The third is technology. Let's face it, somethings may just be impossible. Anything that can fall between these wide margins might exist in the future.
*cough* i´d like to revoke my statement that space-fare is going to be extremely expensive, i dont know wether that will be the case or not
furthermore, piracy might exist too, though it will be very hard as for any reason i already explained, still it isnt impossible
in that case it wont be a figher but a personal spaceship.
and in x1/2/3 you live on your ship simply because the designers didnt intend to make it an rpg, but an economy-simulation
(+ there would be lots of downsides of living in a zero gravity environment)
You people don't realize that, do you. The only thing in our solar system worth fighting over is Earth, and that happens to already be inhabited. Technical issues aside, there is no reason for space fighters. What in the hell kind of factions would be separated by distances in outer space, and why in the hell would they fight each other?--It's a rhetorical question. Don't try to come up with an answer, or i´ll sound like an idiot.
um, what´s with all the gas that can theoratically be mined of saturn, neptune and jupiter? what's with mars, pretty much the only planet that is really suitable for colonization (/terraforming; mercury and venus would both be quite difficult since they are too close the sun)? earth cant sustain the current growth of humanity much longer and even though i believe/hope that we will and can manage that, what if not? mars would be the logical - and most likely only - place to go.
furthermore, by your logic, why do we fight today? (not that i can find anything good about war irl) it´s not like earth hasnt enough room for all of us right now and certainly had even more room a hundred or thousand years ago (except for the nazis, they apparantly needed lots of living room ).
and dont say "duh, it´s about ressources" - i think that most wars were not about ressources, but mostly territorial control and other, even more idiotic reasons (ethnic wars, power in general, etc)
if you draw the logic conclusions of your train of thought, then there would be no reason to go to space at all.
oh yeah, i slightly edited your post, dont take it seriously
I do not beleive anything would be available if no one needed. Thats called Demand. But since your talking so far into the future i'll just go with it. So every one has super energy generateors that can easily be converted into super weapons and energy in unlimited and super powered. So lest say i am the goverment, how do i stop my citizens from blowing up a planet when the guy next door's dog keeps craping in some one's yard?
Here one idea. I use my Unlimited supply of energy to create a barrier around each house or plot of land and phase it into a slightly different dimension. We will just negate the use of public places, and make it so that your whole life can be lived from your house. Social interaction will take place through holo-phones. You could still meet with people in the same dimension but you would have to invite them into your dimension.
Problem solved, any one that does set of a super bomb will just blow themselves and their house up.
If any one wants to argue the impracticality of Personal dimensions i will counter with the impracticality of palm sized thermonuclear reactors. But just to give an alternative, even if i don't isolate every person in a different dimension i can also just use the unlimited energy to create a massive wall of energy that would need more than a few palm generators to get through.
Thats actualy not what i sad. What i said was that an AI that replaces 350 people would be a lout more complex that an AI that Replaces 1. Actulay after rereading thats exactly what i said i don't understand how you messed that up.
And again, NO, YOU ARE NOT HEARING WHAT I SAID. And your also Wrong. A highly advanced computer that surpised people was able to Beat Steven Hawking at Chess by analyising the probablitlies of each move and then the counter to that move all they way to the end of the game. The computer actualy accounted for everything possible combinations of moves that could ever be made, because there is a limit to the number of moves that can be played. Creating an AI that can fly a fighter is going to be Way harder to make and require a way stronger computer. Creating an AI that can run a Cobalt with 350 people on it its going to be insanly difficult. That AI has to do the job of all the 350 people on it and must be able to understand all the different types of tasks, an AI that can control a KOL with 2500 is just going to be worse.
AI may be able to replaced pilots and it may even be able to replace entire warship crews, i have actualy never said it wouldn't. Infact early in this thread i said that i consider a Fighter that is crewed by an AI to still be a fighter. IF your using Human, AI, or anything else, its going to be more expensive to have it operate in a larger ship. The point that AI is cheeper doesn't mean anything compared to that fact that different AI will be Different Prices.
BUT FOR EVERY ONE ELSE, WHEN I SAD SHIPS AND FIGHTERS I AM NOT DRAWING A DISTINCTION BETWEEN WHAT CONTROLS IT. IF I MEAN ONE SPECIFIC CONTROLER I WILL SAY IT BUT ASSUME THAT I MEAN BOTH INTERCHANABLY.
Yeah the first plane was made by some brothers, now every country in the world uses them every day. From giant comercial planes, to military planes, all they way down to the little personal planes. One of them flew over my house while i was typing this reply. Along with our planes we have helicopters, and before planes we had blimps.Space flight started with Big rockets now we have space shuttles.
You saying that space flight is going to be severly limited is like some one saying airplanes are going to be useless a week after they were first designed. Give it some time, from what we can look space flight has advanced substantualy.
"the only thing that could be counted as civilian space-fare is perhaps the space-ship one - and that is basically a plane flying at a very high altitude..."
Actualy Your wrong. Not wrong in theory, just flat out wrong. Scaled Composites is making a second space ship. The White Knight 2 is the ship that will carry the actual shuttle into space and it was shown completed to the public in late july, the actualy shuttle was listed as 65% completed in May. They plan for it to be finsihed in late 2009 early 2010. The company who is buying these is run by Paul Allen, the guy who along with Bill Gates made microsoft, They plan on operating a Fleet of 5 ships.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scaled_Composites_White_Knight_Two
there a link for you.
If cvilians are already competing with goverments it wont be long until it progresses further.
Its unfortant that in this hypothetical debate we can't set a time frame, some of us like MR. unlimited energy and alchemy is way in the future, you are like 50 years in the future. most likely we will eventualy get to a point of being able to colonize worlds in an effeicent way (not requiring years of travel). if we don't then we will just colonize everything in out solar system.
Yeah you would see ships out there, and right when space becomes mainstream there wont be alot of ships out there. if you see a ship and don't know what its doing you will radio it. Ultimatly you will find out that that ship is doing something wrong. Its weapons can be hidden on it but you can still probably tell that something is up. Then what? its as you said possibly a month away. Your not going to get there before it raids that mining ship, and unless there is another warship closer to it no one is going to get there in time. But who descides to commit crimes when there is a warship within range?
Your going to Radio to Every one that Ship X is a pirate so your limited space fleet is going to do what at this point? are they all going to go after Ship X? or maybe only a few? or are you going to wait for Ship X to come to you? IF you only move one of your ships Ship X is going to evade it probably pretty easily. If you move all your ships then your probably going to catch Ship X. and while your entire fleet is out playing Tag Ships A, B, C, D, E, F, and so one are going to start raiding the places that your fleet used to defend. IF you wait for Ship X to come to you then it will just doc with another ship or dump the stuff it stole and some one else will come pick it up, or it will land on a planet.
Bringing this back to fighters, instead of fielding 5 war ships you could field maybe 2 and maybe 50 fighters or so. those fighters can cover more grand and be at more places, even if you group them into squads.
Why wouldn't the warship make it in time? do you know what making it in time means? incase you don't as your post leads me to beleive, it means that the warship gets there in-time to prevent my fighters from blowing the merchant ship up. if were talking about pirates its getting there before the pirates steal the cargo and take the crew hostage. In the case of the pirates they now have hostages and are going to do what i said above, drop them off and then hide the ship, in the ways i said. In the case of a war with my fighters attacking, after the fighters blow the ship to peices they are going to regroup with one of my fleets or at my basses. your warship is more than welcome to pursue my fighters right into my lines so that an entire fleet can shoot it.
Ok so you shoot at me. First order of buisness is that if you can see me i can see you, when you shoot i am going to know about it. Even a laser is going to have enery moving around your ship into the actual laser while it fires, i will see that your ship is preparing to fire a second before the actual laser hits me. true, my relfexes or even thos of a computer wont be enough for me to move my ship in that 1 second, but if the shot doesn't destroy me, because i am a frigate then i will move before the second hits, and if i am a fighter squad the rest of us are going to start moving. And thats just a laser. a Railgun will never hit me unless it just gets luky. Missiles i will see the entire time they are moving at me and i will just avoid them or shoot them down. and with missile sif your really far away even they wont make it in time.
Even if i don't see your weapons firing, because apperently i thought sensors were a waste, you need to plot my course and fire at where i will be in the few minutes it takes for the weapon to travel. if i change my speed or direction at all you will miss.
Again your weapons still need to travel to me. If my fighters are flying in a slightly erratic patter your ships wont be able to plaot their exact course when you need to account for a minute long lag with your weapons. you'll be stuck with just firing random shots into the mass of fighters, which will still kill many of them, but probably not all.
As i said, Seeing is not the same as destroying.
The sub Refrence was more in that the fighters will go around in the vast expanses of space where no one is really fighting and attack targets of oppurtunity. I agree with every one else, unless they are specific bombs fighters wont be able to harm capital ships in an effectiv manor. they will opperate by attacking unarmed soft targetrs.
What i ment by going from one fire in arc to another is as follows. Lets say your all around laser target is ontop of the ship, and my fighters go under the ship. No i assume you have a turrent there too. Your top turrent now can't hit me and had to pick another target, your bottom target needs to descided if shooting at me is worth while or should it keep shooting at what it was before, if it descides to go after me it needs to stop shooting the other thing and then aim at me. if i go back ontop its the same thing again. ITs not a solution to Pointdefense it just makes things a little harder on you.
I ment formation on the stratigic scale, not the tactical scale. your ships are going to be set up on lines like battles have always been, your line moves forwards and presses against the enemy line, the enemy falls back or your push is halted and you fall back. if you pull ships out of the line there are now holes in the line, making that areas weaker.
Saddly for me i have to go to work now so i will post this for now and then come back and finish responding.
I sincerely feel like a fool. I was under the impression that this debate was intended for the setting of reality.
If we are discussing a fantasy future, then yes, there will be space fighters. Because they're cool. I suppose we'll also have giant robots and lightsabers.
Thus, I concede the point.
On the possibility of fighters, I believe that we cannot in all good faith predict the technologys of the future. Can anyone here with all honesty say they know what will happen two hundred years from now? If your answer consists roughly of "to the best of my knowledge..." then you cannot predict it. Therefore, to seriously debate the possibilites is pointless, and this discussion is already over.
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