Star Wars & Sc-Fi Talk

AssassinsMace said:

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Can you believe this clown will have the chance to become the next President of the United States? It's either him or her (Hillary) the Benghazi debacle.

Let's get back on topic. Any one else seen the trailer for the Next call of Duty game?
Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare reminds me of Halo, and looks almost like a rebounding of. Titan fall minus the mechs and favoring fighters.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Let's get back on topic. Any one else seen the trailer for the Next call of Duty game?
Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare reminds me of Halo, and looks almost like a rebounding of. Titan fall minus the mechs and favoring fighters.

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There does seem to be mechs or exoskeletons at least in the trailer. The focus on air combat tends to be a limitation for most interpretations of space settings. There is the possibility for large spacestation interior settings where "ground" vehicle combat should be possible without necessarily removing air combat though flyboys would obviously prefer the advantage of open space.

Speaking of games the WWI setting of Battlefield 1 is the same historic period as the early Chinese Republic when cavalry, wuxia, and melee weapons still had roles to play. Would love to see mods with campaigns in such a setting or a wuxia superhero game set in this period.

There does seem to be mechs or exoskeletons at least in the trailer. The focus on air combat tends to be a limitation for most interpretations of space settings. There is the possibility for large space station interior settings where "ground" vehicle combat should be possible without necessarily removing air combat though flyboys would obviously prefer the advantage of open space.

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That's one of the things I am not liking about what I am seeing.
If you watch the trailers you see our hero jumping into a fighter. And you see him in his fighter attacking enemies in LEO. This is a problem.
Space Fighters are a Overused Scifi Troupe that has no science legs to stand on. Hard science says that a space fighter is a flying Coffin, Why? Because in the microgravity environ The Advantages of the fighter vanish.

The key advantage of the fighter in a atmosphere with a surface is that the fighter has far more Delta V then 90% of it's targets. This means that a fighter can out run or outManeuver most attacks, against slow surface targets it can change vectors and engage from almost unlimited angles.
Against a Equal target IE a fighter the key advantage is that both fighters pack enough firepower to demolish each other in a single action.

When you start dealing with microgravity suddenly those advantages are gone.
Large Capital ships would have equal delta V to any space fighter along with longer range. A space fighter has no speed edge vs a Capital ship the ability to perform sharp maneuvers is is also equalized as move for move a capital ship would be able to turn and burn equally.

Finally the capital ships would have the advantages all in it's favor. It's shear mass and likely addition of armor in the form of Whipple shields would render all of the space Fighters heavy weapons imputent, Where as a single hit from a space capital ship's arsenal would shred a space fighter like swatting a Mosquito. Farther more the short range of the space fighter would also render then useless as Capital ships with a longer range could in a solar system stand off and attack targets from orbit using heavier weapons like large caliber high velocity Rails guns and missile. Detection of launching fighters and capital ships like that seen in the trailer would be easy using the same IR sensor tech used today to watch for ICBM launches.

Upon detection capital ships would shell incoming adversaries and their space port. Additionally the biggest issue I have is the lack of Hard science in the form of having large capital ships like carriers as SSTOs. Due to gravity on earth you could never ever really have a large craft launch from land to orbit with out a massive amount of help on earth. on a smaller lighter planet or moon sure but landing something like a Carrier is impossible, It's a problem I also have with the new Star trek movies.

If it was a smaller type like a Destroyer or frigate or Cutter equivalent sure but a large carrier? then there is the shape of the craft seen in the trailers the most logical shape for a large space capital ship would be a cylinder not a boxy shape. What we see in the trailers is basically the helicarrier from the Avengers.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

That's one of the things I am not liking about what I am seeing.
If you watch the trailers you see our hero jumping into a fighter. And you see him in his fighter attacking enemies in LEO. This is a problem.
Space Fighters are a Overused Scifi Troupe that has no science legs to stand on. Hard science says that a space fighter is a flying Coffin, Why? Because in the microgravity environ The Advantages of the fighter vanish.

The key advantage of the fighter in a atmosphere with a surface is that the fighter has far more Delta V then 90% of it's targets. This means that a fighter can out run or outManeuver most attacks, against slow surface targets it can change vectors and engage from almost unlimited angles.
Against a Equal target IE a fighter the key advantage is that both fighters pack enough firepower to demolish each other in a single action.

When you start dealing with microgravity suddenly those advantages are gone.
Large Capital ships would have equal delta V to any space fighter along with longer range. A space fighter has no speed edge vs a Capital ship the ability to perform sharp maneuvers is is also equalized as move for move a capital ship would be able to turn and burn equally.

Finally the capital ships would have the advantages all in it's favor. It's shear mass and likely addition of armor in the form of Whipple shields would render all of the space Fighters heavy weapons imputent, Where as a single hit from a space capital ship's arsenal would shred a space fighter like swatting a Mosquito. Farther more the short range of the space fighter would also render then useless as Capital ships with a longer range could in a solar system stand off and attack targets from orbit using heavier weapons like large caliber high velocity Rails guns and missile. Detection of launching fighters and capital ships like that seen in the trailer would be easy using the same IR sensor tech used today to watch for ICBM launches.

Upon detection capital ships would shell incoming adversaries and their space port. Additionally the biggest issue I have is the lack of Hard science in the form of having large capital ships like carriers as SSTOs. Due to gravity on earth you could never ever really have a large craft launch from land to orbit with out a massive amount of help on earth. on a smaller lighter planet or moon sure but landing something like a Carrier is impossible, It's a problem I also have with the new Star trek movies.

If it was a smaller type like a Destroyer or frigate or Cutter equivalent sure but a large carrier? then there is the shape of the craft seen in the trailers the most logical shape for a large space capital ship would be a cylinder not a boxy shape. What we see in the trailers is basically the helicarrier from the Avengers.

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Yeah, but Wraiths have cloaking and Battlecruisers don't have detection!

Yeah, but Wraiths have cloaking and Battlecruisers don't have detection!

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Oh Hard Science says cloaks are also impossible. Stealth in a limited form maybe but closer to Mass Effect's Normandy with heat sinks, active cooling and radiation shielding.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

Oh Hard Science says cloaks are also impossible. Stealth in a limited form maybe but closer to Mass Effect's Normandy with heat sinks, active cooling and radiation shielding.

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Which is really all you need. Space combat, despite how movies portray it, likely will not happen at visual range.

Of course, hard science also casts doubt on the feasibility of space combat in the first place.

Which is really all you need. Space combat, despite how movies portray it, likely will not happen at visual range.

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True that but said systems are like in Mass Effect effective for a limited amount of time. And as to Visual range well telescopes can see much farther then the naked eye and as such "Visual" Range can be flexible. on Earth the curvature prevents seeing targets beyond a set range.

As to feasibility. The key issue is getting off the ground beyond that most everything is in place.

TerraN_EmpirE said:

True that but said systems are like in Mass Effect effective for a limited amount of time. And as to Visual range well telescopes can see much farther then the naked eye and as such "Visual" Range can be flexible. on Earth the curvature prevents seeing targets beyond a set range.

As to feasibility. The key issue is getting off the ground beyond that most everything is in place.

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Well, telescopes are just a form of sensor that concentrates visible light. A ship from millions of km away won't be reflecting enough light to be caught by a telescope. Heat and radiation are far easier to detect.

For the feasibility of space combat, the first question would be: why?

Space is big. Really big. Why would two opposing fleets ever meet each other in battle? What would be the purpose?

You can snipe fixed targets from millions of km away. By the time your enemies come to investigate, you'd be long gone. Planetary invasions will consist of long range bombardment until the enemy defenses are crippled, and then you send in ground forces.

The second question is, what would be your method of delivery? If space ships can travel at interstellar speeds, they will be faster than any missile you can shoot at them.