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Old 12-02-2020, 09:53 AM   #21
Taneli
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Default Re: [Space] The Benefit Of Building A Single Big System

How about having problems where kinetic kill devices create more problems than answers?

Right, the party “solved“ the mystery of the haunted space station by throwing a big rock at it. What extra problems did it create for them? Were there people at the station? Did the debri hit another station? Who owned either of these stations? Are insurance companies now after the party? Are they considered terrorists now?
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Old 12-02-2020, 09:54 AM   #22
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: [Space] The Benefit Of Building A Single Big System

A major difference is that cities, stations, etc. need to function every day, while spaceship turned weapon only needs to function long enough to reach the appropriate trajectory and velocity. For example, a SM+6 three-stage AKV that uses TL10 advanced nuclear pulse engines can reach 4,200 mps (2.2% c), which allows the SM+4 final stage to deal 6d×189,000 d-damage when it hits. During its final moments, it can also launch a payload of twenty 16cm missiles (over five turns), with each dealing 6dx16,800 d-damage, against any secondary targets. Point-defense is at -9 due to the velocity of the objects (of course, the ballistic attack is at -21 due to relative velocity, which is why you are targeting cities rather than spaecraft).

The thing about that scenario is that it is not unreasonable in most realistic TL10 campaigns. AKVs with missiles are often preferred defensive weapon systems of choice by civilian merchant because they offer a very large bang for the buck, and advanced nuclear pulse engines are preferred for long distance interplanetsry voyages. It would be laughably easy for even a minor military power to afford hundreds of such weapon platforms, deliver them to the Outer Solar System to wait, and use them as a MAD capability against any nation that would invade them.
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Old 12-02-2020, 09:59 AM   #23
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: [Space] The Benefit Of Building A Single Big System

Quote:
Originally Posted by Tyneras View Post
I'm talking about a spaceship crashing at interplanetary speeds, which easily gets into the large nuclear weapon range, not the ship blowing up like a bomb.
Sorry, I took your "bigger ones" to be the power plants of the cities. That the biggest problems of impacting spaceships belong to the things they impact can be taken as a given.

It's not just imterplanetary spaceships that make the problems either. A 100 ton spaceship that could survive re-entry without breaking up could make a crater like as much as 1000 tons of TNT.
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Old 12-02-2020, 10:06 AM   #24
Taneli
 
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Location: Helsinki, Finland
Default Re: [Space] The Benefit Of Building A Single Big System

In a MAD situation one should not have direct confrontations, but more covert.

Like during the Cold War. So, more spy stories and less war stories. Or proxy wars.

I really don't see the problem here, plenty of space for stories under a constant threat of the sky falling over your head.
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Old 12-02-2020, 10:09 AM   #25
Tyneras
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Kentucky, USA
Default Re: [Space] The Benefit Of Building A Single Big System

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
A major difference is that cities, stations, etc. need to function every day, while spaceship turned weapon only needs to function long enough to reach the appropriate trajectory and velocity. For example, a SM+6 three-stage AKV that uses TL10 advanced nuclear pulse engines can reach 4,200 mps (2.2% c), which allows the SM+4 final stage to deal 6d×189,000 d-damage when it hits. During its final moments, it can also launch a payload of twenty 16cm missiles (over five turns), with each dealing 6dx16,800 d-damage, against any secondary targets. Point-defense is at -9 due to the velocity of the objects (of course, the ballistic attack is at -21 due to relative velocity, which is why you are targeting cities rather than spaecraft).

The thing about that scenario is that it is not unreasonable in most realistic TL10 campaigns. AKVs with missiles are often preferred defensive weapon systems of choice by civilian merchant because they offer a very large bang for the buck, and advanced nuclear pulse engines are preferred for long distance interplanetsry voyages. It would be laughably easy for even a minor military power to afford hundreds of such weapon platforms, deliver them to the Outer Solar System to wait, and use them as a MAD capability against any nation that would invade them.
Except all you enemies watched you put them there and likely started wiping them out the moment hostilities began, and even the ones that survive to launch are going to take months to reach their targets, giving their targets a few million opportunities to take out each one. There's a good chance the war will be over before any of them reach their targets if it's a short clash (overwhelming victory or diplomacy, take your pick). A common fallacy in internet VS arguments is assuming all weapons and combatants instant appear at their most ideal location, understandable since the moment of impact/battle is the interesting part, not the days, months or years long trudge spent getting there.

Another issue of note is making sure that your space weapons don't harm any bystanders in the process. The conflict of West Mars Planitia vs the South Ceres Republic becomes very one sided if SRC's AKVs hit a bunch of uninvolved starships and it's suddenly them VS the entire system.
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Old 12-02-2020, 11:19 AM   #26
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: [Space] The Benefit Of Building A Single Big System

How do you attack a SM+6 target that over 17 light-days distant and four years away? The MAD element is the simple fact that the minor military power can strike beyond the grave, years after its enemy has conquered it. It really does not matter if some of the AKVs hit the wrong target along the way if the nation no longer exists.
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Old 12-02-2020, 11:36 AM   #27
Tyneras
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Kentucky, USA
Default Re: [Space] The Benefit Of Building A Single Big System

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
How do you attack a SM+6 target that over 17 light-days distant and four years away? The MAD element is the simple fact that the minor military power can strike beyond the grave, years after its enemy has conquered it. It really does not matter if some of the AKVs hit the wrong target along the way if the nation no longer exists.
The same way you remove SM-10 space trash from your travel lanes, only with a +16 bonus, with care and precision. AKVs look good on paper but anyone with equivalent technology that isn't asleep at the wheel is functionally invulnerable.

Realistic interplanetary warfare just generally impractical, and that's before you add in webworks of thousands or millions of other nations that may interfere, if only to make you stop shooting across the commerce lanes.
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Old 12-02-2020, 12:36 PM   #28
Fred Brackin
 
Join Date: Aug 2007
Default Re: [Space] The Benefit Of Building A Single Big System

Quote:
Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl View Post
How do you attack a SM+6 target that over 17 light-days distant and four years away? .
You know how in Characters you don't get any pts for Terminally Ill (more than 2 years)? I'd never trusts a "MAD" situation with a 4 year delay on it. Too much could ahppenb in that period. Particularly since the enemy you're trying to deter would 4 years uninterrupted by you to deal with it.

Nah, not a viable weapon system. People were _very_ worried about a MAD situation where one party wouldn't outlive the other by a figure measured in hours.
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Old 12-02-2020, 12:36 PM   #29
AlexanderHowl
 
Join Date: Feb 2016
Default Re: [Space] The Benefit Of Building A Single Big System

Spaceships already includes the maximum possible bonus in the weapon calculations, so that would not really be feasible. Anyway, beam weapon point defense still suffers a -9 to hit (kinetic weapons a -21 to hit) due to the velocity and you need to do enough damage to the AKV to vaporize it before it impacts it's target. And you have to defend against hundreds of targets (and thousands of their missiles) when the MAD wave finally attacks, so I am not sure that there would be enough point defense capabilities to engage every target sent from the grave by a minor military power. A major military power could potentially afford tens of thousands such AKVs, meaning that they could glass an entire planet with its final revenge.

What that basically means is that you need superscience to defend against realistic AKVs. Either you need superscience levels of accuracy, damage, and/or range to deal with a realistic threat or you need superscience to intercept the realistic AKV. Of course, superscience drives have their own issues, but they can be dealt with through proper design switches (inertial-limited STL drives and distance-limited FTL drives tend to work best in my experience).
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Old 12-02-2020, 01:33 PM   #30
Taneli
 
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Helsinki, Finland
Default Re: [Space] The Benefit Of Building A Single Big System

How do we currently defend against nuclear missiles hitting cities? Or airplanes hitting buildings, for that matter?
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