02-11-2019, 09:07 PM | #61 | ||
Join Date: May 2010
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Re: [Spaceships] How does large-scale space warfare play out (without superscience)?
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02-11-2019, 11:34 PM | #62 |
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Wellington, NZ
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Re: [Spaceships] How does large-scale space warfare play out (without superscience)?
Only if they're sufficiently alert. If their alert status is sufficiently relaxed they won't have time to get the PD systems up.
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Rupert Boleyn "A pessimist is an optimist with a sense of history." |
02-12-2019, 05:20 AM | #63 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: [Spaceships] How does large-scale space warfare play out (without superscience)?
I imagine that most PD systems will be on automatic. If something gets within PD range (100 miles) going more than 0.5 mps relative unless exempted by a human controller, the computer would kick in the PD system. Since the passive scanners would always be on and since the computers would always be looking for stuff, the computer is going to have a fairly good chance of detecting anything approaching the station/defense platform.
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02-12-2019, 09:35 AM | #64 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: [Spaceships] How does large-scale space warfare play out (without superscience)?
I thought that was clearly implied by "if you are patient". If you spend 10 years (and a lot less money) to destroy soemthing your opponent spent 20 years building that looks like a win for you (or at least a sharp constraint on him).
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Fred Brackin |
02-12-2019, 09:44 AM | #65 |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: [Spaceships] How does large-scale space warfare play out (without superscience)?
The most harsh modifiers arise from power and/or propulsion systems that not only add their own modifers but negate stealth as well. For an impactor that needs neither of those stealth systems work at full effect.
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Fred Brackin |
02-12-2019, 10:19 AM | #66 |
Join Date: May 2010
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Re: [Spaceships] How does large-scale space warfare play out (without superscience)?
True, that will cost you a net 13 modifier to the roll. But the +10 for plain sight, the +24 for being silhouetted against deep space, +8 or more for the array (that's for an SM+9 tramp freighter at TL10), and +5 for time spent all add up to making detection virtually guaranteed at close range. The modifiers I've just described add up to +39 even after subtracting -8 for TL10 stealth. That stealth penalty does matter at long range, but probably won't negate point defense.
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02-12-2019, 10:45 AM | #67 | |
Join Date: Aug 2007
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Re: [Spaceships] How does large-scale space warfare play out (without superscience)?
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So you want to gather up some more bonuses when you might be taking an unfamilairity penalty for never seeing anything like the impactor before.
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Fred Brackin |
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02-12-2019, 11:09 AM | #68 |
Join Date: Mar 2014
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Re: [Spaceships] How does large-scale space warfare play out (without superscience)?
If such impactors are a major danger, why wouldn't the observer have seen them before? In such senarios it should be an important part of training.
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02-12-2019, 11:17 AM | #69 |
Join Date: Feb 2016
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Re: [Spaceships] How does large-scale space warfare play out (without superscience)?
And what accuracy is an object that takes 10 years to get to its destination? If such impactors are a common hazards, stations will randomly change their orbit every year by 0.1%, so that a stealth impactor will miss by hundreds of kilometers. In addition, a polity can just put its station 10 kilometers below the ice of one of the moons of Saturn, where any small and slow impactor will not damage them.
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02-12-2019, 12:18 PM | #70 | |
Join Date: Jun 2013
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Re: [Spaceships] How does large-scale space warfare play out (without superscience)?
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More seriously, what do you envision a station with 10 km of ice between itself and space doing, and why is it a military target?
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