09-08-2016, 11:40 AM | #11 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Denver, Colorado
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Re: Building a Fun Spacecraft Combat Paradigm
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Putting missiles straight through the cloud of chaff will wreck them, and lasers and other beam weapons fired through get at least somewhat dispersed. Spacecraft spit out chaff clouds as a form of defense, and use maneuvers to keep the clouds between themselves and opponents -- even clouds that other spacecraft deployed. I'm liking the autonomous AKV idea even more, and maybe even "Hellburner" style attack vessels piloted by human beings. You'd need fast, maneuverable vehicles to position themselves for clean shots. https://www.amazon.com/Hellburner-C-...r+C.J.+Cherryh Quote:
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09-09-2016, 11:20 AM | #12 | |
Hero of Democracy
Join Date: Mar 2012
Location: far from the ocean
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Re: Building a Fun Spacecraft Combat Paradigm
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The "Urban Combat" approach to space warfare is an interesting one. You certainly want some ships for those kind of duties. Urban combat is inherently asymmetrical though -- you have an attacker and a defender. Its not sufficient to drive away ships preying on commerce.
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Be helpful, not pedantic Worlds Beyond Earth -- my blog Check out the PbP forum! If you don't see a game you'd like, ask me about making one! |
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09-10-2016, 07:40 AM | #13 | |
Join Date: Jul 2013
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Re: Building a Fun Spacecraft Combat Paradigm
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This might also make me change some other setting assumptions: If we assume combat to be interesting because it occurs in orbit, a reactionless drive is no longer necessary to keep travel times smaller than "too long". Meaning I could dispense with them altogether, and use something like the fusion rocket or - more extreme - the fusion torch engine. Combining this with a closer jump (maximum range for beam weaponry is 20,000 miles; we can put this out to the moon to allow for some manoeuvres plus missiles). Putting the same engine into missiles, or - as ericthered suggested - reactionless drives, would then increase both the missile range and - if we assume a certain minimum engine size - missile size. Increasing missile size to one to ten tons (and adding some armour) would both circumvent having hundreds or thousands of micro-missiles and having hundreds or thousands of laser rifles as point defense. AKVs would then probably present a reasonable expansion of that concept, greatly increasing lethality while not necessarily being a kamikaze weapon like the torch/reactionless missiles. I definitely have to think about that! |
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Tags |
hard sci-fi, spaceship, spaceship battles, spaceships |
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