[Spaceships] Under what tech assumptions Space Fighters make sense?

[Celjabba]

No strong and trusted AI and reactionless drive are mostly imperative, yes.

Others assumptions :

-that no automatic system can work faster than the human brain+hand
(star war basic, mostly :
if even the -AA turret- have to be manned, it make sense to have fighters instead of homing misiles.
Galactica, also, this time by design : no AI/strong automatism mean immune to AI ennemy)

-A variant, FTL/weapons systems need a human mind to operate

-You have fighters that can operate for hours/days and have FTL travel/fast travel , but no FTL communication (or only ftl comm from fixed point to fixed point).

celjabba

[DungeonCrawler]

Originally Posted by tshiggins

Autonomous Kill Vehicle. An armed drone piloted by an on-board sapient artificial intelligence (SAI). The SAI does not require a life-support system -- just enough electricity to keep the computer running. It's also immune to g-forces, which gives it superior maneuverability. Finally, you make a back-up copy of the SAI just before it launches, so it's fairly fearless -- especially if it's programmed that way, in the first place.

The idea originated in the Transhuman Space Line.

Ah. Thanks for the explanation. It's a term I hadn't seen before.

Actually, the concept of armed combat drones controlled by AIs has been around a lot longer than Transhuman Space (that came out since 2000, right?). In fact, that's essentially what Fred Saberhagen's Berserkers were/are. Or if an AI controlled ship isn't considered an AKV, the the smaller units that operated from a mother ship would have been (and they are still Berserkers).

Charles Sheffield used the concept in at least one of his books, but I'm CRSing which one. Some names I have seen used by various authors were "seeker" and "hunter-killer" (although that last can refer to manned ships with a similar mission).

[weby]

Star fighters can likely fill in several roles if the technology allows it. Listing below some of the roles and what is needed for it to be feasible.

If you want your fighters to be manned instead or automatic/robotic you need AI, else substitute drone for fighter in below.

1) Scouting: go out and look for the enemy. Requires: detection ranges are short compared to combat ranges. That is you can hide atleast to a distance that is fairly close to combat range.

2) Defence: Stop enemy missiles or similar. Requires: there is a limitation on number of point defence weapons you can mount on a capital ship. So to get more point defence, they have to be on separate hulls.

3) Dispersion: Survice in battle. Requires: eggshells armed with sledgehammers. That is if your weapons are so powerfull that no defence can stop them capital ships are useless, thus you need as many as possible individual ships.

4) Overwhelming strike: Send in such a heavy attack that enemy defences cannot stop it. All require the limitation in numbers of defensive weapons as in #2 and one of the below:
4a) Requires either that defences are ablative so the fighters can "push back the shields" or similar if in large enough numbers.
4b) Requires that the fighters can carry very damaging weapons, but if launched from too far the point defence will just pick them off. Or the range of such is too short.

5) Nuisance/degradation attack: Go to enemy and pick off parts of enemy ship. Requires: Fighters cannot carry weapons that can really damage a capital ship, but can damage surfacemounted things like sensors and such, and the capital ships cannot effectively kill the fighters. Thus you send out the fighters to degrade the enemy capital ships so they will have harder time to kill yours.

6) Pennypackets: You do not have enough of anything better. Requires: that the fighters are atleast of some utility as per options above even if only partially and you do not have enough actual capital ships to place when everywhere, so stationing a few fighters in less important places will give you atleast some protection.


Starwars fighters are something like 5 in small numbers, 4a in large numbers, so you need 2 to stop 4a.

Battlestar galactica is similar.

Then there are settings like the Starfire Series where the attacking waves of missiles and fighters get so huge(thousands and thousands) that you really NEED your own fighters to get them stopped as in #2.

[simulatoralive]

Why use human pilots instead of AI:
Really good ECM (Electronic Counter Measures).

With an assumption like this, all capitol ships would have the capability to emit high-powered energy fields that can disable the on-board electronics of any fighter or missile, including computers. All fighter craft would have backup mechanical controls for use in these ECM fields.

They'd still have electronics for navigation and such, but everything combat-useful can be mechanically operated, leading to a very seat-of-the-pants feel for the setting, where skill is more important than your space ship's gadgets.

This might be an interesting approach for a campaign, as the pilots would fight and work together without working communications systems. This could involve using telepaths for pilots or as a comm system on the mother ship...

Capitol ships might not be affected by the ECM fields; they could have armor that's thick enough to block them, while a fighter can't due to it's small size. This also keeps capitol ships slow and fighters fast.

[seano1]

Star fighters could fill torpedo boat and destroyer type rolls. The torpedo boats/bombers could carry nuclear missiles to attack the enemy capitol ships. The destroyer/interceptors could carry beam weapons to destroy the torpedo boats/bombers. You could send you own interceptors with your bombers so they kill there other guys interceptors before they kill your torpedo bombers.

[Crakkerjakk]

Originally Posted by seano1

Star fighters could fill torpedo boat and destroyer type rolls. The torpedo boats/bombers could carry nuclear missiles to attack the enemy capitol ships. The destroyer/interceptors could carry beam weapons to destroy the torpedo boats/bombers. You could send you own interceptors with your bombers so they kill there other guys interceptors before they kill your torpedo bombers.

Why not just launch the missiles from the "carrier"? They're either smaller targets than the bombers or they can can devote the mass the bomber uses for cockpit+return fuel to more payload, fuel, or sensors. Depending on the efficiency of PD, it may or may not make more sense to replace the missile escorts with more missiles. But even then, why do the missile escorts need to be piloted, instead of missiles targeted on the interceptors instead of the capital ship.

Point is, under certain tech or setting assumptions, what you say could certainly work. But the point of the thread (I think) is what those tech assumptions are, not the possible roles of space fighters.

EDIT:
To add my own two cents, I think in order to make Space Fighters a practical concept, you need the same conditions that make Air Fighters a practical concept currently.

Some sort of a horizon = effective stealth/limited sensors/short range weapons.

Smaller ships are faster = size scaled space drives.

Smaller ships can kill larger ships = small weapons effective against larger tagets.

There are probably more things, but I think they've been covered effectively by other posters. I think the above factors are the big three though.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

EDIT:
To add my own two cents, I think in order to make Space Fighters a practical concept, you need the same conditions that make Air Fighters a practical concept currently.

Some sort of a horizon = effective stealth/limited sensors/short range weapons.

So a sensor nerf is a given, especially we want the opera-ish `Sensors jammed! Going by visual!´ moments.

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Smaller ships are faster = size scaled space drives.

That seems like one of the harder things, especially under the default Spaceships rules. Also, it once again creates a place for missiles replacing fighters - not something we want for settings with viable fighters.

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Smaller ships can kill larger ships = small weapons effective against larger tagets.

Ablative shields? Short-range-but-powerful 'torpedoes'? I'm leery of 'reintroducing' missiles to fill this role.

There are probably more things, but I think they've been covered effectively by other posters. I think the above factors are the big three though.

[Crakkerjakk]

Are you looking for WWII-style fighters or more modern style of fighters?

[David Johnston2]

[QUOTE=Crakkerjakk]

Why not just launch the missiles from the "carrier"?

If you are launching at a comparably armed ship at extreme range you are looking at a mutual kill situation because if you can hit him, he can hit you. That being the case, actually engaging with expendable platforms while the big expensive ships stay behind a protective layer of escorts and "fighters" has something to be said for it. It might be an idea to give fighters a "limited" stardrive so they can pop into the next system, check it out, and engage any enemy elements. The "carrier" which is actually a factory ship, then moves into the system with it's escorts and harvests resources to refuel, resupply, repair and replace fighters after engagement.

[vicky_molokh]

Originally Posted by Crakkerjakk

Are you looking for WWII-style fighters or more modern style of fighters?

No idea. I'm trying to figure out the assumptions/prerequisites in general. If there is a fast way categorize them, I'd like to learn it.