Which part of "I wasn't referring to the design of the Viper" do you not understand?
And you ignore the concept of radiation shielding.
And you assume that somebody's going to be detonating nukes just to take out fighters.



Nuke spam and no more anything. If a fighter's near an enemy ship what's it going to do? Detonate a nuke on it's own hull to kill the fighter? Yeah that'll work for a kamikaze mission anyway.



Moron, I said anybody advanced enough could. As in, not using today's technology. You're like somebody demanding I prove a viable racing car can be built with a steam engine.

Space combat IN SINS should be like:

Ships that can fire on the move. thx. that alone will make it a bit more dynamik.

Just throwing this out there but if a ship is it the crew won't jumble around. Either they'll start floating or if we ever have internal compensators then the compensators would... compensate.

Also, no sound. Just sound of stuff firing from your ship and stuff hitting it (the ship would vibrate, and vibrations cause sound, so those inside could hear it).

Well I personally think there will be three settings or stages or types of "space battle"

1- atmosphere, sort of like fighting at 50,000 feets here in Earth, near the ozone layer
2- gravity well, fighting near the gravity well of planets and moons, like where the ISS is currently orbiting over the earth
3- deep space, fighting in a pure vacuum, away from any planet of asteroid

1 and 2 we can already begin to see today, one example is the recent destruction of an US spy satellite with a missile launched from a navy cruiser. Also in this "terrain" gravity would still play a role in combat. So combat here might very well be like in many sci-fi movies.

In 3 its a whole different afair. As many have said, deep space travel would require a BIG ship to fulfill all the needs of space travel. Such a ship would be extremely vulnerable, as it would be isolated and in a unforgiving setting. I personally doubt ship to ship combat would exist in this settting, as neither side would be willing, and much less able to sustain any sort damage to its ship. As the journey back home would be a long one, and its ability to repair out in deep space is almost non-existent (sealing off a 10 foot wide hole in the outer hull while in deep space?? refueling lost fuel and lost food??)

Thus I imagine IF combat thus occur, it will be more like boarding, where one side would try and board the enemy ship and capture it. Combat per se would occur inside the ship.

Give your ships a target then tell them to move. There you go.

Where you said "The way fighters are depicted in say new Battlestar Galactica is perfectly viable - pilots in space suits with their own life-support." By using the word Viable, you are referring to the design you dishonest wanker. Also radiation shielding? Okay now your fighter has too much mass and a nuke will still get a soft kill by burning out the exterior systems making the fighter blind. That is if PDF doesn't nail it first.



False Dilemma. The fighters will be engaged far from the ship, their is no stealth in space, so the fighter will be soft killed by nukes far away from the ship.




This is so frickin laughable. First off, ECM will be countered by ECCM from the missile controllers who will guide the missile in manually if necessary. Since there is no friction in space and you can travel in any direction for infinity even if the nose is point away from that direction, a missile can do maneuvers that will kill a human pilot to avoid defense fire. Since it doesn't need to be recovered it can waste fuel in violent maneuvers to hit its target while a human pilot would have to abort.



False Analogy. I am asking you to prove that a human piloted fighter is viable when the overwhelming evidence shows otherwise.

Also FYI you can prove whether its viable to power a race car with a steam engine. Just apply what we know about steam power energy to weight ratio and compare to a gasoline engine.

this is why a lot of sci-fi relies for its story on recovered Alien Tech for FTL drives. Homeworld anyone?
As for fighters,

The theory with missile replacing fighters for most people is:
Whether they have their own brains or are being controlled from the firing ship, they will
be jammed and too dumb still to reach their target without being shot down.
Therefore a fighter bomber would be needed and fighters needed to intercept them.
It is hard to tell what will and will not be possible in the future however. Especially with engine efficiency and maneover. Who knows solar may be powering the engines like tie fighter ion engines.
But most of what we see on TV still looks just like 21st century metal tech. And if their are no objects in space where the battle takes place to put tactics to use then it would just be a slogging match like Jutland.... I do still imagine that at certain ranges it is simply not worth firing at all as by the time your ordinance has travelled 60 billion KMs the enemy has moved.

I can though imagine that capitals would be the main fleet due to the expanse of space. And that capitals would be massively sized and armed. Don't expect to be able to respond quickly to these though.... just get your fighters in range and loose missiles without risking your cap - even though it can be seen its out of range!!! The fighters are to get within range and launch.
Certainly if fighters are launched via a tube system that acts like a rail gun in the correct direction then their will be no need to use any fuel on the way in.
I do still imagine most battles being around objects that can be used for tactics, such as asteroid belts, planets and sensor blocking storms etc....

if they have space fighter technology, you think they might figure out some way of hiding energy signatures? just throwin that into the mix

also i think smaller ships such as frigates should take evassive action and such, leaving the 'ship walls' to the big guns thus making the combat a bit more diverse and dynamic

Won't work as the energy used to do that would be detectable.

Hell using RCS thrusters is detectable for 92,000,000 miles or 1 AU which is the distance from Earth to the Sun with today's technology.

Those are radiators, the Sun is a weak energy source and won't supply the energy the TIE needs.

Um no - they are actually solar collectors that partially power the ship!!!

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/TIE

All TIE series starfighters had two or more ion engine outlets, linked to a solar ionization reactor and solar array wings

The first thing to settle on is - is this 'today + 20 years' style space combat?

There's many things to consider.

First:
Why fight in space at all? Space has one giant drawback and one giant advantage: There's so much of it. And it's really empty. There's virtually nothing you'd want to fight over. As far as I can tell, until further notice it'll be an extension of planet-bound warfare, and so the weapons used will be of a rather boring sort for this sort of discussion.

Secondly:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_warfare

Interesting read on the subject - and it even references Sins of a Solar empire. Jay us.

Thirdly:
About the no sound in space. I'm going to borrow an example from Elizabeth Moon. She did describe the sound of battle in the Serrano series, but also noted that the actual sounds were made by the ship's computer to help the crew's battle awareness, and not the actual weapon sounds - noting that one captain had changed the parameters to make point defences sound like clarinets, missile barrages like trumpets, etc.

I tend to quietly assume most movies do some version of the same.

You really are dense aren't you? You even quote my specific meaning and it flies right past you. I suggest you waddle back to Stardestroyer.net where your fellow flamers can prop up your obvious lack of debating skill.



Define "too much". Explain why exterior systems on fighters will be vunerable but those on capships will not.



Despite what American propaganda has us believe, war is unsafe. Yes, point defense might nail fighters. That's their damn job. How does that make fighters useless?



Hilarious assumption. If capships are firing off nukes at extreme range then there's no place for regular missiles or drones anyway, so this discussion is moot.
You ignore the possibility that a capship might not conveniently deploy it's fighters at a safe distance. You also ignore the possibility of closing in at near c velocities all because you assume space warfare is going to be conducted with current technology.



Despite all the nukes going off that blind all sensors in your previous statement? Consistency. Learn it.



What? Because PDF won't be aiming for it's center of mass? And how does it instantly overcome it's own velocity in the opposite direction? Holy god damn, a 10 year old playing Star Control has more knowledge of newtonian phsyics than you.



It's also a lot smaller and carries less fuel, and manuevers would still be sluggish.



You don't get it do you. You can't make a viable racing car with a steam engine. That's my point. Neither can you make a viable fighter with today's technology. But then, you can't make a viable missile either. One that can hit a capship, sure. But otherwise, forget it.

Still being dishonest I see.



Packing enough lead or gold on a ship to protect adds mass that needs more fuel to move which in turn determines your range. Since the fighter must be recoverable, it needs four times the Delta V of a missile. Now put the calcs up to prove that space fighters are viable or concede.



Because the capital ship will be far away from the fighters and have thicker armor and better shielded scanners and sensors. There is no stealth in space and it is moving away from the effected zone to get new targeting solutions. This is another strike against fighters, its target can simply increase the distance, and the fighters will have to abort due to lack of fuel.



For the aforementioned reasons. Now put up or shut up. You are arguing against the established scientific and engineering world. Show us calcs and intercept plans to prove fighters are viable in any setting.



Actually there is room for missiles. They don't have to return, so they can waste fuel in violent manuevers that would kill a man to avoid PDF fire. Human piloted fighters can not and would have to abort their mission.



If a warship is going to close the distance and is allowed to, there will be so much nuke spam, that it would be too dangerous to deploy human piloted fighters.



Because it will be with technology descended from todays. Furthermore, ships are going to try to keep distance from each other to mission kill as many nuke tipped missiles as possible and lessen the number PDF has to deal with. Then they will move to KEW and Lasers.



No EMP in space so if they avoid the blast area, they won't be blinded and they'll be using tagged radar pulses which can see through any nuclear whiteout. We been doing that since WW2. There is no inconsistency here, just you not knowing what you are talking about.



False Dilemma again. RCS is how it changes direction. You see it on B5 and NeoBSG.
Stop arguing with licensed Engineers and scientists, you'll lose.



Of course you can't, you are deliberating misquoting me. I said you can figure out whether it is viable or not to build a steam powered racing car by compare its power to weight ratio with a gasoline engine. I didn't say its viable to build a racing car with a steam engine.



Concession accepted.



Yes you can, no friction, no horizons, and no stealth to mess with range.

good posts everone, but can you guy tell me more about what different types of ship are need in you mind and what there job is.

Wanderer17, I was reading your links and I found them very interesting and informative yet disturbing. Am I the only person that feels like these self proclaimed smart guy's solution to thier problems would be to fire nuclear missiles at EVERYTHING? The whole marine carrier getting blown out of "stealth" may be true, but what if it was a interstellar school bus filled with nuns and puppies? They said themselves they only need to see engine heat to find things. That may be true and all but in a universe where space travel is common the night sky will be full of ships. Finding a hostile enemy ship in space may be easy, finding a hostile enemy ship amomg thousands of others in space may not be easy. Just going by engine heat alone your looking for a golden needle in a hay stack. Who would be allowed to build up enough nuclear weapons to facilite "nuke spamming" anyways? We can hardly keep what we have under control now. The thought of having orbital nuclear weapon platfroms everywhere probably wouldn't sit well with a planet's population.

My thoughts on space combat is, We are going to need ships.
I have a vision of taskforce style fleets much like SINS is now. Large battleship style command centers with long range strike and support escort craft, carriers with short range strike and support craft, mobile missle platforms, scouts and mobile repair platforms. As you may have guessed I don't belive nuke spamming or missle spamming to be plauseable solutions to space combat. Fighters on the other hand I think will still have a place via remote control or otherwise. In a universe where faster than light travel is possible, building fighter squadrens with engines that can perfom the delta manuvers required to do thier jobs would be trivial for me. For all those who post scientific reasons why fighters or much of anything can't work need to realize in order to take part in the argument you first have admited faster than light travel is possible for the interstellar combat to exist to begin with. The same faster than light travel that can't possibly exist. So STFU about the scientifc reasons please, people are talking about space combat that doesn't exist and its fun. On that note, I wan't to rocket around the universe with my impressive fleet with Powerman 5000 rocking in the background while I teach green women my people's way of making love. Yeah it would be awsome.

[quote]Weapon Shape (12.566 indicates spherical burst):12.566
Weapon yield: 50 Kilotons

Armor Parameters: We'll use carbon here.
Atomic Mass: 12.01
Density: 2.26 g/cm3
Molar Volume: 5.34 cm3
Heat of Fusion: 100 kj/mol
Heat of Vaporization: 355.8 kj/mol

Simulate Nuclear Explosion
MegaJoules Discharged: 209200000 ; Armor Rating in MW/cm2: 45580

Range of Detonation in meters 3000

Surface Area of Burst at Range 113094000

Megajoules/cm2 0.0001849788671370718

MegaWatts/cm2 184.97886713707183; Armor thickness vaporized (mm) 0.09735873325347522


What does this mean? It means within three kilometers of a blast a Colonial Pilot will receive a lethal dose of radiation in space and his Viper would lose a bit of structural integrity. Nuke spam and no more fighters.
Weapon Shape (12.566 indicates spherical burst):12.566
Weapon yield: 50 Kilotons

Armor Parameters: We'll use carbon here.
Atomic Mass: 12.01
Density: 2.26 g/cm3
Molar Volume: 5.34 cm3
Heat of Fusion: 100 kj/mol
Heat of Vaporization: 355.8 kj/mol

Simulate Nuclear Explosion
MegaJoules Discharged: 209200000 ; Armor Rating in MW/cm2: 45580

Range of Detonation in meters 3000

Surface Area of Burst at Range 113094000

Megajoules/cm2 0.0001849788671370718

MegaWatts/cm2 184.97886713707183; Armor thickness vaporized (mm) 0.09735873325347522


What does this mean? It means within three kilometers of a blast a Colonial Pilot will receive a lethal dose of radiation in space and his Viper would lose a bit of structural integrity. Nuke spam and no more fighters.[end quote]

This must also mean your not under constant fire in order to perfom your nuke spamming. With such advanced ships would we not have advanced targeting systems? We can allready "shoot a bullet in flight with another bullet" now. Anyone whoever played Quake will tell you that having your own missles explode in your face is bad.
Nuke spamming or spamming anything in general = Not pratical.

The reality of course will be very diffrent than anything anyone can dream of. Durring world war 1 and 2 the concept of naval battle was thought to be massvie battleship on battleship combat. Large fortresses at sea slugging it out with each other seemed very reasonable, yet it turned out otherwise. The same went for land combat. Everyone thought it to be tank on tank combat. And why not? Tanks and battleships had the most armor and firepower. Yet in all conflits tanks and battleships have been around for there has only been one large tank battle and one large battleship battle. Both wound up horribly one sided and kinda sucked for all the dreamers wanting a massive glorious battle. So yeah its gonna be diffrent.

one thing: once you have the technology for viable space combat of any kind then fighters shouldnt be too hard, and you can say all that jazz about how enertia works but hay, we as a race cant even bigin to fully understand how physics works, just because we cant do something doesnt mean it cant be done.

now i just sit back and watch the replies and abuse fly.

From what I see, unless there is a reason for there to be different class of ships, then there will only be one class of ship. As producing another class of ship would waste resources in planning, tooling, and building.

Case in point would be the battleship, cruisers, destroyer and torpedo boat system of world war 1 and 2.

The point of each ship: (see wiki to see the source of my points)

Battleship: The ideal behind all battleships and dreadnought is based on a battle in which two sides of battleship fought during world war 1. The British, that were watching the battle noted that the smaller caliber weapons had no effect as they were out ranged by larger caliber weapons. So battleship and dreadnought were then based on "all-big-gun" armaments and there for were defenseless at closer ranges as there slow firing more powerful main guns were over taken by the faster firing torpedoes of smaller warship.

Cruisers: Battleship are very powerful at long range. Not only can they hit at longer ranges, but do more damage with each shot. But as enemy ships got closer, there long range guns were over taken by there faster firing low caliber weapons on smaller ships and torpedoes. There for a Cruiser is there to protect battleships from enemy ship that try to get close form ship of it own size to smaller. The cruiser it self could close with enemy battleship, where it could over take them. In other word it is there to stop other cruisers and destory destroyers and torpedo boats

destroyer: There to destroy torpedo boats only.

torpedo boats: There to destroy battleships only.

At least, that how I see it.

But if there is no reason, like the battleships are weak at closer ranges, then there is no reason to have cruisers "AND" battleship. One most be more cost effective the the other and in the end, you will only build one type.

Look at the all the past post that we have on this form. How many of you have posted about HC vs. LRM or carrier vs HC. Once we have ships that do the same job, we normally only build one type of ship. Take C&C 3 as a case. How many of you build the smaller tanks and only the smaller tanks. How many of you tech up and only use the larger units. Once you have a tier 1 tank and a tier 3, you going to build one or another. One must be more cost effective the the other. Other wise you would only build tier 1 tanks as you don't have to tech up.

what about a ship that would take and transform energy from a close star to be converted in some kind of energy weapon and be routed towards attacking a specific target thus destroying it without having to carry weapons itself.

I hate when people bog down science fiction with, well, things that aren't fiction.

You can only be accurate to a degree, before it starts getting lame because remaining strictly to what is actually possibly greatly limits how creative you can be.

Anyway, I imagine it as a relatively long range slugfest, in which detection of the enemy occurs rather rapidly and capital ships have very long ranges, even battleships.

I'm not willing to rule out fighters simply because small craft would not be viable in real life (because one again, science FICTION).

Yes, nuclear weapons are really just big incendiary bombs on a Planet and big neutron bombs in space. Excellent weapons for defeating your foe.



False dilemma, civilian ships will not have military grade weapons on them, armor plating, ECM/ECCM packages, and other military hardware. All that is detectable.



Anyone who builds nuclear rockets and damn what others say. Nuclear power is the only feasible way to propel the massive ships we need to settle the solar system and beyond. With it comes nuclear weapons.



Nuke spamming and missile spamming is precisely what is going to happen, deal with it.



And will make a missile even better to use. Sorry, but you need to put up the calcs to prove your bold assertion.



It you who must concede the debate, not me. Now put up the calcs for fighter vs a missile to prove your point or concede. Just because we have FTL doesn't mean fighters become viable.



If we meet aliens, they will no doubt be repulsed by you.



Once again the missile can perform manuevers that would kill a human and are not limited by human reflexes to avoid PDF fire. Put forth calcs to prove your theory.



Space is not an ocean and it is the Air Force which will likely get control of the Space Forces, not the Navy.

Naval tactics and strategy does not apply in space. Nor the terminology.

Let me start with just a simple statement.

I am not by any means a credited physicist, engineer, or any kind of "rocket scientist".

Now, as far as this discussion is concerned, you're all a bunch of morons for even trying to predict, SERIOUSLY, what will happen in the future, because no matter how much knowledge you retain about today's CURRENT standard of technology, and POSSIBLE future development, you are not taking into consideration that there may be NEW discoveries, UNFORESEEN circumstances, and dare I be called a simpleton, actual, sentient, and possibly very advanced ALIEN LIFE.

Wanderer, your point and subsequent argument, while compelling and logical as it may be in regards to today's standards and the near future's possible standards is, you cannot predict far future, for to do so makes you look like a fool, which one would then come to the conclusion that your statement of "This is the way it's going to be, deal with it.", is nothing more than you pushing your own opinion on a light-hearted thread meant for easy discussion.

Now, onto a bit of meat for said discussion, seeing as my post wont do jack to stymie the debate.


More of a statement than a question, but as far as fighters/missiles are concerned, with my albeit limited knowledge of space, wouldnt fuel for said ordinance only be needed for the initial boost, as well as for maneuvering and breaking purposes, as once up to top speed, inertia in space will do the rest, quite literally letting you just ride on in a straight line?

Just a thought.

Same was said when nuclear weapons were first invented. All we got was a double edged sword that inflamed popultaions and caused paranoia all around the world. We can only say we know for certain what happens on a planet since we have used and tested them.
As for space, there is credible evidence on what may or could happen and you may feel free to post as many calculations as you want proving your theroy. But theroys are theroys untill proven by fact and detonating nuclear warheads in space won't happen in our lifetimes. So knowing the true effect and later impact of using them is impossible now we can only guess.



What about weapon parts? Disassemble modern firearms now and they become unreconizable. ECM/ECCM, would these even be neccesery? Since there is no horrizon in space whats the point? Or would teconology advance to the point that ECM/ECCM is obsoloete? Armor plating?, we're talking about potential long range widely used space travel, armor plating could possibly be required on all ships to deal with the eviroment of space. The largest ships we have at sea now are oil tankers and cruise ships. Each are so large if you took the empire state building turned it on its side and cast it to sea on a voyage, you will come close to how big these ships actualy are. Both of which are outfitted with extra thick doublewalled hulls, carry advanced telecommunication centers, and are outfitted with ECM to help them deal with highseas piracy that still exists today. The space shuttle is military hardware, the shuttle is decended from and comprised of hardware and teconology that exists as military application. Alot of things are.


We tried that allready as a people and look at the state of things now. Not to long before the industrural revoloution the only feasible way to cross the ocean was windpower. Nuclear power, its concept or even the word nuclear didn't even exist in the minds of the greatest and brightest men. The scientific world is constantly on a path of discovery, and when the world comes to the point of space travel. We could find ourselves using a tecnology that doesn't exist in form or concept or even as a word to describe it today.


Missle spamming was thought to be the future back in the 50's for dogfighting, it didn't work out much to the expense of the lives of pilots. Everything about the future now exists as thoughts. These things are what we think is going to happen.


This is an argument based on assumptions of tactics based on assumptions on how combat exists in space. You argue nuke missle spamming is the way. I argue nuke missle spamming would not be the way. I just feel detonating massive neutron warheads in space in large quantities is a bad idea. Calcs or no calcs I don't have to prove an assertion.



I'll put up the calcs when you put up the realworld application for them. The U.S. Airforce tried back in the 50's to replace the need for fighters by having flying missle and bomber platforms. It made sense to do it but the U.S. quickly found the error of its ways. The calcs exist merely as a theroy and don't exist as military pratice (yet). Just because we have FTL doesn't meen missles become viable either.
If the day comes and the calcs are proven right and missles are the key weapons in space fighting. Feel free to find me in the afterlife, point your finger at me and go "HAHA TOLD YOU SO!"



:Queen Smoking Hot Green Alien Chick, "Thank you Master Chief Captian Sir. Coolness you have saved my planet of space amazons from the ruthless space pirates. Our military ways of fighting with pillows and water-hoses could not have possibly saved us if not for your massive and impressive fleet." [Eyes cast downward with sugestive body language]"I wish to reward you for your bravery...but I am unsure of and inexperianced with your people's more "intimate" rituals."
:Master Chief Captian Sir. Coolness, [embracing Queen Smoking Hot Green Alien chick] "Queen Smoking Hot Green Alien Chick, I am known as "Master Chief" for many reasons. After our culture's rituals collide, you will come to know me as the "Amazing Master Chief"."

Don't be angry at Master Chief Captin Sir. Coolness simply because he exists in a universe of awsomeness piloting the starship of maximum awsomeness while your busy building a universe that is full of things that can exist but are not as awsome. Deal with it =P


With that said we have allready shot a satalite out of the sky using a missle and china can "ping" satalites as much as it feels like. Missile combat could be rendered useless after measures and counter measures are devoloped. Missles only have an advantage in the atmosphere due to the limitations of other craft fighting in an atmosphere. Tactics for space combat hasn't been proven in actual space combat. Your educated guess, my fantasy guess and that ranting hobo standing on the corner's guess are about as good as anyone else's.



Of course space is not an ocean. I was using it as an analogy to make the point that regardless of our best guess by even the best and the brightest amoung us we got it wrong. In a 1000, 10000, or however many years it takes for space travel to happen. Future generations could possibly look back on us now as we did with Leonardo da Vinci and say, "Well there were good ideas but could never work due to principals they never knew about."