Realistic spaceships, mecha, and other sci-fi goodies

[Kadaeux]

A space shuttle is not a warship. Last I checked, it didn't have any weapons built into it. Correct me if I'm wrong.

In my analysis of comparing cost of small fighters to that of large warships, I took several things into account.

Then you failed at it. I just gave you the analysis demonstrating that a SUPERCARRIER, plus its weapons, is ton for ton cheaper than the Space Shuttle.

Direct-fire weapons technology = the same, but the warship's are bigger. Same cost per ton of gun, since they're the exact same guns.

Incorrect.

The smaller weapons are generally more expensive per ton than the big guns for the same complexity issue I mentioned in my ACTUAL analysis above.

Maneuver engine = the same. The capital ship might have an FTL engine as well, which isn't likely to be cheaper than a maneuver engine. So the same cost per ton. However, the larger ship may require more access space for maintenance on the engines during long-term voyages.

Incorrect. Complexity is making the smaller engines increases the cost proportionally.

Defensive/shielding/power generation and storage technology = all the same. So the same cost per ton, approximately.

Incorrect. The smaller your reactor is the MORE its going to cost. Not less.

Living quarters/life support/sick bay = different. There is more living space on a larger ship because it's meant for long-term action rather than single-combat engagements.

Has no noticeable impact on price per ton.

Cargo = different. A larger ship is either required to carry auxiliary supplies, or they need frequent resupply from a logistics task force. Either can work.

Has no noticeable impact on price per ton.

Given that the main differences are in the amount of empty space in the larger ships (crews quarters, access space, etc. is mostly just air and room to breathe, even if they are cramped), I think my estimate that the cost per ton of a large WARSHIP is about half the cost per ton of a small fighter, given that most of the technology is identical, just on a different scale. So if the fighter costs 50 million, the star destroyer costs 25 trillion. If the fighter costs 150 million, the star destroyer costs 75 trillion. A space shuttle is not an accurate comparison, as it doesn't use weapons.

Sorry sonny jim. But the Space Shuttle is an EXCELLENT comparison because it completely demonstrates the vast difference in the cost and complexity of making a small ship over a large one.

As for the sphere's design... in order to bring half of its firepower to bear on a single target, the weapons need to be mounted on the surface, rather than internally. Most people think of spaceship weapon as being mounted externally on turrets, or configured along the sides like an old-fashioned broadside...

So. Most people are wrong. Except of course for missiles which would be mounted in cells.

I instead maintain that the best way to mount a weapon for space combat is using a fixed forward-facing spinal mount. Why? Because you can mount MUCH larger guns that way. It's also the way modern fighters mount their machine guns, as well as WW2 fighters. You can mount heavier weapons more efficiently if you point them in one direction and keep most of the volume of the gun INSIDE the ship rather than around the surface.

And you end up with a gun that is is impossible to bring to bear on the enemy because they will ALWAYS be able to see where it is pointed. Your big gun goes down in history as the most inept weapon either.

And this is backed by square-cube mechanics. Heck, a sphere shape actually drastically REDUCES the amount of firepower that can be mounted on surface turrets, due to their proportionally lower surface area for their volume (and proportionally less space for turrets as a result). And then add in that all of your point-defense weaponry HAS to be mounted on surface turrets. You are more or less required to mount the heavy guns inside that massive volume... after all, what else are you going to do with all that space? Empty space is extremely inefficient.

You have obviously failed to understand, pretty much everything.

Ship X has 10 Turrets. It can bring 5 to bear on the target at any one time. It can throw fully half the ships capable firepower at the target if using direct fire weapons. It can throw 100% of its firepower at the target if it uses missiles.

Sorry. Your "has to mount the heavy guns inside that massive volume" is failing to actually understand the physics and forces involved. There is absolutely no reason to mount your weapons spinally, your bigger gun won't be any better than the Sphere's 10 guns that fire much faster and have a higher chance of hitting since the enemy can't go "ok, he's aiming at us with the big gun"

You've bolted X weapon to your internal structure.
Oh shit, it got hit and the ammo is going to cook off what are we going to.... BOOM there goes your ship.

I've bolted X weapon to an external turret.
Oh shit, it got hit and the ammo is going to cook off, seal the bulkheads and Jettison the turret. Whew. That was close.

As an aside, I've heard you're a pretty good GM, mister Kadaeux. If nothing else, it's obvious you know what you're talking about, even if we aren't exactly on the same page. Are you familiar with the Traveler RPG, by chance? I don't use it, but I actually read up on it and it uses a lot of the same concepts that I do, but uses a superscience "nuclear dampener" to prevent one-hit kill missiles.

Traveller is also about as hard-science as Doctor Who. (Ok ok. It's not THAT bad.) But traveller is 100% soft scifi.

[Holeypaladin]

A supercarrier is not a spaceship. Nor is it build like a spaceship.

Human propulsion technology, right now, sucks. It's expensive and inefficient. Not suitable for sci fi at all. Space battles CANNOT exist with modern technology, as proven by the space shuttle comparison.

There is no reason to believe that reactors, guns, or engines would have anything other than the same cost per ton. I don't see any complexity issue that makes them more expensive to provide the exact same efficiency at a smaller size. Perhaps you meant to post an example but didn't.

Empty space adds volume, and volume full of mostly air reduces the density, which has an effect on "price per ton" as you say it, but also "price per unit of volume." Displacement is a stupid term in space, as there's no water to displace... only volume and mass really matter.

No one has ever made a large ship in space, as far as I know. So yeah, the space shuttle sucks as a comparison. You can't compare spaceships to ocean ships... major fallacy, there. A rocket engine is more expensive than a turbine. Duh.

As for the turret vs. big guns analysis...

So your turret fires a 100 mJ particle gun at a battleship. Battleship's armor can completely ignore anything short of 1000 mJ completely. You fire 20 of those 100 mJ particle beams... battleship armor reduces the damage by 1000 per shot. No damage taken.

Meanwhile, I fire a 2,000 mJ spinal mounted particle beam at battleship. Battleship armor reduced 1,000 of that energy. Battleship is destroyed by the other 1,000. Win for me. Big guns are better for taking on armored vessels. At the range at which space battles take place, it doesn't MATTER if your weapon is only pointed in one direction... it's not like you can dodge it any easier than you can a turret. As far as the ammo problem... just use energy weapons, then. Don't require explosive ammo. Problem solved.

And Traveler is.. well, a lot less soft than a Dr Who, and a lot of other things I've seen. Soft vs hard is a sliding scale, you can't classify one or the other. If you could, there would be no difference between Star Wars and Starship Troopers (the book was better than the movie).

A little numeric experiment with spheres and turrets. Let's say you have a 450 foot diameter sphere. Using 4/3 pi r^3, you can determine the volume to be roughly 36 million cubic feet. And using 4 pi r^2, you can calculate the volume as 636,000 square feet.

Now say you put all of the weapons on external turrets. Turrets need room to maneuver... a lot of it. So roughly 20% of your sphere's surface can be covered in turrets, or 160,000 square feet. Now you have an option between small point defense turrets (400 square feet each) and large weapons platforms (5000 square feet each). If you use entirely large weapons playforms, you can fit roughly 32 turrets on the ship, each turret supporting some 20,000 cubic feet worth of guns. And that's close to the maximum firepower of a ship that size's turret array.

Meanwhile, I alter the shape slightly, increasing surface area to 660k square feet... not a huge increase. I use nearly all of that surface space for external point defense turrets, for a whopping 325 PD turrets. And then I mount... get this... 6 MILLION cubic feet (out of 36 million) worth of spinal weaponry. So while your ship has 640,000 ft^3 worth of externally-mounted guns, my ship has 6 million ft^3 worth of spinal-mounted weaponry. It's pretty clear to see which can bring more firepower to bear on its target, and at long range... it really doesn't matter if you can only point your guns in one direction. You're fighting at thousands of miles, minimum. Probably not light seconds due to speed of light lag but... whatever range you can reasonably expect your shots to hit.

[Foster]

Paladin, 20 particle-beams will heat (and irradiate) the surface. Easily damaging radiators and causing internal tempratures to skyrocket while the resaulting X-rays from the particle braking-radiation to pretty much fry all electronics on the surface of your ship, rending you blind.

Ofc, CPBs are more of a CIWS.

I'm not talking about tiny little exoskeletons. I'm talking about suits of armor surrounding the wielder, with mounted missile launchers and chain guns. They'd be.. about nine or ten feet tall, not as large as a big walker mech, but still pretty tall. Also, take for granted the SPARTAN suits, those are pretty cool and powerful. They provide highly increased strength, speed, and power. They also have automatic systems to pump combat fluids into you. They come equipped with personal A.I's, shields that can withstand a pretty powerful punch, and can have all sorts of additions added to make him or her that much powerful.

Too bad it comes at the cost of stealing orphans and training them up and injecting them with all sorts of enhancements which the person might not even survive. They also often end up with soulless fighting machines, but who cares about that?

1. APS for tanks already exists, and unlike the power-drain on the imaginary Spartan-armor, a tank can pretty much spam that AND an omni-directional flashbang with a range measured in kilometers capable of permemently flash-blinding enemy operators. (plus a semi-sophisticated IFF to reduce friendly-fire). In more advanced land-battleships, we're pretty much mounting a full-on CIWS like teh ship-based KASHTAN gun/missile system.

2. Gun-launched missiles exist, as do mast-mounted sensors allowing for low-profile hull-down or even over-the-horizon kills. Now we just need a target worth the price-tag. Thankfully, the unguided tank-round is pretty damn accurate on its own, thanks to the advanced FCS that allows two gunlayers to engage targets simultainously (because the servoes can gunlay faster than the entire crew [the gun-loader usually already has a round in his hands, allowing for a rapid double-tap, so no-point using double-barreled turrets yet]... in short, with current tech, an M1 Abrams can quick-draw faster than Neo from the Matrix... while jumping off a cliff).

3. Tank is still stronger. Don't bother comparing artificial-muscle to current motors, when they finally do become viable, chances are people will find ways to incoporate that tech into a tank (likely in the gun-trunions to simplify the gun-mantlets). They also have a significantly larger fuel-fraction and drivetrain to power everything with. IIRC, a spartan could get killed by being run-over by a mongoose. Can a mongoose ram a tank?

4. AIs. Tanks already have a sophisticated comm-net, and can even create composite (and encrypted) battlefield-maps on the fly, they can also detect and pinpoint sniper-fire on the first shot and lay-down [automatic] suppressive-fire within a 10 meter zone with their main-gun in about 1 second (and in some cases, the APS will stop the bullet or even had already engaged and killed the sniper).

5. As for utility, usually one tank in 5 of the Russian armor'd units had an earthmoving-blade for helping construct fortifications, and mine/obstacle clearing.

6. Medcal support services. Tanks got that too. And flame-suppression (so little risk of being burned to death), standard NBC-protection (no, not the news networks, but they could probably handle those too), and can carry several days worth of water and rations.

In short, power-armor is a walking-tanket at best. In the event of a tank showing-up... run.
-Although as noted, they're pretty awesome for clearing-out correctional-facilites, or when just bulldozing a building is unacceptable (hostage-rescue/snatch&grab) or almost impossable (nuclear-bunker/missile-silo assault). Ironicly, the USSR trained troops to assault missile-silos, and had air-deployed power-armors on the table for exactly such missions (because they REALLY wanted to bust those ICBMs in Turkey and West Germany).

[Holeypaladin]

Powered armor isn't part of the topic, but I'll cover it.

They're heavy infantry.

They're not as big as tanks, but when fighting against light infantry, they might as well be. For deployment from space, powered armor is amazing. Since ships are expensive and can only carry so many people, what powered armor does is maximizes the potential of infantry soldiers so that you get the most bang for much on your troop transport ships. Compared to modern infantry, they're expensive, but compared to the cost of space fleets? Powered armor is super cheap in comparison, no reason not to use it.

But you also don't want to deploy them without support. It helps having big warships in orbit that can bombard enemy troops from thousands of miles away. That's pretty good support. So are deployable aircraft and (if you feel like it) land vehicles.

But powered armor are not tanks. You want to destroy a tank? Apache helicopters are meant for that right now, but sci fi would replace them with some sort of aerospace fighter, most likely, with a vectored thrust. And of course, you can just give your battlesuits anti-tank weaponry. We have them now, they're single-launch missiles such as the TOW.

[Foster]

IRL, infantry-carried ATGMs are usually for either prepared ambushes or 'oh shit we just hit the fan' moments when all other forms of fire-support are unavailable [you'd all be dead before they arrive].

If you've got a space-fleet, just glass the planet from orbit, then send ground-troops. Glass it twice, even. It really doesn't cost that much to fire a spinal-mounted planet-cracker compared to... say... the second Iran-Iraq war.

A pair of tanks, with 4-man crews, could probably overwhelm a 8-man ODST team. or better yet, 2 tanks plus 8 space-marines in minimal augmentation against two squads. But again, it really depends on quite a few factors... in RPs and stories, it's usually easier to read and write about two isolated individuals fighting each other, rather than ship-crews (even if it's only a crew of two). The only exception appears to be Top-Gun. It's really hard to have a feeling of isolation inside a tank when your head keeps bumping into the gunner's boot-heels and your TC is screaming orders into the mike to turn-right, stop, go, turn left etc while kicking you in the shoulder.

One could try to replace tanks and mechs with flying IFVs, and avoid the challenges associated with most types of minefields, and have a super-mobile heavy gun-platform that could support several squads simultaniously. But would be costly, and would not be able to fit underground. So tunnel-rats would either have to use their sidearms or somehow dismount heavy-weapons from their support-vehicle (which technically isn't theirs), or carry additional heavy-weapons specific to their mission (which may or may-not included poweed armor).

So powered-armor's excel is for jobs that any larger vehicle is unsuitable, or when supporting a shitload of tiny infantry-units (8 groups of 2 space marines rather than 4 groups of 4) because of rule-of cool, shock-and-awe, and innies suck. The one that really springs to mind is babysitting the techie-geek nobody likes. In the case of Halo, it was Cortanna.

[Holeypaladin]

Wiping out an entire planet's surface from orbit is huge waste of resources. You destroy an otherwise habitable world with a possibly thriving industrial base. And it leads to short brutal wars that wipe out most life in the galaxy. Not exactly the way to a healthy long-lasting empire.

The point in infantry is to actually secure the planet and its resources. It's much more useful if it's producing for YOUR cause than for your enemy's after all. Also, planetary assaults are a circumstance in which the attackers have a huge advantage over the defenders... rather than the other way around.

It may take time to secure the planet completely, but an increase in your empire's GDP by a good $100 trillion can pay for a $200 trillion war over a few years.

Sure, it's possible to wipe out the planet's surface, just like it's possible to nuke Iraq out of existence. But USA sent in ground forces instead. Annihilation tactics would more likely be reserved as a last-ditch effort for a losing battle. But once you start using them, other people will use them on you... just like what would happen if USA nuked China.

[JerkChicken]

Realism can go fuck itself.

If I wanted realism I'd go outside

Translation: Needs the G Gundam voting option

[Holeypaladin]

Gundam is sort of the fourth option, more or less. They can fight in space or on planets, and all that.

[Foster]

Sure, it's possible to wipe out the planet's surface, just like it's possible to nuke Iraq out of existence. But USA sent in ground forces instead. Annihilation tactics would more likely be reserved as a last-ditch effort for a losing battle. But once you start using them, other people will use them on you... just like what would happen if USA nuked China.

I always feel obliged to point this out to any jihadist that believes Americans are in Iraq for oil and revenge.

We really wouldn't flip a shit if our oil was mildly radioactive or not at this point.

Anhiliation tactics work if you can anhiliate everyone else first. The rings in Halo demonstrate this.
-I'll have to build one. Those could be nifty

[Holeypaladin]

If the universe was so lopsided that annihilation tactics could work, then there wouldn't be much of an RP. For the most part, they don't have much place in RP... mutually assured destruction on a galactic scale, or at least making wars not worth fighting... billions of casualties is not acceptable losses.

Anyway, the rings in Halo are magic. They are really quite impossible by our current understanding of science. Not realistic at all. And definitely shouldn't be allowed in a competitive RP, ever, under any circumstances.