Realistic spaceships, mecha, and other sci-fi goodies

[Kadaeux]

Another reason to keep ships compact is because large targets are easier to hit. Since the range of space weapons is basically the range at which you can reasonably expect your shot to hit, you wouldn't have 100% accuracy at long range, so a smaller target is harder to hit.

I've already pointed out that you're incorrect. If you can hit a target a kilometre wide at a light second you WILL be able to hit a target 10 metres wide.

[Foster]

That is only a factor if the whole ship (assuming non-sphere or non-cube etc designs) rotates. Most harder (but still not 100% hard because it'd be boring) starship designs don't have the whole ship rotate, but only sections of the ship. Typically the crew sections.

Unless you're 110% hard and decide simplicity is your new god. So you swear by the tumbling-pigeon frigates.

[Marrone]

You know guys, something Kad said made me think.

If we actually had space warfare, it'd probably, realistically, follow the curve that general warfare has always taken.

It would originally start out pretty rough and fragmented (primitive, we call it). . . then patterns of organization would take place against this scattered style (like phalanxes against, well, random barbarians). This would eventually be the only serious way to fight if you still wanted to be competitive (because apparently having shit tons of laser lolz splashing in your direction is much more effective than whirling around like a fly trying to shoot your target). . .then that style would further be optimized (think romans, not only using things like phalanxes but other forms of organizations, FURTHER organized. . .)

Alright, and assuming we're not focusing purely on European styles (or rather, that our galactic empires don't take a turn into a "dark age" only to rise again with chilvaric heroism), all of the 'roman' stuff will be reiterated now with bigger, badder guns (I just went straight to Napoleon, sue me), and on the PLUS side, EVERYONE would be doing it because that's the "rules of war". People think that these 'rules' are a little silly, but they were very real and much grittier and effective than we'd think. Sure, artillery fire kind of ruined it, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. I think it's very realistic to say that nations of the future who participated in space-based warfare would follow guidelines not unlike the "rules of war" in this time specifically because of the difficulty to coherently fight in space.

-- alright, now lets skip over to the Revolutionary War. This is where that 'primitivism' is looked back on and experimented on since warfare is now way, way concerned with formal practices. . .This path of experimental modern warfare works exponentially and is continually redefined to this day.

Now, I bring up this really, really terrible synopsis (although it looks like an AWESOME essay topic!!) to tell you guys that you guys are trying to figure out what will take literally hundreds of centuries to experience, (which, for some reason, has a greater propensity towards being realistic than theory) and even then, our super duper great grandsons who have genetically/cybernet swag intelligence still wont know what the heck is going on.

Let me put this in another perspective. We're not even cavemen in space and we're trying to think about how the modern soldier in space will work.

That doesn't mean we should, well, give up. I love this stuff. It's great. I just thought that was an interesting point I'd like to share, and it might be fun to explore. It's also probably highly fallacious, which makes sense because it's 4:15 in the morning and everything above is equivelent to me madly scribbling on napkins.

Edit: Alright, I forgot something. Here it is:

Now that we've seen the path of general warfare (or at least a very super generalized one that's mildly false because I didn't mention a whole bunch of super important things), compare it to air-based combat. In WWI, planes fought very primitively; they dropped grenades and eventually they had a pilot-machine gunner duo. . .and it was all open. Then of course, as the competitive nature of war progressed into WWII. . .actually I don't know my air warfare history very well. I do know developments during the cold war were largely experimental, and I suspect that we're following the same trend as general warfare. . .but maybe not because the powers which have these high-technology jet fighters don't get to stretch their wings (pun intended to the fullest extent) and go at eachother.

I guess someone would say something about simulators. . .but you have to be proactiv for both sides and consider a myraid of economic/political/technological factors, most of which are boring and we don't even know what our top secret blue prints to the latest F-5235296 fighter jet is, etc etc, and we want to avoid putting the USA and China as the enemy except for that one guy who insists we use that as the model, but we're all afraid of offending our Korean friend-- look, this is going nowhere fast. . .

This still seems like a really fun essay topic, though.

[Holeypaladin]

Well, space warfare might start out very much like Kadaeux has described, and then move on to what Foster described, and may eventually evolve into what I described. Since my description of space warfare requires much higher technology than theirs, it would make sense that my model would come much later through the evolutionary process as you described it.

It's even possible that all of us could be right to some extent, at some point during the evolution of space combat. And none of us will be 100% right... that much is certain. Reality never, ever turns out 100% accurate to what sci fi predicted. I don't recall any space odysseys happening in 2001, nor in 2010...

[Ommanipadmehum]

Might I put in a shameless self-advertisement to my incomplete space warfare guide?

No? Too bad.

[Holeypaladin]

Your guide is pretty interesting, actually. All hard sci-fi stuff, but stuff to consider for sure.

You're just barely getting into the realm of sci-fi technology towards the end there, the rest is all modern science. But yeah.

[Foster]

You know guys, something Kad said made me think.

If we actually had space warfare, it'd probably, realistically, follow the curve that general warfare has always taken.

It would originally start out pretty rough and fragmented (primitive, we call it). . . then patterns of organization would take place against this scattered style (like phalanxes against, well, random barbarians). This would eventually be the only serious way to fight if you still wanted to be competitive (because apparently having shit tons of laser lolz splashing in your direction is much more effective than whirling around like a fly trying to shoot your target). . .then that style would further be optimized (think romans, not only using things like phalanxes but other forms of organizations, FURTHER organized. . .)

Alright, and assuming we're not focusing purely on European styles (or rather, that our galactic empires don't take a turn into a "dark age" only to rise again with chilvaric heroism), all of the 'roman' stuff will be reiterated now with bigger, badder guns (I just went straight to Napoleon, sue me), and on the PLUS side, EVERYONE would be doing it because that's the "rules of war". People think that these 'rules' are a little silly, but they were very real and much grittier and effective than we'd think. Sure, artillery fire kind of ruined it, but lets not get ahead of ourselves. I think it's very realistic to say that nations of the future who participated in space-based warfare would follow guidelines not unlike the "rules of war" in this time specifically because of the difficulty to coherently fight in space.

-- alright, now lets skip over to the Revolutionary War. This is where that 'primitivism' is looked back on and experimented on since warfare is now way, way concerned with formal practices. . .This path of experimental modern warfare works exponentially and is continually redefined to this day.

Now, I bring up this really, really terrible synopsis (although it looks like an AWESOME essay topic!!) to tell you guys that you guys are trying to figure out what will take literally hundreds of centuries to experience, (which, for some reason, has a greater propensity towards being realistic than theory) and even then, our super duper great grandsons who have genetically/cybernet swag intelligence still wont know what the heck is going on.

Let me put this in another perspective. We're not even cavemen in space and we're trying to think about how the modern soldier in space will work.

That doesn't mean we should, well, give up. I love this stuff. It's great. I just thought that was an interesting point I'd like to share, and it might be fun to explore. It's also probably highly fallacious, which makes sense because it's 4:15 in the morning and everything above is equivelent to me madly scribbling on napkins.

We'd use either single epic-ships like frigates, then start specilized line-formations simply because formations are easier to control (especially limited-range droneships like the teletanks), then towards a swarm-centric warfare where better trust, training, understanding, and control-interfaces allow for precision-timed intercepts and swarm-cell tactics to exploit FTL and even upright missile-spams with ToT between first and last shots within .05 second barrages.

Interestingly enough, we've got two series of semi-decent space control-emulators sans inertia-strafing if you enjoy fixed/spinal weapons.

The Phalanx was new because it was the first formation that actually gave mutual-support. Formations existed beforehand merely as making each soldier accountable for killing what was in their zone of advance. That said, the Phalynx had at times been overrun or flanked with devestating resaults. There was also wedge vs square tactics at Waterloo.

Similarily, the Swiss Pikemen managed to make the obsolescent pike-armed footmen a once-again feared adversary of the swift horsemen simply in their ability to concentrate their defenses in ANY direction in a moment's notice, and to redeploy just as fast. Cavalry-charges took considerably longer because royally pampered horses tended to get a little skittish when being shot at.

Then ofc, is the idea of artillery, and MOBILE artillery. Planet-crackers, first mounted planetside and subject to counter-planetary fire, and later made mobile. By this point, colonies would make mobile-planets, countered by GUIDED PLANET-CRACKERS or even Nova-bombs...

Then we get portable artificial-star/solar-systems and guided Nova-bombs. Escalation eventually leads to Weapons of Galactic Extinction, thus redefining Ws of MD.

And thankfully, compared to those guys, we're like the scum under some Afghani-terrorist's foot. So the only way we're going-out soon is if our galactic arm makes a threatening gesture by accidentally crashing an interstellar probe into their Galatcic trade center.

[SilverwindBlade]

I'd prefer a more constructive conversation rather than an argument. It helps to think outside your predetermined notions of what is possible, and to think what might be possible and how to make it so. That is, after all, what sci fi is all about, as far as I'm concerned.

Science Fiction, like all fiction, is a way to reflect and identify with our own lives in fictional characters.
Science Fiction is there for people to explore ways in which society and people might change in the future due to our society and lives changing as new technologies become available.
Not all sci-fi is hard, not all sci-fi is soft. Not all sci-fi is military, or in space.
Ultimately, the technologies' background shouldn't matter. What should matter is the idea you're trying to get across: what has the new idea you've come up with done to the people/society?

Unfortunately, this idea seems to have fallen by the wayside for showing ever more impressive levels of technology, or at least that's what people who talk about sci-fi focus on, rather than what the actual point seems to be.

The realism of the technology involved shouldn't matter unless it's relevant to the plot. But this seems to constantly fall by the wayside, and be regularly ignored as a point, in favour of endless bickering and one-upmanship by people who go to great lengths to display their superior knowledge of how everything in popular culture is wrong and flawed, while showing off their superior knowledge of whatever subkect they choose while sneeringly pointing out how stupid it all is, rather than celebrating any of it.

Run the game you want to run, with the technology you want in it. The people who are interested in it will come looking for it. If it doesn't work the first time, save what you've done, tweak it some more, try again another time. Look out for other people who are interested in the same things. Invite them to play. Suggest ideas to people in other game threads.