AlienBastard

Space Battles, Space Warship design & Tactics

Damn it.

It's already 11:00 PM where i'm at. I should be shutting down by brain now.

All in all, the idea of a empire ran by 10 foot tall dicks and space vaginas that shoot cats with anti-matter bombs strapped to them would be a funny thing to see in a space NRP.

Not to mention, if a drone kamikaze than who will die with honor serving the federation?

Space Battles, Space Warship design & Tactics

Kadaeux said

No I don't. Also note I have said VIRTUALLY impossible

.No it couldn't. It's completely nonviable unless your civilisation ALREADY has a vast superiority over the enemy. To even suggest that requires no longer discussing hard scifi. You're SERIOUSLY proposing that people perceive a 45 year trip as only a week or two.

I am proposing that there may well be technologies that enable people to alter their perception of time to make the trip seem like only a week or two even if it was really 45 years. Since it's all speculative it's pretty much open game of what technologies are and aren't possible, even with that "100% hard sci-fi" thing since hard sci-fi is limited to current knowledge.

Since 1900 humanity's advancements in technology has been a constant and VAST increase with spurts of even greater development that co-incide with conflict. To imply that an enemy who has forty years minimum advance warning your coming won't be advancing and spending big on its military is pure wishful thinking.No, it wouldn't. There would be no benefit in it of ANY sort.

True, in fact it's very much leading into my belief invading other star systems would be very hard to bother doing and even bordering on pointless as even spamming giant rocks is too easy to intercept because you can send a counter rock to blow it off course or annihilate it.

Culture trade is an absolute joke and isn't even really valid on one planet, just look at all the people who move from one country to another and instead of adopting the customs of their new country, just build little microcosms of their old culture.

So trade of the arts and ideas or stories is a joke? I don't see why everyone would isolate themselves just because of huge distances when even today we can send information using signals in distance of light years.

A polity capable of interstellar colonisation wouldn't NEED to transport biological resources. They'd have transported everything required for a self-sustaining colony with the initial effort.And people who "want to go somewhere else" is even more of a joke. Governments would not maintain multi-trillion dollar craft to transport a few idiots to somewhere half a century away.

Biological resources as in exotics- trade of alien critters and all. Each world is unique, no?

The only possible realistic trade would likely be purely digital transmissions. And even then it'd require stupidly powerful communications technolgies to make it work.
And you assume that spaceships that go interstellar are always going to expensive and that money will even be a factor far into the future.

O come on man, that sort of technology already exists today. SETI sends signals like that out all the time. A more advanced civ would have little trouble maintaining a information network between worlds regardless of the lag. Assuming humans, I don't see it as a far stretch that humans could modify themselves to tolerate times we see as insanely long as lengthy as a few days.

The time scale we currently operate on is not necessarily the timescale the future may.

I mean, just look at the example above, those lovely 50 year trips are assuming you're capable of building ships capable of .2c (without even taking into consideration being annihilated by a micrometeorite that crosses your path.

That problem does not sound like it is impossible to remedy at all. Regenerating hull, energy barrier or some other thing we, 21st century dwellers can barely grasp they may use. There is no reason why a barrier like "micrometeorites" would be impossible to deal with to the point where exceeding 10% the speed of light is unthinkable.

If we take it down to a known rough capability, say.Max 2'000km/s with an acceleration of 1g (Roughly 0.006%c) (Still an exceptionally generous figure)Max Speed: 0.006c Acceleration: 1 G Distance: 10ly Time spent Accelerating: 2.12 days Distance Travelled while Accelerating: 0 ly Time "coasting" at Max Speed: 1667.8 years Shipboard Time: 1666.67 years Observed Time: 1666.7 years Deviation: 0%So, without magical acceleration and speeds you'd spend over one and a half thousand years travelling to a star 10 years away.Make it 12'000 km/s and Max Speed: 0.04c Acceleration: 1 G Distance: 10ly Time spent Accelerating: 14.15 days Distance Travelled while Accelerating: 0.001 ly Time "coasting" at Max Speed: 250.13 years Shipboard Time: 250.04 years Observed Time: 250.24 years Deviation: 0.1%You've still got 250 years to cross that 10 lightyear gap. Not only do those low figures rule out trade UTTERLY, but that make the concept of war between two such powers BEYOND ludicrous

Those spaceship travel times are just plain pessimistic given there's already rocket concepts out there that reach .1c No one would send a spaceship going at "slow" speeds interstellar. They'd make a ship that can go the speeds necessary to take a several decades; which is nothing in the grand scale of time. Human civilization as we know it is a smote of dust in the grand scheme of things, it's so short that the vast majority humans have existed [only 1/500th a billion years] was spent being hunter gatherers.

Even those "long times" you depict as still nothing in the galactic scale of time. 1.5 thousand years? What's that? A black hole's wet fart? Light not even crossing a forth of a galactic arm?

. Yes practicality will even matter, seeing that yes the only factor is time, but when it would take half your life to get somewhere nobody except the most desperate are going to bother.

Assuming of course, the future peoples never try to innovate to make interstellar travel quicker. Not impossible of a idea, but time as a resource is more plentiful as well since "half your life" in the 21st century isn't "half your life" in the future, presumably. Of course in the far future everyone could only live ten years as well, but perceive infinity of life. There are quadrillions of possible futures.

And interstellar empire is simply not feasible or possible in a 100% Hard Science fiction environment, 100% Hard Scifi is boring.

"100% hard sci-fi" seems like a misnomer since everyone's idea of 100% hard sci-fi is different. I won't lie; I know with certainty I am likely wrong about things, but at the same time I can't imagine anyone being actually right about future civilization since it's all speculation regardless.

And as for saying hard sci-fi is boring... Well I guess it is since it is hard to make a 100% hard sci-fi without actually going to the far future to see what it's like. And as a result I personally just do soft sci-fi since I don't want to worry about technological realism much, even if I do attempt researching it since you can get some fun modifiers like "no hiding in space".

Then you would just make it an RKKV.

A manned RKV capable of intercepting, attacking and shooting more missiles.

I'd say it's a pretty good deal.

Kadaeux said
Oh. I ran some numbers on your proposed "chain" of ships to keep in contact.If we assume that the destination is only ONE lightyear away and each ship is spaced 1 million kilometres apart....You'd need 9'460'730 there, and the same back. Add a zero for a 10 Lightyear chain.Now if we space them by 1 AU apart (distance between earth and the sun) then you'd only need63'241 .... each way, for 1 Lightyear.So in total. To maintain a 1 million km ship chain over 10 Lightyears you'd need 189'214'600 starships.In order to maintain a 1 AU ship chain over 120 Lightyears you'd need 1'264'820No nation. In any Scifi. Ever. Let alone reality. Would be willing to maintain a MINIMUM fleet of effectively 1.3 Million Starships (replacements are needed for ones needing repair) for one single destination. Of which the majority of those starships will be spending between a quarter of a millenia to one and a half in transit, each way.

I don't think you need the spaceship chain that densely packed.

The Gods are Crazy

Gorgen!

How is things?

Space Battles, Space Warship design & Tactics

I think you overuse the word impossible dude.

I mean, you assume that smashing everything in genocide is the only effective means to wage interstellar war. Why? I could counter that by simply saying that you can send out a counter RKV and blow up such easy to detect [since serious, that RKV going to flare] death weapon. I've also seen people who said RKVs are impossible since they'd move too fast and the costs for making a RKV would be comparable to that of making a interstellar colony craft. I think interstellar genocide would be hard to achieve against another interstellar civ since they'd intercept them. Instead setting up a base and building more invading spaceships in the outer regions of ther system could prove a more effective means of subjugation instead of sending a few big rocks and hoping for the best.

RKVs are to me only good for strangling civs in the crib.

And the trade/interstellar society stuff all assumes that the current pace of time we have will be the same pace for humans in the future. Perhaps humans, in order to counter the issue of long times to travel between stars simply start perceiving time in a way that makes a 45 year time only a week or two? And are you sure innovation is a constant that may not level off? technologically historically has been booms and busts, why would it be any different in the longer term future?

And besides, trade doesn't just have to be tech. Culture, biological resources [which would by the way, be quite rare in a cold, dark cynical hard sci-fi setting] and simply people who want to go somewhere else would all be involved in some form of interstellar trade. Impractical, perhaps, but can we assume that practicality will even matter to humans of the far future, seeing that the only factor is really time to make things and transport with all those raw resources from asteroids?

A interstellar empire I dunno about, but I could imagine a spaceship chain connected to a neighboring star system being subjugated. Yet with so many interstellar space craft required for a subjugation chain I don't think interstellar empires would be that big, like a couple dozen star systems at most. Of course, I may be absolutely wrong.

And as for the ramming, whatever man I think my theories on it are valid enough and what stops the smaller craft form being built in a similar way to a missile? Most a spaceship is not the crew as is.

How about a Alien Contact Space Opera RP?

That's fine as forum RPing should take a back seat to real life when real life happens.

Space Battles, Space Warship design & Tactics

Kadaeux said
Effectively impossible.

The ramming spaceship would be already accelerating towards them, and a ramming ship could keep its trajectory aligned as the no stealth thing goes both ways; every time they start changing trajectory, the ramming ship would too. Just like with a missile.

And ramming would likely be done against a bigger ship, which due to inertia likely would have a harder time changing trajectory or accelerate even if the potential speed of a bigger ship is much bigger than a smaller ship.

How about a Alien Contact Space Opera RP?

You know, one day someone will look at the sci-fi of the 20th and 21st century and think something like

"Military shuttles being led by the navy?

Dafuq."

Dunno about even that since I could see the land military and navy combining.

[kidding kidding]

As said in the OP, the higher up in the coalition you intend to be, the more I expect you to play.

May need to fine tune the policies though.

Space Battles, Space Warship design & Tactics

I imagine total war would very much be on the table assuming alien invasion.

But what if said conquers more or less want to exterminate the defenders? Is there ways to avert being glassed or obliterated when all it takes is rods from god to devastate the local population of a world?

Space Battles, Space Warship design & Tactics

So, how about that ramming thing?

I heard that ramming the enemy spaceship tends to disintegrate everyone involved.

Anyhow I imagine that with the right augmentations and drugs, the spaceship pilots of the future will find what some see as "mundane truth" as super duper fabulous fun. By the time society has spacecraft and uses them regularly the rhythm and ways of using a spaceship to wage war will have an appeal of its own.

Hell I am certain by the time we actually have spaceships, we will have a name that doesn't just have "space" as a prefix. Similar to how airships started being called zeppelins. Perhaps a word derived from shuttle will be what people centuries in the future call what we call spaceships.

Well of course, except the whole dying thing. But hey, at least with spaceship fights it seems you always die instantly when the death bolt hits. Worst case scenario you go into the emptiness of space- and lose consciousness in seconds.

The Gods are Crazy

Finally decided to start the story arc thing I had in mind for my guys.

Next post I make will involve the comedy caste as I need some graphic violence in my kingdom as well!