lastbesthope
Mongoose
phild said:
For active sensors, yes, but passive sensors could work at 100% the speed of light.
LBH
How would you describe a Starship Combat??
- Thread starter dgmonteavaro
- Start date
For active sensors, yes, but passive sensors could work at 100% the speed of light.
LBH
And Traveller space combat terms are six minutes long, not a few seconds. So, on average, the ship's lasers/missiles/etc are only firing once every six minutes max. That's plenty of time for sensor data to be fed into computers and course predictions computed, and firing instructions doled out.zanwot said:
In my view, Traveller starship gunners aren't sitting in turrets like Han Solo and Luke Skywalker blasting incoming TIE fighters - they're babysitting computer consoles and the rest of the hardware, making adjustments to algorithms, picking the most likely enemy movement scenario the computers calculate, setting targets, etc.
zanwot said:
I'm not convinced. Space is huge. How do you find the ship to have a combat in the first place? And it's not just speed, it's vector. There are an infinite variation of 3D vectors and unless a ship is on a very similar vector to yours it's just going to whizz past before you're aware of it.
But the point with manoeuvring is that even a slight sideward thrust could potentially mean several KMs away from the predicted point. Unless each laser battery is made up of thousands of weapons, you just can't cover that kind of probability.
I think you're miscalculating. Acceleration isn't the issue, it's vector. Apollo 11 reached speeds of c. 8,000m/second. At that speed, a thruster causing a 1 degree variation in a 2D vector over 2 seconds means a 280m difference in end position. Traveller ships are likely to be achieving speeds significantly greater than that. And a laser is just a pinprick of light.
Being manned is not necessarily the same thing as the turrets seen in Star Wars, though, which is what I was getting at. It makes sense to put as many of the controls and manual overrides as close to the turret as possible, as this reduces the likelyhood of a given turret going out of service because of damage elsewhere on the ship. I still think the "gunners" sitting there are more like expert technicians who are babysitting the things than they are WW2 tail gunners.AndrewW said:
I agree with most of what you wrote.phild said:Am I allowed to jump in late and say "unlikely"?
In my setting space combat in "open space" (beyond the main world's far
orbit) usually only takes place if both opponents are willing to fight and
maneuver accordingly to make the fight possible, otherwise it is normal-
ly quite easy for one side to evade the combat.
This is one of the reasons why there is almost no piracy in my setting,
it is just too difficult for the pirates to find and attack their potential prey
before the prey has managed to reach the protection of either the des-
tination world's orbit or of a friendly patrol craft aiming to rendezvous
with it.
As for naval combat, intruding fleets usually seek combat in order to de-
stroy the defenders, while the defenders often prefer to avoid combat un-
til the intruders are caught between them and the orbital defences of the
planet that the intruders plan to attack.
This leaves a lot of room for tactical maneuvers of both sides, the main
fleets as well as various task forces, until either one side has been out-
maneuvered and has to stand and fight or retreat, or both sides feel that
their positions are now advantageous enough to begin the battle.
In the end this is somewhat like three dimensional simultaneous chess fol-
lowed by a usually rather short and extremely brutal combat.
Not at all boring, from my point of view.
It's both vector and speed. There may be an infinite number of vectors a ship sitting still could take off in, but one currently travelling along a vector at speed can only change it's course by so much - which is determined by both it's current speed and the capabilities of the ship. If you know a ship's vector, it's speed and it's capabilities, you can predict where it can and can't be.phild said:
There is, of course, going to be an upper limit as to the relative speeds to ships are going that will determine if a combat is possible, and how long it will last - I believe that .2 or .3c is the value I've seen bandied about.
Now, if one party doesn't want the combat to occur, then it's relatively easy to avoid it - speed up until you're too fast to intercept. But combat usually happens because both parties want something there - to destroy each other, hold a planet, etc. And if you're going slow enough to find the other guy, you're slow enough to be found.
rust said:I agree with most of what you wrote.phild said:Am I allowed to jump in late and say "unlikely"?
In my setting space combat in "open space" (beyond the main world's far
orbit) usually only takes place if both opponents are willing to fight and
maneuver accordingly to make the fight possible, otherwise it is normal-
ly quite easy for one side to evade the combat.
This is one of the reasons why there is almost no piracy in my setting,
[...]
In the end this is somewhat like three dimensional simultaneous chess fol-
lowed by a usually rather short and extremely brutal combat.
Not at all boring, from my point of view.
I love it. Makes those Tactics (naval) skills all the more important than a few levels of Pilot.
No you cannot "turn" a vector in space (except when attracted by a planet or such, but that is another story). I'm not miscalculating.phild said:
But I agree space combat would be more probable near planets, as I said earlyer. It's just they are not as impossible as could be commonly thought.
Oh, and no way a guy controlling a laser turret in a space combat would be doing it Star Wars style, no way.
GypsyComet
Emperor Mongoose
Star Wars (Millennium Falcon) style turrets work for Star Wars style space fights, which are all close-up visual range affairs.
Traveller default ship combat takes place at a light second or more. Visual range is only for boarding.
A turret or battery specific gunner in Traveller is going to be the "guess" to go with the "calculating" of the hardware. Observed thrust and last fix (due to light speed lag) will produce a sphere that the target *must* be in when the shots arrive (unless he's been sandbagging his thrust), and its up to the gunner to second guess the pilot of the target and fire a burst pattern that will actually find the target.
Traveller default ship combat takes place at a light second or more. Visual range is only for boarding.
A turret or battery specific gunner in Traveller is going to be the "guess" to go with the "calculating" of the hardware. Observed thrust and last fix (due to light speed lag) will produce a sphere that the target *must* be in when the shots arrive (unless he's been sandbagging his thrust), and its up to the gunner to second guess the pilot of the target and fire a burst pattern that will actually find the target.
phild said:
Actually, this describes starship combat exceptionally well based on David Weber's Honor Harrington universe. :wink:
Ship battles in the Honorverse are usually a series of manoeuvres to match vectors and get within powered missile range. then large numbers of extremely fast missiles and ECM drones are fired at the opponents.
The battle then becomes a contest between agressor ECM and defender ECCM, counter missiles, and point defense to see which side can overcome the other - defenders want to kill all missiles in a salvo while attackers want to get enough missiles through to attack the targets. Obvoiusly, this is not a one sided battle (unless the defenders are merchants, and then they usually just die) - both sides are firing and defending at the same time.
By the way, these are Laser Warheads - thermonuclear devices that fire powerful laser beams in the split second before the missile is consumed.
All the warships also have powerful energy weapons as well, but getting into energy range is compared to closing in for a knife fight.
The combination of constantly trying to anticipate and defeat your enemy's ECM, track targets, , fire missile salvos, manage counter missiles and point defense make this kind of battle anything but boring for its participants, and the bomb pumped lasers are powerful enough to make any hits serious enough to cause damage and kill crew.
I believe you were thinking about this http://home.comcast.net/~steveosmanski/Trav_ex.html page.
zanwot said:
I know there's a fair probability my trigonometry is dodgy here, but can you explain what you mean? All I meant was if you're flying a straight course and apply some thrust other than forward/back such that it causes a 1 degree variation in your trajectory, that will result in a 280m difference in your final position.
Now I guess that position might be predictable using sensors that detected the thrust or change, especially for a larger vessel, but this would mean that small Fighter-type ships are almost unhitable - not a bad thing perhaps, as it makes them viable warships, which is good for the genre!!
Peter F. Hamilton has another model for starship combat which is great: Starships launch drones, and they don't really match velocity that much. These Drones have a much higher thrust possibility than starships, so they catch up the ennemy ship, or encounter the enemy ships's drones. Then all hell breaks loose as the drones deliver their diverses payloads (ECM, ECCM, laser, kinetic, etc).
Anyway, point is if you have decent computers, a ship one light year away, if it has a thrust of 1G, is essentially a sitting duck in terms of starship laser combat, whatever it's velocity (allthough that may not last long if it has a high relative velocity).
To make a one degree variation in a trajectory, you need to apply a different thrust depending on your velocity. That essentially means you are using the wrong frame of reference, making things unnecessarily complicated. The correct frame of reference is the one which is moving at the same speed as the initial speed of the target starship. That frame of reference is just as valid as any other "not moving" one, in it the target ship is iniatially not moving, and it would be the one used by a targeting software.phild said:
Anyway, point is if you have decent computers, a ship one light year away, if it has a thrust of 1G, is essentially a sitting duck in terms of starship laser combat, whatever it's velocity (allthough that may not last long if it has a high relative velocity).
alex_greene
Guest
I'd add that if everyone was in a vacc suit, the water would contain the slightest trace of an otherwise harmless gag reflex suppressant drug, kindly supplied by the ship's medic.
Quite possibly something else, too, to slow down the digestive processes and reduce hunger pangs - because there are other problems than vomiting in vacc suits.
So I daresay that the usual response to fear, that ... erm ... visceral response that shall not be named, would be less likely to happen.
Quite possibly something else, too, to slow down the digestive processes and reduce hunger pangs - because there are other problems than vomiting in vacc suits.
So I daresay that the usual response to fear, that ... erm ... visceral response that shall not be named, would be less likely to happen.
zanwot said:
And it's mathematically wrong. You simply need L/9.8 G's at 0.5LS to defeat laser aiming. (This assumes a non-predictable path.) Why? because at 0.5LS, your signature takes half a second to reach the firer, and half a second for his beam to come back. If you can accelerate more than your longest dimension, you can make it extremely hard to be hit if you don't mind the fuel and time losses.
this scales inversely to the range; divide required G's by the double the distance.
