View to a Kill

vitalis6969

Mongoose
This topic comes from something that is brought up in another I was reading and as I didn't want to hijack that one, I decided to start another one.

This topic has to do with range.

It was mentioned in that other topic about how close weapon ranges are, ships firing and targets that can barely be seen, etc. And how that would be considered a long shot. A rebuttle was made stating that a 10" planet template was supposed to be a saturn sized planet. So a 40" shot would be a long way indeed.

Now, I just wanted to make a statement on how we as viewers have been spoiled by shows such as Star Treck and B5 that show ships batteling it out at nearly point blank ranges. Why do we see battles at this range? Because it is far more exciting to see ships shooting and being hit in the same frame, where in reality one ship would almost never see the other, let alone circle it blasting away at it point blank. But that wouldn't make for interesting TV.

All of the starship games I have played in the past have had most engagements (as if it really mattered) out at tens of thousands of kilometers. I fairly assume the same to be accurate for B5, though the sheer size of the miniatures compaired to the ranges of the weapons belies this. Heck, a Narn Dreadnaught is close to half the size of a Saturn sized world, lol.

Now B5 was huge, 5 miles I believe? Making stuff like the Omega around one mile in length or so. I need to look it up again, just going on memory here. That is a freaking HUGE vessel, and yet it would still be an unseen point in space only showing as a blip on some targetting monitor in a real fight.

What is the point of this? I dunno... Just thinking I guess..

-V
 
I prefer to think it's all quite short ranged, because when i think about a nova broadsiding something it's at close range not at speck in the distance. It would be very boring trying to imagine things that you can't see like lasers shooting ships you can't see with the naked eye.
Ramming is very at up close and personal.
Fighters ignore stealth as they can get within point blank range.
It would be impracticle to have planets & other stellar terrain at real size on a table. It's there because fighting in open space is quite boring after a while.
 
From dialogue in the show it appears that battles are fought at long ranges (too far to be seen by the naked eye) but as you say it makes for poor tv so the battles seem closer

there would also of course be no sound in space battles but we hear it all the time! :wink:
 
One of the beauties of Star Wars. The weapon ranges are severely limited, making any starship battle a long drawn out affair-a slugfest if you will- between ships armed with a number of main weapon turrets, sometimes near or upwards of 100.

Actually, if you think of it, Starship combat in Star Wars is fairly reminiscent of the Age of Sail...

Star Trek on the other hand, I'm sure the weapons have ranged much longer than it appears to be. I seem to recall photon torpedo's were launched at high warp speed towards the enemy, if they have that kind of capability, then they surely would be able to hit an enemy vessel at extreme range(and in fact I seem to remember combat at that range occuring more than once)

As for B5, I can't really explain, as I've never seen the show, short of one episode(or rather a segment of one episode)when Londo cuts a deal with the Shadows or somesuch.
 
Not only are the battles fought at close range for the viewer but the sound affects aren't a reality either. You wouldn't hear all of those neat weapons firing nor their explosions. I prefer the fiction.
 
emperorpenguin said:
there would also of course be no sound in space battles but we hear it all the time! :wink:

Technichally there is no sound in space...

JMS mentioned this in a commentary. He talked to some NASA guys who said that if a ship explodes it releases it's atmesphere, which when combined with the collision of debris on a ship, can reonate sounds like a bell that CAN be heard in the "vaccum" of space.

It's not word for word what he said... but it's the jist, I think.

And BTW, I'm just being an ass and am arguing, so feel free to ignore this :wink: .
 
jms did say that fighting was shown as close range for dramatic purposes.

in saying that, one of the best long range battles i`ve seen is also in the series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-48ewmvPE6c (excerpts from The Long Twilight Struggle, dubbed in German but its good quality footage).

for anyone who hasn`t seen B5 then youtube is a great spot to find combat footage. 8)
 
Jal said:
jms did say that fighting was shown as close range for dramatic purposes.

in saying that, one of the best long range battles i`ve seen is also in the series: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-48ewmvPE6c (excerpts from The Long Twilight Struggle, dubbed in German but its good quality footage).

for anyone who hasn`t seen B5 then youtube is a great spot to find combat footage. 8)
That was a good scene. :D
You even see the shadows fighters taking out G'Quan engine.
If range mattered in the game thats what i would vote for as being accurate.
Didn't look to close but were small explosions frazi blowing up in some of the scenes.
 
Abraxas said:
emperorpenguin said:
there would also of course be no sound in space battles but we hear it all the time! :wink:

Technichally there is no sound in space...

JMS mentioned this in a commentary. He talked to some NASA guys who said that if a ship explodes it releases it's atmesphere, which when combined with the collision of debris on a ship, can reonate sounds like a bell that CAN be heard in the "vaccum" of space. .

but can only be heard within that atmosphere. :wink: You'd hear weapon hits on your own ship but not the sound of fire travelling or hitting an opponent.

One of the B5 production team pointed this out but was over-ruled by the argument "you don't hear background music in space either". A shame it'd have been cool for a show to realistically depict space combat as soundless
 
What about beam weapons? Can sound travel along them? If so then you'd hear it hitting its target.

If an enemy shot you with a beam while being hit by someone else, you'd also hear the enemy being hit.
 
Burger said:
What about beam weapons? Can sound travel along them? If so then you'd hear it hitting its target..

I'm no chemical/physics expert but I'd doubt it.

A beam is just coherent light after all, no medium for sound to travel in

plus practically if it could given the ranges involved the sound would take too long to travel down the beam before it stopped. You'd need a beam to fire a long time
 
sound is a physical wave travelling through a medium. Beams are simply energy and sound cant tavel along them.

HOWEVER: PARTICLE Beams on the other hand are just that and its possible in theory for sound to travel along them but Id consider it extremely unlikely as the particles in such a beam are all traveling towarde the target. The effect of sound waves might slow some of them DOWN slightly (and by slightly I mean almost imperceptibly) but I HUGELY doubt theyd be detectable by the firing ship in any way.

Neutron Lasers by the way are NOT particle beams as I understand it they are rather more evil in nature from what Ive read they basically strip away the neutrons from the target thus destabalising it at an atomic level. Never really read HOW exactly this is supposed to work but its Minbari technology its so far advanced compared to to human stuff it doesnt really NEED explaining.

To coin the phrase 'Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistiguishable from magic'
 
emperorpenguin said:
A shame it'd have been cool for a show to realistically depict space combat as soundless

The new BSG does that. In the space battles all the sound is muted echoes that you hear when in a cockpit or through a radio.
 
Burger said:
How about "Matter cannons", they must be matter, therefore can act as a carrier for sound?

Well as per B5wars matter cannons are just railguns or more likely some form of gauss weapon or coilgun which fire a solid slug at the target, so no real way for the sound to travel back to the firing ship there.


Nick
 
Silvereye said:
emperorpenguin said:
A shame it'd have been cool for a show to realistically depict space combat as soundless

The new BSG does that. In the space battles all the sound is muted echoes that you hear when in a cockpit or through a radio.

Well its CLOES but BSG DOES do some sound for cylon engines etc for the sake of looking cool :P But really it does it in a very stylish way. Another show that did a similar thing was Firefly (though they didnt really do 'space battles')
 
Silvereye said:
emperorpenguin said:
A shame it'd have been cool for a show to realistically depict space combat as soundless

The new BSG does that. In the space battles all the sound is muted echoes that you hear when in a cockpit or through a radio.

nah we hear the guns firing when the camera is outside looking at dogfights from a 3rd person view

they wussed out too! :lol:
 
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