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Space Combat in the Human Sphere

Discussion in 'Access Guide to the Human Sphere' started by Shiwen, May 31, 2018.

  1. AdmiralJCJF

    AdmiralJCJF Heart of the Hyperpower

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    Yeah, the Infinity setting is a LOT more forgiving than that of The Expanse.

    It's pulling hard on the "neomaterials" handwavium in order to be so.

    But telescoping distance and variable round length helps keep things believable if you want it to feel a little more "hard sci-fi".
     
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  2. Section9

    Section9 Well-Known Member

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    The Expanse is pushing the bounds of materials science pretty hard with the Epstein Drive. You can go from Earth to Mars in 5 days at 5m/s/s, a hair over half a gee.

    The Roci usually only burns at .25gee (call it 2.45m/s/s), she could travel from Earth to Mars in a week at that low burn. If that sounds funny to you, remember that the acceleration is an exponential. Also, you need to slow back down at the other end. Doubling the acceleration does not halve the travel time, but reduces it by about a third.

    You do not need to push 15 gees, or even more than one gee, to travel at reasonable times through space. Neptune is 15.7 days (377 hours) away from Earth (at average distance) if you're pushing one gee.
     
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  3. DeepThought

    DeepThought Well-Known Member

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    Sounds more like LHost android bodies would be the optimum way to go at that point. Fewer limitations when you can have a body deliberately optimized for those kinds of forces. Heck, do Lhost bodies like Aleph has its aspects use even need oxygen? I mean, if not, then they could ALL spacewalk without protection and fight without any impediments to their movement! Kinda a scary thought, actually.
     
    #243 DeepThought, Dec 15, 2021
    Last edited: Dec 15, 2021
  4. DeepThought

    DeepThought Well-Known Member

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    -was reading your work on space warfare (seems fairly well thought out btw). The concept of space combat is one many people don't even bother with, and while often compared to its closest cousin, naval warfare, the fact remains that the differences do go WAAAY deeper than just thinking 3 dimensionally.
    At the risk of kicking an ant-hill by pointing this out, I felt I ought to note: the infinity universe has already made the bending of space a gimmick of the infinity-'verse via wormhole creation and travel (No objections, I always liked the concept). However it opens a field I haven't seen you guys discussing that could eliminate the ridiculous distance problem I keep seeing pop up for people.

    I'm speaking of trajectory manipulation. I'm not saying ships would have an omnidirectional 'distortion field', but if you think about it, even only being able to manipulate single a tiny space at a time in the slightest would still make a devastatingly effective defense in space.Long range mass drivers and/or beam weapons would become greatly diminished if one were using such technology even at a rudimentary level, and the range limitations would match that of any cannon if you think about it.
    Picture it: Even if you had a system that could turn the angle an incoming projectile by a fraction of a degree over a space the size of a beach-ball, you'd still theoretically be able to effectively 'turn away' any straight-flying projectile approaching your ship if there's enough distance between you. Now chances are your opponent would be trying to 'bend it back' to hit you again with their own tech (and anything headed their way), but that's still a lot more back-and forth, and correcting an errant trajectory would be much harder than it would be to derail an on-target shot.
    (Needless to say, missiles with guidance or homing capabilities would hardly be deterred by such defenses with the ability to re-adjust themselves)
    Now I envision one could have some serious built-in limitations to such an ability, such as a bend or warp in space taking time to form and/or expand, it prevents such a mechanic from getting too out-of hand. (would just get weird if it made for fleets of ships playing tennis with a laser beam lol)
    The point would be that close-range combat would then make huge sense, as there would be less distance to manipulate trajectories between, reducing the effectiveness of such defenses dramatically. You could keep it from piercing your ship's critical systems then, but not from hurting your ship altogether, and depending on the saturation of fire, you might be having to make calls on which incoming fire needs redirecting most.

    Such a system also has tremendous movement applications for the ships themselves, as it might circumvent G-force limitations, but I've no idea how people would feel about that, as that would essentially be dipping a toe into 'warp drive'.
     
    #244 DeepThought, Dec 15, 2021
    Last edited: Jan 2, 2022
  5. Noir Kara

    Noir Kara Member

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    Sandcasters, Nuclear Dampeners, Railguns, Laser Batteries, Meson Guns, Particle Accelerators, Plasma and Missiles all worked out in the last century by our friends in Traveller the RPG. I was a member of HiWig, History of the Imperium working Group and loved the high speed run with forward stationary scouts using laser comms to inform the high speed battleship when to fire its sand. We even inspired computer games that led to EvE online. Good theories and development from desk size computers to nano models paralleled the real science developments.
    “Agent 0 to ISS Venture, sending orbital target position and velocity data by laser uplink, good luck”
    “ISS Venture to all Scouts, beam data analysis to coordinates herein, BB Praxis is en route and on vector with velocity 0.444 mark 0110.472.”
    ———boom——-
    “ISS Venture to all scouts, observe and report effects of hyper velocity sand on enemy, send results to BB Praxis on receding course.”
    Beaming laser comms involved continual short burst at hypothetical positions within a few thousand yards until receivers on the BB answered with position and velocity to refine the laser comms received on both ends. This necessitated the velocity of ships and even the planet in calculations of manageable magnitude. The use of deadfall ordnance as a planet killer was a lot more complicated.
    Doctrine evolved such that large assets like battleships didn’t expose near planet, planetary and system defense boats with heavy armaments were launched from asteroids and secret bases.
    EVE online does way better with entangled atom communication. But that’s a step up in technology that infinity hasn’t reached.
     
    #245 Noir Kara, Mar 20, 2023
    Last edited: Mar 21, 2023
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