[Snail]

Note that sentry guns were hacked very easily by the Hammer of Light in the FS1 mission "Tenderizer."

[Admiral_Stones]

Standard 'it's a game' argument employed.
Probably just for the sake of gameplay/storyline.

[Snail]

Standard 'it's a game' argument employed.
Probably just for the sake of gameplay/storyline.

That sickens me.

[Polpolion]

Standard 'it's a game' argument employed.
Probably just for the sake of gameplay/storyline.

Regardless, it happened and it's canon. It can be done.

[Snail]

Even though some people may not mind, I still think it's annoying to say "it's a game." It is simply unacceptable.

[Polpolion]

Even though some people may not mind, I still think it's annoying to say "it's a game." It is simply unacceptable.

Especially in this thread .

[TrashMan]

Note that sentry guns were hacked very easily by the Hammer of Light in the FS1 mission "Tenderizer."

 

Nowhere was it said it was easy.


Secondly, the question is is it even possible to hack a sentry gun/drone from afar. The most sensible way to build them would be for them to require a direct interface. Hands-on approach.

[Snail]

Nowhere was it said it was easy.

Well, undetected then.

[ChronoReverse]

Well, there's still a difference between hacking a remote device that hasn't been checked up on too recently, and hacking drones that have just been launched and gone through a list of preflight checks.

It's not impossible of course, but it shouldn't be easy either.


Of course, it'd only work for one iteration before quickly becoming countered (and that being worked against immediately afterward.  And escalating arms race as usual.  There'll just be another aspect to it.

[Snail]

Maybe they're especially vulnerable to EMP blasts like the EM Pulse Missile.

[Flaser]

I hate to break it to the whole lot of you, but:

ANY Naval or Aerial parallel with Space will be STUPID

This includes:

• Runways
• Take-offs/Landings
• Fighters!
• Dogfights
• Heavy Armor
• Any unguided weaponry
• Ergo...GUNS
• Stealth

Recommended Reading:

• (Once again) Project Rho
• Attack Vector: Tactical!

(Boardgame with true 3D vector movement. Acceleration/Power ratings are probably only a single magnitude off-scale instead the typical several magnitude "overestimation" in sci-fi.)

• Books by David Weber
  
  • The Apocalypse Troll
  • Honoverse books
  • Starfyre books

The prime reason, why its so, is that in space, big ships aren't any slower than small ones. For a given thrust-to-weight ratio you can build a big or small ship, their acceleration (and there is no such thing as "top speed") will be the same.

You could build a "fighter" - in practice it will be a small ship, with lower endurance on its life-support and engine. Actually if you go that way, a missile is better: no life-support, no squishy meat-bags who will be turned into purrey at a "mere 100-g" acceleration. It will have better acceleration. It will also turn faster (but not change course faster! I'm merely speaking of pivoting), so it could bring its weapons to bear faster.

A bigger ship can mount more point-defense, and stronger (with bigger antennas) radars and lidars. It can also mount more redundant systems (but not 'armor' as we know it!), so it can stay in the fight longer.

The best weapon in space is a big missile - heck, actually a big AI controlled torpedo or ship with an engine of its own - and a nasty nuclear warhead (fusion or even anti-matter in higher tech).

Unlike chemical or kinetic weaponry, a proximity kill (even in space) is very much possible with a nuke. It won't have a shockwave, and will output only minimal EMP (which it will still do, as the matter of the missile will be irradiated and emit strong Electromagnetic Radiation - which is what EMP really is) but sheer radiation pressure will be lethal within a couple of kilometers.

If that's far too close to beat the point-defense, then mount a bomb-pumped X-Ray laser on the missile, and you can a whooping couple of hundred (50-150) km.  effective range.

This will be compounded by the fact, that you can't take armor into space - although in hindsight, you can, it would be just stupid - since armor that stops radiation (which incidentally also happens to be lasers when you speak of the EM variant) or high kinetic impactors takes a lot of mass.

High mass equals low acceleration for a given engine. Which is a very bad thing, since the guy with better acceleration will be able to "sling" his whole missile armament at you while actually staying out of the powered envelope of your own missiles.

Here is a key word: POWERED. Ergo, under controlled flight with propulsion to change course.
There is no such thing as "range" for missiles in space. They can shut off their engine and drift most of the way: there is only such a thing as powered envelope.

Once within a given range, they can go to powered intercept, and here only their acceleration versus your ships acceleration will matter. This range is an almost certain kill-zone (point-defense non-withstanding).
The reason why the missile will always win, is that it will have a lot lower mass, it won't carry life-support, FTL or intricate navigation equipment. It will also win, because its parts won't need the endurance a full blown spaceship needs. It can redline its engine, wear out all its parts and still intercept the spaceship with glee and tolerances to spare.

This is why it becomes a game of delta-v: the imparted impulse your engine impart by burning all your fuel.
In this game, the ship has an advantage - it can't accelerate that fast, but it can gain a higher final velocity; since high acceleration engines also usually have worse specific impulse. So if you start running soon enough, you can outrun the missile since it will burn out before reaching you.

If for some reason you point defense isn't saturated - which is the name of the game in such an engagement. The one mounting a sufficient number of missiles on a sufficient number of ships will saturate the other's defenses with missiles, jamming, decoys and pure and nasty radiation that blinds tracking radars - your next best bet is a light-speed weapon - either a MASER or a LASER.

This could happen if neither side has a numerical advantage. For this kind of fight, a lightsecond (300 km) is the absolute maximum range you can hope for a hit. Effective range is much less, a fraction of that. Highly focused lasers, don't drill but blow. The reason is the following: if a sufficient amount of energy is deposited in a small enough amount of matter it will immediately evaporate - explosively.

Given this, a good anti-laser cover could be porous, so it vents the gases without fragmenting. Mirror coverings won't work, as any mirror has microscopic faults that the laser will get down to and develop into massive ones. Metamaterials (with negative diffraction) may offset a lasers power somewhat.

Deploying gases, of chaff to diffuse the laser won't be viable either as it will scatter too fast to have any effect.

This 50-100 km range will be the "sword" range for ships.

If you want something harder hitting, put some mass into your beam. Particle beams won't have the range of lasers, since they will be only c-fractional (part lightspeed) weapons, but a range of 25-50 km (.5 c) doesn't seem all to far fetched.

This will be the "knife/dagger" range. Getting hit by a particle beam will be really nasty, as the decelerating particles emmit massive doses of radiation, frying electronics (and the crew) as well as explosivly evaporating anything in their path. They will be also armor piercing, since they will go through several meters of matter.

The in-your-face punches of ships will come from kinetic weaponry - these are likely mass drivers or railguns that shoot matter at c-fractional speed, but a lot lower than particle beams (.01 c or the like). Since closing velocity can impart a significant further energy (say a .005 c closure rate between the combatants) to these "bullets" these will be the weapon of choice for suicide charges.
These won't be dumb bullets though - to hit they will need a significant propulsion of their own.

You could also mount such weapons on missiles, and missiles can be fired from such mass drivers.[/list]

Why runways or take-offs are stupid: there is no such thing as 'rest' in space (You are at rest compared to what?!) You will be pulling several g-s and accelerating all the while you deploy your gunboats (okay, fighters!), so they WON'T be stationary targets for the enemy.
Further more there is no stall speed in space, so you can simply match course with your mothership, and a simple waldo can grab you and pull you into the bay - or you can simply drift into the bay with maneuvering thrusters.

Final word:

The reason why sci-fi is full of close-range combats, and dashing 20-something fighter pilots, is that the life-and-death of a nuclear missile is nowhere near as interesting as the life-and-death of a 20-something fighter pilot.

[General Battuta]

Those ranges seem comically short. 100 km? 50 km? Those ranges are for kissing, not for fighting.

[NGTM-1R]

Why runways or take-offs are stupid: there is no such thing as 'rest' in space (You are at rest compared to what?!) You will be pulling several g-s and accelerating all the while you deploy your gunboats (okay, fighters!), so they WON'T be stationary targets for the enemy.

Fallacious argument. Ships engaged with each other will, if the engagement lasts any time at all, have roughly equal velocities, acceleration, and vectors. All movement in space combat is relative, as you pointed out, so they may not appear to be, but unless your engagement is over in five seconds or so (or a hell of a lot less at the ranges you give) then you're roughly matched. Plus this assumes that the targeting gear cannot "carry over" existing data on an object to engage anything it deploys, which is miserably, incredibly goddamn stupid. This capablity already exists.

The name of the game in targeting is going to be compensating for the other guy's movement in such a way that, so far as the gun is concerned, he and you are at rest. We call this stablization. The end result is that for any targeting gear worth its salt you will already be tracking on your opponent well enough that so far as the weapon is concerned, he's at rest. Hence the catapult launch or some other method (blast of compressed gas is popular too) of getting things off the ship in such a way that their acceleration, velocity, and maybe vector are significantly different from the launching craft. Otherwise they're easily engaged based on the already-solved problem of engaging their parent craft. You have to make him crunch more numbers for his targeting, give him a different or at least extended equation to solve on the delta-v, because these smaller things you're throwing out (missiles or fighters or atmospheric entry craft or whateverthe****) being, well, smaller, are significantly more vunerable.

[Flaser]

Why runways or take-offs are stupid: there is no such thing as 'rest' in space (You are at rest compared to what?!) You will be pulling several g-s and accelerating all the while you deploy your gunboats (okay, fighters!), so they WON'T be stationary targets for the enemy.

Fallacious argument. Ships engaged with each other will, if the engagement lasts any time at all, have roughly equal velocities, acceleration, and vectors. All movement in space combat is relative, as you pointed out, so they may not appear to be, but unless your engagement is over in five seconds or so (or a hell of a lot less at the ranges you give) then you're roughly matched. Plus this assumes that the targeting gear cannot "carry over" existing data on an object to engage anything it deploys, which is miserably, incredibly goddamn stupid. This capablity already exists.

The name of the game in targeting is going to be compensating for the other guy's movement in such a way that, so far as the gun is concerned, he and you are at rest. We call this stablization. The end result is that for any targeting gear worth its salt you will already be tracking on your opponent well enough that so far as the weapon is concerned, he's at rest. Hence the catapult launch or some other method (blast of compressed gas is popular too) of getting things off the ship in such a way that their acceleration, velocity, and maybe vector are significantly different from the launching craft. Otherwise they're easily engaged based on the already-solved problem of engaging their parent craft. You have to make him crunch more numbers for his targeting, give him a different or at least extended equation to solve on the delta-v, because these smaller things you're throwing out (missiles or fighters or atmospheric entry craft or whateverthe****) being, well, smaller, are significantly more vunerable.

The only problem with the above mentioned situation is this: if I already have a targeting solution on the mothership, why isn't he so much scrap already?

For that matter, I said, that laser and particle beam ranges are already melee - vicicous close-range fighting. If current doctrines/tendencies are to be relied upon - which you insist we should do - than that seems awfully (needlesly) close.

You launch gun/misisleboats way further out.

As for "syhconizing" or coming to rest compared to the other ships: that's a pretty stupid thing to do. Instead you should aim for a passing course, where you spend a mininum time in his power missile envelope - or better yet, set up a pursuit geometry, where your missile envelope reaches him, but not vice versa.

Then you let loose your birds, get the hell out of there, and watch the pretty fireworks as your nukes or x-ray lasers team him to spacedust.

Even if you had to stay in his envelope, holding a steady course is still a bad thing to do - you're still way outside beam range. You're better off weaving to-and-fore on some evasion pattern that makes you harder to hit for birds. The key is unpredictability, and going plain old evasive in case your point-defense won't deal with all his birds in time.

One more thing though: why the hell do I need a complicated catapult, or some other heavy contraption aboard my mothership (which following the launch will be ever so much bloody unneeded mass)?
If fast deployement is neeeded inside beam range, I would simply hook the gunboats onto the hull, and let them clear the mothership with their own drive.

You could argue for "rearmament", "refuelings" etc. but in that case what the hell does you mothership do in the battlefield? It should hang well back, way outside beam range or missile envelope.

As I also wrote it down numerous times: a plain old missile with a mean nuke is a lot more sensible and efficient than any gunboat or spacefighter. The later will be still shredded by the missiles of the enemy ships, and unlike said ships, with missiles you can accept the loss of most of your missile broadside as long as they still get the job done.

As I already wrote:
Space fighters only exist because the romantic longing of readers and writers (and the naval portayal of space combat by Lucas), as well as the fact that the life-and-death of a nuclear missile doesn't make an interesting read/film.

If you truely want space-fighters/gunboats then you need something that makes long-range tracking/weaponry unuseable. Like Minovsky particles in Gundam that render radar and even visual tracking inoperable.

Another thing to try
If all this technobable doesn't convince you, I suggest a very easy experiment:
Grab the free pdf from the Attack Vector homepage, and play a couple of rounds, 'trying to set up said' equal velocity, course and acceleration.

You will be surprised how unlikely said thing is.

[Flaser]

Those ranges seem comically short. 100 km? 50 km? Those ranges are for kissing, not for fighting.

1 lightsecond is 300.000 meter, ergo 300 km.
That means, that the laser beam fired by you will spend a whole second traveling, before it reaches the area.
This is for beam weapons only. As I keep spouting, missiles are in an entirely different game.

[Koth]

No. The Speed of Light is 299,792,458 metres per second, ergo that makes 300,000 km per second.

[Flaser]

Umm..  

You're right. Then that makes it 100 000 - 50 000 km.

[General Battuta]

Anyway, flaser, I'm not sure I buy any of this as definitive because it seems too Honorverse. The biggest shaky points are the technical details of lasers, particle weapons, missile warheads, ship armor, and ship drives -- we have no solid idea what is practical or what their capabilities will be.

Also, I saw absolutely no mention of dead-in-space kinetic minefields. Which would probably be key.

However, some very compelling stuff in there, well-put-together. I'm just not sure all the basic assumptions are valid.

[Flaser]

Anyway, flaser, I'm not sure I buy any of this as definitive because it seems too Honorverse. The biggest shaky points are the technical details of lasers, particle weapons, missile warheads, ship armor, and ship drives -- we have no solid idea what is practical or what their capabilities will be.

Also, I saw absolutely no mention of dead-in-space kinetic minefields. Which would probably be key.

However, some very compelling stuff in there, well-put-together. I'm just not sure all the basic assumptions are valid.

OK. Big edit. I've gone through all my posts, and come to the conclusion that I need to get off the high horse and engage in some discussion instead preaching.

I also apologize to ngtm1r for the tone of my 'counter post' since, I've failed to properly back up my claims - that 3 magnitude error (150 000 instead 150 km) is shaming enough to make anyone a bit humbler. In my defense I can say, that I've been tired of listening to all the gaming/movie/fantasy-sci-fi born misconceptions around space, but I should have used a more objective and factual presentation of my argument.

@General Battuta - Your comment concerning Honoverse is right: while Weber is among the few writers who writes reasonably scientifically correct sci-fi; his power-levels are so off-the-scale of reasonable technology (as well as the introduction of hyperspace/gravfield magic) that his writings beside the bare factual truism true to real space can't be the base for discussion.

I've read up on my claims and come to the following:
-The nature of tactics or the viability of them in true space combat is a function of maneuverability-vs-weapon ranges.
-The "most" realistic depiction I've ever seen in a game was AV:T! The truth of it is that even Ken Levine, the designer of said game said, that their engines were likely an order of a magnitude stronger than they would likely be in reality, while given the same tech level lasers would be 5 times further reaching.
-In AV:T! Lasers are the prime weapons of combat, but tactical maneuvering is still viable - in reality it wouldn't be. In other words, in beam ranges both ships are likely sitting ducks and constantly pummeling each other into oblivion. I cautiously remind everyone, that this can't be alleviated by building smaller ships. Ken has come to his figures by calculating acceleration-vs-tracking/beam dissipation. AV:T! engines are already overpowered, whereas lasers have a pretty 'conservative' performance. (Keep in mind though, that these lasers use focal lenses/arrays with a 3 meter diameter - pretty big stuff).

I need to make another correction:
-While atomic weapons are indeed capable of 'proximity kills', even for a megton warhead (which weighs at least 500-1000 kg) this proximity is a mere single 1 km - awfully close....and not even assuredly lethal.
-Bomb-pumped lasers though are still a viable technology, so laser-head missiles are promising.

Finally something interesting from the real world:
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2007/08/its-been-one-of.html

[Wanderer]

I always been fond of Traveller style space combat.. Starting from the Traveller the New Era but mainly on the GURPS Traveller.. It glosses over the more annoying aspects of space combat like allowing reactionless drives and jump drives but other than that stays quite 'truthful' to realism so there are ships going at several Gs continuous accelerations sorta in spirit of space operas.. In it the biggest killers are either immense missile swarms - missile acting sorta like modern torpedoes ie. command guided until they get close enough for the targeting system to track the enemy so the missile doesnt have to be insanely large to contain the accurate enough seeker - or in very large ships the spinal mounted neutral particle accelerators.