[foolfromhell]

1. The Lucifer is also immune to Beams, as far as we know. Also, if the Shivans wanted, they would have used Lucifers and not Sathanii during the Second Incursion. If they did use another Lucifer, the GTVA wouldn't have been able to do anything...

2. When these bombs are going 5-6x the speed of fighters, I'm pretty sure they cant be hit easily. Fighters have enough trouble hitting me while going on a straight line at 80m/s... These bombs will have been accelerated to at least 500m/s. Today's missiles go supersonic in an atmosphere. I am sure missiles 300 years in the future could go much faster since there isnt even an atmosphere...

3. At these speeds, even 20km of difference isnt much. If you go at 500m/s, you would reach a target some 6km away in 12 seconds. Barely any time at all.

4. At the sizes of these battleships, they could hold hundreds of bombs. If they do run out, they refuel. Right now, we have seen every Capital ship that gets into a fight come out damaged and requiring much repair. No difference in time really. With 300-400 bombs, you wont exactly run out quickly.

5. Yes, beams do look cool, but efficiency>aesthetics.

6. Yes, I mean railguns/coilguns. Bombers are ineffective. Ursas are damned slow. I suggest Maxims mounted on fast turrets for bomb-defense and railguns or coilguns to accelerate these bombs to uber-high speeds.

Thank you about the cost. I was answering what other people have said.

1) Lucifer can't really be used as an example, due to aforementioned reasons, and that it only appears once... twice counting... OTHER CAMPAIGNS

2 and 3) You're not talking about freespace with that. bombs go just barely faster that the Ursa/boanerges that holds them.

4) not only are the aforementioned problems true, but what if the enemy happens to hit a turret's ammo storage? It would destroy that part of the ship, along with the fact that it would probably destroy any other nearby turret's ammo, which would spread to destroy the whole ship

5) As herra said

6) I don't know really how to respond to that, but i think we'll never be able to do something like that in-game, due to engine limitations. The railguns used in INFA go about the same speed as blobs.

7) how old are you? 

2. and 3, That's because the bombs are powering themselves. If you launch them from a railgun or coilgun, they can go MUCH faster

6. Railguns today can go over 13,000mph, which is over 5500m/s. Nothing in the FS universe can defend against that.

7. I am 16.

[castor]

here...
3. At these speeds, even 20km of difference isnt much. If you go at 500m/s, you would reach a target some 6km away in 12 seconds. Barely any time at all.

You need quite a big ship to launch helios sized bombs at 500 m/s. Especially if you plan to launch many at a time.
It will be mosty dumbfiring, and you need to turn the whole ship to aim -- the people at engineering will have their hands full

If you are close up, enemies more agile than you may out turn your aim. If you are farther away, they have time to evade some of your bombs.
Also, when your bombs are incoming from one direction, the enemy can counter the attack easier (compared to bombers) -- turn to face you, possibly having a few maxims situated at the bow?

[Akalabeth Angel]

7) how old are you? 

      I would remind people that in a discussion if you don't agree with someone's position that's cool, but there's no need to make it personal.

[Snail]

Unless it's someone who really is being an anal jerk (like he starts saying "yeah well you don't matter, do you?")

BTW - I'm not talking about Mob...

[Akalabeth Angel]

6. Railguns today can go over 13,000mph, which is over 5500m/s. Nothing in the FS universe can defend against that.

     That's not really relevant because Freespace isn't an accurate representation of real-world weaponry. Nothing in FS Universe could defend against that, but then again, nothing HAS to defend against that because no weapons travel that fast. Even the large ship to ship weapons have very slow moving blobs.

      Basically, you're saying "why not do this instead?" But doing that wouldn't fit the universe so that's why it isn't done. The Maxim, is essentially a coilgun or railgun of some kind, but if you check the weapons tables you'll see it doesn't go 5500m/s.


      Btw, with regards to real-world weaponry in space. With relativistic speeds, weapons can go really fast. After a point, you don't really need any sort of explosive because with enough kinetic force you'll produce the same result. See this page for some interesting scientific spaceship related stuff:  http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html



       With regards to the Hecate or something using coilgun-launched Helios bombs instead of Beams, well, it would still loose versus the Sathanas. Even if both sides launched their weapons and hit with the same time the Sathanas' guns would still eat the Hecate alive and the take only a little damage in return. Even if the Hecate launched like some salvo of 10 or so helios bombs from several turrets, it would still die a horrible death because the Sathanas will kill anything the GTVA has in one salvo (with the possible exception of the Colossus).

[foolfromhell]

6. Railguns today can go over 13,000mph, which is over 5500m/s. Nothing in the FS universe can defend against that.

     That's not really relevant because Freespace isn't an accurate representation of real-world weaponry. Nothing in FS Universe could defend against that, but then again, nothing HAS to defend against that because no weapons travel that fast. Even the large ship to ship weapons have very slow moving blobs.

      Basically, you're saying "why not do this instead?" But doing that wouldn't fit the universe so that's why it isn't done. The Maxim, is essentially a coilgun or railgun of some kind, but if you check the weapons tables you'll see it doesn't go 5500m/s.


      Btw, with regards to real-world weaponry in space. With relativistic speeds, weapons can go really fast. After a point, you don't really need any sort of explosive because with enough kinetic force you'll produce the same result. See this page for some interesting scientific spaceship related stuff:  http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html



       With regards to the Hecate or something using coilgun-launched Helios bombs instead of Beams, well, it would still loose versus the Sathanas. Even if both sides launched their weapons and hit with the same time the Sathanas' guns would still eat the Hecate alive and the take only a little damage in return. Even if the Hecate launched like some salvo of 10 or so helios bombs from several turrets, it would still die a horrible death because the Sathanas will kill anything the GTVA has in one salvo (with the possible exception of the Colossus).

Yeah. My view of what space combat would look like is lots of smaller ships with kinetic weapons and nuclear weapons. Nukes can obliterate entire fleets and isnt as controversial as using them on Earth. Kinetic weapons would be easier to make than explosives.

It would be something like Battlestar Galactica, except, the ships would be about 20% the size, fighters wouldnt be used, and if fighters were used, only for base defense from stationary platforms. And a lot more nukes would be used and the nukes would be ship-launched and not bomber-launched.

[Shade]

Nukes are far less effective outside of an atmosphere. Obliterating entire fleets? Not a chance. The reason nukes are so devastating in an atmosphere is that they create a massive shockwave by superheating their surroundings, causing them to expand explosively.

In space, all you get it a whole lot of broad spectrum radiation - Which can be dangerous enough, but considering that even civilian spaceships are already by necessity designed to resist the likes of coronal mass ejections and what have you without danger to their crew, it's nothing much compared to an atmospheric blast.

[Ashrak]

isnt this discussion kinda futile?


if FS was real, ships would have shields (big ones aswell) and beamcannons would rip through hulls like butter, there would be high speed point defences which would shoot down almost everything.

[haloboy100]

isnt this discussion kinda futile?

Everything said under general discussion is pointless.

[Droid803]

isnt this discussion kinda futile?

Yeah, since this is a fighter sim game and now he's saying to get rid of all fighters. 

[haloboy100]

Save the whales fighters!

[Akalabeth Angel]

isnt this discussion kinda futile?

Yeah, since this is a fighter sim game and now he's saying to get rid of all fighters. 

       Not to speak for the guy, but . . .
       He's not saying get rid of fighters, he's saying the way he envisions space combat in general is with small capital ships lobbing nukes, and as a consequence of that idea he's applying it in part to freespace and asking "why don't ships lob nukes instead of beams".

Nukes are far less effective outside of an atmosphere. Obliterating entire fleets? Not a chance. The reason nukes are so devastating in an atmosphere is that they create a massive shockwave by superheating their surroundings, causing them to expand explosively.

       Yeah but you could probably still smoke at least one ship with a nuke, or put a severe beatdown on it to be sure. Though one nuke certainly wouldn't have the far reaching consequences of taking out an entire fleet.

[Polpolion]

1. The Lucifer is also immune to Beams, as far as we know. Also, if the Shivans wanted, they would have used Lucifers and not Sathanii during the Second Incursion. If they did use another Lucifer, the GTVA wouldn't have been able to do anything...

2. When these bombs are going 5-6x the speed of fighters, I'm pretty sure they cant be hit easily. Fighters have enough trouble hitting me while going on a straight line at 80m/s... These bombs will have been accelerated to at least 500m/s. Today's missiles go supersonic in an atmosphere. I am sure missiles 300 years in the future could go much faster since there isnt even an atmosphere...

3. At these speeds, even 20km of difference isnt much. If you go at 500m/s, you would reach a target some 6km away in 12 seconds. Barely any time at all.

4. At the sizes of these battleships, they could hold hundreds of bombs. If they do run out, they refuel. Right now, we have seen every Capital ship that gets into a fight come out damaged and requiring much repair. No difference in time really. With 300-400 bombs, you wont exactly run out quickly.

5. Yes, beams do look cool, but efficiency>aesthetics.

6. Yes, I mean railguns/coilguns. Bombers are ineffective. Ursas are damned slow. I suggest Maxims mounted on fast turrets for bomb-defense and railguns or coilguns to accelerate these bombs to uber-high speeds.

Thank you about the cost. I was answering what other people have said.

1) Lucifer can't really be used as an example, due to aforementioned reasons, and that it only appears once... twice counting... OTHER CAMPAIGNS

2 and 3) You're not talking about freespace with that. bombs go just barely faster that the Ursa/boanerges that holds them.

4) not only are the aforementioned problems true, but what if the enemy happens to hit a turret's ammo storage? It would destroy that part of the ship, along with the fact that it would probably destroy any other nearby turret's ammo, which would spread to destroy the whole ship

5) As herra said

6) I don't know really how to respond to that, but i think we'll never be able to do something like that in-game, due to engine limitations. The railguns used in INFA go about the same speed as blobs.

7) how old are you? 

2. and 3, That's because the bombs are powering themselves. If you launch them from a railgun or coilgun, they can go MUCH faster

6. Railguns today can go over 13,000mph, which is over 5500m/s. Nothing in the FS universe can defend against that.

7. I am 16.

2, 3) So now the GTVA can mass produce rail/coilguns and Helios bombs? I can garuntee you that Helios' are extremely expensive. How? They're used once in the entire game. If they were as cheap as capitol ships, then you'd see bombers making Helios runs almost exclusivly.

6) Railguns today are also extremely delicate pieces of machinery. I really doubt that they are fit for any sort of use outside of R&D, much less combat. "Oh, but we'll advance in technology! They'll become better suited for these tasks!" Well so will beam cannons. Pretty much all you have to do to make a beam cannon more powerful is to be able to pump more energy into it, while for a bomb, you need to design an entire new warhead.

7) Interesting. I am 16 as well. However, I fail to see the relevance to the argument at hand.

[foolfromhell]

I just said I was 16 since someone else asked.

[General Battuta]

As mentioned above, foolfromhell, nukes don't wipe out entire fleets in space. They might not even wipe out entire ships without a very close detonation.

Actually, most good analyses of what future space combat will look like feature a lot of wishes for precise and powerful beam weapons, because they move at lightspeed. Can't be dodged and can't be intercepted if only because you can't see them coming.

Does that make sense to you? It doesn't mean kinetic weapons and missiles are useless, by any means, but it does mean that energy beams are tactically valuable.

Again: nukes, not so great in space. Follow?

[Shadow86]

As the game stands in its original form (just with the weaponry modifications), I'd say Helios are really not a viable choice to be used en masse by capital ships. Unless the vessel were to charge in close enough to deliver most of its payload effectively (which would be suicide since turning away from a collision would be impossible at that point), it'd be a pure waste of money and ordnance. Taking the Helios' speed and the range at which capital ships usually engage, the attacked ship's point-defense systems and fighter escort would have plenty of time to intercept most of the torpedoes, unless an immense amount of them is used.

Beams still remain the best option, given they hit instantly, have far greater range, ammo is not an issue and they're impossible to intercept. I'd rather have twice or thrice the amount of beams on a warship than a comparable payload of Helios torpedoes. I'd assure you the enemy would go down before they even thought of launching their Helios stores.

Of course, if you think of more outlandish scenarios, like the one presented with Helios accelerated and shot at 500 m/s, you could also have rapid-fire, point-defense beam turrets that could fire and cycle through targets at lightning speed, intercepting them no matter their speed (torpedoes travel in a straight line, the environment's often empty space, and light's still pretty fast).

[Nuke]

i like how my post was completely ignored
do i have to spell it out for you all?



at 2k a pop theres not much this little corvette cant kill. and should those not be big enough, it can lob a meson torpedo out of one of its coilguns

[Akalabeth Angel]

Actually, most good analyses of what future space combat will look like feature a lot of wishes for precise and powerful beam weapons, because they move at lightspeed. Can't be dodged and can't be intercepted if only because you can't see them coming.

Does that make sense to you? It doesn't mean kinetic weapons and missiles are useless, by any means, but it does mean that energy beams are tactically valuable.

     Beam weapons can be dodged in the sense that the firing ship fires at the wrong point if the target was doing fancy manoeuvres. In a game like freespace, that's not going to happen. But in the real world, if a battle took place a few light seconds apart there's a lot more variables. If two ships are say 10 light seconds apart, your ship has to fire at where you think the enemy will be in 10 seconds based upon information that's 10 seconds old. 20 seconds is a long time. If ships were fragile enough it would probably be better to use some sort of matter shotgun to pepper an area and hope for a lucky hit, assuming that nearly any hit will cause major damage.

i like how my post was completely ignored
do i have to spell it out for you all?

at 2k a pop theres not much this little corvette cant kill. and should those not be big enough, it can lob a meson torpedo out of one of its coilguns

       Hey man your mod looks pretty cool and all, is there any more information available about it? I've seen pretty ships and backgrounds and neat effects, etcetera on youtube videos but don't really know much about it. Is there a story attached, etcetera?

[Nuke]

http://www.game-warden.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=43

see the thread that says get nukemod here, its an old version, doesnt have all my scripted features yet, but it does have the ships. as for a campaign, axem is working on one using nukemod as well as other mods.

[GTSVA]

Wow