[Woolie Wool]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DV1fUwKMdAI

That is all.

[Flaser]

@Woolie Wool - kinetics have a devastating power in space, to the point that under some intercept geometries using a warhead becomes almost pointless. However my "tiny issues" have actually a lot to do with whether you can dominate space with them.

FTL is important, because if you can jump close inside a ship's weapon's envelope you can pulverize them with fast kinetics before they could dodge.

If FTL is limited to "jump points" or an arbitrary range from objects with significant mass, then you have to approach the old fashioned way. In this case, lasers can have a massive advantage, as they're only diffraction (Woolie is indeed correct in saying that lasers *don't* have infinite range) and light-speed lag limited..

...it's a not a given though, that a laserstar would dominate such an engagement, but it's a possibility. There are a lot of factors (the ones I listed) and some more that dictate how effective a laser's defensive fire would be.

One thing that's often not right in sci-fi is point defense lasers resembling point defense kinetics. PD kinetics can rely on their momentum to deflect incoming ordnance, while lasers need to rely on vaporization (the ejected gases may deflect the ordnance, but the degree is much less) so you'd probably use your *main* laser to setup a PD envelope.

Lasers can also have a massive range - if they have a massive mirror. The ability to dodge becomes really important when dealing with kill ratios then. However there's *nothing* preventing a BIG ship in space from being just as "fast" (delta-v, acceleration) as a small one, as it's purely a matter of engine-to-mass and fuel-to-mass ratios. So ships *could* mount freaking huge mirrors.

...and armor is nothing but dead-weight. When it comes to kinetics, they're laughably feebly. Lasers... not quite, but they only buy you so much time, afterwards the beam's going to cut into your vitals. (How much is once again an interesting question).

Smaller ships would be cheaper, and they could change heading (not direction of orbit) faster, so they might be more viable in a "knife-fight"... but given any realistic PD system, this would be a killing field.

So space "fighters" make little sense. However don't let me discourage you. Just because there's little "physical" sense for them, doesn't mean there's shouldn't be any *cultural* ones (beyond the rule of cool). Think about chivalry, or the Clans ROE from Battletech if you need inspiration.


@PL_Harpoon

The "carrier" itself looks promising. However if you want to make it "realistic", then it will gotta have big radiators to deal with waste heat. Since the ship's not supposed to take part in direct combat anyway their vulnerability shouldn't be an issue.

...as for the fighters, I've already said they don't make sense if you're trying to be realistic, but they're COOL so there! Anyway the fighters may be using heat-sinks and an re-tractable radiator. This could even lead to a nice gameplay mechanic, that accelerating and using certain systems would generate heat, and once your heat sink is over capacity you'd need to deploy a fragile radiator to deal with it, before you could once again use those systems.

[PL_Harpoon]

Ok, it's been some time.

Making a low-poly model and baking textures for the game took more time then I expected but at least I like the result.
Here it is:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXZ37JS7CZ0 - this is a small video showing differences between Hi and Low polycount models.



This is how it will probably look in the game. The only problem is, that it uses 2048² textures. I'm afraid it might be too much for the game but I'll see when I'll manage to convert it.
Considering converting, do I need to make all the LODs and all that to convert the model into game, or just 1 will do? I'm only asking for testing purposes. Also, do I need to create a shield model even if I don't plan to use any shields?

Anyway, still more LODs, debris and a pilot and the fighter will be ready.

[mr.WHO]

Umh...excuse me, if this mod is in some way similar to real-life combat and to something that would resemble the actual real-life space combat, then why the hell are you still using manned fighters? ? It's XXI century, A.D. 2011 and militaries are moving to combat UAV (British Taranis, or two USA designs).

Why do you think that centuries later people will use manned fighters in so dangerous enviroments as space...not to mention space combat.
Someone said that fighters in space combat would have very hard life, but if we get rid of human factor (that can withstand limited G spectrum) then space UAV might actually turn to something that is usable...and expendable.

It would be hard to have a space sim with UAV...actually no it wouldn't! You could be an UAV operator on board space ship and if you loose your fighter you can always jump to another (if there is a spare one in the hangar). There could be even a situation where your base ship got dammage, crew injured and with situation where there is one operator per 10 ships.
So you could have to decide what to do:
a) launch all of them and have you + 9 dumb AI controlled UAV
a) launch one, die, launch second, die launch third etc.

[PL_Harpoon]

Umh...excuse me, if this mod is in some way similar to real-life combat and to something that would resemble the actual real-life space combat, then why the hell are you still using manned fighters? ? It's XXI century, A.D. 2011 and militaries are moving to combat UAV (British Taranis, or two USA designs).

Why do you think that centuries later people will use manned fighters in so dangerous enviroments as space...not to mention space combat.
Someone said that fighters in space combat would have very hard life, but if we get rid of human factor (that can withstand limited G spectrum) then space UAV might actually turn to something that is usable...and expendable.

It would be hard to have a space sim with UAV...actually no it wouldn't! You could be an UAV operator on board space ship and if you loose your fighter you can always jump to another (if there is a spare one in the hangar). There could be even a situation where your base ship got dammage, crew injured and with situation where there is one operator per 10 ships.
So you could have to decide what to do:
a) launch all of them and have you + 9 dumb AI controlled UAV
a) launch one, die, launch second, die launch third etc.

Well, I've been considering this, but finally, (and convinced by reading this: http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/prelimnotes.php#zerothlaw) I decided to leave pilots inside fighters. I haven't thought about any logical reasons yet, but right now, I can consider two:

First, every program, no matter how well protected it is can be hacked. And every signal can be intercepted. You wouldn't like to see your whole squadron suddenly turn off or worse - turn against you just because the enemy had very talented hackers.

Second, there are also moral reasons. By turning war into some kind of game, where you can sit safely "at home" and guide your weapons you strip war of its danger. The attacker is no longer personally threatened, so the decision to wage war will be easier for him to make. There's one true thing of all wars: the ones who suffer the most are civilians. And that probably won't change in "space wars". So, how about putting in world's history (between nowadays and times in game) a war, fought by unmanned drones with such high losses for civilians that it ended with a treaty that banned unmanned armed vehicles. It actually makes sense.

BTW, these are also two reasons why personally I'm against the idea of fighting drones.

[mr.WHO]

Well, it's your right as the universe/mod creator.

However I find that your two reasons are not too good.

First of all, combat hacking is good for BGS universe rather than real life. You're right that there is no such thing as "unhackable system", however you can make the security or firewall that will require too much time to hack to be useful in battlefield situation. Hell, even Cylons needed to plant their hacking program inside colonials system to have a way to their combat systems.
Even if we turn away from UAV, the modern fighter jets are basically a flying computers (so I guess future space fighters would be even worse in that matter) so if they would be hacked, they are still going down (No human is able to fly FF-22 or B-2 without fly-by-wire).
The war effort would still require humans to operate, service and rearm warships and UAV so it's not that soldiers will stop dying. UAV operators would have to be within one lightsecond distance to reduce radio wave lag (unless we'll have some kind of high performance quantum link between command ship and UAV that allow a real time communication no matter the distance - something like this might actually be possible withing next 500 years of quantum physics research).

Also the second reason is even weaker - war itself is immoral and it never stopped us from killing each other, neither develop machineguns or ABC weapons, hell superpowers have enough nuclear arsenal to burn the whole planet more than couple times. It's was never about if the weapon is moral, but about "is it effective?" "if it's effective, I can't risk that someone will use it against me, so I have to have the most effective possible", same reason why both USA and Russia have a large arsenal of bio weapons - this way even if UAV would be banned they would still be developed in secret (good idea for one of your missions, where you're send to investigate rumors about UAV secret program and have your squadron ass kicked by only couple UAVs).


As I said it's your mod so manned fighters are manned fighters   - I hope that you'll consider my idea of hard mission against banned UAVs.

[mr.WHO]

BTW looking at your fighter's cokpit I see it's very fragile. Why not to turn it into armoured cokpit inside ship hull, with cameras all over the outside and enchanced reality displays inside cokpit: something like in Ace Combat future designs:
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs48/f/2009/197/a/c/Ace_Combat_5___Falken_by_zzhangster.jpg

http://acecombatskies.com/uploads/gallery/1230764186/gallery_181_42_72626.jpg

This might not be so important in atmosferic fighter, but in space fighter with high speed space dust and derbis I'd rather not like to have a glassy cokpit.

[PL_Harpoon]

Well, it's your right as the universe/mod creator.

However I find that your two reasons are not too good.

First of all, combat hacking is good for BGS universe rather than real life. You're right that there is no such thing as "unhackable system", however you can make the security or firewall that will require too much time to hack to be useful in battlefield situation. Hell, even Cylons needed to plant their hacking program inside colonials system to have a way to their combat systems.
Even if we turn away from UAV, the modern fighter jets are basically a flying computers (so I guess future space fighters would be even worse in that matter) so if they would be hacked, they are still going down (No human is able to fly FF-22 or B-2 without fly-by-wire).
The war effort would still require humans to operate, service and rearm warships and UAV so it's not that soldiers will stop dying. UAV operators would have to be within one lightsecond distance to reduce radio wave lag (unless we'll have some kind of high performance quantum link between command ship and UAV that allow a real time communication no matter the distance - something like this might actually be possible withing next 500 years of quantum physics research).

In BSG IMHO they made such decisions to increase the drama, not the realism. And hacking large firewalls/systems might take a large amount of time in a situation like large, rich country vs small group of hackers. But when you have large country vs large country in an open conflict the result might be much different. Example: you create a huge defence system that would take years to break. What does your rich and powerful enemy do? They use/build their fastest computer, write the correct algorithms and sooner or later they hack it. I don't think you'd like to take that risk.
About that manned flying computers thing; it's not that simple. Even if the fighter is controlled by the computers the flight data doesn't go through the whole network. They probably have two (or more) completely separate (even physically) networks, one responsible for flight dynamics, one for weapon management one for sensors and comms. Only the latter is capable of communication outside the fighter. In UAVs this system must work differently, cause you need to send the flight instructions to the fighter. If your enemy intercepts that signal and replaces it with his own commands you can't do anything except trying to do the same. First, all weapons must be reliable.

Also the second reason is even weaker - war itself is immoral and it never stopped us from killing each other, neither develop machineguns or ABC weapons, hell superpowers have enough nuclear arsenal to burn the whole planet more than couple times. It's was never about if the weapon is moral, but about "is it effective?" "if it's effective, I can't risk that someone will use it against me, so I have to have the most effective possible", same reason why both USA and Russia have a large arsenal of bio weapons - this way even if UAV would be banned they would still be developed in secret (good idea for one of your missions, where you're send to investigate rumors about UAV secret program and have your squadron ass kicked by only couple UAVs).

I agree that this reason is weaker, but consider the situation described by me in previous post. History knows examples of conventions that ban certain weapons, like Convention on Cluster Munitions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convention_on_Cluster_Munitions). In modern days it's not only about effectiveness of a weapons, but also it's capability of delivering collateral damage. And we are capable of banning armed UAVs after a deadly (for civilians) conflict in which they played a major role.
Anyway, by mentioning UAVs you actually gave me some interesting ideas but I will keep them to myself at least by the time I release some demo or something (if I'll ever achieve that point).

BTW looking at your fighter's cokpit I see it's very fragile. Why not to turn it into armoured cokpit inside ship hull, with cameras all over the outside and enchanced reality displays inside cokpit: something like in Ace Combat future designs:
http://fc07.deviantart.net/fs48/f/2009/197/a/c/Ace_Combat_5___Falken_by_zzhangster.jpg

http://acecombatskies.com/uploads/gallery/1230764186/gallery_181_42_72626.jpg

This might not be so important in atmosferic fighter, but in space fighter with high speed space dust and derbis I'd rather not like to have a glassy cokpit.

Well, this actually is a good idea and I like it. I'll convert the model to change the cockpit and post the results.

[mr.WHO]

I'm glad that you found some ideas from this discussion

Anyway I think that the whole "UAV combat hacking" discussion will be more or less fruitless, till someone UAV cappable will actually attack someone who is cappable of hacking (obviously Afghanistan doesn't count, but I think that Pakistan might actually try it in future due to USA UAV raids. They  have enough resources, cash and actual need to try it).

[Thaeris]

I have to say PL, that the back of the fighter bears a wonderful, graceful design. I don't think the armored cockpit shell is a bad idea, as noted, as in reality a starfighter pilot isn't assumably going to see all that much up close anyway. Auxiliary viewports in the form of tank-like slits would make an acceptable emergency back-up if a full enclosure is selected. Otherwise, if you opt for exposed viewports, considering something like what the Serenity has as a cockpit might not be a bad idea:



A pair of crewmen seated side-by-side (F-111 style) would fit in very well with a canopy similar to that. It has enough width that you could blend the forward hull and the main fuselage together in a uniform fashion, similar to what you have with the rear hull. The canted stabilizers, I'll also note, look like they might need to mature a bit more in terms of design to really fit in with the craft as a whole.

[StargateSpankyHam]

As a sci-fi writer (Yes, I write sci-fi too) - I have this to say:

Firstly, because of the very nature of spacecraft, radar, and the like - detecting ships isn't going to be much of an issue. Railguns and coilguns would probably be the most solid weapons for a 'low technology' space military, largely because kinetic weapons offer more damage potential using less energy. In a vacuum, with a powerful enough array of capacitors, the rounds could likely be accelerated to some reasonable percentage of the speed of light - and just like a laser beam, they're going to continue on a ballistic trajectory.

Projectiles propelled by expanding gases just aren't going to fly fast enough, especially if targets are maneuvering and accelerating at several G's - which is almost mandatory for spacecraft, or else they'd never be able to take off, land, maneuver in orbit, break orbit, and the like. The space shuttle does a three-G acceleration burn for seven minutes to go to orbit, and it doesn't have to deal with being shot at. Modern aircraft commonly pull seven and eight G's before issues start to occur with pilot blackout, so it's reasonable to assume that spacecraft will be maneuvering this quickly too.

The only real advantage of a laser-type weapon is if you're sniping at a target that is several hundred thousand miles away - because at that point, you'd actually need the higher 'projectile speed' of the beam, since the lead factor is only a couple seconds, as opposed to say, ten or fifteen seconds for a railgun round.

Freespace 2 doesn't fit this model. Space combat would never occur at such insanely short distances. I'd expect that even fighters would commonly dogfight at ranges of at least a thousand miles, maybe a few hundred if things got very, very crowded.

While I admire the effort, trying to make the FS2 engine do a realistic, hard sci-fi mod/campaign is extremely problematic. In order to be playable, it requires some liberties to be taken with things like space flight mechanics.

[Retsof]

I'd expect that even fighters would commonly dogfight at ranges of at least a thousand miles

Sorry to derail the thread, but how would this be possible?  basically "shoot missile.... wait.... wait.... twinkle in the distance".

[PL_Harpoon]

Any talk about realistic or (more probably for a FS mod) semi-realistic space combat is on topic here

[...] basically "shoot missile.... wait.... wait.... twinkle in the distance".

Well, that's not a dogfight. And IMHO dogfights in space (end definitely in this FS mod) will be fought at short distances and relatively low speed. Just imagine: two spacecrafts flying at each other at sound speed (and that's approx. the top speed of a fighter in this mod; I know it's unrealistic but FS engine forces me to do that). They fire their long/medium range missiles and if they won't hit (that's ATM my main problem with the AI, they start avoiding too late - inappropriate to their speed and manoeuvrability which results in almost all missiles hitting their targets), fighters come to close range pretty quickly. They pass each other, and make a 180 turn. In atmospheric environment this would result in circle-shaped movements. But in space they just turn their noses and depending on pilot's decision continue to fly on previous course and start (or not) to decelerate. This results in a very quick and dangerous (especially if there are other enemies around) combat where you constantly turn, shoot, stop, accelerate, pass and then turn again. You can try to do other manoeuvres but by the time you change direction the enemy will have you on it's aim. I'm already thinking about using tactics to compensate this like flying in pairs where one fighter is engaging the enemy and his wingman is just flying circles at high speed and watching for any other fighters attacking his leader. But that, I think would require another AI code change.

As for railguns, they are powerful, but are not good for fighters. They require a lot of energy, much more than lasers, and use up pretty quickly. Coil guns (or gauss) are better choice and I'll probably use those.

[Flaser]

As a sci-fi writer (Yes, I write sci-fi too) - I have this to say:

Firstly, because of the very nature of spacecraft, radar, and the like - detecting ships isn't going to be much of an issue. Railguns and coilguns would probably be the most solid weapons for a 'low technology' space military, largely because kinetic weapons offer more damage potential using less energy. In a vacuum, with a powerful enough array of capacitors, the rounds could likely be accelerated to some reasonable percentage of the speed of light - and just like a laser beam, they're going to continue on a ballistic trajectory.

Projectiles propelled by expanding gases just aren't going to fly fast enough, especially if targets are maneuvering and accelerating at several G's - which is almost mandatory for spacecraft, or else they'd never be able to take off, land, maneuver in orbit, break orbit, and the like. The space shuttle does a three-G acceleration burn for seven minutes to go to orbit, and it doesn't have to deal with being shot at. Modern aircraft commonly pull seven and eight G's before issues start to occur with pilot blackout, so it's reasonable to assume that spacecraft will be maneuvering this quickly too.

The only real advantage of a laser-type weapon is if you're sniping at a target that is several hundred thousand miles away - because at that point, you'd actually need the higher 'projectile speed' of the beam, since the lead factor is only a couple seconds, as opposed to say, ten or fifteen seconds for a railgun round.

Freespace 2 doesn't fit this model. Space combat would never occur at such insanely short distances. I'd expect that even fighters would commonly dogfight at ranges of at least a thousand miles, maybe a few hundred if things got very, very crowded.

While I admire the effort, trying to make the FS2 engine do a realistic, hard sci-fi mod/campaign is extremely problematic. In order to be playable, it requires some liberties to be taken with things like space flight mechanics.

Once again, another post chock full of assumptions that only apply under certain conditions and were probably the product of years of science-fantasy portrayal of space combat. Let the nitpicking begin!

1) Why should a craft, optimized for space combat ever land on any planet or moon? It can obliterate forces from orbit just as well and don't even *start* with the "landing mariness" analogy from the age of sails... it doesn't apply as life support is one of the bulkiest, heaviest things to haul around.

2) Once again with the "pulling many-Gs"... this analogue comes from air combat, but just like naval analogies is faulty. In space there is no air to act on your wings, so you can't make that tight turns. All this "ooomph" has to come from your engine. To get anywhere in the solar system, you need a pretty big delta-v. That translates to a high fuel fraction with any plausible mid-future space drive. If you do the math, you'll realize this setup is good for mili-g accelerations.

http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2009/10/spaceship-design-101.html

Getting *into* orbit is another story altogether, and you want to clear the atmosphere as fast as possible, so you can turn horizontal and not loose momentum to gravity drag.... and this is the reason, why solid fuel boosters, and wasteful (from a specific impulse point of view), high trust engines are used for launches.

With a ship setup for transfer orbits in the solar system, to get up to even deci-g accelerations (with sufficient fuel fraction, therefore delta-v), you'd need fusion engines... in other word torchships. These are quite close to magitech and given the state of fusion research may be several hundred years in the far future.

http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2010/12/unspecified-drive.html

3) You correctly assume that detection won't be an issue. However given the anemic acceleration profiles, even less powerful kinetics will have a chance to hit. If you add lasers as point defense weapons, you quickly realize why the battle of the Spherical Warcows will never be "won" by any side.

http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2009/09/battle-of-spherical-war-cows-purple-v.html
http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2009/09/further-battles-of-spherical-war-cows.html

4) Using parasite craft (whether one man or crew served) for combat once you're in a specific "delta-v range" (this is a lot like missile intercept range in air-combat - VERY dependent on intercept geometry) is a distinct possibility, since they achieve a higher acceleration (at the cost of a lot lower total delta-v)... however the best damn parasite craft one can think of is a missile. It can be fired from a coilgun that'd turn humans into pulp, and then it could use its own engine to change intercept geometry... and accelerate faster than any human could withstand.

Granted there *are* some scenarios where spacefighters make "sense".... however they'll be more inspection craft than combat vehicles.

http://www.rocketpunk-manifesto.com/2010/05/space-fighters-reconsidered.html

[PL_Harpoon]

It's been some time. Actually, modifying the current model in order to give it a different cockpit took as much time as making a whole fighter, but I think it was worth it.

Here's how it looks:




What do you think of it?

Right now I've taken a brake from this model to create basics for the next two. I'll post results as soon as I'll have something worth showing.

[Luis Dias]

Its amazing! Keep the good fight

[Dragon]

I wish somebody got around to at least partially implementing fully newtonian flight model from B5: The Geometry of Shadows builds.
It was quite fun to fly, and even AI seemed to work well.

[Thaeris]

The "neck" of the fighter still looks a bit weak - if you can better blend the cockpit section with the neck of the fuselage, I think you'll have a much better looking, more structurally sound spacecraft.

[PL_Harpoon]

Well, I can't edit the "neck" more without remaking the whole model, so there won't be any major changes to the fighter model. Actually, with that thin neck and since it also has a two-part gear the fighter is officially named Wyvern. I haven't yet came up with a prefix but it will come with further story development.

But as I've said, took a brake from this fighter and started to make a new carrier. Here it is:




And one of it's particle beam cannons:

I'm still working on it, the fighter bays need more details and some things need tweaks (like those standard engines on 3rd pic) but that's how it will look.
The ship has three types of engines:
1. Standard engines - it has eight of them - they are used for short range travels and are just a bigger, more powerful version of engines mounted on a Wyvern. They have small (compared to other types) acceleration rate but use gas propellant (very explosive) at very small burn rate and produce small amount of heat.
2. 16 Small rocket engines also called manoeuvring engines - they use standard rocket fuel. Used only for manoeuvring.
3. "Jump" engines - the ship has 6 of them, 3 on each end of fuselage. These engines use some special fuel (I haven't even invented it's name; all I can say right now is that it's fluid), have enormous acceleration rate, but produces a lot of heat. Along with gravity generators (which I will describe later) they produce so much heat, that right after the jump the ship has to stay still with only main systems online to prevent overheating).
Despite "enormous acceleration rate" the ship is still far from reaching light speed and the whole game will be set within solar system (probably around just one or two of it's planets). The whole jump procedure is quite simple. Some of the fuel is always within the engine for ignition (special valves prevent it flow flowing away when the ship is flying against the engine direction). After the ignition the G-force of acceleration drives fuel from tanks to the engine for propulsion. In the same time (because of a fast acceleration) gravity generators are powered on. These devices are placed behind the armour on both (front and rear) sides of the living quarters, command center and fighter bays. They can generate the same and opposite amount of Gs as the acceleration. The sad part is, they use a lot of energy and produce a lot of heat, even when generating small amounts of G so they can't be used constantly.
That's why the living quarters are rotary. This module rotates so that it reaches approx 1G and max radius, and that's where most quarters are. The rest of the ship has no gravity.
This ship, unlike the first one has only 20 turrets, and these are only particle beam cannons for self-defence. It has no offensive weapons. All turrets are placed on these two large panels which also act as shields in case of attack protecting command center and vulnerable gas tanks. The shields can be rotated to the direction of enemy attack.
The ship runs on two nuclear reactors, both on each side of a command center, behind the shield bases (which also act as additional protection). Supply tanks, just as the name says contain supplies just like food or spare parts. O² supply module is just a small garden, with special genetically modified plants that require small amount of light and (obviously) have nothing against no gravity.
The fighter bays are just fighter bays. They can hold 24 Wyvern fighters, 2 large shuttles and 4 small shuttles with all the services of a modern carrier.

Oh, and the whole ship is 806 meters long.
It's crew is:
24 fighter pilots
30 fighter service
8 shuttle pilots
16 Jumpship pilots (I will describe Jumpships when I'll model one)
7 ship officers
15 ship service
Which gives 108ppl on board at most.

[PL_Harpoon]

Time for little update.

This time some work on carrier hangar (which is so detailed because I plan tu use it for main menu also) and the final Hi-poly model of a Wyvern fighter.

Here they are:








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