Elite: Dangerous

[Blaine]

The problem is that if such a ship was made, the only form of combat would be shooting missiles from thousands of miles away.

This is boring.

Correct. I love space sims, but it's good that they're half-arcade, half-realistic.

Realistic space combat would be 99.9% boredom, 0.09% staring at some sensor readout to find a little blip betraying your enemy's location millions of miles away, and 0.01% firing some sort of weapon along a vector calculated to hit a point where that enemy (whom you'll never see) will be X number of hours/days after you fire the weapon. If he changes course at any point during that time period, you'll have to find and fire on him again.

Something like that, anyway.

 

[tuluse]

The problem is that if such a ship was made, the only form of combat would be shooting missiles from thousands of miles away.

This is boring.

Correct. I love space sims, but it's good that they're half-arcade, half-realistic.

Realistic space combat would be 99.9% boredom, 0.09% staring at some sensor readout to find a little blip betraying your enemy's location millions of miles away, and 0.01% firing some sort of weapon along a vector calculated to hit a point where that enemy (whom you'll never see) will be X number of hours/days after you fire the weapon. If he changes course at any point during that time period, you'll have to find and fire on him again.

Something like that, anyway.

I think you would just make smart missiles that seek the target.

 

[Blaine]

That, or missiles guided remotely from the firing ship. There are however several difficulties with guided missiles featuring on-board computer systems, maneuvering thrusters and fuel: Launching them at an incredibly high relative velocity would almost certainly pulverize the internal components. They would also be far more expensive than simple slugs of matter, and would probably be easier to detect (more mass, heat signature, etc.) than simple slugs.

In theory, it would be much more effective to utilize an electromagnetic railgun array, firing a dozen or so slugs at tens or perhaps even hundreds of (relative) miles per second in a pattern calculated to cross paths with the target ship at a certain point in time. The amount of fuel necessary for a much larger missile to "safely" accelerate to that velocity, exceed said velocity to make up for time lost in the initial accelration, AND be able maneuver midflight would probably be enormous.

 

[tuluse]

Computer components are lot sturdier than you're giving them credit for.

 

[Blaine]

0 m/s to 20,000+ m/s in a microsecond sturdy? Maybe. Accelerating a low-mass slug to such a velocity would take far less energy than accelerating a necessarily much more massive missile to the same velocity, though.

Possible? Probably, with super-materials of some kind.

 

[tuluse]

What's the point in accelerating that fast? You could stretch that out to a minute or more with a smart missile and wouldn't lose anything since you're waiting hours for it to hit anyways.

 

[Blaine]

It's an issue of fuel reserves and propulsion systems. Once a projectile has left the ship, it cannot electromagnetically accelerate itself; according to our current understanding of the laws of physics, it must expel matter in order to propel itself. This propulsion system will have a maximum acceleration value; an acceleration value of +200 m/s2 (generated by a matter-based propulsion system on board the missile) would be astonishing, even in vacuum. The amount of expelled material required to accelerate an object carrying its own fuel from 0 m/s to 20,000+ m/s would also be quite high, possibly more than it could even feasibly carry.

These fuel reserve and acceleration limitations are key obstacles to interstellar travel in the real world, and that's why astrophysicists and engineers are constantly trying to think outside the box to find ways to circumvent said limitations.

If you accelerate a slug from an electromagnetic rail on board the ship, however, you will use the ship's energy to accelerate the slug to a relative 20,000+ m/s generated in less than a second. The slug will contain no components to be damaged, there will be no mass or resources wasted on fuel for the slug, and so on. Of course, the slug would exert force upon the ship as it departed exactly the way a propellant thruster would, altering its trajectory... recoil, essentially. It would probably be negligible, though.

 

[tuluse]

1) Rail guns don't have to be instantaneous acceleration

2) Acceleration above a certain point is not really required

3) The mass of a missile is going to be very small

4) you could jump start the missile with a rail gun, and then have it take over

5) as long as the top speed and acceleration of the missile are better than the ship you're targeting, you're fine.

6) "according to our current understanding of the laws of physics, it must expel matter in order to propel itself." Solar sails

7) "the slug would exert force upon the ship as it departed exactly the way a propellant thruster would" No it wouldn't. The ship isn't acting on the slug with a physical force. It's using a magnetic field. This is key because otherwise the slug would have the exact same effect on your own ship as your enemies.

8) Using a non-smart weapons system in space would be almost impossible, your opponent would have to not deviate from his course by even 100 meters or you would totally miss just launching rocks at him. This would really only work as a bombardment system.

 

[Blaine]

There are all kinds of counter-arguments to be made here, but this passed the point of silly (on both ends) many posts ago. However:

6) "according to our current understanding of the laws of physics, it must expel matter in order to propel itself." Solar sails

Solar sails have very, very slow acceleration. I'm assuming you'll want the projectile to reach your target before the end of the universe, and also be usable in deep space.

 

[tuluse]

I know, I'm having fun arguing about this now.

Still, solar sails do let you accelerate and you don't need to expel anything. There may be as yet undiscovered forces in the universe that we can tap into that provide more oomph than solar wind.

 

[Raapys]

Eh, what's to keep me from just blowing away your stupid missiles, guys? Or even just dodging it, if it's going at a very high speed.

Same goes for projectiles, actually. The dodging part, that is. You'd need to lob them extremely fast to actually hit me( we're probably talking like 95%+ light speed, so that I'd barely have time to react before the light from it reached me), since even a tiny course deviation would let me clear it easily. Actually, I'd no doubt be doing dodging manuveurs all the the time anyway, so maybe even that wouldn't work.

Unless you were really, really close...In which case we're back to close-combat space battles maybe not being so unrealistic after all, assuming anyone actually wants to kill/hit someone.

 

[MadMaxHellfire]

He would blast your puny fleet from thousands of kilometers without a second thought.

how?

the only actually viable way would be lasers but they lose energy/focus fast so they're not really useful on long distances.
each and every other way (ammo, missiles, gremlins, dark magic...) will just never connect with the target.

 

[DraQ]

No, it wouldn't, 'cause it's just an explanation why every goddamn ship in the game behaves that way. I just thought you needed one, since you're into all that exotic science stuff We are still talking about video games, remember?

No explanation is better than a moronic one.

You're the one who wants to watch those Marines with their fancy tactics and military technology, trying to stab each other with pointy sticks in hand to hand combat 600 hundred years in the future.

And you're the one who wants them to hold those sticks with their butts on top of that.

So once again, you can't SIMULATE a purely fictional spacecraft, which is supposed to be made with some unexplained future technology (which in many cases contradicts science)

You don't *contradict* science. You append, expand, correct.

That relativity makes better prediction than classical mechanics when it comes to stuff moving in space doesn't mean that since formulation of theory of relativity planetary orbits have suddenly become square and classical mechanics stopped making any sense.
No, it's just as bloody fucking useful as ever.

The problem is that if such a ship was made, the only form of combat would be shooting missiles from thousands of miles away.

This is boring.

I think everything depends on the setting and the role of the players.

Yes, all out military campaigns would probably be pretty unexciting in space and yes, they would probably involve flashing lasers and flinging shit at each other and strategic targets that can't move out of the way from across the system.
But all out military campaigns are not all that is.

You guys are thinking about this:

Meanwhile it would be better to think along these lines:

If you were about to whack someone and take their stuff in space you wouldn't:

-Do it across the system, because by the time you'd get to your victim, there would be plenty of comotion there.
-Do it with anything powerful enough to vaporize your loot.
-Do it in open space rather than in the optical shadow of some planetary body.
-Do it in densely populated, regulated and policed 'core' system, unless it contained considerable zones of relative lawlesness.
-Carry around big-ass telescope mirror necessary for zapping anyone from afar, because you might as well broadcast "LOLOLOL IMMA SNIPE U!!!1" on all frequencies.
-Carry around top-notch military gear because then you'd probably be able to afford some less exciting and more comfortable (no sitting around in a sardine can stinking of socks for months) lifestyle.

Remember: nukes don't make knives obsolete.

 

[Haba]

Oh yes, those pirates of the Somalian space would somehow manage to sneak up to the ship and club their way in...

...in before "cloaking magic!"

 

[tuluse]

If you wanted to hijack a space craft you would wait until it was docked and then attack it because there is basically no other feasible way at all.

 

[Tzaero]

Oh yes, those pirates of the Somalian space would somehow manage to sneak up to the ship and club their way in...

...in before "cloaking magic!"

It really depends on how ships detect each other.

 

[DraQ]

Oh yes, those pirates of the Somalian space would somehow manage to sneak up to the ship and club their way in...

Yay for getting the point.

...in before "cloaking magic!"

You silly sod, there's no stealth in space.

 

[Haba]

Which is why space is god damn boring.

 

[Kirtai]

6) "according to our current understanding of the laws of physics, it must expel matter in order to propel itself." Solar sails

Solar sails do use reaction mass, it's merely supplied by the Suns photon flux instead of from internal storage. Same for magsails and the solar wind.

7) "the slug would exert force upon the ship as it departed exactly the way a propellant thruster would" No it wouldn't. The ship isn't acting on the slug with a physical force. It's using a magnetic field. This is key because otherwise the slug would have the exact same effect on your own ship as your enemies.

Someone is forgetting Newton's third law.

 

[tuluse]

I'm not forgetting anything. With a rail gun the force is an electromagnetic force, not a physical force.

 

[DraQ]

I'm not forgetting anything. With a rail gun the force is an electromagnetic force, not a physical force.

If it's not physical force, then it's what - a spiritual one?


Edit:

Besides, are you even listening to yourself? If firing a railgun didn't exert force on shooter, then reactionless drive would be possible, trivial and essentially amount to this:

(Pusher plate bounces the round back down the railgun's barrel. It may or may not be made of jelly.)

 

[Raapys]

Strictly speaking, physical force *is* electromagnetic force, when you move down to an atomic level. At any rate, at this point he's probably just become a troll.

 

[Tzaero]

But can they pull it off?

 

[LordDenton]

LOL the minimum pledge amount that provides me with a copy of the game is $32. I hope this greedy fuck's project fails.

 

[Blaine]

You're right, he should give it away for free!