If and when we reach the point where we can create huge hulking space battleships, do you think warfare will be changed in the same way that aircraft changed the 1930s battlefield? Seeing as space ships wouldn't require lift or thrust to actually function, and there's no limit to where you can go, do you think that a plane of movement will be established on the x and z axis for orientation and ease of maneuvering?
Secondly, will a single design for space-craft eventually win out in combat?
ITT: post problems and potential benefits of deep-space combat while also discussing in some detail on what could be a superior design for a a general roll
>>29906475
>do you think that a plane of movement will be established on the x and z axis for orientation and ease of maneuvering?
really dude
>>29906475
I think, assuming laser/gauss weaponry is a thing by then, that the focus will be on the smallest target that can still carry a useable weapon.
So swarms of Millennium Falcons with giant doom lasers.
something something 300+ posts of The Expanse/LoGH/Macross
>>29907685
not a bad thing
>>29906475
and how are you going to get anywhere without thrust? Delta V is always relevant.
>do you think that a plane of movement will be established on the x and z axis for orientation and ease of maneuvering?
Yeah it's space why the fuck would you not utilize the 3D space you're provided?
>>29906475
>Secondly, will a single design for space-craft eventually win out in combat?
Probably end being designed along the lines of a submarine. Pic slightly related.
someone post the pasta some kommando wrote where it's all down to precise movements, fuel-conservation and eventual scrapping of the ship at the end of a tour because space is fucking brutal
>>29906475
It would be like submarine warfare except there would be more missile countermeasures and it would happen much slower and over longer distances.
I imagine that IRST would be the main sensors as they would all be VLO ships.
>>29906475
so here is the thing about space combat. space is really retardingly bing. like bigger than god big.
there is a decent chance will will never develop space travel faster than light, and there fore will need to have colony ships.
the thing about colony ships is if you want to send dozens or hundred or thousands of people you better be damn sure when they get where ever in a hundred or a thousand years.
okay so obviously you have no gravity, or gravity from a nearby planet assuming you are attacking or around or onto a planet
with lasers you could potentially overheat an enemy ship easily.
im a little drunk but when you fight in space you best bring a bunch of nerd, perferably with several degrees each.
I also recommend you read the forever war, i bet you will be triggered from reading it.
space combat is fucking boring
>>29907888
>space combat is fucking boring
You mean terrifying.
Also, nice trips.
>>29906475
>If and when we reach the point where we can create huge hulking space battleships
once we have that sort of command of technology, we're too far into the future to make predictions about what it will look like.
>Seeing as space ships wouldn't require lift or thrust to actually function
Spacecraft have their own considerations. Unless you're in "deep" space, you're basically playing complex games of establishing orbits, and countering perturbations caused by shit like radiation pressure, etc.
>do you think that a plane of movement will be established on the x and z axis for orientation and ease of maneuvering?
We already have ways to describe space position that aren't hard to use once you learn them (and they're more useful by far than straight "X,Y" when actually maneuvering a spacecraft).
Basically, everything in space has to be thought of relatively.
For instance, you can describe every satellite around earth relative to the sun as a reference body, but it's dumb to do so.
So, you use the body it's most clearly orbiting as a reference body.
If you can determine the velocity and the altitude of an orbital body, you can determine the shape of it's orbit, and you can describe it's current "real" position by referring to the ecliptic coordinate system + it's altitude above the reference body.
Really, though, the easiest way to track an object is to determine it's orbit, and refer to it's current location as how much time it has to reach it's apoapsis (or, if it's a hyperbolic orbit, refer to time to impact/escape).
>deep-space combat
deep space travel is so far futuristic that you can't make relevant statements on it. It's like asking aristotle what he thinks of cell phones: it's nonsense.
>>29907871
>Space stealth
Here we fucking go again
>>29906475
If you're looking for a good depiction of space battling at appreciable fractions of light speed, I recommend the Lost Fleet series
>>29906475
Flying space dildos
>>29906475
The biggest problems are:
Heat
Maneuvering
Heat is self explanatory, but with maneuvering, you'll be wanting to make erratic course changes very quickly in order to avoid weapons fire. This means high-G maneuvers and lots of them. A normal pilot and crew simply won't be able to handle it, so most likely a computer will need to be the one in charge.
Basically if you've ever read Forever War you have a good idea of the most likely route of space warfare.
>>29906475
Eh...
>>29906475
Gundams will pretty much be the most effective vehicle in space. They are mobile, have mad weapons, and both hands are very flexible hardpoints. They would be the final answer to ground and air conflicts as well but there's no real war going on so it doesn't make sense for nations to unveil their take on mechas.
In a semi-realistic but powerful enough to be interesting future [high MW/low GW output lasers, mid to high GW fusion drives] space war is like trench wars on a railroad network.
Orbits are railways. Lasers are machine guns. Spaceships are doughboys that get slaughtered brutally over the course of days or hours-long battles when fighting across/between orbits, or in seconds at the CQB equivalent when sharing an orbit.
Changing orbits is hard and everyone can see everyone else, so everyone dies and tactics are simple and deterministic.
>>29911326
>Gundams
>They would be the final answer to ground and air conflicts as well
Oh Christ, here we go...
This is what cold war space battles would look like.
http://youtu.be/fXeUkrlxQ98
Honestly, seeing as how space warfare is more horrifying than submarine warfare, it's still a damn shame space agencies don't get the funding they deserve.
Also projectrho is neat.
The Orion Space Battleship SHOULD have been built and launched. Murica as fug.
>>29906475
>No limit to where you can go.
Kek
People seem to forget that space isn't just like floating in a pool. You're in orbit, and orbital mechanics are fucking insane.
Imagine this scenario:
You are in the same orbit as another ship, at the same altitude and the same angle. If neither of your ships did anything, you would remain exactly the same distance you are apart until the end of time, or the nearest star exploded, whatever.
The other ship is "in front" of you. A few seconds after they pass over a given point on the surface below, you do too. You wish to be closer to this ship.
You have thrusters on either end of your ship, one set facing towards this other ship, one set facing away.
Which way do you fire? Towards the ship or away?
No, you're wrong.
Anyways, space combat is basically going to be mutually assured destruction handled entirely by AI systems. Both ships will fire all their weapons, and then just kind of wait around until they're both obliterated. If countermeasures advanced enough there could actually be more than one volley involved, but it would still be 100% handled by AI. Even the largest ships wouldn't have much of a crew, since squishy organics are a huge drain on resources and a massive vulnerability to attack.
Laser weapons would behave similarly, but being unguided would have a chance to miss at long ranges. Since there's no way to predict how an enemy will lead using a laser weapon, dodging would be handled by randomly generated movement. Having no living crew members would make this easier, since g-forces would be less of a concern.
TL;DR Space warfare is a clusterfuck of automated weapon systems and countermeasures with human crews existing as glorified janitorial/repair staff, if at all.
P.S: Dog-fighting in space is impossible as well as retarded.
>>29907685
You called?
>>29906475
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
This what you want OP. I'm telling, if you want to see the topic of space combat discussed in a semi-serious way, then this what you want.
>>29906475
Earth nations can't fight space battles with one another because its better to just attack the country directly on earth
Space battles will have to be between planets. Okay, so...
Mars doesn't want Earth to go to certain regions in the solar system...
Ships fire missiles at one another. Whoever doesn't starve or go dead "in the water" wins? It's just a sub battle in space.
>>29910069
We have had the technology to make space battleships for a long, long time.
This picture is 60s tech and it could roflstomp half the planet back into the stone age.
>>29906475
http://projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/
Read this page. It answers all your questions and gives you the physics behind them.
>>29912104
I like you.
>>29907675
Nope. Small craft would most definitely not be a thing. Space travel takes ridiculous amounts of time and resources. Smaller craft have no business outside orbits of planetary bodies. It just isn't practical at all.
>>29907871
>Submarine warfare
Kinda. In the manner that you'd be relying almost entirely on sensors and your main weapon would be missiles(Torpedos aren't a thing in space. They would be just missiles.) The difference to sub warfare would be that you'll pretty much always know where your target is. The ranges you'd engage your target would be tens if not hundreds of thousands of kilometers. Missiles until you're out, lasers if applicable, rail guns at close ranges. Boarding action just flat out doesn't happen.
On the subject of missiles, nukes would be the most humane weapon in space. A good hit would vaporise your target, leaving no worries about godawfully tiny particles flying at unimaginable velocities just waiting for something to cross it's path and fuck up that something's day.
Then again, you possibly wouldn't even need the nukes, for when you don't need to worry about air resistance, friction and g's, you can fire solid slugs at relativistic velocities, so that when it collides with something, the released impact energy alone would be more than that released by any payload you could load into a projectile of the same scale.
>Slower
Nope. Would take about 5-20 seconds. Lasers alone can cross tens of thousands of kilometers in an instant, and any other projectile would be fired at ridiculous velocities enough that reaching a target wouldn't take long. Engagements at less than 20000 klicks would be extremely rare.
Science and realism in mind, this is the most beautiful ship I've yet to see.
If I could get a ship of my choice, it would be Roci/Tachi, no contest whatsoever.
>>29912400
Dude, I could post a picture of the enterprise and say the same thing
No, your toy can't do shit
We don't have the technology, we can't lift things into space yet without spending an ungodly amount, and even then a large space battleship is just not realistic >>29907675
It will be small heavily armed drones, and command / sensor ships
Also >>29910069
Its just no fun talking about stuff we can't imagine
>>29906475
Giant battleship/carriers with massive amounts of guns and missile systems.
We will make giant flying guns.
>>29912887
Giant guns that we build ships around.
Kinda like the A-10, but ridiculous amounts larger.
>>29912400
I pity the people who would crew that coffin. If it even survived liftoff a small interplanetary trip would result in cancers 20 years down the line and thats not even considering a possible solar flare or other rad spike
>>29912837
why would you waste precious delta V on fighters? Especially fighters with human pilots. Missiles do the job better and dont need to be fed anything besides LH/Ox
>>29912442
pure sex m8
>>29910069
Thank god someone gets it. Any space combat will probably be taking place orbiting something, be it a planet or star. That means you've got a shit ton of orbital mechanics to deal with.
>>29912887
>HALO ships
The only thing worse than the designs themselves are their retarded names
>>29910069
is it bad that I'm totally lost?
all I got was that space combat is retarded and that there's a lot of orbits and shit going on.
close enough?
>>29913783
the main problem with space combat is logistics. You space combat vehicles will have to endure one of the harshest environments in existence with extremely limited re-armament and refueling capabilities. Because everything in space is moving no matter what, you must burn fuel every time you change your orbit (whether to attempt to evade an enemy attack or to dock with a logistics outpost).
A spacecraft's ability to do stuff in space is measured by its most important attribute: Delta-V. Delta-V is the measure of how much your spacecraft can change its velocity (Delat = change, V = velocity). Additionally you face the problem of heat. Even without some pesky mouthbreathers floating around inside, burning your rocket motor (or pusher plate or MPD or whatever means of propulsion you use) generates a lot of heat. As does the reactor that powers your sensors, weapons and possibly your engine itself. To manage this heat you must either stick giant fins on your ship that will light up like a candle or use some form of heat sink (which will only work for so long before it must be expelled) that will only make you slightly less harder to detect.
Now this works both ways, so you will have a pretty good idea of where the bad guys are unless their LOS is blocked by something big like a celestial body. This also means that engagements will conducted across light minutes-seconds, where even lasers will be potentially dodgeable (with a sophisticated enough predictive computer model). This means you are going to waste more ammo/energy trying to kill your target than the Germans in the battle of Jutland, limiting your engagement window even further.
All in all space combat (unless its satellites hacking each other or dropping shrapnel) is retarded right now. If there are ever major resource extraction operations on other planets/asteroids this may change. But you can expect combat spaceships to be spiky spheres or cylinders and to be manned by computer programs only.
>>29913783
Pretty much it's that any space combat is going to have a lot of orbital mechanics to deal with. With orbital mechanics, you have a couple different reference/coordinate systems you can work with, and they vary from a standard cartesian/XYZ coordinate system to rotating references that are based around the spacecraft/observer itself.
As far as maneuvering goes, you're going to have to account for the fact that any maneuver messes with your orbit. Accelerating along the same direction you're heading extends the opposite end of your orbit, while decelerating drops you.
Now, because the vast majority of orbits take place in LEO, you're going to have a surprisingly short line-of-sight distance thanks to the earth being in the way. Unless you pop right up on your target, it's going to take some kind of maneuvering to get close enough to engage. Problem there is that it's retardedly easy to track orbiting objects, even if they're aggressively maneuvering. Take the X-37, for example. Despite being a very maneuverable platform, it's easily tracked by even amateur observers on the ground. So everyone will be watching you maneuver around, including your enemies, who will likely be letting your target know you're coming. And it's not like you're getting there anytime soon - orbital intercepts tend to take at least one revolution, and even at low altitudes like the ISS is orbiting at, a single revolution takes over an hour.
>>29913747
I honestly hope this is just bait, in which case congratulations, you triggered me.
>>29914080
>actually liking HALO
Are you literally retarded or just a child? It's a fun game, but the lore is shit. Especially the ship names that all sound like a 14 year old trying (and failing) to sound edgy and poetic.
Why not have just a giant Lazer
>>29914099
why have just one?
I recommend everyone interested in space combat to play some hours of Kerbal Space Program. Once you've made a round trip to Mun and back, and successfully docked two ships in orbit, you're qualified to discuss the topic.
Guns and explosives are wholly unnecessary in orbital combat. Instead, you put a mass in an orbit in the opposite direction of your target and just let it collide. Orbital velocity around Earth is ~8 km/s. Two things orbiting in opposite directions will collide at 16 km/s combined velocity. Boom!
A planetary defense system would just be a bunch of boulders with thrusters orbiting at various orbits that you can set on collision course with any adversary approaching orbit.
At longer distances only light beams (lasers or just reflected and concentrated sunlight) are of any use as everything else can be seen coming by the adversary. Well, at very high tech level you could use relativistic projectiles too, which is just the good old boulders, but much faster.
>>29914097
Ok, this has got to be bait because you're literally saying the opposite of everything that's true. I never said I like the game, because the game is shit and for children and not fun (besides the original and 2 I guess), but the lore is good and the ship designs are aesthetic as fuck, which is why it's a shame the games are for children.
I bet you didn't even read the books.
>>29914131
To be fair, having things collide probably isn't the best idea, especially if you're talking about LEO. Though it's a bit more expensive to do, the far better option is to intercept a target and either disable it or de-orbit it so that you don't have the orbit fucked by debris.
>>29914080
No, hes right. "Pillar of autumn" or "Charon" sound like a ships name, but those names are in the minority in the Halo lore. Most of them are cringey phrases like "2 for flinching" , "Say my name", "Ready or not" or "Forward unto dawn" and "Do you feel lucky".
>>29914171
>I bet you didn't even read the books.
>reading pleb-tier vidya books
lemme guess, you're all pissy Disney killed off the Star Wars EU too, right?
>>29914171
>but the lore is good
I guess you've never read Mass Effect lore and codex
>>29914131
>>29914178
honestly space combat will probably be more about mission kill rather than hard kill measures. The most effective way to mission kill a combat spacecraft is to exhaust its delta-v. Now it is trapped on an easily trackable orbit to be dealt with at your leisure with whatever you want.
>>29913641
That's no more unsafe than any nuc boat out there, if you're talking of the propulsion. Now space radiation is another matter but any long term trip in space would have to deal with.
>>29912715
I'd say the Orion is more than a tiny bit closer to reality than the Enterprise.
>>29914233
Yup. Though if the X-37's upper-atmospheric maneuvering concept becomes popular, you might actually see some hard-kill concepts as well aimed at damaging heat shielding so that the vehicle ends up getting destroyed when it descends to maneuver.
Why do we need to send people on ships? We can just send drone carriers with more space for drones and missiles if we skip people entirly. Space ships are just tubes with shit in them, they dont even need to make earth sense. Fuck equipping them wih humans thiugh. Ship to ship combat will just be missiles and drones ramming shit everywhere and when tou lose a ship that sucks but nobody was aboard so send more missiles.
>>29913981
>>29914067
coolness, thanks dudes.
sort of unrelated to combat but it is militarily related;
space mining.
we've probably heard the term, and that's what i figure space wars will be over.
so, how the fuck would we do it?
front loaders with rocket boosters?
what about invading the claims?
space LCS'?
how would this shit work, assuming physics and science would let it work.
>>29914193
If you have no knowledge of the material I'm referencing and have resorted to ad hominem attacks I think it's clear you have no idea what you're talking about and are out of arguments?
>>29914199
If you're implying that Mass Effect lore is far better than Halo's, I agree with you, that's why I only used the word "good" to describe Halo's lore instead of talking it up to be some amazing work of fiction which knows no equals, which it isn't. It's just that there's far worse out there and the games that represent it don't do it justice. Mass Effect is another disappointing series where they went full retard with the third game instead of doing justice to the relatively massive amount of lore they developed for it.
>>29912887
>that ship
>not objectively superior Paris class
>shiggy diggy
>>29914278
Well with a basic knowledge of orbital mechanics, I'd assume any kind of space mining would work something like this:
>send ships out to target asteroid
>maneuver into a Lagrange point
>perform mining there, use shuttles to bring mined material back to earth
>Once asteroid is mined out, maneuver it so it drops into the moon
Alternatively, the mined-out asteroids could be used as the base for an orbital colony, though that would be retardedly expensive to have people living in orbit like that, so I doubt that'd happen.
>>29914293
good god you Halo babbies are almost as bad as the 40K faggots.
>>29914336
if you could just orbit it into the moon, why not use it like a weapon?
nothing says fuck you like an asteroid landing on your nemesis' capital city
>>29913641
Did you see the pic? There's a "shelter" in it.
Those nukes they use for propulsion are literally tiny as hell, too. And there's a ton of material between the living section and where the nukes detonate.
>>29912715
Apparently, they said it could be done. It would be a massive undertaking, but dammit the thing would carry like 500 nuclear missiles and it could patrol all the way out to Saturn and back!
>>29914347
Says the man posting all the LoGH pictures. The Halo fags don't spam memes like the 40kids, at least.
>>29914347
So your only response is to just accuse the person who just spent the time explaining that Halo is shit of being a "halo babby"? Not much of an insult coming from someone whose reading comprehension is the only thing worse than their ability to form an argument. Why don't you go back to call of duty, I'm sure that game's lore is just right for your intelligence level.
>>29914354
While that's always an option, asteroids are a bit heavy-handed, even compared to nukes. An asteroid drop has the potential to seriously fuck up the global climate, meaning you're going to get fucked by it too even if you're not directly hit by it.
You could also just put it in one of the stable Lagrange points and just leave them there like a giant orbital junkyard.
>>29914354
Well, depending on how big it is you've either signed up to be a part of the i got nuked club or fucked yourself raw with a bayonet (if you live on the same planet)
>>29914418
This.
Better to just use Lunar mass drivers to fling rock packets the size of a schoolbus at your enemys place.
>>29914381
>>29914405
>getting this worked up over your shitty sci-fi
>>29914478
>lol look at everyone responding to how stupid my posts are, that sure shows how stupid everyone else is!
>>29914478
>getting this worked up bashing a franchise you don't care for
Here, have some more, maybe you'll get desensitized to it.
>>29910164
This series is about a good guesstimate of space combat as I've seen yet. Not a bad read.
>>29914455
nice reference
Long tube shapes ships that face each other during combat to minimize chances of being hit. Each has a cargo bay containing swarms of spherical battle drones covered with lasers, EM flak guns, and thrusters for full coverage. When launched the spheres attempt to flank the enemy ship to get a clear shot while blocking the enemy's drones from doing the same.
fuck I'm drunk I hope this makes sense
>>29914556
oh also the point of this is to destroy the enemy's drones and then threaten to destroy their ship if they don't let you board and take it.
Those ships are going to be expensive early on, you know
>>29914556
>implying that they get close enough during combat that battle drones
No. It's about spotting the other guy first, then firing at them and hoping your sensors and weapons are precise enough for it to hit. After they realize that you're there, you both are going to undergo random accelerations and trade missile barrages, hoping that your laser defenses will be enough.
>EM flak guns
what
>>29914536
Remember anon, there is no free lunch.
>>29914556
Id rather see it more like this.
>Attacking ship ambushes the ship it aims to destroy, limiting its heat production to bare minimum and having hull made of materials and shaped in order to disperse radar signals
>Attacker would launch a missile from an outside rack, possibly with kinetic force at first (shove it with a broomstick)
>Then once the missile is far away enough from ship so its launch wont give away ships exact location, it is remotely activated and its own systems make it fly towards enemy ship
>Missiles main aim is to cause a hole in the hull and thus cause de-pressurization
At least this way the ship wouldn't produce ungodly amounts of heat and need enormous radiators for itself.
Of course, while running silent its internal heat would constantly rise and it would have to ultimately open up its radiators in order to get that extra heat out.
>>29914744
If we're talking about distances of at least a few light minutes the ship could change course just for as long as it is expunging heat so the enemy only sees an inaccurate heading.
>>29910185
wow, that ship actually looks like it was designed to fight in space.
We already have the basis for the technology but can't launch a nuclear reactor in a rocket in good faith. Cue space elevators
>>29911326
>obvious bait .jpg
>>29912442
It's interesting how the ships in the show are built vertically rather than horizontally. considering they have no gravity generation technology the vertical design allows it under thrust.
>>29914652
>EM flak guns
EM was the wrong word, meant rail guns that propel projectiles set to burst at certain distances.
![601259main_jetpack_full[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/xtl18gT.jpg "601259main_jetpack_full[1].jpg")
>>29911326
I could see it, if we're talking about this >>29914556 kind of scenario in which cargos / ships themselves would be too precious to destroy and in cases where a human pilot is needed to prevent drones from being remotely hacked.
It'd start off innocently enough with Astro-Marines tethered to their home ship and zooming around with thrusters while using coil guns, and from there the arms race would lead to armored space suits and eventually mechs.
>>29914556
You should watch the youtube link in >>29912104
It's a lot like what you said.
>>29915407
>>29912104
that's pretty rad, but I'm not quite sure how melting incoming projectiles is supposed to help you in space unless you can get your laser hot enough to vaporize them. Otherwise you just have a puddle of white hot metal still heading straight for your ship at high speeds.
>>29907841
Winmatar
>>29915024
IIRC the show's main caveat is a fuel efficient constant thrust magic engine that allows for simulated g
>>29915638
Flak also has this problem
>>29914556
Those drones are going to have to be really big if you want to cram lasers, railguns and total coverage engines on them.
Why not use missiles?
>>29914556
>>29914585
>>29914744
You're assuming people will be on board these combat ships. I doubt that will be the case when such vehicles become a reality. Why waste mass on life support for squishy humans that will turn into goo when you need to evade an attack. Even if you develop some kind of neutral bouyancy gel tank to keep them safe that's even more extra mass. I guess I just feel that by the time we have spaceships pew pewing each other we will have computer software sophisticated enough to fight without any human intervention.
Remote hacking of drones can be solved by simply not allowing them to communicate at all. Each one is just given orders and just turns comms off. Each drone and the carrier ship have identical software and virtually identical situational awareness, so there isn't any need to communicate in the first place because Drone 323 already knows what Drone 21 would do anyway.
>>29915638
Turning a metal object into liquid in space means the liquid will disperse immediately and then solidify again.
Instead of getting hit by an object really hard, you get sandblasted really hard. Ships can be designed to deal with being sandblasted.
>>29915873
not when the sand is moving at many killometers per second. Sure a few hits will be fine but by then your whipple shield will have been compromised and something juicy is going to get hit
>>29915916
Still much easier to deal with than a cannonball.
>>29906475
Orbital battles between ships will never happen.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist (or maybe it does, considering how idiotic /k/ is on these matters) to extrapolate from current techonology that highly maneuverable unmanned kinetic kill vehicles (basically advanced missiles without payload) will be THE weapon of space warfare, both in planetary orbits and interplanetary space. They're enough to easily deny movement of troops/materiel through any region of space deemed worth protecting.
Moves will be planned a long time before the actual physical conflict happens. Months in case of a hypothetical Earth/Mars battle, for example.
All this shit about space fighters with laser weapons and space battleships are just silly fantasies by naive morons.
>>29915873
Suicide in a dynamic and chaotic battlefield, especially if you didn't know everything going in. You're betting everything on the drone's tactical programming being perfect.
If it turns out the entire battle was one big trap then all you can do is watch while it unfolds. If you made a mistake you can only sit there as things fall apart. If the enemy has gotten the upper hand you're completely impotent to salvage the situation.
Seriously, keeping drones from receiving orders. What were you thinking?
>>29906475
size of the ship or resources are the limitations to what it can have and how outdated it is
but usually a single weapon can remove every life support system since the contents of a ship are very fragile
imagine the collider as a gun, it will go through the holes in the ship and radiate everything to the point of growth-less cells by 1 lightyear distances, which will take a ship 50 years to travel at max conceivable speeds while carrying live cargo like us
>>29916223
At the same time you can destroy a kinetic kill vehicle by hitting it with another kinetic kill vehicle of comparable mass. The resulting collision would cause both to pulverize at those speeds. Moreover, the fragmentation will render entire cubic kilometers unnavigatable for hours while the shrapnel scatters.
>>29916273
Exactly.
And that's many orders of magnitude cheaper than building expensive and complex ships (manned or unmanned) to be wrecked in the same way.
>>29916227
>You're betting everything on the drone's tactical programming being perfect.
You're betting on that anyway, duh. There are no humans on any practical space warfare and detection is so simple and nearly absolute that every drone knows all important information in the first place.
Name one thing one drone needs to say to another.
>>29914998
Sins of a Solar Empire: Rebellion
Would highly recommend, have had loads of fun with it.
>>29912253
The only thing I agree with here is the dogfighting bit.
So tired of space sims making flight feel like in-atmo
>>29906475
Space war will be complicated to say the least.
Lasers are pretty wimpy as far as weapons go and their inefficiencies simply kill their ship killing potential. Very useful for point defense but they aren't going to kill anything serious.
Missiles, especially kinetic kills or even nuclear warheads are going to be absolutely deadly if they can get close enough but they've got to overwhelm the lasers first.This is going to take a fuckton of missiles, maybe a hundred or more per ship.
Railguns, being cheaper, more compact, and quicker to reload, could simply overwhelm laser point defense. Alternatively, solid shot or fragmentation could simply ignore the laser PD entirely. Railguns would be deadly IF they get into range. I'd say no more than 100 kilometers or so.
Particle beams, charge or neutral, wouldn't do much damage simply because of the size of the projectile in question. On the other hand, particle beams could pierce all sorts of armor and if they hit something vital, like an ammunition store, they could take out the entire ship.
The scale of the ships would depend on how effective the weapons are. Larger ships would need to be resistant to most weapons to be effective. Otherwise, it would make more sense not to put all your eggs in one basket and make many smaller ships. You can extend the range of these ships with carriers and if you're willing to really warp the definition, you can also have space fighters. The size of wet navy destroyers,
I haven't even gotten to E-war yet.
>>29915777
The level of human input required will depend on how secure the computer systems are. If remote hacking is even within the realm of possibility then there will need to be human operators on standby to at least disable the system before it can be used against them.
my estimated time frame on this is late 21st, early 22nd century
>>29907888
Actually the space combat in the Forever War (fucking masterpiece btw) was quite scary and superbly written. The idea of being told that a long range scan picked up a sub light speed homing projectile hours away from impact is terrifying along with the fact that everyone has to be in g force dampening pods due to the extreme maneuvers the ship will need to pull.
![M_Dubourg,_Boarding_and_Taking_the_American_Ship_Chesapeake,_by_the_Officers_and_Crew_of_H.M._Ship_Shannon,_Commanded_by_Capt._Broke,_June_1813_(c._1813)[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/A9GzMSm.jpg "M_Dubourg,_Boarding_and_Taking_the_American_Ship_Chesapeake,_by_the_Officers_and_Crew_of_H.M._Ship_Shannon,_Commanded_by_Capt._Broke,_June_1813_(c._1813)[1].jpg")
>>29916223
Even with pre-planned routes ambush attacks could still occur. In the time it takes for the distress signal to reach HQ and for them to respond by sending out the appropriate number of unmanned astro-torpedo drones the fight might already be over with the crew being held hostage.
>>29911326
I love your passion and I hope that Mechs become a reality one day.
>>29916342
Completely unrealistic, but still fun.
>>29916544
Also that description of what happens if the vacuum-bag suits you wear in the dampening pods don't seal properly.
>>29910164
>flying space dildos
kek
Missiles, missiles, and more missiles. You need something that can maneuver itself over long distances at high speed. Coil/rail guns will be used at shorter ranges, but electronic warfare and missile weapons are going to be the order of the day.
>>29906475
op here
so the consensus is missiles
a shit ton of missiles
like
wow
missiles much
I should have pretty fucking specific I'm like 100% sure space combat doctrines of major navies wouldn't want to fight next to a planet unless they have to.
Another thing to consider
Faster-than-light travel
Will it be the ultimate cheesemachine?
>oh geejus there's a guy trying to kill me better just fuck the fuck off
Do you think some sort of gravity machine will fuck with warp calculations?
>>29919796
No, not missiles. That would imply they carry munitions.
Think of small autonomous spacecraft designed to ram into things at velocities exceeding 10 km/s.
FTL travel is so far off that any speculation is useless. For example, collapsing a planet's orbit into its parent star would be simpler (and require much less energy) than a controllable alcubierre drive.
If humanity ever harnesses energies of that magnitude, wars simply won't happen. Nuclear deterrence is absolutely nothing in comparison.
>>29919796
lasers > missiles any day
>>29919796
Most fleet groups will stay in tight formations to network point defense. Lasers will be damn effective but if you've got half the fleet shooting at two or three ships it's not going to be enough.
Lasers can hurt ships but they're pretty wimpy overall. Photons just don't carry the punch of solid matter. Their mostly their to stop the missiles.
Railguns can punch through laser PD but only if you get close enough.
So you use railguns to try to scatter fleet formations so you can pick off the individuals with missiles.
Sort of. It gets complicated.
>>29910164
Why is it that sci-fi ship designers never consider the need to disperse heat from a ship?
It's really hard to do that efficiently in a vacuum just by radiating the heat away, and dumping coolant isn't exactly a long-term solution, so you'll have that as a big limitation if you run a lot of hot subsystems.
Just look at the ISS, there's numerous panels on it acting as heat dispersion panels, and it doesn't come anywhere close to the kind of heat a fully equipped battleship would be making.
I'm all for chunky, aesthetically brutal ship designs, but there's a serious lack of sails to them.
>>29912410
small crafts will be used from the larger much as aircraft carriers are used today. Why would you not want to be able to out maneuver he larger ship in a battle consisting of two big ass ships?
the small ships will be made to be reliant on the larger and only carry enough to maximize speed and fire power.
![186331893_8546c367df[1].jpg](https://i.imgur.com/b3frrgX.jpg "186331893_8546c367df[1].jpg")
>>29916322
>name one thing one drone needs to say to another
"I'm going to flank this ship which has armaments our scanners didn't initially pick up on, move in front of it so that it targets you and I can get around and disable it." Automated systems would be very exploitable to people who understand how they're programmed to work.
>>29916515
>100km or so
What stops them from being effective beyond that?
>>29906475
The only weapons in space combat we can think of are kinetic rounds of various kinds. Missiles as well as just kinetic fucking shells. And lasers, of course.
The biggest problem is that even after you adapt our fire control systems etc. to operate in space, you'll often have a situations where you're shooting only to hit the unsuspecting enemy 2 months later, since your computer calculated trajectories and fired the projectile like that. We're talking about very long range weaponry and tactics. The downside of it is that you can fire a round, but it'll stay there, even if it'll miss and we'll inevitably have to find a way of dealing with the missed shots creating literal minefields.
Explosive weapons are generally worthless so are nukes.
>>29923810
>small crafts will be used from the larger much as aircraft carriers are used today. Why would you not want to be able to out maneuver he larger ship in a battle consisting of two big ass ships?
In space it is little bit different matter, it doesn't look like Star Wars dogfights.
The biggest problem of the fighter is that you have very little space for protecting the pilot(and the craft itself) from random debris. It's also likely that at least early on you'll have problems with weaponry since kinetic projectiles will change your trajectory each time when you fire them and the lighter the ship is, the bigger problem it becomes.
>>29920588
Missiles < Railguns < Lasers < neutron beam < ion beam
>>29923810
>maneuver
>>29922890
>age of space sails
Oh god, MUH DICK
>>29922890
>>29926566
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_sail
>yfw this is actually the most viable form of interstellar propulsion in existence right now
>>29906475
>plane of movement will be established on the x and z axis for orientation
>gain additional degrees of freedom for combat maneuvering
>lol jk let's just cruise around on an arbitary plane instead
are you serious
>space ships wouldn't require [...] thrust to actually function
you fucking retard kill yourself
>>29926566
>>29926897
>solar sail
>interstellar
Oh how I wish /k/ wasn't so goddamn retarded.
>>29912887
>>29914313
>Paris class
[ ] Shoot down fighter planes the size of 747s with the MAC cannon
[ ] Hollow out a skyscraper with a single MAC round. From orbit.
[ ] Bumrush a space station while being attacked by enemy air defense
[x] All of the above.
Mother of Invention best Paris class.
Everyone here is wrong
Read Forever War
Imagine the difference between WW2 dogfighting and modern day missile airwarfare. Now imagine that on a solar scale where ships and missiles are AU's away from one another. Also artificial grav doesn't exist and the only way to avoid liquefying when dodging missiles is a sealed pod. Also AI controls the ship. That's how exciting space warfare will be. Firefly, Star War, LoGH all down the shitter
>>29924379
>What stops them from being effective beyond that?
Oddly enough, dodging. If we assume the railguns have a muzzle velocity of 10 meters per second then at 100km the enemy has ten seconds to change course. Ofcourse, I expect muzzle velocity to increase, maybe double or triple but it's still several seconds for the enemy to act.
>>29916316
so you think delta V is cheap, got it
>>29927279
We already mentioned Forever War. Keep up.
>>29916322
>Name one thing one drone needs to say to another.
"Hi, I'm a friend" "I saw something over there" "I was just ambushed and destroyed" "There appears to be two of me, I'm the real one"
>detection is so simple and nearly absolute that every drone knows all important information in the first place.
Ahh...no. You can hide behind stuff if you want but even in open space you can hide your drive exhaust with mylar skirts or reflect it's infrared signature with the same. You could switch up IFF transponders or add extra fuel tanks to slow acceleration.
I mean, yes, you can't hide but you can lie like a motherfucker.
>>29916515
ewar in space would follow the same rules as lasers with a few modifications, you get more range for less energy than a laser but you still have to deal with bloom
>>29927346
But you see, that cuts both ways. If dV is so expensive, how the hell is long range kinetic kill weapons practical? You'll end up bankrupting yourself for something that can be countered for a quarter of the cost.
>>29927346
>replying to 24h old posts
And what the hell are you even talking about?
Of course Δv is much cheaper for a relatively lightweight kinetic kill vehicle than a larger spaceship.
>>29916535
a spacecraft with human operators will always be at a disadvantage than one without. Before you can hack into the enemy drone, it has already deployed any number of missiles/inert projectiles that will intercept your orbit requiring evasive maneuvers that your crew will not be able to survive
>>29920004
plus, you know, the whole violation of causality thing
>>29914998
>>29916342
>>29916720
posting glorious TEC masterrace ships
>>29921527
>lasers are pretty wimpy overall
what frequency we talking?
and ships in tight formation are just asking to be taken out by cluster kinetics
>>29927475
>>29923810
please read >>29913660
as to why missiles will always be superior to space fighters
>>29927475
>not god tier Vasari turtle
The upgrade that allowed starbases to eat ship debris for health was the tits
>>29927522
but TEC Loyalist faction can build TWO starbases per planet and FOUR per star
still, Vasari being able to WARP THEIR STAR BASES TO YOUR HOME PLANET is pretty fucking cool
>>29927473
Welp, had to post something to entertain the idiot. FTL travel just isn't realistic.
>>29927431
drive exhaust from any realistic KKV is going to be too long to hide with a skirt. if its orbit is intersecting yours and its putting out a 200meter plume you can bet your ass its not friendly, IFF or not
>>29906475
We won't have space combat until there's something worth fighting for out there. Naval battles happen when you need to secure trade routes or invade a colony. We're talking about tens of trillions in space-based economic activity before we even start thinking about the need for warships out there. That isn't going to happen until ships can be launched to orbit as cheaply as airplanes take off today, or while ships are still tiny, flimsy things that can barely carry the fuel to travel from one world to another.
Considering where we are now, we're probably closer to the invention of the steam engine than we are to the first fleet battle in space. By the time it happens, we'll probably be looking at a technological paradigm closer to sci-fi movies than to the dull and gritty view that prevails in these threads.
>>29927497
Infrared and visible light will mostly bounce off rather than be absorbed. X-rays are too big and bulky and don't respond to mirrors or lenses properly. Ultraviolet is the best bet but all lasers have efficiency issues.
The most efficient lasers, diode lasers have a 60 percent plug to beam efficiency but have the poorest quality lasers. 30% is honestly being generous. Powerful gas lasers typically have an efficiency of less than 1 percent. So you've got the implication that in order to destroy a ship with lasers you've got to be three times as big as they are.
Granted, this isn't actually true, you just need to burn through the armor but with ceramics that can take thousands of degrees celsius that can take a while.
>>29927686
Everything you said was correct except your last sentence. Also any serious space infrastructure/vehicles will be built in space by that point anyway so launch costs will be moot
>>29927573
Actually, with a KKV, you want to put the skirt behind the plume to increase it's infrared signal. This way the defender thinks the KKV is bigger than it actually is (thrust/mass=acceleration etc.) so they'll prioritize defeating a smaller KKV rather than a bigger KKV.
>>29928089
If the raw materials come from earth, the launch costs will never be moot.
If not, the industrial engineering facilities in space would have to be pretty impressive.
Right now, you're talking millions of man-hours across a dozen countries to get something serious into orbit.
>>29927686
The mineral worth of the asteroid belt is estimated at $700 quintillion dollars. That's a seven with 20 zeros. Enough mineral wealth to make billionaires of every man, woman, and child on Earth. More wealth than all the riches humanity has dug up in ten thousand years.
And it's basically up for grabs to the first person that can smelt it and send it to market.
>>29914491
(you)
>>29928293
Is...Is that literally a "No, you're an X"
Seriously, there was a time to stop and you both missed it.
>>29928127
As many people in this thread have already stated, space combat in the current age will be relegated to cyberwarfare and if things really get hot ground to orbit missile/laser strikes and killsats. Everything else is speculation about the future, and in a future where space combat is a thing we will be manufacturing off world. Hence why I agreed with the beginning of your post
>>29928193
Market value will go down once the demand is met.
But yeah, if you're talking about cornering the precious metal industry on earth, there's cash there, especially the stuff that you need for electronics.
The problem is that enormous launch cost, not to mention the Delta V needed to get to an asteroid, and then bring it back.
At the current level of technology, that's a billion dollar mission.
>>29928193
dont forget the quintillions it will take to get their, harvest and refine said material with today's technology. I guess we could mine a few asteroids but it would take an autocratic near-global government with little regard for human life
>>29928359
If we were level-headed, practical people, we wouldn't be here.
Anyway, I'm still interested to see what you can do with particle accelerators in space.
The efficiency, and the weight of current earth bound models is terrible, but with weaponized variants, the priorities are different.
You don't give a damn about the energies of the individual particles, just the output speed and the total energy.
Apparently neutron beams were seriously considered as part of the Strategic Defense Initiative.
It will start at long range but as defenses and shielding systems get better it will move closer.
>>29912308
Came here to post this. That site has this discussion played out a million times better than 4chan ever will. Just read/talk about it there.
>>29928419
there is no defense against a relativistic impactor
>>29928193
Those valuations are based on present-day Earth commodities markets, anon. Platinum is worth so much because there is very little. If you harvest an asteroid full of tens of thousands of tons of it, it would be worth no more than coal as the supply instantly exceeds the demand by orders of magnitude. Even if you don't bring it all to market at once, just the knowledge that it's readily available would drive down prices enormously.
Besides, it's not like there's only one asteroid out there. Nobody's going to fight over a barren space rock when there is literally over a million of them. People fight for oil because there aren't many places to find it. People don't fight for iron because you can dig it up wherever.
Empires (or mega-corporations, if that's your flavor of future) won't fight over asteroid mining sites until most of the lucrative ones have already been developed. The scale of a civilization that it would take to reach that level of resource exploitation is almost inconceivable.
Make way for the goat
To all the nuggets talking about power being a limiting factor, surely by then coke can sized reactors with outrageous output will be a thing.
Also, wouldn't rail guns play a bigger part than missiles? The projectiles are fast as fuck and it's not like they'll be losing a lot of velocity right?
>>29928460
Relativistic weapons are an irrelevant mathematical thought experiment.
Sure, if you can get a projectile moving at almost the speed of light, it would be enormously destructive. But the amount of energy the weapon would impart to its target is always less than the amount energy required to accelerate it to its impact velocity, to a greater or lesser degree depending on the efficiency of the mechanism used to accelerate it. So really, if you can get something going that fast, then you must have an almost arbitrarily large supply of energy and you could destroy your enemy in any number of other ways as well.
>>29928570
The problem is that space is very large and ships can move in three dimensions. A railgun round can be dodged (either by seeing it and getting out of the way, or just following random evasive maneuvers) while a missile can correct its course to track a target.
>>29928617
On the other hand, a missile needs sensors and thrusters and those can be easily disabled by lasers.
>>29928636
Okay, I should expand on this. I'm not saying missiles are infeasible, just that you need to deal with laser point defense somehow.
>>29928617
True, but what about more smaller projectiles in a volley fire like a phalanx? Throw a lead rope in a sine wave pattern while leading.
Intergalactic skeet shooting
>>29907888
Acclaimed and accredited scientists and engineers said the same thing about fucking cars, and steam boats with iron armor, planes, space ships, what ever and I am pretty sure we have those things. NASA is apparently looking at researching light speed devices or something even faster like a machine that can utilize wormholes.
>>29916515
What about a ship built around a laser system like an A10 except fucking huge? We have lasers that can kill/incapacitate modern jet fighters and drones and the laser machine itself is pretty small. Imagine a battleship sized laser module with a spaceship built around it powered by nuclear fuel cells.
>>29928570
Missiles can change course, dumb projectiles can't. See >>29927339
>>29928750
Melts down. The laser generates so much waste heat that it's as dangerous to the ship as the enemy. It'll do some damage but only as much as a single railgun round or missile hit. However, the ship has do deal with three times that much heat coming from the laser. Contact points fuse, sealants burn, life support scrambles to keep the crew from cooking. The radiators can't keep up and the heat sinks are nearing capacity.
>>29928463
not all asteroids are alike and it will take time and effort to scan and determine asteroids with the highest abundance or required materials, much like prospecting. A particularly rich asteroid will be quite a prize to whomever discovers it and therefore a potential conflict engine.
>>29928684
space is too big for this to be effective unless you are projecting an enormous volume of matter at your target or you are right on top of them (still pretty far by conventional standards granted)
>>29928723
I'm certain fusion power will be developed some day. I'm much less certain wormhole generation will be developed (though it may of course happen) simply because it would require AGN level outputs of energy.
>>29929069
those kinds of problems will be solved by advances in materials sciences. There will always be levels of laser tech beyond us but even now, x-ray lasers are possible with current technology. Though they would be one shot devices useful only for defense.
>>29928921
if your target has more delta-v than your missile, evasion is always a possibility
>>29929473
>delta-v
/k/ is the most retarded board on 4chan. this thread has proven that. stick to threads about 1911s and fake self defense stories.
>>29915201
So, just normal flak then?
>>29922890
If you look carefully, you can just make out the gaffer tape and glue holding the thing together.
>>29912281
Outta my way, Zent fucking shits
>>29929598
It's OK anon you dont have to be frightened
>>29930217
That must be pretty loud, does he need to wear earplugs?
>>29930584
No.
>>29928293
Only a day late to the shitfest, anon. Better luck next time.
>>29922890
hey my mission boat!
>ITT eve players
>>29930615
Shit i didnt realize they hired jpop stars to serenade the CAP launch on the Ford. Must be low on bread
>>29930217
why is that man flying a plane?
>>29913981
>>29912715
Spherical space drones seem like the way to go, with lasers/weapons on as many positions as possible along the sphere, to account for enemy ships coming from potentially any direction.
>>29930742
>be in Earth Orbit
>Oboete Ima Suka starts playing
>>29930777
t-thanks earth federation
>>29930839
the ball trumps all
>>29912887
Are those weapons for gundam mechas?
>>29930777
Why not just continously rotate to scan and target?
>>29906475
and here i was wondering why we don't have quick-ready mannequins for target practice at gun ranges, but fine, let's think about this instead.
the ideal spaceship would have legs (with thrusters) allowing for quick pivot in aiming/dodging, and although it would be strange have a deck not in the center or pivot, that should be a goal -- minimizing g-forces when extreme evasive or about-target manouvers are needed but you don't want to smush the brains of people who are away from a low-g spot on the ship -- unless gundam
>we might live long enough to witness liveleaks from the cam of a soldier in a boarding torpedo
>>29931442
please
>>29929463
By the same virtue, armor technology will also improve due to better material science.
You'll need to increase the output again and we're back were we started.
>>29915916
>pocket sand in space
>>29931721
More effective than it sounds.
...actually pocket sand was pretty effective in KotH so maybe exactly as effective as it sounds.
>>29928679
>just that you need to deal with laser point defense somehow.
Attack it from distance with a bigger, more powerful laser.
>>29931694
except current laser tech requires less mass than armor. The more mass you pile on your ship, the more reaction mass you need to accelerate it.
>>29932546
except this is wrong. Unless we're talking about Gamma lasers, a pulsed x-ray burst is perfectly doable
>>29934063
>>29934002
Not at 30 percent efficiency, it's not.
>>29933991
Not the issue. It's the same amount of armor, just with different materials.
On the topic of Space to Space combat:
I've always felt that the easiest weapons for a near-future space craft to use would be Missiles and Recoilless rifles/RPGs, given that you can fire these things that don't end up pushing the spacecraft in the opposite direction which would be great news to anyone piloting the ship.
I've thought about having a system of turrets that would hold either Recoilless Rockets or missile racks. The RRs on the turrest would be able to spin around 360 degrees, and have a marginal elevation/depressing fire arc. The best way to use these turrets to protect the ship would be to ensure either 2 turrets are providing overlapping fire, or for each turret to watch the other one's back
The missile bays would do missile things I guess.
There'd have to be autoloaders in each of the turrets, given the hazard of a human getting tossed around the armory with a live warhead should the ship get disturbed in some way. This would add a great deal of engineering and complication to how things worked.
Just an Idea
>>29934464
I didnt know material are all of equal mass. Besides, it takes more mass in boron to stop a laser pulse than the mass of a laser output device. (at a souped up version of the boeing flying laser which is the only partially good example I could find numbers on)
>>29934449
hence the pulse, even at 30% efficiency you could dump your heat into a boiloff coolant supply of somekind (laterally stabilized of course). Even better, with only one target (hopefully) you dont need to waste energy on mutliple x-ray rods and can pump a whopping 100 terajoules of death ray at your target (that's at 2.5% efficiency) Higher energys c could be practical too but by then it becomes a 1 shot device unless we have some truly magic materials developed
>>29934088
I loved this scene except for the fact that the railguns didnt engage until visual range.
>>29935409
All that's seen in that clip is just PDC fire. Rail guns opened fire at 2000 klicks.
>>29927279
Someone here knows his literature.
I really liked how revelation space did space combat.
>>29935398
Boiling off coolant means you're combat endurance is limited. At terajoule levels you'll need to carry a pretty significant weight of coolant.
>>29935300
Sorry, are we still talking about using advanced materials to make lasers more practical?
>>29907888
Another thing you have to consider is that battles will be at extremely long distances, especially if the ships are using high powered lasers and are light seconds away from each other
>>29906475
bump
