Scott Siebold schrieb:
> In the SciFi ground games I assume that anything that comes into the
It certainly makes for a simple game concentrates on the
ground-plodders.
Whether it is believable is a different matter.
'Anything' is a pretty wide definition. Does it include artillery
shells ? Fly-sized drones ? Hyper-sonic planes ?
'Combat Zone' is equally vague. What does it mean? Within range of small arms?
Within range of artillery? Wherever weapons, including aircraft, can reach?
'SF' could cover anything from Mad-Max type post-apocalyptic worlds
where you think yourself happy if you have gunpowder to a universe where Bolo
hypertanks are fielded by the bataillon.
> This includes flying drones near ground level up to fixed orbit
This requires some pretty powerful and precise long-range weaponry. Not
something every footslogger is likely to carry in his backpack.
> The only thing that will allow you to survive over 25
...
> 2) You are extremely stealthy and you aren't seen.
How is a recon drone 'not stealthy'? It can use passive sensors (optics, IR,
thermal, UV, milimetre wave sensors etc.) that do not transmit.
Transmissions can be in extremely tight (e.g.Laser) beams or the drone can
store the data until it is save from direct attack.
> 4) You own the space down to zero feet and can
If the enemy has weaponry that can kill a satellite in orbit, you probably
have something in orbit that can kill a ground installation equally well.
All a matter of scenarion design.
Greetings
just a thought but what if drones transmitted upwards to a
[quoted original message omitted]
Just a thought but if a drone transmitted upwards to a satelite via a tight
beam then who would detect it?
[quoted original message omitted]
Scott Siebold schrieb:
> In the SciFi ground games I assume that anything that comes into the
That's pretty much a "In My Universe" thing. Plainly it isn't the case in the
GZGVerse, in Falkenberg's Legion, etc. And in some universes, I suspect that
they don't use airpower simply because the author hasn't thought of it.
Further, such an Ultra-Air Defense Environment doesn't necessarily apply
over the whole universe. In the GZGverse, sending in airborne troops to
attack London would probably be pointless--you assume the NAC has enough
HEL batteries to knock down any troop carrier that gets close. That
doesn't mean an occasional frisbee-sized stealth recon drone at 10,000
meters won't get through. And it doesn't mean that a minor NAC installation on
a planet 10 parsecs away has the same level of defenses.
> Scott Siebold schrieb:
My base assumption is that the majority of "Air Defense" weapons are energy
weapons that operate at the speed of light with computers able to acquire
targeting information from multiple sources and process it in real time (real
time being millisecond time scales or less).
Artillery may be able to saturate a target but it's effect will be reduced by
"Air Defense". My argument is still true in that artillery rounds will be dead
if shot down or not shot down.
If your drones are fly size then the anti drones will also be fly size. So far
we have dealt with only recon drones but in the future I suspect that drones
will be taking
on additional duties. How about cheap externally guided kamikaze drones to
destroy your expensive recon drones.
The problem is that the faster a plane goes the greater the effect is when it
is hit. Also the less maneuverable it is when "Air Defense" opens up with a
fire pattern.
I was intentionally vague about "combat zone" because it depends on what you
are playing. If you are in Steve Jackson "Ogre" universe then ranges
for weapons are in tens of miles+ and tactical nukes are normal weapons.
> 'SF' could cover anything from Mad-Max type post-apocalyptic worlds
I usually do not play Mad-Max type games but I assure you that at one
time I did. The problem with such games is that expendables aren't expendable
in such games. If you ever play Battlemech the average games casualties
extended to include the takeover of a world will destroy several YEARS worth
of production for each side for each planet taken.
If you have 10 tanks in your whole army are you going to risk their loss?
> This includes flying drones near ground level up to fixed orbit
But the higher levels of command do carry. At this time we can destroy
satellites in orbit and I suspect that this ability will only be increasing.
You may have been hit by a missile that when it gets to orbit releases a dozen
small satellites that went off and hit you with several hundred AA size
buckshot but you are still dead. The secret is to know where you
are X time (5 minutes, 20 minutes or 2 hours depends on the technology) from
now.
> The only thing that will allow you to survive over 25
It is not stealthy when another drone locks on to it and passes it's location
over to the "Air Defense" who start shooting. Yes the other sides "Air
Defense" may lock on to the other sides drone and my argument is still true.
It then becomes a matter of who runs out of drones first.
> 4) You own the space down to zero feet and can
You do, but if you stay in low orbit too long you become a target so I
suspect it's low orbit to fire then high orbit for safety. I also assume that
energy weapons have a maximum range in atmosphere so any ground to orbit
energy weapon will be BIG. and fixed in place and only the largest ships could
carry an energy weapon that could reach a ground
target..
> All a matter of scenarion design.
[quoted original message omitted]
> At 12:08 AM -0700 7/22/02, Eric Foley wrote:
The neat thing about planetary defenses is that you can target objects coming
in from orbit like noone's business. They are screaming in at very fast
Velocities and emit a huge thermal signature due to surface friction heating.
Add to that, you can build "hardened" Phased array systems today for looking
at the sky. There are some that SAC built that are nuke blast resistant from
my understanding. Essentially a massive sloped face made of concrete with
significant aperture width to resolve basketball sized objects in orbit.
> Which ultimately means that air control is probably going to go to
It's all a matter of wresting control. The US beat Iraq into submission
because they didn't put up much of a fight and we brought massive amounts of
hardware. Now, imagine a similar fight between another nation and the US with
parity in air defense and air power projection. Not such an easy fight. Local
space control will be likely. Dominance is another thing entirely on a major
world that a space nation wishes to keep.
> for communicating and detecting things will all be on that side. Air
These surface skimming cruise missiles will get to the surface how? And you
launch at the first emitters that you see? Ok, so then your launching ships
are whacked when they go after a few real and multiple fake EMF emitters.
Drones to make the Search radar's go off work both ways. While you're dropping
bombardment vessels into low orbit, the planet defenses are putting ball
bearings into your orbit or seeding those likely points so you have to spend
time evading those to miss your target windows for bombardment.
Then at some point the land based lasers open up on you. They can generate far
more power than you can since they can place a massive reactor underground
(free shielding where you aren't worried about weight) where they can dump
huge amounts of waste heat into bodies of water. You have to dump waste heat
into an airless vacum. Not an efficient method of heat regulation. Land based
laser emitters can be set up with long reflection tunnels that emerge on the
surface and focus the beams at remote points away from the actual emitter.
Destroy a reflector and you've dealt with one bolt hole. Additionally, those
points can be armored like noone's business.
Additionally, land based systems can be build mobile so they can move around
while you aren't in orbit around those points. Bun Bun will make your day
miserable when she pops her head up and launches a
massive Anti-matter round at your heavy landers. So you have to send
the light stuff in first. The land based air power will likely cause
additional problems for you as they will be maneuvering and following your
small stuff in and dealing with your CAP.
You had better have 3-1 odds and work everything like clockwork with
none of Mr Murphy's laws cropping up. If not, then it won't be a good fight
and you might not win.
> that they haven't bombarded from orbit with enough firepower to reduce
If you're bombing then you don't likely want the land anyhow.
> >Which ultimately means that air control is probably going to go to
Why do you need space control? Space denail is a great way to level the
playing field, unless you opponent doesn't practice non-space base
communications. Then space denail is a great way to get an advanatage. Space
denail is much cheaper and easier then space control.
> >for communicating and detecting things will all be on that side. Air
Why use active sensors? Put up several dozen football sized IR satelites and
use passive sensors... Of course an Earth like planet has a lot of ground to
defend about 5,511,185,932.5 sq. km's. Were getting into the
classic arguement of fortification versus mobile fleet/army debate.
Sure, you can build a huge, massive fortification that will take several times
your fortress's cost to destroy, but that fortress can't move...
> Then at some point the land based lasers open up on you. They can
That's the problem. You can bombard any place to defeat, but then there's
nothing but worthless wasteland to conquer...
> At 7:17 AM -0400 7/23/02, Imre A. Szabo wrote:
Thats denial btw.
In order to deny the use of space based systems you have to control it.
Controlling low orbit areas is going to be difficult. That's the whole point.
Surface to space isn't surface to littorial. You can't sit on a section of
beach and see close to a third of your coastal littorial. You can see a
significant section of space from the surface of a planet. Add in
Additionally, what about all that junk up there? An important planet would
likely have a good bit of space junk. Are you going to check every bit of
random junk in orbit to make sure it's not a recce sat that I activate when
they need it? There could be hundreds of them disguised as older satellites
that get activated when needed.
> Why use active sensors? Put up several dozen football sized IR
In space these passive IR sats are going to transmit their data to your fleet
how? ESP? Telepathy? They have to transmit their data. Besides, you have to
deploy them. Deploying them into an orbit requires you to expend energy,
expending energy will show up on reasonably sensitive ground based sensors
that are passive and can transmit their data via underground cables to the
various CPS that are buried deep deep deep.
Additionally, active sensors are required to do things like ground mapping and
such.
> ground to defend about 5,511,185,932.5 sq. km's. Were getting into the
Sure,
> you can build a huge, massive fortification that will take several
But, the ground based defenses can be composed of mobile and immobile units. I
could park some nice heavy submersibles on the continental shelf and use those
as launch platforms. And again, I'll have far more power to throw at you than
you'll have to throw at me based on my ability to dump any excess heat into a
nice medium absorbing that heat. Your ships will glow like the night
> That's the problem. You can bombard any place to defeat, but then
Thats the whole point. So you've really got to want to take the place.
> My base assumption is that the majority of "Air Defense" weapons are
Sensors are both passive (Russian IR sensor on most of there latest fighters
for example) and active. The active sensors presently are like radar in which
the transmitter and
receiver are at the same location so you kill the transmitter and the receiver
and the information processor are destroyed also. Lets go a couple of steps
further.
On active transmitters you cut their workings to minimum and detach receiver
from transmitter and processor from transmitter and receiver. When transmitter
goes active it
is now a target which will shortly be killed. It is however cheap enough to be
mass produced so when transmitter number 126 is killed 127 goes active and
there is still 2874 that have not been activated in this sector.
At the same time your satellites are being detected and fired at by multiple
cheap (solid fuel mass produced?) anti missle systems and between the shotgun
killer weapons and the disposable into orbit energy weapons you are going to
be lucky to spot the weapon that killed you much less something on the ground.
Next question is can a surface skimming cruise missle travel faster then
the energy weapon that is firing at 186,000 miles per second. The cruse missle
was detected by the
passive sensors, tracked by the active sensors (yes active sensors are killed)
and then fired at by the energy weapons (one shot disposable?).
Now if all you want in your game is to blow worlds to bits then I suggest you
play "nucular distruction" from Flying Buffalo in which the last player on the
world with some population wins. I stoped playing this game due to the number
of tie games (no players have surviving populations). My answer to this is the
nuclear dampener field which can reduce the effect of high energy explosions
(nukes) so low yield weapons are reduced by at least 90% and high yield
weapons are reduced by as much as 99.999%. It operates in a gravatational
field so it is useless for ship to ship use but ships may land and turn the
device on and has little to no effect on nuclear power plants (energy yields
are too low to establish dampener effect).
[quoted original message omitted]
G'day
> (and with only one planet's resources against
Doesn't this (like every other part of the argument so far) depend on what
your background setting is?
I would've thought that if they're attacking the planet they either want its
resources or they want to stop the people on the planet from hurting them. If
they want the resources they're not going to want to destroy the planet. If
they want to stop the people (and don't mind if they kill the planet in the
process) it suggests the people on the planet have the backing to
hurt/threaten them whether they have a single planet or an entire space
empire of their own. The only exception I can see (and may be I'm just being
simple minded) is when you have a high tech enemy pre-empting future
rivals by blowing them out of the water before they get very high. In which
case it would be an extreme difference in tech levels not available resources
that makes the difference. If the empire and planets are anywhere near on
parity then I would've thought the fleet would actually have the supply
problem due to shipping issues (vs immense available resources on the planet).
But that comes down to how you imagine your background, how they deal with
resupply, shipping troops etc.
Any way that's just my take on this paper-scissors-rock conundrum, and
as I haven't been following the thread too closely, sorry if its already been
said.
Cheers
> At 11:27 PM -0700 7/24/02, Eric Foley wrote:
> That's a huge issue by itself. Not only does that mean that the
Neither does the massive industry that you've built around this planet and on
it. More so the millions of people that live on this planet.
If it's a core world of say the NAC, then you bet they'll defend this planet
more than they would others.
> sure, you can spend most of your empire's resources on fortifying
Building something massive on the surface of a planet where you don't have a
hostile environment and you don't have to deal with lifting the parts into
orbit is quite cheap compared to building things in space where your
transportation costs are exponentially higher.
> my starship's waste disposal without it getting vaporized on the way
One would assume the same thing about a fleet that you've collected enough men
and materials to use to beat. The thing about planetary
defenses is that you've built them on/around the planet. They can't
be used elsewhere. Thats both a boon and a problem. They won't be away when
and unexpected attack comes.
> Then there's the issue of how you're going to supply all these
If an
That dog won't hunt. Again look at your costs. Its a hell of a lot cheaper to
supply these defenses on your core worlds than it is to supply a fleet on
exercises in a distant part of your space. Its close to industry. You've got
your entire solar system for resources and its at the hub of your
transportation.
I live in Atlanta Georgia. Getting gas here is cheap, cheap cheap. We have the
cheapest gas in the Eastern Seaboard from some accounts I've heard. Why? We
are a distribution hub for petroleum products like gasoline to a good part of
the US. The corresponding transport costs are lower because it comes here
anyhow. Space defenses aren't going to use just huge amounts of bulk materials
anyhow, they'll need high tech manufactured goods. Guess what, they're made
there. Hmm. No problem there.
> interstellar starfleet is coming at you, almost by definition you're
They have to get it there past the fleets that are based there. Additionally,
your surface defenses will have the advantage in firepower and protection.
> length of time. Which means that if you're going to expect to stand
Not much point in a campaign of planet grabbing if you just toast the massive
population center. Sure the NAC doesn't like the ESU or the
FSE, but I don't see them shiva option-ing the Either star nation's
main planets. The NAC's people just wouldn't stand for it.
> --- Ryan Gill <rmgill@mindspring.com> wrote:
> Thats denial btw.
I always considered deplace safer when denails were removed from despace!
departing now,
> --- Eric Foley <stiltman@teleport.com> wrote:
> have a real basis in any one game system. To my way
OK, take an Ohio SSBN. Rip out the missles. Put in
active-homing grav missles with bomb-pumped X-Ray
lasers (SMRs) and voila! You've got a stealthy, submerged, mobile platform.
Tie it in with a passive sensor network (nearly impossible to detect without
getting close and easy to hit) and a good radio network and you've got
something that's a nuisance to deal with.
You don't have big oceans to hide in? OK, let's assume you've got a bulk cargo
transport system, the futuristic equivelant of railroads. Any planet worth
fortifying will have it. Now take a specialized railroad car and mount
whatever you please on it. Sensors, small beam batteries, SMRs, whatever.
> That's a huge issue by itself. Not only does that
Fortifications have offensive usefullness. Think
large-scale. Fortifications are safe bases for your
fleet.
> importantly, if the planet is
Maybe the planet is an outpost of an interstellar
empire that has X amount of ships and X+10 commitments
(typical of large nations, for case in point see US Armed Forces)
> but that means your defenses in space to keep me
Maybe I just need to delay you long enough to get my space fleet there.
> Then there's the issue of how you're going to supply
If a planet is worth fortifying it's got the ability to produce nuclear
warheads. Missles are the only expendable ordnance you'd be using.
> length of time. Which means that if you're going to
You're creating an artificial situation. Interstellar empires vs. single
planets is pointless regardless of what you do. If it's single planets holding
off interstellar empires for a limited amount of time until the cavalry comes
riding to the rescue, it's a better idea. A mix of SD ships, fighters in great
quantity, and fortifications will achieve the mission.
> resources. Which, in turn, leaves the enemy with
?? If you park your fleet where I can get them because you're afraid of my
fortifications then I win. My fleet shows up, smokes yours (or not, but
nothing in life is certain) and my planet is untouched.
> Or, if they don't have time to do that, then I guess
If we descend to that level, then I just have one ship fly to each of your
planets and send an asteroid flying towards it. Boom.
Both of us are extinct. The big winner is the Kra'Vak.
On or about Thu, Jul 25, 2002 at 09:29:07AM -0400, Ryan Gill typed:
> Building something massive on the surface of a planet where you don't
...unless those parts are being made in orbit in the first place. If your
metals are coming from asteroids, building on the surface may well be more
expensive than building in orbit.
> At 9:51 AM +0100 7/26/02, Roger Burton West wrote:
And you're going to smelt these items in orbit how? Refining takes huge
amounts of water, air, chemicals and other raw materials. Dropping containers
of ore from orbit into the ocean would be simple.
From: Ryan Gill rmgill@mindspring.com
> And you're going to smelt these items in orbit how?
Parabolic mirror to focus sunlight on them and use fractional distillation?
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> At 11:59 AM -0400 7/26/02, laserlight@quixnet.net wrote:
That may work for some of the processes, but how then do you move the slag and
impurities out of the liquid? Further, what about the casting into ingots and
conversion to steel? Artificial gravity will help some, but one has to wonder
about the quantities of water needed for the annealing and case hardening
processes that one must go through to get certain surface properties.
I'm certain that you can process smaller quantities of ore, but I'd have to
wonder if you'd be better off on at least a low gravity planetoid for the
manufacturing process when you have need of certain conditions.