Timeline for How do I justify short-range engagements in space?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
38 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Jul 10 at 12:43 | vote | accept | In Hoc Signo | ||
| Oct 23, 2020 at 15:46 | comment | added | SaintWacko | Have you ever read any of the Honor Harrington series? They have plenty of good close-range engagement, and the science to back it up. The gist of it is that while that have very effective shielding, the shielding is strongest on the top and bottom, weaker on the sides, and completely absent on the front and back. This means that for a laser to be effective, it has to be fired from ahead or behind, something which is much easier to do at close range. | |
| Oct 23, 2020 at 14:33 | comment | added | In Hoc Signo | @D.J.Klomp Thanks for the suggestion. | |
| Oct 23, 2020 at 13:29 | comment | added | D.J. Klomp | Make the missile counter measure not a set 98% value, which is very strange, but an exponential function based on travel time of the missles. If you have long enough time it become 100% successful, if you are very close it quickly falls of. | |
| Oct 23, 2020 at 12:20 | answer | added | Philipp | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 23, 2020 at 11:13 | comment | added | In Hoc Signo | @EvilSnack Isn't that already a given? | |
| Oct 23, 2020 at 5:54 | comment | added | EvilSnack | Have you play-tested the existing game mechanics? If the game isn't fun there's no need to worry about justifying the game scenario, because you won't have enough players to make it an issue. | |
| Oct 23, 2020 at 1:50 | answer | added | Corey | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 22, 2020 at 22:43 | answer | added | Jessica Knight | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 22, 2020 at 22:13 | comment | added | Robbie Goodwin | Why would short-range engagements be problematic, or need justification? What extreme ranges do people say are probable in space combat? Why won’t they fit on a table-top, unless you restrict the scales? What’s the capability of the capacitors and for how long do the shields go down while being emptied? How are you comparing interstellar gas and micrometeorites to hostile weapons? If you have 98% effective countermeasures, why worry? Don't ablative armour and anti-rad making hits that get through the shields damaging, but not an insta-kill most of the time, sound very vague? | |
| Oct 22, 2020 at 15:13 | comment | added | Tesset | Kind of irrespective of the question, but your energy shields sound like a very fun mechanic for a board game - you have to risk powering up your opponent in order to damage them, and if you are attacked, you suddenly have a bunch more resources to spend on getting around. Also encourages you to get into fights where you might otherwise be disadvantaged. I like it | |
| Oct 22, 2020 at 10:03 | comment | added | JRE | ZPM and "hard science" are incompatible. You've hand waved the power source, and made most of the circumstances that cause space combat to be long range irrelevant. | |
| Oct 22, 2020 at 1:55 | answer | added | csiz | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 15:55 | comment | added | Joshua | Anti-missile countermeasures have a minimum effective radius. Consider if optimal strategy is getting within that radius. | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 13:21 | answer | added | Ravenlocke | timeline score: 1 | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 12:34 | comment | added | Anderas | @Dast those are necessary compromises to fit the game on a table top. Epic40k does a better job scale-wise but no-one plays it. | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 11:05 | comment | added | Dast | It might be interesting to think about why/how weapon ranges might be limited in space combat, but for your game I suspect no one will care. In Warhammer 40k the range of typical guns is barely the length of 5 tanks. The same is true in other equivalent games. Most people to play them don't even notice this scale-compression and those who do rarely care. | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 10:48 | comment | added | In Hoc Signo | @I'mwithMonicad Good point; I guess you could argue that they are Star Trek-level "perfect". | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 9:23 | comment | added | Anderas | Check out this answer, where I laid out some table top space combat scenarios. worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/185802/… | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 8:35 | comment | added | I'm with Monica | Star Trek shields fail more often than they hold, though... | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 7:35 | answer | added | And | timeline score: 3 | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 5:56 | answer | added | user-781943 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 5:16 | answer | added | nick012000 | timeline score: 2 | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 4:14 | answer | added | LeFauve | timeline score: 0 | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 3:07 | comment | added | Nelson | Forget space. Even in modern air combat, AA missiles will lock on far out of line of sight (multiple Kilometers). In space, without handwavium powered stealth, engaging in "close combat" doesn't make sense, because you can be seen from a very far distance away. However, people have been exposed to sci-fi so the best option really is to do a what sci-fi do and mimic their fights. | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 2:44 | answer | added | Loren Pechtel | timeline score: 3 | |
| Oct 21, 2020 at 0:34 | answer | added | bowTieCoder | timeline score: 6 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 at 21:14 | answer | added | Xavon_Wrentaile | timeline score: 4 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 at 20:07 | comment | added | Daniel B | I recommend reading the Vorkosigan Saga. The Young Miles omnibus deals with this issue a few times. | |
| Oct 20, 2020 at 19:44 | history | became hot network question | |||
| Oct 20, 2020 at 12:28 | answer | added | komodosp | timeline score: 8 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 at 12:19 | comment | added | komodosp | How close range do you need? (For those of us not familiar with Armada) | |
| Oct 20, 2020 at 12:18 | answer | added | Darth Biomech | timeline score: 15 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 at 12:09 | comment | added | mart | see here, for similar question I arrived at tens of km as a meanigful unit of distance: worldbuilding.stackexchange.com/questions/185802/… | |
| Oct 20, 2020 at 12:09 | answer | added | Dragongeek | timeline score: 29 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 at 12:00 | answer | added | Ash | timeline score: 37 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 at 12:00 | answer | added | Dragongeek | timeline score: 8 | |
| Oct 20, 2020 at 11:41 | history | asked | In Hoc Signo | CC BY-SA 4.0 |