Argument Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[Sertian]

In what world do you live in that a broadside has larger guns and more throw weight than a turreted centerline? The only time that was ever true was during opening days of the ironclad era. Once steam power allowed larger armored warships without sails, guns got bigger and bigger. I'd like to see you mount fourteen inch naval guns in a broadside. A turreted centerline allows you to have larger guns that can engage far more targets and focus all of your available firepower on a single target instead of having half if you're lucky. Sure, you have fewer guns with the centerline, but they're larger, more powerful, and can hit a target regardless of its position relative to your own.

Actually, even with the use of a centerline styled ship, you're STILL only going to only be able to engage with half of your fire power on a given target. Why? Because space isn't an ocean and enemy ships can come up from underneath your vessel as well. :3

You'd have to mount an identical number of centerline turrets on the underside of your ship as well, or leave your undersides totally vulnerable. At which point, the only time your turrets would be able to focus their fire power onto a single target is if it's designed with a Star Destroyer-isque shape so it's turrets can all fire forward, or if the enemy ship is significantly off to the side that both your up and down turrets can shoot at it (and that's only if your turrets have a negative y arc, otherwise the sides of your ships could be completely screwed). And when you think about it, a 'broadside' gun could due the same in design with a triangular shape, allowing it to focus all of it's considerable amount of guns onto one point in front of it (or split it's firepower in half like a centerline styled ship would have to for up and down).

So really, the only difference in gun configurations in space is whether you want fewer, bigger canons or much more smaller ones. The first would be important for hunting down capital ships, while the latter would be able to discourage fighters, missiles, and support ships from coming to close to your ships.

[Bryn Shander]

In what world do you live in that a broadside has larger guns and more throw weight than a turreted centerline? The only time that was ever true was during opening days of the ironclad era. Once steam power allowed larger armored warships without sails, guns got bigger and bigger. I'd like to see you mount fourteen inch naval guns in a broadside. A turreted centerline allows you to have larger guns that can engage far more targets and focus all of your available firepower on a single target instead of having half if you're lucky. Sure, you have fewer guns with the centerline, but they're larger, more powerful, and can hit a target regardless of its position relative to your own.

Actually, even with the use of a centerline styled ship, you're STILL only going to only be able to engage with half of your fire power on a given target. Why? Because space isn't an ocean and enemy ships can come up from underneath your vessel as well. :3

You'd have to mount an identical number of centerline turrets on the underside of your ship as well, or leave your undersides totally vulnerable. At which point, the only time your turrets would be able to focus their fire power onto a single target is if it's designed with a Star Destroyer-isque shape so it's turrets can all fire forward, or if the enemy ship is significantly off to the side that both your up and down turrets can shoot at it (and that's only if your turrets have a negative y arc, otherwise the sides of your ships could be completely screwed). And when you think about it, a 'broadside' gun could due the same in design with a triangular shape, allowing it to focus all of it's considerable amount of guns onto one point in front of it (or split it's firepower in half like a centerline styled ship would have to for up and down).

So really, the only difference in gun configurations in space is whether you want fewer, bigger canons or much more smaller ones. The first would be important for hunting down capital ships, while the latter would be able to discourage fighters, missiles, and support ships from coming to close to your ships.

Only a moron would design a starship without guns covering both top and bottom. If the enemy comes up from below, just rotate 90 degrees and the problem is solved. Your argument is both wrong and stupid.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Broadsides vs. centerline is rather dependent on your technology, isn't it?

A broadsides ship COULD bring equivalent firepower to a centerline to bear if designed appropriately. It comes down to equivalence again...who's to say that your 9 Super Jiggakill 5000 turreted Ubarkannonz deliver more firepower than 40 of his Assmauler 9,000,000 blasters mounted in sponsons? It's not like a battle is going to take place at a range where he can't bring all of them to bear even with their more limited traverse (on one side, obviously). If somebody's spent their time developing a powerful weapon meant to be used broadsides (say, like the lasers used in Gunbuster), it can be just as strong as a turreted weapon.

Turret's main advantage, to my mind, is their increased arc of fire. A ship designed for broadsides has two big zones, above and below the ship, that it can't bring it's main firepower to bear on. Obviously they'd try to use tactics to minimize that spot's exposure, but it's still there to be exploited.

With turreted ships the problem is negated in that a turret can (ideally) cover +180 degrees on any axis...your trade off is fewer big guns, further, those guns are (theoretically, barring differences in shielding technology) easier to disable since they're exposed outside of the hull...but that only really matters if you're trying to capture an enemy and there are far better ways to do that in FT.

As far as I can tell, in terms of spinal vs. broadside, they're basically the same thing pointed in different directions. Spinal has the advantage of putting ALL the firepower in one direction (this is assuming a 'pure' example of both ships), whereas broadsides cover both sides...

In terms of pure power-per-shot, spinal weapons obviously have an advantage, sort of like in Homeworld, you just build a ship around a giant gun. I gather that most people don't take this approach, but if you extend a gun for half the length of a ship there's obviously some serious resources being applied that weapon. How efficiently that application is applied that is up to the player, of course.

[Kanuckistan]

Actually, there's a difference in this configuration. A proper setup for a broadside battleship has the weapon mounts sunk into the hull a short distance, and does not include a turret. This is one of the failing points of a broadside configuration. It literally has a plane of fire, and very little traverse. In three dimensional combat, this can be a dangerous weakness, but let me illustrate my point.

I know what you mean.

I was allowing for sponson/casement mounted broadsides, that's all.

You can see the stacked guns on the side, sunken into the hull to a point that does not permit turret mounting. This permits a larger size weapon and increased firepower, but it also limits the traverse of the weapon to almost nothing, the same limitation experienced in a spinal mounting.

Again, the turret does not contain the entire weapon system. Not that you couldn't mount an arbitrarily large turret if you really wanted to, tho after a point it gets progressively sillier.

This means that a broadside configuration will be effectively taller than a centerline configuration, but will have more facing guns.

Again, you seem to get hung up on hull form. For our purposes, it's semi-arbitrary.

Broadside gets taller? Centerline gets longer, and/or wider(to support larger/wider turret rings).

It's moot, save that increasing target profile means more surface area means more armour is needed for the same protection, which could serve to counterbalance the cost of turrets that the centerline has to pay.

Which could actually be a fair point - battleships traditionally, iirc, spend far more in terms of weight and cost in armour than armament.

One major advantage of this configuration is the ability to mount spinal weapons for the approach. While less accurate, it allows for a 'bombardment' style advance where your formation which is already headed for the enemy group, opens fire with longer-range weaponry to weaken the enemy formation. This works particularly well against planets or other immobile targets, where sustained fire from heavy guns at range can be achieved by the use of multiple warships.

Congratulations.

Your firepower is now permanently split in three directions rather than two.

That is my understanding. The most significant difference being the lack of requirement for a turret mounting, permitting a drastically reduced size for each weapon, while also eliminating any sort of fast-tracking. Effectively, such battleships become utterly dependant upon their escorts for any sort of protection against nimble opponents that do not wander into their field of fire.

You exaggerate the cost of turret mounting. Especially with weapon systems where only a small portion of the weapon has to be in the actual turret.

This is something that stems from the previous point. A broadside has more firepower only if sitting between two enemy vessels. While this is part of the tactics involved, I admit it is rare. And I don't think I underestimate the advantage of focused fire. It is, quite simply, the single most useful tactic unless you intend to scare your enemy away without causing great harm. A fleet of broadsides really is forced to try to segment and disrupt an enemy formation, attempting to make such an advantage impossible simply by positioning.

Again, I'm not saying it's the perfect configuration. I'm simply saying it has strengths that should not be discounted.

Ah, ok.

You do rather seem to be exaggerating those strengths, however. They are very inferior in all but a few very specific situations.





EDIT:

Of course,once I phase into plasma particle beams, it's advantage over typical particle beams is that it's affected by magnetic fields without spreading out due to electrical charge.

Plasma is charged, by it's very nature, and will thusly self-repel. It's no different than a charged particle beam in this respect.

o.0

Actually, even with the use of a centerline styled ship, you're STILL only going to only be able to engage with half of your fire power on a given target. Why? Because space isn't an ocean and enemy ships can come up from underneath your vessel as well. :3

This is absurd.

Turrets on the top and bottom, yes. Can they depress? Obviously.

Centerline is still optimised for broadsides(and maybe forward), but it can turn all it's guns to face one broadside - where a fixed- or casement-mounted broadside cannot - and then orient itself so that that broadside is facing any given direction or target.

[The Cosmic Balance]

<Writing with mind numbed by two pages of naval architecture>

Uh, is it just me, or do other people find it a little silly to think that futuristic space battles have to play out like fights between surface fleets in the great world wars of the 20th Century?

I haven't thought much about doctrine because it's unlikely that TCB will ever fight a space battle with more than one ship; but where I have with other puppets, the model has tended more towards either modern submarine or air warfare, probably because each of these:

• Features combat in three dimensions.
  
  
• Is pretty much a "one-hit-kills" environment (which is generally how I see space battles playing out).

Even if you don't accept the second notion, doesn't copying 20th Century wet navies make about as much sense as, say, designing your fleet in mimicry of the combatants at the Battle of Lepanto?

[Sertian]

In what world do you live in that a broadside has larger guns and more throw weight than a turreted centerline? The only time that was ever true was during opening days of the ironclad era. Once steam power allowed larger armored warships without sails, guns got bigger and bigger. I'd like to see you mount fourteen inch naval guns in a broadside. A turreted centerline allows you to have larger guns that can engage far more targets and focus all of your available firepower on a single target instead of having half if you're lucky. Sure, you have fewer guns with the centerline, but they're larger, more powerful, and can hit a target regardless of its position relative to your own.

Actually, even with the use of a centerline styled ship, you're STILL only going to only be able to engage with half of your fire power on a given target. Why? Because space isn't an ocean and enemy ships can come up from underneath your vessel as well. :3

You'd have to mount an identical number of centerline turrets on the underside of your ship as well, or leave your undersides totally vulnerable. At which point, the only time your turrets would be able to focus their fire power onto a single target is if it's designed with a Star Destroyer-isque shape so it's turrets can all fire forward, or if the enemy ship is significantly off to the side that both your up and down turrets can shoot at it (and that's only if your turrets have a negative y arc, otherwise the sides of your ships could be completely screwed). And when you think about it, a 'broadside' gun could due the same in design with a triangular shape, allowing it to focus all of it's considerable amount of guns onto one point in front of it (or split it's firepower in half like a centerline styled ship would have to for up and down).

So really, the only difference in gun configurations in space is whether you want fewer, bigger canons or much more smaller ones. The first would be important for hunting down capital ships, while the latter would be able to discourage fighters, missiles, and support ships from coming to close to your ships.

Only a moron would design a starship without guns covering both top and bottom. If the enemy comes up from below, just rotate 90 degrees and the problem is solved. Your argument is both wrong and stupid.

And what's to stop a broadside from being designed in such a way that it could focus it's firepower up or down? Let's say a flat hull with the small turrets staggered across the face so that they could fire up or down without getting in each others way? Then the only thing stopping it form concentrating it's fire is having to turn 90-degrees and shooting.

To me, so long as you don't put the high tech equivalence of canons in arrays that can only shoot out to the sides, both systems could be designed to work to focus their fire power to the front or their sides. Therefor, the only difference is the design of the ship, is it designed to be a capital ship killer? Then give it spinal mounts/large turreted guns. Is it designed to support larger ships and guard it's flanks from fighters/missiles/smaller nimble ships? Give it lots of quick firing turrets to rain shells and lasers on them.

Or do what I do and try to get a healthy mix of both in the same ship.

[Kanuckistan]

Even if you don't accept the second notion, doesn't copying 20th Century wet navies make about as much sense as, say, designing your fleet in mimicry of the combatants at the Battle of Lepanto?

As for the current discussion, it's really a matter there only being so many ways to mount guns that makes any real sense.

You want good firing arcs and the ability to concentrate your firepower? - centerline turret is an excellent answer.

Of course, what I say is best and what I actually RP with are often totally different things.

And what's to stop a broadside from being designed in such a way that it could focus it's firepower up or down? Let's say a flat hull with the small turrets staggered across the face so that they could fire up or down without getting in each others way? Then the only thing stopping it form concentrating it's fire is having to turn 90-degrees and shooting.

That would be less a traditional broadsider than a centerline sitting on it's side.

I suppose the terms being used a a little deceptive - it's really more fixed/limited traverse guns pointing in different directions VS turret/maximum traverse mounted to maximise fields of fire.

Or do what I do and try to get a healthy mix of both in the same ship.

Jack of All Trades, Master of None.

...but I JOAT often enough in my own ways, so...

[Sertian]

That would be less a traditional broadsider than a centerline sitting on it's side.

I suppose the terms being used a a little deceptive - it's really more fixed/limited traverse guns pointing in different directions VS turret/maximum traverse mounted to maximise fields of fire.

I suppose that might be the trouble I'm having, thinking of something totally different while people keep going on about it.

As for the plasma charged thing, I'm aware that plasma is charged (that is the reason why it can be affected by magnetic fields). I was just under the assumption that it's tendency to spread out was due to it's high temperature and being a gas-like state of matter, thus making it spread out due to it's rapidly moving atoms knocking into each other and spreading out because there's a less dense medium outside of it that can't keep it constrained. Thus, if the nucleus of the atoms where moving parallel to each other (assumed by some process of the magnetic acceleration) it would largely stop this from happening (electrons would still be jumping around and possibly transfer some momentum, which would cause what declination the beam suffered).

I thought that the free moving electrons inside of the plasma would keep the nucleus from pushing each other apart, given that their negative charge would cancel out their positive charge, unlike a charged particle beam which is predominately positive or negative. Of course, I'm not saying that the cancellation would be perfect, but I thought it wouldn't spread out as much (which allows it to be denser or have a longer range).

[Kanuckistan]

Charged? Yup.

Hot? Yup.

Low density quasi-Gas? Yup.


Pretty much everything about plasma makes it want to disperse. Now, it's stupidly late, but you've managed to affect one, maybe two, methods of interaction - I'm skeptical, but it's too late for research.


But frankly, plasma is just about the worst material there is to try and create a coherent beam weapon with.

You'd have better luck with cheese.


Not that I don't have a few plasma weapons lying around, but mine are almost all nuke-pumped. ...Well, conversion bomb, actually, tho the shoulder-fired Plasma Hammer can use fission, fusion and antimatter rounds, too, to generate the lance, if you're on a budget.

[The Cosmic Balance]

A cheese beam. Now why didn't I think of that...

[Sertian]

A cheese beam. Now why didn't I think of that...

It would go along quite well with your jamming missiles! :3

On a serious note, I understand that plasma is a difficult thing to work with and shape into a weapon. Then again, I could say the same about Gravity, yet FT is swamped with with gravitic technology, from things as simple as gravity/mass sensors, to weapons that create black holes. Some people have entire sub-light drives based off of it. If people can take and use the weakest force in the universe and turn it into a viable weapon, I think it'd be much simpler to create feasible plasma weapons. :3

'Sides, I'm just not willing to yet it go for the Sertian's. Their expertise in plasma weapons was set before I even fleshed them out as a nation and they were nothing more than a background character for a character on a forum RP.

[-Raysia-]

use plasma for short range ion bombardments only... at high enough speeds and close enough range, it's quite powerful.


But at longer range, you'd need something to contain it all... either some sort of globular gel or magnetic torpedo thing... or something to do with gravitonics

Otherwise, at anything more than a few kilometers your 'plasma' will look like a solar flare.. a lot of show, not a lot of power.

[Feazanthia]

Plasma can be used as a weapon, it just has to be generated within close proximity to the target.

Say...a deuterium-tritium fusion warhead.

[-Raysia-]

Plasma can be used as a weapon, it just has to be generated within close proximity to the target.

Say...a deuterium-tritium fusion warhead.

as in, something perfectly capable of dealing damage by itself, and not just by it's byproduct?

[Solar Entropia]

For an upcoming FT nation, do you experienced players have any advice.

[The Fedral Union]

For an upcoming FT nation, do you experienced players have any advice.

Story first, balance for your tech, and you have to meet people half way since this is a cooperative rp game. There all forms of tech in future tech from canon star wars to my weird ass overpowered concoctions but it all boils down to whats good for the story instead of "winning" Just remember that.

[Solar Entropia]

For an upcoming FT nation, do you experienced players have any advice.

Story first, balance for your tech, and you have to meet people half way since this is a cooperative rp game. There all forms of tech in future tech from canon star wars to my weird ass overpowered concoctions but it all boils down to whats good for the story instead of "winning" Just remember that.

Okay, thanks.

[-Raysia-]

Your weird ass overpowered concoctions? Why do I have a picture of a donkey with 3 legs kicking over some sort of witch's brew?

Perhaps it's because I read things the way they're written? ^_^ Shame on me for respecting the structure of the English language, right?

[Phenia]

Charged? Yup.

Hot? Yup.

Low density quasi-Gas? Yup.


Pretty much everything about plasma makes it want to disperse. Now, it's stupidly late, but you've managed to affect one, maybe two, methods of interaction - I'm skeptical, but it's too late for research.


But frankly, plasma is just about the worst material there is to try and create a coherent beam weapon with.

You'd have better luck with cheese.

But cheese doesn't fit the Rule Of Cool. Hence cheese will never be a weapon while plasma guns, plasma bolts, plasma beams, plasma bombs, plasma conduits and plasma grenades and plasma ice cream will.

I mean, I agree with you in terms of hard science. But there are obviously other considerations in a universe where Tolkien Elves coexist with Jedi and Sith...

[Feazanthia]

But cheese doesn't fit the Rule Of Cool. Hence cheese will never be a weapon while plasma guns, plasma bolts, plasma beams, plasma bombs, plasma conduits and plasma grenades and plasma ice cream will.

I mean, I agree with you in terms of hard science. But there are obviously other considerations in a universe where Tolkien Elves coexist with Jedi and Sith...

Keep in mind the intent of this thread when there are no active disagreements based on a current roleplay.

And also that, when employed in popular media, it's usually fired at a range of a few kilometers. It might actually work at those ranges.

But the fact remains that plasma, if it is used right, is ridiculously effective. It just has an incredibly short range. Balance in all things.

[OMGeverynameistaken]

Isn't one of the 'traditional' ways of weaponizing plasma to encase it in some kind of force field? I recall that that's the method they used in Total Annihilation. Of course, that would either require a shell containing a generator or some means of projecting the field over a distance.

Hmm...at really short ranges you could create some kind of force-field tube, project it against the hull of an enemy ship and dump a bunch of plasma into it. That could be quite nasty.

[Feazanthia]

Isn't one of the 'traditional' ways of weaponizing plasma to encase it in some kind of force field? I recall that that's the method they used in Total Annihilation. Of course, that would either require a shell containing a generator or some means of projecting the field over a distance.

Well yeah anything can be done with handwavium.

[The Fedral Union]

Your weird ass overpowered concoctions? Why do I have a picture of a donkey with 3 legs kicking over some sort of witch's brew?

Perhaps it's because I read things the way they're written? ^_^ Shame on me for respecting the structure of the English language, right?

^^^^^
Enough about my spelling, really its getting tiresome. I was trying to help the lad, and you keep on sniping me.

[-Bretonia-]

Isn't one of the 'traditional' ways of weaponizing plasma to encase it in some kind of force field? I recall that that's the method they used in Total Annihilation. Of course, that would either require a shell containing a generator or some means of projecting the field over a distance.

Hmm...at really short ranges you could create some kind of force-field tube, project it against the hull of an enemy ship and dump a bunch of plasma into it. That could be quite nasty.

The question would be 'why would you want to'? What exactly can you achieve with this over-complicated and expensive application of plasma that you can't already accomplish with lasers, particle weapons, or even ol'-fashioned nukes?

[The Cosmic Balance]

The question would be 'why would you want to'? What exactly can you achieve with this over-complicated and expensive application of plasma that you can't already accomplish with lasers, particle weapons, or even ol'-fashioned nukes?

Could be a matter of style. Some people like to match a particular archetype or canon. What would Romulans be without their plasma torpedoes?

I'd assume some kind of containment field that gradually gets attenuated or stretched over distance; that's the usual way in which plasma is treated in SF games (at least as far as space warfare is concerned).