Argument Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[Morningstar Coalition]

*munches on popcorn*

Whats the point of debating this any way, people will think what they will about hard scifi verses soft scifi. This entire argument is silly, and people getting offended by it makes me wonder about the future of future tech. One side is going my science is always right and I'm never ever wrong! I should note that hard scifi shouldn't be shoved down peoples throat, that's saying its either my way or the high way, the same with soft scifi.

So in essence this is my opinion of this argument:

This debate has being going on since the holy ghost created Nationstates, bro. Yut would play with ESUS because they thought they were too soft. ESUS wouldn't play with Yut because, well, I won't discuss this further because I'm bound to use inappropriate language. Point is, the Arthur Clarke V. Robert Cooper debate has been going on for a very long time, since science fiction was first a twinkle in Orson Welles' balls.

And to add my own voice in answer of TFU's question... It's simple really. This is the place to have this debate. This is the OOC Argument thread for Future Tech. This is an argument I started in response to someone implying that hard sci-fi is inferior and that few want to be arsed with science.

[Auman]

That being said, bro. I could slaughter any single nation in this game. The reason being, Nationstates mathematics and occasionally utilizing a devious tactical mindset... Same can be said of anything in this game. Technology doesn't matter a lick if your opponent managed to figure out a way to castrate you.

[The Fedral Union]

Well I agree surprisingly neither is superior to one another, so both sides shouldn't claim such thing. I mean debate is all good but this will go on for ever, the best thing to do is find a reasonable ground. I've been getting help in making my tech base much more reasonable in order to balance things out for my nation. I personally have tweaked a few things, I think of nations as on going experiments, that some times shift to extremes like with me going all out on wanky tech in response to other wanky tech, for me I'm still trying to find the right balance between possible and handwavuim tech.

[Mostrov]

Remember, for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction. You launch a projectile containing an impact of X energy you have to add that energy into the stationary projectile to get it moving. If you are on a ship that can withstand that (or have the weapon bolted to a planet or artificial moon) then you don't have to worry as much.

For example - If you try to fire a projectile somehow containing real neutronium (mass of 120 million metric tons per teaspoon volume or a billion times more massive than iron is a figure I once saw) you will have the projectile standing still and your ship flying backwards. Of course moving a ship with that aboard would also be tricky, not to mention stopping or taking evasive maneuvers.

The end result there is a recoil that has to be accounted for when using railguns.

Surely this could be accounted for in a frictionless environment (space), in that a huge battery of railguns or whatnot could be used as an aid to propulsion. What better then a ship that shoots a salvo of extremely high speed rounds, then is propelled away by the force of such an attack?

[Otagia]

Surely this could be accounted for in a frictionless environment (space), in that a huge battery of railguns or whatnot could be used as an aid to propulsion. What better then a ship that shoots a salvo of extremely high speed rounds, then is propelled away by the force of such an attack?

The Inverse Kzinti Lesson? Any weapon worth it's salt is equally useful as a propulsion system.

[Mostrov]

Surely this could be accounted for in a frictionless environment (space), in that a huge battery of railguns or whatnot could be used as an aid to propulsion. What better then a ship that shoots a salvo of extremely high speed rounds, then is propelled away by the force of such an attack?

The Inverse Kzinti Lesson? Any weapon worth it's salt is equally useful as a propulsion system.

In my opinion the railgun, the projectile being able to reach unmatched non-FTL speeds (are there any relativistic ships in FT?), is by far the superior weapon, for the points outlined above and the fact that it would probably use far less energy then some kind of exotic technology such as plasma, allowing more to mounted and at larger calibre. Also I'm guessing solid objects would be far harder to deflect then electromagnetic weapons. I would think thats something akin to early 20th century battleships should be the predominate ships in FT warfare.

[Otagia]

Also I'm guessing solid objects would be far harder to deflect then electromagnetic weapons.

Not really. All you have to do to render a solid projectile harmless is either boil it to plasma (not that hard with point defense DEWs or a sandcaster), or change its vector by throwing something at it (not that hard with point defense missiles kinetics). By comparison, a laser would require a rather inanely powerful magnetic field, typically powerful enough to cause harm to the vessel it's supposedly protecting. Of course, you could also theoretically use that sandcaster as a sort of ablative armor, but the particle density would have to be rather extreme, and the laser would be able to turn it into a transparent gas relatively quickly.

In addition, lasers have the added advantage of being unavoidable: You can't dodge what you can't see coming. Relativistic kinetics, on the other hand, will shed gamma radiation simply by travelling through cosmic hydrogen, thus giving a nice big "I'M RIGHT HERE" sign to anyone you're shooting them at.

Personally, I'm a fan of missiless. Infinitely more accurate than either unguided KEWs or c-beams, and multi-gigaton bomb-pumped graserheads are entertaining.

[Auman]

Naturally, a kinetic warhead with a giant kick me sign on it is awesome when used in conjunction with guided missiles. Using said kinetics to corral an opponent into a position you want them to be in is rad... Using those same weapons to waste the enemy's point defense weaponry on dumb shells, instead of on your missiles is also useful. Not to mention, if you're firing enough metal at something, it will die regardless of its efforts to the contrary, and it will die a terrible death. Then there's the added benefit of engaging an enemy in an orbital battlefield, where any missed shots have a chance of impacting the planetary surface, which should be enough of a threat on its own to end a battle before it begins.

Cannons are awesome, for many reasons... Primarily because it is a giant gun, that shoots a tangible object instead of some gay laser beam.

[Mostrov]

I was thinking that an electromagnetic weapon could be harmlessly dissipated through absorbent/reflective armor or even made useless by distortion by some form of shield, refracting the beam into its harmless constituent wavelengths. You cannot do a similar thing with a kinetic projectile, which i doubt could be interacted by its relativistic speeds.

Relativistic kinetics, on the other hand, will shed gamma radiation simply by travelling through cosmic hydrogen, thus giving a nice big "I'M RIGHT HERE" sign to anyone you're shooting them at.

And what would happen if a radiation spewing projectile hit your ship, probably knocking out a fair portion of electronics and any personnel?

[Morningstar Coalition]

In my opinion the railgun, the projectile being able to reach unmatched non-FTL speeds (are there any relativistic ships in FT?), is by far the superior weapon, for the points outlined above and the fact that it would probably use far less energy then some kind of exotic technology such as plasma, allowing more to mounted and at larger calibre. Also I'm guessing solid objects would be far harder to deflect then electromagnetic weapons. I would think thats something akin to early 20th century battleships should be the predominate ships in FT warfare.

Problem with this is that C-fracs as they're commonly used here in NS FT shouldn't work... Or rather, they shouldn't work as well as they're commonly used.
Accelerating any mass requires energy. This is a given, yes?
The energy can be spent all at once (sudden acceleration), or over time (slow-boat acceleration). C-frac mass-drivers are very rapid acceleration. We're running full-tilt towards the whole E=MC/2 problem with FTL in real life here. The closer to C you try to accelerate, the more energy each change in velocity costs. This means that while you can fire a rail-gun at low fractions of C for less energy than that plasma or particle weapon, once you start going up say in the .7-.9 C ranges, then the energy requirements start spiking to insane levels.

As for freefall "recoil"... If you were to fire a projectile of equal mass to the ship firing it, then yes the ship would be slung back at equal velocity to the projectile. Remember, the whole Newton thing also takes into account different mass amounts. Go into space and fire a handgun. Yes, it will propel you the opposite direction, but it won't propel you a the same velocity as the bullet being fired, because you mass a whole hell of a lot more than that bullet does, so that "equal and opposite energy" doesn't get you very much. It's kind of like the runaway inflation of the US dollar... It just doesn't buy you as much as it used to.

[Mostrov]

We're running full-tilt towards the whole E=MC/2 problem with FTL in real life here. The closer to C you try to accelerate, the more energy each change in velocity costs. This means that while you can fire a rail-gun at low fractions of C for less energy than that plasma or particle weapon, once you start going up say in the .7-.9 C ranges, then the energy requirements start spiking to insane levels.

Fractions of lightspeed from 0.6 - 0.8 C are the optimum for these kinds of weapons due to advantages of relativistic effects and lower energy costs then say 0.95 C.

As for freefall "recoil"... If you were to fire a projectile of equal mass to the ship firing it, then yes the ship would be slung back at equal velocity to the projectile. Remember, the whole Newton thing also takes into account different mass amounts. Go into space and fire a handgun. Yes, it will propel you the opposite direction, but it won't propel you a the same velocity as the bullet being fired, because you mass a whole hell of a lot more than that bullet does, so that "equal and opposite energy" doesn't get you very much. It's kind of like the runaway inflation of the US dollar... It just doesn't buy you as much as it used to.

Except if you had a full 'broadside of projectiles fired at once, the ships in the 15th century where particularly susceptible to this, some such as the Mary Rose sinking consequently.

[UNIverseVERSE]

In my opinion the railgun, the projectile being able to reach unmatched non-FTL speeds (are there any relativistic ships in FT?), is by far the superior weapon, for the points outlined above

The answer is 'it depends'.

and the fact that it would probably use far less energy then some kind of exotic technology such as plasma, allowing more to mounted and at larger calibre.

Have you any idea about how much energy a railgun wastes?

Also I'm guessing solid objects would be far harder to deflect then electromagnetic weapons.

How do you propose to deflect a laser that's easier than deflecting a lump of metal?

I would think thats something akin to early 20th century battleships should be the predominate ships in FT warfare.

I doubt it. The battleship is based on the tactical and technological demands of sea warfare, very few of which translate into space.

For example, the battleship gains power by mounting a large number of large weapons. For some hypothetical spacebattleship, however, mounting nine main lasers, plus a variety of little point defense lasers, is a bad idea. Instead you might do this:

.
         o
         |
[:]======+======<:>
         |
         o

Where the main laser is somewhere in the spine of the ship, and it can be fed to either of the two emitters. These can then be independently targeted, allowing rapid target switching (fire one, aim the other). Each one has a nearly full field of fire, so the full power of the ship can be brought to bear on any target. Finally, the use of the full laser on each target massively increases the effective range and effective rate of fire, making it hugely more effective at taking out incoming projectiles.

In addition, lasers have the added advantage of being unavoidable: You can't dodge what you can't see coming. Relativistic kinetics, on the other hand, will shed gamma radiation simply by travelling through cosmic hydrogen, thus giving a nice big "I'M RIGHT HERE" sign to anyone you're shooting them at.

Admittedly, not for very long. If you have a properly high speed projectile, then the advance warning will only precede the actual shot by a few seconds at most, even at exceptionally long ranges.

Naturally, a kinetic warhead with a giant kick me sign on it is awesome when used in conjunction with guided missiles. Using said kinetics to corral an opponent into a position you want them to be in is rad...

Unfortunately, this fails miserably in space, because you simply can't lay down a dense enough field of fire, especially at long range.

Using those same weapons to waste the enemy's point defense weaponry on dumb shells, instead of on your missiles is also useful.

See previous sketch of a laser system that can hammer multiple targets very rapidly. If sensible, you won't have 'point defense' weaponry, and a sufficiently large laser can destroy literally thousands of incoming kinetic projectiles.

Not to mention, if you're firing enough metal at something, it will die regardless of its efforts to the contrary, and it will die a terrible death.

Unfortunately, it's an absolutely all or nothing proposition. Either you fire enough shots, and they die, or you fall just slighly short, and they escape unscathed. You can't force anything inbetween.

Then there's the added benefit of engaging an enemy in an orbital battlefield, where any missed shots have a chance of impacting the planetary surface, which should be enough of a threat on its own to end a battle before it begins.

Why?

Cannons are awesome, for many reasons... Primarily because it is a giant gun, that shoots a tangible object instead of some gay laser beam.

Irrelevant.

Fractions of lightspeed from 0.6 - 0.8 C are the optimum for these kinds of weapons due to advantages of relativistic effects and lower energy costs then say 0.95 C.

Given that anything over 3km/sec relative velocity will cause more damage than its mass in TNT, that might be considered an insane amount of overkill, with various side effects you haven't properly considered. For example, have you thought about the effect that the magnetic fields you're using to achieve that acceleration would have on your ship?

Except if you had a full 'broadside of projectiles fired at once, the ships in the 15th century where particularly susceptible to this, some such as the Mary Rose sinking consequently.

Which also puts your power consumption to insane levels, and has the incidental side effect of turning your crew into a fine paste on the sides of the cabin. If you want to achieve reasonable speeds, you need to spread out your acceleration, which is exactly the opposite of what a 'broadside' will do.

[Axis Nova]

I posted what I meant. Most FT people do not RP hard FT.

Yeah see, now we've got a problem. This is your opinion, not fact.

Read the old boards sometime.

First off, the term "most" is subjective to begin with. It does not provide any clarity as to how many people it applies to. Second, this statement has you speaking for a large number of people who are not... Well, who are not you.

See previous statement.

And just because you've irritated me, I'll share another of my personal opinions. Dissecting your statement above, I can make a guess why you think it's true. There are a rather large number of FT players here on NationStates which have thrown RL science to the win and use "Because I say so" technology. As pure handwavium as you can get.
If these are your "Most people", then I have another amendment to make to your statement. I believe that this type of player, who do not care about hard FT at all, are not roleplaying. These people are simply playing to "win", whatever the hell that means here.

[/quote]

"Anyone who doesn't roleplay my way isn't really roleplaying!"

Roleplaying isn't about technology, it's about the story.

[The Romulan Republic]

In my opinion the railgun, the projectile being able to reach unmatched non-FTL speeds (are there any relativistic ships in FT?), is by far the superior weapon, for the points outlined above and the fact that it would probably use far less energy then some kind of exotic technology such as plasma, allowing more to mounted and at larger calibre. Also I'm guessing solid objects would be far harder to deflect then electromagnetic weapons. I would think thats something akin to early 20th century battleships should be the predominate ships in FT warfare.

While I can't comment much on how fast you could get a projectile moving, I doubt it would be at near-light speed (with hard sci-fi tech at least). The advantage of a laser is that it moves at light speed to the target.

Admit it: the main reason to go for the rail gun battleship is because it looks cool, not because it's militarily superior.

[The Romulan Republic]

Not really. All you have to do to render a solid projectile harmless is either boil it to plasma (not that hard with point defense DEWs or a sandcaster), or change its vector by throwing something at it (not that hard with point defense missiles kinetics). By comparison, a laser would require a rather inanely powerful magnetic field, typically powerful enough to cause harm to the vessel it's supposedly protecting. Of course, you could also theoretically use that sandcaster as a sort of ablative armor, but the particle density would have to be rather extreme, and the laser would be able to turn it into a transparent gas relatively quickly.

If I'm doing hard sci-fi, I'll probably go with some kind of reflective armor against lasers. If not hard sci-fi, then I can make up whatever I want.

In addition, lasers have the added advantage of being unavoidable: You can't dodge what you can't see coming. Relativistic kinetics, on the other hand, will shed gamma radiation simply by travelling through cosmic hydrogen, thus giving a nice big "I'M RIGHT HERE" sign to anyone you're shooting them at.

I'm surprised someone hasn't already attacked this with the "no stealth in space" mantra. Ie, it doesn't matter if you use lasers or not, they'll still usually know exactly where you are.

Personally, I'm a fan of missiless. Infinitely more accurate than either unguided KEWs or c-beams, and multi-gigaton bomb-pumped graserheads are entertaining.

Missiles can be intercepted or shot down. Also, they'll cost more and you'll run out of missiles a lot faster than you will run out of laser beams. Every missile you carry will increase your ship's mass, requiring more fuel for propulsion, and so on.

[Rethan]

I posted what I meant. Most FT people do not RP hard FT.

Yeah see, now we've got a problem. This is your opinion, not fact.

Read the old boards sometime.

How, exactly, is that relevant. I know plenty of people on the current forums who like Hard or semi-Hard tech. And before you say it I did read the old forums. Next time, try arguing your point rather than just saying "Oh, I've been here longer than you", which is what I see when anyone says "It was on the old forums". The old forums are gone, and there are a lot of new players, and old players coming out of the woodwork again on the new forums, hence these forums should have a higher priority than older ones. The field has changed. Get used to it.

First off, the term "most" is subjective to begin with. It does not provide any clarity as to how many people it applies to. Second, this statement has you speaking for a large number of people who are not... Well, who are not you.

See previous statement.

See mine. Try arguing. Acting high and mighty does not a winning argument make.

And just because you've irritated me, I'll share another of my personal opinions. Dissecting your statement above, I can make a guess why you think it's true. There are a rather large number of FT players here on NationStates which have thrown RL science to the win and use "Because I say so" technology. As pure handwavium as you can get.
If these are your "Most people", then I have another amendment to make to your statement. I believe that this type of player, who do not care about hard FT at all, are not roleplaying. These people are simply playing to "win", whatever the hell that means here.

"Anyone who doesn't roleplay my way isn't really roleplaying!"

Roleplaying isn't about technology, it's about the story.[/quote]
Say that to the people who do only RP to win. I refuse to name names, but they are there. I for one, aim for plot based tech rather than numbers because I am not well versed in science. Also he said "I believe". He's allowed hold his own beliefs. And you're right, roleplaying isn't about the technology, but I have seen a lot of people claim huge tech advantages when it really serves no point to the plot. Hard Sci-Fi gives you restraints on what wankish tech you can come up with. Yes, the Plot is important, but this is also a game, and some people place the game (and hence winning) aspect over the story aspect.

I reiterate Bryn's earlier statement:

Hard FT is boring and not many people I don't think many people are interested in RPing it.

Thus, most arguments I think most arguments about realism outside of hard FT are silly.

There ya go! That's better right?

I posted what I meant. Most FT people do not RP hard FT.

Says the guy that doesn't RP at all.

MC has fun with well thought out tech. Capsule Corp has fun with his Hard Sci-Fi, so (unless I'm mistaken) does The Kafers. There may be more, and I invite them to come forward.

[The Kafers]

Yes, Bryn, the Kafers are Hard SF - so hard that it hurts when they take it up... oh, never mind.

Being Hard SF, the Kafers get owned constantly. This is one reason I have to control the circumstances of battle and generally stay away from situations that could result in Kafer space getting invaded and overrun by a superior enemy; usually, you run into a small, expendable Kafer force, and they correspondingly get expended.

I often refer to the Kafers' tech as "PMT w/FTL": Soldiers in hardsuits with slug-throwers and grenade launchers, hovertanks with mass drivers, spinal mount particle beams, short-ranged point defense lasers, anti-ship missiles sporting bomb-pumped detonation lasers - the only exotic technology I have is stutterwarp for FTL and rapid STL maneuver.

[Rethan]

Yes, Bryn, the Kafers are Hard SF - so hard that it hurts when they take it up... oh, never mind.

Being Hard SF, the Kafers get owned constantly. This is one reason I have to control the circumstances of battle and generally stay away from situations that could result in Kafer space getting invaded and overrun by a superior enemy; usually, you run into a small, expendable Kafer force, and they correspondingly get expended.

I often refer to the Kafers' tech as "PMT w/FTL": Soldiers in hardsuits with slug-throwers and grenade launchers, hovertanks with mass drivers, spinal mount particle beams, short-ranged point defense lasers, anti-ship missiles sporting bomb-pumped detonation lasers - the only exotic technology I have is stutterwarp for FTL and rapid STL maneuver.

It was actually me who mentioned the Kafers...I just F'd up with the quote tag.

That's how I originally had Rethan, then I realised I'd get horribly destroyed. And then, after even that, my own overactive imagination kicked in. Actually, I do use all that stuff, railguns, hardsuits, mass drivers. I don't even use lasers of any kind. I'm soft tech when it comes to my survivability, and my Inertialess tech. If I was as Hard-Tech as I originally planned, people would steamroll me and I'd have no fun tbh. So I changed it up a bit.

[Otagia]

Not really. All you have to do to render a solid projectile harmless is either boil it to plasma (not that hard with point defense DEWs or a sandcaster), or change its vector by throwing something at it (not that hard with point defense missiles kinetics). By comparison, a laser would require a rather inanely powerful magnetic field, typically powerful enough to cause harm to the vessel it's supposedly protecting. Of course, you could also theoretically use that sandcaster as a sort of ablative armor, but the particle density would have to be rather extreme, and the laser would be able to turn it into a transparent gas relatively quickly.

If I'm doing hard sci-fi, I'll probably go with some kind of reflective armor against lasers. If not hard sci-fi, then I can make up whatever I want.

Reflective armor doesn't work so much. While it'd give minor gains for the first moment, no mirror is perfectly efficient and once damaged is useless. One could also get into various EM frequencies, such as gamma radiation, which are much harder to reflect.

Of course, throw thermally superconductive armor into the mix, and you've got a whole new kettle of fish. Theoretically, your ship will take just as much energy to kill as before, it's just all or nothing: Either the ship is intact and firing, or its hull just boiled off all at once.

In addition, lasers have the added advantage of being unavoidable: You can't dodge what you can't see coming. Relativistic kinetics, on the other hand, will shed gamma radiation simply by travelling through cosmic hydrogen, thus giving a nice big "I'M RIGHT HERE" sign to anyone you're shooting them at.

I'm surprised someone hasn't already attacked this with the "no stealth in space" mantra. Ie, it doesn't matter if you use lasers or not, they'll still usually know exactly where you are.

You misunderstand me: I'm not saying that they'll spot the enemy ship, which is easy. I'm saying that the projectile gives a nice real-time estimate on where it is at all times, which is more important for an object that's often no larger than a screwdriver than a multi-megaton battle ship OF DOOM.

Missiles can be intercepted or shot down. Also, they'll cost more and you'll run out of missiles a lot faster than you will run out of laser beams. Every missile you carry will increase your ship's mass, requiring more fuel for propulsion, and so on.

Quite true on all counts. Well, barring the cost in my case, given a post-scarcity mass-based economy, but the point holds for the most part. Thing is, they also hold nicely for kinetic weapon systems.

The problem of interception is why I advocate graserheads: Launch from outside of reasonable PD range, and detonate once the missile is in laser range. Combines the advantages of lasers and missiles nicely.

Now, I'm not saying that any particular weapon system is actually inferior than any other (Except space fighters. Those are silly). It's just that some weapons are better at certain things than others. Lasers are more accurate, kinetics better for bombardment of relatively stationary targets, and missiles somewhere in between. TBH, the best approach is probably one of combined arms, carrying a variety of weapons for different purposes.

[Telvira]

Has anyone else here read either In Death Ground or The Shiva Option? Or, for that matter, Insurrection or Crusade? Those are some nice sci-fi books, full of space battle goodness and with plenty of cool weapons systems.

For instance, you have the force and primary beams, which use a tractor beam which switches between push and pull constantly to destroy at target through sheer stress. Or the primary beam, which is the same idea but in a scalpel form, basically more focused and therefore more powerful.

And of course there are missiles and bomb-pumped x-ray lasers. But those have already been mentioned.

[Auman]

UNIverseVERSE, to answer the orbital battlefield question, I cite common sense. Say you have a paper target you are shooting at, at the gun range as an example. Say you're a dumb ass and you didn't see the green light come on and you're still merrily plugging away at a picture of Osama Bin Laden and the range captain walks behind the target... The projectile would travel through the paper, or around the sides if you're a bad shot and hit the range captain.

Now, a space ship is in orbit of a planet and you are firing at this ship... if rounds miss, or go through it like paper, it will keep traveling until it hits something that is capable of absorbing the impact. In terms of FT kinetic warfare, that could very well result in a multi-megaton, or gigaton, explosion on the surface of the stellar body, space station, etc.

Having read all of the rebuttals, I have come to one conclusion... That being you guys really need to learn how to talk to people.

[Bryn Shander]

Yes, Bryn, the Kafers are Hard SF - so hard that it hurts when they take it up... oh, never mind.

Being Hard SF, the Kafers get owned constantly. This is one reason I have to control the circumstances of battle and generally stay away from situations that could result in Kafer space getting invaded and overrun by a superior enemy; usually, you run into a small, expendable Kafer force, and they correspondingly get expended.

I often refer to the Kafers' tech as "PMT w/FTL": Soldiers in hardsuits with slug-throwers and grenade launchers, hovertanks with mass drivers, spinal mount particle beams, short-ranged point defense lasers, anti-ship missiles sporting bomb-pumped detonation lasers - the only exotic technology I have is stutterwarp for FTL and rapid STL maneuver.

It was actually me who mentioned the Kafers...I just F'd up with the quote tag.

That's how I originally had Rethan, then I realised I'd get horribly destroyed. And then, after even that, my own overactive imagination kicked in. Actually, I do use all that stuff, railguns, hardsuits, mass drivers. I don't even use lasers of any kind. I'm soft tech when it comes to my survivability, and my Inertialess tech. If I was as Hard-Tech as I originally planned, people would steamroll me and I'd have no fun tbh. So I changed it up a bit.

Pussies. With the exception of fusion power and FTL and the technologies that come with it, I am pretty hard tech. My marines are issued axes and shotguns and my infantry are issued .30-06 rifles. My tanks still use artillery and my CAS still use guns and bombs and missiles.

[Auman]

Yes, Bryn, the Kafers are Hard SF - so hard that it hurts when they take it up... oh, never mind.

Being Hard SF, the Kafers get owned constantly. This is one reason I have to control the circumstances of battle and generally stay away from situations that could result in Kafer space getting invaded and overrun by a superior enemy; usually, you run into a small, expendable Kafer force, and they correspondingly get expended.

I often refer to the Kafers' tech as "PMT w/FTL": Soldiers in hardsuits with slug-throwers and grenade launchers, hovertanks with mass drivers, spinal mount particle beams, short-ranged point defense lasers, anti-ship missiles sporting bomb-pumped detonation lasers - the only exotic technology I have is stutterwarp for FTL and rapid STL maneuver.

It was actually me who mentioned the Kafers...I just F'd up with the quote tag.

That's how I originally had Rethan, then I realised I'd get horribly destroyed. And then, after even that, my own overactive imagination kicked in. Actually, I do use all that stuff, railguns, hardsuits, mass drivers. I don't even use lasers of any kind. I'm soft tech when it comes to my survivability, and my Inertialess tech. If I was as Hard-Tech as I originally planned, people would steamroll me and I'd have no fun tbh. So I changed it up a bit.

Pussies. With the exception of fusion power and FTL and the technologies that come with it, I am pretty hard tech. My marines are issued axes and shotguns and my infantry are issued .30-06 rifles. My tanks still use artillery and my CAS still use guns and bombs and missiles.

Second.

[UNIverseVERSE]

Now, a space ship is in orbit of a planet and you are firing at this ship... if rounds miss, or go through it like paper, it will keep traveling until it hits something that is capable of absorbing the impact. In terms of FT kinetic warfare, that could very well result in a multi-megaton, or gigaton, explosion on the surface of the stellar body, space station, etc.

I'm aware of this. I just don't see how it follows that this automatically ends the battle before it begins.

After all, either you care about collateral damage or you don't. If you do, then I shouldn't need to worry about sitting in orbit like that, because you'll have to try and shoot me in particular, without damaging other stuff. If you don't, then it doesn't matter if I sit there or not, so I might as well, and possibly be able to mess up your tracking and the like.

In fact, fighting from an orbit cluttered with other traffic seems to me an advantage. You have to try and resolve which of the multiple craft, on multiple nearly identical orbits, is actually a threat. I merely have to shoot you in the face with a fucking big laser, while you're a nice clear target out there in interplanetary space. Given that a large cargo craft filled with $commodity is essentially identical to a large craft carrying a big laser, with a few little lenses for it peeking out of the corners, you won't know what to shoot at, until after it's taken out a ship or two.

Not to mention, of course, that a large laser ship of the type I vaguely diagrammed in my previous post can obtain the same threatening result, being able to fire on multiple distinct targets at a moments notice, and do so from up to 1/2 or 2/3rds of a light second, a range which makes firing of kinetics easy to both detect and react to.

[Auman]

You might have also noticed it when I said "It -should- end a battle before it starts." How you decide to interpret it is your own business. I agree with the majority of what you said from a technical standpoint, but as a writer and a gamer... I think you're putting too much thought into something and you will invariably turn it into a point of contention. You need to ease off on the real science and embrace the rule of cool. Seeing as this is a co-operative text based game, winning through physics is only going to work when you're up against a player that is A.) As well educated as yourself or B.) Interested in what you're talking about.

I'd be the latter category... I simply don't like lasers and I will refuse to read a long winded dialogue on why I should lose, because that's not what the game is about. Also, when you're talking in terms of light seconds, you can dodge light speed weapons too.