Argument Thread OOC Future Tech Only

[Sskiss]

Um, can I just butt in here a bit, a lot would depend on the size of your empire and such, for example, let's use some FT and Sci-Fi shows as reference, now in Star Trek, most Trekies (like myself ) estimate that The Federation, has roughly between 6,000, and 6,500 vessels, The Dominion had roughly 10,000, and The Borg had roughly 29,000, The Klingons have 6,000, The Romulans have 5,000 and The Cardassians have about 2,500. So as you can see, you have to judge on not only population, but also amount of space, as well as the type of your species and how you RP it, such as, if you RP something like say The Cardassians, you're going to be about 2,500 - 3,000 ships strong, and if you RP as say..... The Borg, then you are obviously going to have an extremely large fleet, so all of these things play into how many ships you have.

I would use or even encourage something to this effect. The age of your nation, its population, how many worlds it inhabites with substantial populations - tens of millions and up. This is what I would call, the base for determining, number of ships, max size range of ships and "overall tech level". However, I would also leave room for Rp's and race history, creative and/or exotic tecnologies and similar 'wild cards'. That's my opinion on the issue.

[Auman]

You also have to factor writing ability into the equation. If someone is not capable of putting intent into words, then you reap fail.

[Sskiss]

You also have to factor writing ability into the equation. If someone is not capable of putting intent into words, then you reap fail.

This is true. However, there are other factors here, such as time, for instince. Also, all things given equal, some people will just possess superior writing skills than others. Its a given that can't be changed. For the record, I can only focus on one RP at a time (yours at the moment), due largely to time constraints. Most of my posts tend of moderate length and I would consider myself a fairly good RP'er overall.

[Tanaara]

On the one hand the Star Destroyer had sheilds and ample numbers of small fighters to throw at the UNSC Destroyer, but on the UNSC's side is the adoption of mass acceleration cannons which to be utterly frank would punch it's way through the Star Destroyers sheild and out th eother side of the ship

The Halo MAC may well be able to - but first they have to hit. And this is the problem I have not only with unguided/ unself powered weapons but with any long range ( say above 5 LS ) light speed weapon as well.

Your targets aren't sitting still - and anything material based is going to take a goodly bit of time to cross space combat distances. As will any light speed weapon - they'll just be lots faster, but fast enough to hit ? Sure some of the multi mile/ kilometer long ships aren't agile enough to move that quickly, but the smaller warships - to say nothing of space fighters?

I think they are most certainly not going to be at the point the shooting ship originally aimed at by the time the mac round or laser got there.

I have always believe that MAC and light speed weapons were for 'knife fight' range battles and that, for longer ranged actions, missiles were the only way to effectively engage the enemy.

Knife fight range - an area roughly not more than about 5 LS radius - which is
186000 mps x 5 for a diameter of 1860,000 miles- while that is a pretty impressive sphere of action - in the end it's nothing compared to the arena of most space combat.

[Feazanthia]

I always felt that the natural evolution of MAC technology was, effectively, my Bombardment Cannons. Namely, large coilguns that fire self-guided kinetic missiles. All the extreme velocity and kinetic energy of a MAC, with the ability to make course corrections and accelerate itself in-flight.

[TRIAD Enterprises]

I always felt that the natural evolution of MAC technology was, effectively, my Bombardment Cannons. Namely, large coilguns that fire self-guided kinetic missiles. All the extreme velocity and kinetic energy of a MAC, with the ability to make course corrections and accelerate itself in-flight.

This essentially changes the MAC into a multi-stage missile system, where the first stage of launch is external to the missile.
As for further acceleration, as well as course correction, this will be horribly limited to the amount of fuel carried by the missile itself.

Assuming you're using stock USMC tech from the Halo universe, then the humans have no reactionless technology whatsoever. All their ships must use reaction mass to maneuver or accelerate, missiles included.
What this means is that any time you want to change your course, you have to burn fuel to alter your velocity and vector. Any time you want to accelerate, you must burn fuel. On a warship, you can likely carry a *lot* of fuel; on a missile you can't.
Eventually the missile will run out of fuel, and then become a simple dumb-fire projectile.

Bottom line? Without reactionless tech, and large powerplants aboard missiles, then missiles are simply projectiles with some ability to correct their aim while in flight.

[Tanaara]

Now that sounds interesting Feazanthia - I've read - and I have drawn a lot of my space navy ideas from the Honorverse as well -and their missile launchers seem use that concept.

[Feazanthia]

Which is the limitation of all missiles, TRIAD. They're still the best for long-range engagements.

Of course, if we're comparing ships to missiles, a ship needs a LOT more reaction mass to increase its velocity in one direction than the missile does to achieve the same result.

[Telvira]

Hello. I'd like to have an argument.

[Capsule Corporation]

Am I weird for considering "knife fight range less than 20km? Honestly, once you get on the same vector (which my ships are capable of doing fairly easily) and you're actually close enough to smack into each other and rough each other up... Ranges so close that nukes are suicidal... That's a knife fight range

but don't ask me, Im just an aerospace/astronautical engineering student...

[TRIAD Enterprises]

Am I weird for considering "knife fight range less than 20km? Honestly, once you get on the same vector (which my ships are capable of doing fairly easily) and you're actually close enough to smack into each other and rough each other up... Ranges so close that nukes are suicidal... That's a knife fight range

but don't ask me, Im just an aerospace/astronautical engineering student...

I happen to agree with you honestly. Some TRIAD warships are capable of acceleration changes of as much as 10 PSL per second, so quite a lot of ordinance fired from longer than 1-5 light seconds can be avoided. We also assume that any target has similar capability when facing unknown targets, so engagements are either made by high-reaction drones/missiles from ranges longer than a light minute, or we close to ranges of 1-5 light seconds. Anything closer than one light second is only used when attempting to board a target.

EDIT Note: PSL = Percentage Speed of Light

[Capsule Corporation]

I seriously doubt my ships would be able to put up a fight at even light-second range! That's long distance! Our ships are too light and agile to be able to fire volleys of kinetic weapons at that range. We would have to close in to about 30km or closer to get into a decent fight. Anything furthet than that and we're just sniping or firing pot shots. Granted, our long range disadvantage allows us to take serious advantage of those not built for point-blank.

I am wondering though, what the heck is PLS per second? I'm sorry I haven't gotten around to learning all these c-fraction terms... My fastest ships can probably obtain 30km/s if they accelerate full burn for like 15 or 20 minutes... Completely unburdened and in a vacuum... With power diverted from weapons and shields and everything else haha

at least... That's on sublights... Using my TFD engine I can get around to pretty much everywhere.

[Balrogga]

I designed my fleet to operate in knife fighting range and they will dive in headfirst knowing (their opinion) they will kick ass if they can get there. Any shooting match you only need to sidestep or move and you cannot be hit because of time it takes for weapon fire to reach you, even with guided projectiles. I launch swarms of torpedoes and then jump in so either they have to avoid me or them. Once they make their choice the other gets them since they were distracted. Well, that is the IC idea.

The problem with even a 5 LS battle is it takes 5 seconds for the light/sensors to reach from your ship to the enemy and (using energy weapons) five seconds for them to return fire assuming nearly instant targeting and firing. In those ten seconds you could have easily moves far enough for shots to miss in any direction or combination on the X, Y, and Z coordinates. Remember, the moon is less than two light seconds from Earth for a good reference to how far that really is.

It all comes down to common sense and the willingness to work together to compose a great story. That is the real goal in any RP.

[Capsule Corporation]

Bal: Finally! Someone else who sees the greatness of tac-jumping ^_^

I am curious... I know I have a million trade-offs to allow my use of tac jumping, how about yourself? do you have any big trade-offs? Do you jump just once at the beginning or dozens of times a battle?

[The Romulan Republic]

Um, can I just butt in here a bit, a lot would depend on the size of your empire and such, for example, let's use some FT and Sci-Fi shows as reference, now in Star Trek, most Trekies (like myself ) estimate that The Federation, has roughly between 6,000, and 6,500 vessels, The Dominion had roughly 10,000, and The Borg had roughly 29,000, The Klingons have 6,000, The Romulans have 5,000 and The Cardassians have about 2,500. So as you can see, you have to judge on not only population, but also amount of space, as well as the type of your species and how you RP it, such as, if you RP something like say The Cardassians, you're going to be about 2,500 - 3,000 ships strong, and if you RP as say..... The Borg, then you are obviously going to have an extremely large fleet, so all of these things play into how many ships you have.

While I doubt its greatly relevant to the topic of Nationstates role-playing, the above contains numerous innacuracies.

As best I can recall, it is actually canon from Deep Space 9 dialog that Dominion forces (not sure if this is discounting those still in the Gamma Quadrant) numbered 30,000 ships, or ten times the number of the Klingon fleet, at 3,000. For some reason, I have seen it claimed that the Federation has 12,000 ships (I think this was based on comments from the producers or somesuch rather than on-screen evidence, but I'm not sure). This has been held to include fighters as well as capital ships, though since this was from a pro-Star Wars Trek vs Wars site, its possible their was bias in that interpretation. I do not know that any number has been given for Borg forces, beyond "thousands" of ships or something similarly vague.

Though, this raises an interesting point that does have some potential relevance to the topic of this thread. In First Contact, Picard says that the Federation has around 150 worlds (this probably refers to major worlds only, not every little colony). So that comes to about 80 ships (possibly including fighters) per major world.

Now, to take another well-known example, the Galactic Empire of Star Wars canonically possessed 25,000 Star Destroyers (not sure if this applies to all types, or just the best-known Imperator type). While I have heard various numbers for Imperial worlds, one I recall is a million, with 50 million more minor worlds or colonies. While canon can be contradictory, or vague, one could perhaps interpret this to suggest, as a minimum, 1 cruiser or destroyer-level vessel per 40 major worlds.

So their are some possible bench marks one could use, based on well-known sci-fi examples. Obviously, hard sci-fi would be more exact, and one could look at various projections for how much it costs to launch materials into space, what the projected GDP and population of the Earth are, etc.

Edit: I might have been wrong about the Klingon fleet count. I think I mutliplied the actual number by two. I can't believe it took me this long to catch and fix it.

[The Romulan Republic]

As far as fleet design goes, I haven't done much FT RP here, but I do have certain types of designs I prefer:

I prefer energy weapons to missiles (light speed weaponry, in the case of lasers the weapons fire is invisible to visual detection in space). Obviously, a missile has the advantage of being able to manuver in flight, so might be better at longer ranges. However, a missile is also vulnerable to electronic interference and point defense, among other things.

In accordance with the above, I prefer a diamond hull shape, with the weapons turrets arranged along the edges of the upper and lower portions of the hull. This design allows fifty percent of all weapons emplacements to be brought to bear on one point simultaneously.

I am also another fan of tactical microjumping. Because the above design can fire in any direction with equally devastating results, it can jump right into the center of the enemies fleet, disrupting their formation.

Since I like at least a touch of hard sci-fi elements in every design, I tend not to use a lot of fighters, or depend on energy shields or force fields above armor and point defense. My space combat ships tend to be battleships, cruisers, or destroyers, built around ship to ship combat. My carriers tend to be for supporting planetary landings only.

I welcome constructive criticism of any of the above.

[Feazanthia]

Feazanthian captial ships (with exceptions) are designed to engage at light-minute or greater ranges.

This is where our tactical maneuvers and our own countermeasures work best.

[Telros]

I rely more on the story and working it out with people, since I don't understand the whole light minute/second/hour ranges people throw out a lot.

[Feazanthia]

The ranges are just a guideline to help us give our navies some flavor. Everything always bows to the Almighty Plot Point.

[Balrogga]

Bal: Finally! Someone else who sees the greatness of tac-jumping ^_^

I am curious... I know I have a million trade-offs to allow my use of tac jumping, how about yourself? do you have any big trade-offs? Do you jump just once at the beginning or dozens of times a battle?

My ships have several tradeoffs including a way to one-shot kill them but nobody has yet RPed the discovery of it with me. I also adapt my forces to the RP otherwise I would probably not be any fun. I designed my stuff with great potential so I can use it with both mighty and new players alike.

My "Dance of Death" depends on what I have worked out with the player. It could just be jumping in and out for minor skirmishes or an elaborate Dance where I have a third of my forces in Real Space at a time firing while the other two thirds are Uplifting/Emerging or moving in T-Space. The end result is apparently random appearances of enemy ships that fire and disappear. Another tactic I have used is to start at range and jump to random location unloading a volley of singularity torpedoes and then calculating the next point I launch the next so they all arrive from every direction (including vertical) at the same time. I could go on but I don't want to reveal all my ideas...

[Cameroi]

i wonder if people here remember the three legged stool?
basically a nation, empire, what have you, well there's also the two legs of mineral and agricultural raw resources and then the processing of them and the circulatory system of transportation.
but getting back to resource allocation there's the well being of your population, the good will of your population, AND the strength of your military. these are the three legs.
how this relates to resources available for military is that TOTAL resources get devided into these three areas whatn allocating them. i won't go into the details of WHY you need the other two, only to point out that without them you don't HAVE a nation, empire, et c.
you can always con them if they're well enough fed? maybe.
you can always force them to support your military if it's strong enough? for a while, maybe.
and sure, the longer people are used to being intimidated, maybe the easier it is to keep doing so, maybe.
but how strong is a military going to stay without being fed.
it can get everything it needs by continued conquests?
well space may be infinite and earth limited, but i still think the six years, twelve total, that hitler's "thousand year riche" lasted. the example is by no means unique nor isolated.
so what i'm getting at, the tradeoff, is that the more investment in military the less there is in essention support structure. nations simply cannot live on war alone.
even if attempted to do so by 'evil overloards'.

i know i haven't added anything concrete to numbers by saying this. it's still a point to ponder and consider and bear in mind. especially if you want anything to be really believable.

at any tech level.

[EternalNight]

I've been a long-time player of Traveller (Tabletop RPG), they have a very nice design system in their book High Guard. I design Eternal Night's ships using this system. Costs, crew capacity, and power work out well.

For anyone familiar with Traveller, most Eternal Night ships are in the TL-15 range, with some variance on systems. The three Homeships of Eternal Night are well.... look up "Yaskoydray" if you want an idea.

They don't really get into combat though.

[Balrogga]

Militaries should only be a couple percent of the nation to represent the rest being used to support the military in the form of Logistics.

That is why it generally takes a million people to support and crew an average ship. This is through food production, energy reserves, munitions manufacture, and all the other aspects. Currently I think I am running at .5% or less.

[Capsule Corporation]

uh, yeah, as for my military... I don't even really -have- one... I have like... a militia

Military

The Raysian Milita Force is a small spaceborne fleet of various 1st generation vessels. Their primary mission is homeworld security, but they also guard the many Raysian colonies that are beginning to spring up around the galaxy. Many of their ships are self-sufficient, designed to roam and explore the galaxy unaided, authorized to take mercenary jobs as they see fit.

Militia structure is very civillian in nature, with almost no rank structure at all. Crewmen live onboard their ships without rank or uniform, electing their commander by popular vote (or occasionally by challenge), who in turns calls senior officers to serve under him (or her).

The majority of the fleet consists of fresh vessels created by AdamWorks, the R&D division of the Raysian Aerospace Corporation. The ships have not come into full production yet, so there are but a limited number. Fresh crews, bold captains, and weapons just waiting to see combat. They seek mainly to improve their skills and unleash the massive potential of their innovative little ships. They will often take up mercenary jobs for free, as an act of service to those in need, or even just as an oppurtunity to push buttons they haven't had a chance to push yet.

The current Raysian Militia Force [+018*]:

1 Firebird-Class Heavy Assault FoldShip
1 Archer-Class Carrier FoldShip
7 Kryptonite-Class Tactical FoldShips [11 more planned**]
Fighter Complements: 60% of listed capacities
Infantry Complements: 7% of listed capacities

*The year on the Raysian Calendar in which this information was gathered
**Fleets are to be at planned levels by the year +024
The Militia has no extensive plans for expansion, as they mainly serve to develop their technologies further, not wage war.

And just because it's so cool

Transactory Fold Drive

The simplest explanation of this technology is that when traveling through space, at any velocity, energy is used over time to accelerate the ship to speed, and then decelerate at the destination. Space travel is a product of time, acceleration to speed, distance, efficiency, deceleration... equaling energy spent. This can easily be likened to getting a loan with an absurd interest rate... because one can not afford to pay a large price at once, he must take out a loan and pay over time. Space travel at any sublight speed is horribly inefficient, and would be like paying upwards of 500,000% interest on such a loan, and being able to only touch upon the minimum payment while taking years to ever get the principle paid off. So, in order to get around this, Raysian Scientists theorized that one could simply satisfy the "up front price" with a simple transaction of energy, and instead of traveling from point a to point b, the universe simply accepts the payment of energy, and you are no longer at point a, but are now at point b... the concept of "travel" becoming unnecessary.

After initial testing and proving of the concept, the Transactory Space Fold Drive is integrated into a ship's Barrier systems, allowing a bubble for the energy to offer itself to what has easily been dubbed "The Law," meaning the laws of the universe, that must be fulfilled. The energy requirement is paid in full, and the universe must comply by granting the ship's request in return for its sacrifice of energy.
The TSF Drive is capable of folds in short range, and at quick recoil.. making a short series of "skips" possible as long as the full charge of the onboard capacitors is not exhausted. Aiming the drive at long distances is very inaccurate, as the TSF's energy is simply inputted a vector and distance to travel. A short, corrective fold may be necessary to adjust position on a course along the way to a far-away destination. This can potentially result in accidental folds inside an unforeseen moon, or into an enemy force if trying to join a battle too urgently. Thus, it is best to enter the outer rim of a system, rescan, and then fold to a precise location. Subspace beacons, deployed before a fold, can increase accuracy to an exact destination in space.

When used in atmosphere, the sudden existence of a vacuum will likely create loud booms in the atmosphere... cities below beware!

The folds have a maximum range of 2400 ly, with an accurate range (without beacon) of 1200 ly. There is no minimum range. Conservation of momentum is the default operating principle, but with advanced calculations and high energy requirements, energy that would normally go into folding can be used for a zero-acceleration boost in speed.

And in case you feel like reading other awesome ideas:

Kryptonite-Class FoldShip

Various Views of the Kryptonite

Developer: Raysian Aerospace's AdamWorks Group
Length: 810 meters
Crew: 300 Crew, 327 Mechanics, 48 Pilots, up to 2500 Marines, and 3 central AI, one for mechanical, one for weaponry, and one for information.
Powerplant: 4 OZP Control Chambers
FTL Drives: Raysian Mk I Transactory Fold Drive [300,000 ly max cumulative travel distance]
Propulsion: VILE Drives, Heavy Ion Engines.
Operational Environments: Space, Air, Any Fluid Environment.
Docking Capabilities: 48 Kumen-Class Gunships, Hangar Entrances are armored with doors, and are located on the inside of either hull.
Cargo Capacity: Fighter bays can be converted with ease.
Weapons: 18 Mk II EM Cannons (Typical Rail Load: 100km/s x200kg [Reversable]) [an additional Turret-mounted EM Cannon is concealed in the side of each hull], 80 Turret-Mounted Beam Cannons [Concealable], 6 Heavy Ion Cannons (Forward firing).
Defenses: A very thick LiquidMetal armor, and a Heavy Barrier System


Kryptonite in Cruise Mode . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Kryptonite in Assault Mode
[Weapons Retracted]. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . [Weapons Deployed]



------------

Transactory Fold Drive: Alternate uses with the Kryptonite-class

The Kryptonite Class FoldShip has a unique twin-hull design, capable of taking advantage of many aspects of the Transactory Drive. The basic principle is that one hull creates the field around the other hull, energizing the fields all together as one. The hangar bays also open into the space between these two hulls, creating a launch zone for the fighters and gunships. Just as the TFD's zero-acceleration function can be used to instantly convert an amount of stored energy into kinetic energy to change the ship's velocity without acceleration, a field can be erected in the space between the two hulls, propelling anything in the launch zone away from the ship without the inertial effects of acceleration. This can be used to launch a small ship at intercept speeds, or launch a slug at extremely high c-frac speeds. This small field created by the TFD can also be used to translocate the subject as well, to the full range of the fold drive itself. This function can be used to send a small gunship or shuttle a long distance, whether it's to a different location, or inside an enemy's cargo hold.



The Kryptonite's massive capacitor banks and redundant power allows the ship to be fully charged in about 5 minutes.

Oh and of course, an IC tactical discussion just before joining a massive fleet battle:

The three kryptonite-class vessels, led by acting starfire-group leader Jace Laykress aboard the Riplakish, converted themselves into assault mode, deploying all weapon turrets and pre-charging all cannons. They set themselves up for their attack patterns, splitting up at first, then forming up in a 3-man formation, engines and RCS systems burning so much fuel at a time they appeared to maneuver like small fightercraft, even though any specification would indicate they were over 800m long. Each would fly a separate course for fold-skip attack runs, but then regroup for cover while recharging weapons and engines.

Jace, now satisfied that his responsibilities of command had been throughly delegated, sat down in his chair and smiled, as now all he had to do was tell his little formation what to do. "Is everything ready, Raimi?"

His science officer, acting in an assumed tactical assistant role, looked up from her screen, still stressed. "I've got the programs and algorithms all figured out. Attack runs will be plotted and calculated only a moment after the enemy drops out into normal space. Everything is set, we just need to input some targets. We can get 7 folds inside each run, so 1 to deploy, one to escape, that's 6 targets on deadsight, adjust, and take out 1 other target nearby, and another on reverse angle fire... figure we got a limit of 21 targets max per run... so I'm assigning a number between 1 and 3 for each target we find... 3 point targets take all our firepower for that skip."

The tactical officer nodded. "Right, I get it. Our guns are going to be molten after each run, we might need a little time to let them cool and recharge all the capacitors. probably 5 minutes before each run."

She nodded as well, "yes... the capacitors... I'm kinda having to do a bunch of rerouting to build up the charge we need. The fold drives are on an independent system, but i figure we can just charge them up part-way for these 7-skip folds, and then use the rest of the farads on weapons. All our cores will be pumping energy into these things simultaneously. needless to say, we're not going to have shields while we're firing our shots, only right before each fold."

"Just to be clear," the commander said, intoning slight confusion, "how much time do we get per... skip?"

"1 second to normalize and adjust aim slightly, 3 seconds to fire, 3 seconds to aim to secondary dead-straight target, 3 seconds to fire, and 3 seconds to escape, then 5 seconds to enter fold and proceed to next target... so 18 seconds total. I've got the program set to automatically orient us facing the 1st target as the fold destination, and our momentum will be conserved... so all we have to do is build up a little relative momentum before we fold and we should be fine."

Jace smiled. "Good, that actually made sense... 5 minutes to charge up and identify targets, 2 minutes for each attack run. Let's see what this thing can do, shall we?" He opened a channel to make sure everyone had things clear. "Starfire Kryptonite group, build up momentum as we fly in formation... we'll need it for these attack runs... whatever speed they enter their attack formation, we have to beat it so we have some maneuverability in combat. Get ready to identify 1, 2, and 3-point targets... so make sure you know the difference between a threat and cannon fodder. Our primary goal is to buy the evacuees more time, so if anyone is assaulting the planet directly, or any of our coreships, disable them."

OK, I'm done now ^_^

[L3 Communications]

At least I now know where this came from, CC:



Or is this some kind of sick coincidence? On a different note, who uses mechs as tank replacements, which is silly because mechs are slower than tanks and bigger and can't carry as much armour and guns.