Space combat?

Shiolle wrote:
If we have a fleet of multiple bubbles of different mass, they must have some way of moving at the same speed to maintain formation. Of course that speed won’t exceed top speed of the heaviest bubble. I think they say that a bubble can achieve any speed up to its top speed instantaneously.

I agree, but I have doubts about instant acceleration.
As for formation, either the ships form similar group, hence, similar group mass, or move all in one big bubble.
Our discussions on this concluded that forming a group will save fuel as only one ship has to maintain the bubble.
For small groups the normal bubble is big enough, so no consumption increase and not much for bigger groups.
Extra power obviously comes from the weapons & shield consumption part.
I think for simplicity we should leave this complex calculation out for now. Priority is to get the sim running first.

I don’t want to hardcode ship classes (cruisers and assault ships, etc.) into the editor.
I also use mass for load out measurement. That’s why I need to know how large is the ship’s final mass including full cargo hold and fuel bay –
to know how much the ship can carry. Only when the setup is done we know it’s total dry mass.

Agree, I don't like special treatment when it can be done otherwise. Also classification change with time and tech level.
*nodes* The problem with this kind of things is that parameters are influencing each other and we run into unending loops.
IMHO starting with payload and working up to heavier systems ease things up and lessen difference to needed requirement.

It’s irrelevant because normal propulsion cannot be used in planar space (except inside in bubble movement that are not in yet either) and I don’t intend to model normal space so far.

That's alright, but still it should be part of the ship mass. *shrug* This would save construction work in later expansion.
Basics!
The difference for plane space and normal space is not that much, so I'm not concerned about trouble when trying to expand it.
(+accelleration, max. weapons range, environment)

And there is no inertia there either. I meant it could be used later in normal space (if it’s to be ever implemented).

There is because the ship is still in 3D within the bubble. The problem is the translation from one universe into the other of which we have not been informed.
In any case, having the basics already there and proper naming saves the more trouble some change of the whole structure later.
While the only thing need to do now is have the parameter there.

I didn’t mean that the ship is modular (as in universal replaceable parts).

I meant it as example info. We don't need to simulated building time or cost for now.

If the program works on many external files rather than internal data, which can be edited freely, then it would save lots of tweaking of the program itself.
But phe program must be able to handle long lists eg. subsystem types.
We only need simple definition script to handle how they work or how to handle their parameters.
These can be chooseable from a drop list and depending on script info, the details could be changed. (I know it's not simple.)
So the bulk of the program is going to be graphics, file and some scripting. The actual sim part will be much less in terms of code.
I can help out with progamming except graphic which I haven't done for too long. Just let me know which part.
I only need to install the programming language and do a quick crash course.

I think I need to elaborate a bit on what I meant by basic structure. Ship “skeleton” (ships frame), all outer hull, all those layers you mentioned.
Also, did you get those numbers from modern rocket science, or are they from some info on sekai universe?

That's exactly what I meant. As propulsion mass depends on overall ship mass, it's the heaviest system and the frame will be build around it.
Crew quarters and such are minor. Fuel tanks are also minor although they are biggest in size and carry the most mass, just not as concentrated as propulsion.

Infos are from proton-antiproton engine for insterstellar 'ship' dated 2003.
The only problem in that doc is that the AM propellant formular is not correct. (either intentionally or not) It's too complicated so I do not dare to redo all the steps for a correct version.

Nor do I know what standardized crew is.
(which suggests pretty low level of automation for such a technologically advanced society).

Besides, do you have any information what all those 150 men do on modern destroyers? What are their duties?

You have no idea about automation or maintainance.
example: for any helicopter for each flight hour it needs 30+ hours of maintenance;
for any fighter for each flight hour it needs 20-30 hours of maintenance;
Assualt: Roil class: 5+2 command, 12 engineering, 3 administrative
Attack: Caubh class: 7+1 command, 17? (<20) hint somewhere in SNS4, probably says somewhere in SNS3
cruiser: Gothlauth class: 8+5 command, 110 enlisted
Cow class: (400)

I can get the info...for now, the one thing most people forget is that ships operate in shifts which means you need 3x required normal duty crew.
Yes, it think it's some squareroot formula with low fractional exponent (m^x; x<0.5).

Do you propose to presume that a ship has to be able to achieve 25g acceleration and knowing its mass calculate F?

Just another basic stub parameter.
Acceleration or thrust are tied to mass, so whichever you chose is the same, but in order to know value in one aspect or the other you can't go around making the conversion.
It's just nice to see it, though.
How it's done internally isn't important for the user, but it could save later tweaking of core program code, since it's a simple calc.*shrug*

But when ships converge bubbles, their bubble got bigger, right?
Or maybe what bubbles converge do bubble generators on all ships contribute to bubble’s size?

See above. Yes, when the output increases or because all generator output are contributing. Imagine a field generated by many so they strengthen as a total.
But for ease we should ignore the complicated calculation for group bubble for now.
We should model grouping careful since many expansion will happen here.

I think that in BotS 1 they said that bubble generator consumes the same amount of fuel regardless of movement speed.

I think they said to conserve they stopped and did the repairs and cut the life support down. In any case it must stay operated in plane space.
It won't hurt to have this parameter. Lets just play around with the parameter and see how it turns out.

But I want to allow great flexibility in customizing shields.

As mass and size of the ship increase, minimum mass of shielding system to be able to cover ship’s surface increases too. Minimum shield strength for a given mass reflects that.
There is no point in setting shield capacitor to not be able to absorb at least as much as shield strength allows.

That is the case with every other system: mass is always calculated, never directly changed.

Right, that's why I want to get rid of any forced limitations. When designing it will be apparent that it's not worth it to have shield on small vessels as the strength is not enough to do anything.

Since mass and capacity are tied it doesn't matter which one is changed.
I would say we have a display telling the minimum strength number as info. [And maybe even a checker to automatically apply it, if generous.]
If the user wants to have it or not is his choice. This way civil ships can be created without shields as well as the shuttles. (it may give a nice escort scenario.)

Well, sooner or later you might see the need to change either. But it's fine by me.
(We just need two procedures for this, when one is changed etc. , just have to make sure an update is run each time.)

Do you think I need to calculate that loss separately if I can just lower kfps to reflect that?

No. This is just another formal formula, wether it is needed later or not, dunno.
But it sure gives a nice overview when having the info.

You say that, but later you contradict yourself:

I think maybe it’s practical to divide weapons not into anti-ship and point defense for the purpose of offlining but into high and low power use.

I just took over your list.

I think we have to consider power usage anyway to determine system shut down, so this would be a good way to tied it up without extra programming.

IMHO in battle you really don't want to shut down weapons and rather sacrify other systems even shields if you see a chance.
But this requires intelligence we cannot afford for now.
A solution would be to have checker choices for 'normal' or 'prioritise weapons' or 'prioritise defense' or 'deathwish' or 'kamikaze'
normal refers to what we do depending on power usage
prioritise weapons means we keep all weapons on as long as possible.
prioritise defense means we keep point defense and shields as long as possible.
deathwish would mean all energy on weapons, no shields.
kamikaze means ramming the enemy ship (an option Lexhue was considering when her ship was nearly disabled) This would require some special damage calculation. cue: impulse crash
*shrug* Just another random thought.

I think that to allow a fast weapons to calculate a chance to shoot down a mine in each shot is too inefficient performance-wise.

least two time per second that lone will produce massive load on processor. (Random thoughts)

Agree, so just another formality.
For now we consider group performance only for actual calculation. But this still bases of single weapons performance.

Only bad programming would need that much time. (I assure you it's possible to calc all primes up to 2 billion with just 2 million cycles on an old PC)
At least we should take a roll for each weapons type for each ship.

Actually, in the real world the military uses tables to calculate firing parameters. Maybe we can do this, too.
But I doubt it's faster. Also this means internal data which is bad. *shrug* Just another random thought.

I think I’ll have to implement priority targeting for AI.
Antiproton cannons will prioritize larger ships, but when none around will also shoot mines, laser cannons will do the opposite.

We should avoid AI if possible, but if needed it should be separated in it's own module (tree).
I don't really want to complicate this, but I think prioritizing target is best.
Antiproton cannons should priortize ships when they are within the bubble or within range. Except mines weapon fire don't work outside of it.
No sense to keep a weapon hot when you can't use it.
We might need precalculation for position so we don't waste a shot when a ship is going to be there the next second and the cannon would need to recharge by then.
I think the smart way is just calculate a safety range in addition to firing range.

I think that from the math point of view it is no different than assigning two different values to them.

Also consider this: Shp represents the penetration potential of the weapon.
Since I don’t factor armor, the only defense need “piercing” is the shield.
Strp on the other hand represents the spread of damage, like that of a large explosion.

Yes, but it makes a difference in the program code. If weapons type modifiers are used you can change them for all of the same type.
You can easier compare their performance by their basic damage. And you can have different weapons type without writing everything new. Just rename weapons type in its parameter.
On the other side, if you do it everytime for each weapon you will loose oversight and it will be a mess in the long run.

Still, the weapon energy has to be reduced, if you have separate values, you will deduce from Shp part, and have some left over or deficit while
you have hull damage whit extra Shp or deficit left. It's just not realistic. In reality you have energy which can translate from one form to the other.
The basic damage value is just pure energy which translate via the modifiers into the different damge form.

We should leave explosion out for now, since it's really too complicated, or we will end up with something unsatisfying.

What do you mean? There are no ship classes (cruisers, assaults, etc.) defined as objects.

You said we needed different calculation since it seem different weapons work differently on different ship classes.
never mind

Do ships of sekai universe really have that?
I think that means that every time the hull is penetrated there should be a cloud of quickly crystallizing steam near the breach, but all I see is smoke and fire.

Yes. Remeber them releasing water to cool the amor, and remember the pipes when they take out the armor for repairs?
No crystalization because weapons effect will vaporize them. Also it's too much work to animate this all the time.
You may not realize it but anime tech is always well thought out since the last 25+ years.
Also water is the propellant and cooling fluid. Modern starships will have to use it for hard radiation protection. It's just ideal for all these jobs, but it's a damn hazardous fluid.

Did you play SFB or Starfleet Command games?
However that system is immensely complex.
Especially the part where you randomly select damaged systems based on their mass.

He will just notice the increasing number of damaged and destroyed ships in each bubble/group/fleet.

You bet. *whahaha*
I know. Keep the formal design but we can make it faster by simplyfying calculations.
We just 'precalculate' after a ship design has been done. (need to think this more in detail)
We can add the first 3 layer defenses together as one. If their total defense is not penetrated then no need for subsystem calculation.
We use one simple loop with zero check (we just add defense value as damage and subtract until zero from dmgpen, no complex calc needed.)
We will use our power usage list, the biggest is obviously the easiest to hit. (The algorithm is pretty much similar for shut down.)
We do a sum again devided by the smallest system so that each system is a multiple of the smallest system.
We take a roll based on the sum and just look up the number in the list. (need to decide how to count, though)
Simply add damage etc.
Repeat for core system.
This will require about 100 cycles at most.

Yes, but the advantage of all this is you can have an extensive log to look into the battle details.
This is where the system will slow down because of the I/O operations going on.
If you have ever seen such a log...I will post some insights later when I put them all together for you.

What about that piercing beam I mentioned earlier? It doesn’t destroy 50% of hull, but it does damage internal systems.

Penetration is based on the 'armor' defense value which is independent from the hitpoint value.
See, armor defense value represent thickness and hitpoint represent the surface.
If hitpoint is zero it means that there is no layer on the surface anymore.
At 50% half the surface lays bare, so you could have a chance not to hit any layer part or not.
We check if a weapon penetrates the armor thickness, but this does damage to the surface, hence we add the defense value as damage.
So this is not like most games where the armor has to be gone in order to do internals.
You can do damage if you got the weapon or you will take a very long time to wear the armor down until you can peenetrate it.

Hit is generated only once for each shot. The same number will then be used both in miss and damage calculation.

OK, I think I get your idea.
To be clear does this mean the ship will receive full damage or is damage part of the function curve as in your mine receiving damage?

Have you read my edits (at the end) from last post?

Edit:
Limited sharing Docs you asked for.

Edit:
Change of plans to drafting up crew size.
We use mass squareroot formula for engineering regarding propulsion. Same with command crew which will be expanded depending on size of crew. (to be fixed later)
Now, for each system type we add a certain number of crew depending on system type.
For example computer and sensor we only need one per shift. For big weapons like the EM or proton cannon we need two.
Now we need to add one supervisor for each system type. Half of these will be officers.

Shuttles will be special. (I wonder if summing all fractions will give some interesting crew) size.

(I'm posting this separately to avoid post size as well as because it's about programming.
Maybe this will be moved to a separate thread later.)

I just did a quick analysis on this Simulator project to determine problems. For ease I used an UML tool to visualize it. As a result it also represents the program design.


I color coded according to importance and possible problems. Red being highest.
As can be seen the clustering around the ship class during simulation and the editors suggest high complexity, and hence problems.
Discounting the graphic engine, I estimate the code size to be 200-300kB with decent documentation. This equals about at least a months work for a good and active freetime programmer.

Early this week (Sunday-Tuesday) it seems I am rather busy. Though some further work on the sim was done there is no new version yet.

As for formation, either the ships form similar group, hence, similar group mass, or move all in one big bubble.

So, ships will need to form bubbles of identical mass or they will be forced to move at different speed. Won’t there be any ways to counter this by having lighter bubbles perform small side moves?

Our discussions on this concluded that forming a group will save fuel as only one ship has to maintain the bubble.

What about the situation when hostile ships enter the bubble like assault ships entering cruiser’s bubble? In anime it seemed like cruiser already had the bubble large enough to host 10 assault ships and let them maneuver. It doesn’t seem very practical. If he could vary it’s bubble size, why won’t it shrink the bubble so that ASes won’t be able to maneuver or simply force them out?
I think this topic cannot be easily solved, so the development should go on before any final decision is made.

IMHO starting with payload and working up to heavier systems ease things up and lessen difference to needed requirement.

I think there we will talk about it when I expand interface section in the next edition of the document.

The difference for plane space and normal space is not that much, so I'm not concerned about trouble when trying to expand it.

I think the normal space implementation will take place at the same time as in-bubble space implementation because they’re basically the same.
For now, I think the only important question is: do they use the same fuel for propulsion, reactor and bubble generator? How much different types of fuel do we need to include?

There is because the ship is still in 3D within the bubble. The problem is the translation from one universe into the other of which we have not been informed.

The problem is those two universes have different dimensions. So if a ship performs bubble separation at the ‘zenith’ of a bubble, where would it appear in plane space?

Infos are from proton-antiproton engine for insterstellar 'ship' dated 2003.

If they are the same for Sekai universe, then I wonder how often do I need to recalculate ship mass during the simulation. I wasn’t intending on doing it on a regular basics. (It’s not a question.)

Still, the weapon energy has to be reduced, if you have separate values, you will deduce from Shp part, and have some left over or deficit while
you have hull damage whit extra Shp or deficit left. It's just not realistic. In reality you have energy which can translate from one form to the other.

So be it. I’ll see what I can do.

You said we needed different calculation since it seem different weapons work differently on different ship classes.

I just meant that even without HPs a blow that would be catastrophic to light ships shouldn’t have that much impact on heavier setups.

You may not realize it but anime tech is always well thought out since the last 25+ years.

I gather my will to refrain from derailing this into another discussion about loud explosions in space and flight model of spacecrafts that looks like a combination of modern jet flight and cool ninja moves.

To be clear does this mean the ship will receive full damage or is damage part of the function curve as in your mine receiving damage?

The latter. That curve didn’t factor misses. I’ll elaborate a bit in the next edition of the document.

Have you read my edits (at the end) from last post?

Of course. The fact that I don’t comment some of your points means I have not much to say about it except for “Ok, I agree. Thank you. I’ll try to factor that in the next edit of design documents.” If you want to hear something on specific points please ask. These posts are large as they are and I want focus on critical topics.
About ship conditions system. Undoubtedly, the system that accounts systems physical layout within the ship and selects damaged systems randomly is much more accurate than any ship ‘states’ or tables of offlining priority. 
But it is also true that the purpose of the whole system is to translate weapon fire effects on ships into some conceivable form of representation. In SFB games where the number of ships in battles didn’t usually exceed 10, designers could afford display plenty of properties of individual ships. In our case where we should model the entire fleets of ships we can’t afford such luxury. If a user can’t tell how good his fleet is faring at a glance, the system needs a rework. So while the complex systems with different layers of HPs can be used for internal calculations, we need another system to translate it to some kind of representation.
The system I proposed already offer conceivable output for large groups of ships. Basically if we have just 5 states we can make a colored line similar to that of “windows 7”’s resource monitor memory representation stripe.
While we can implement more complex system for “inner level” calculations and means to translate it’s results into a conceivable form, the question is whether the difference in simulation results really different enough between two systems to go through all the difficulties to implement it.

Docs you asked for.

Thank you very much. It’s a great info. I can’t yet say what I could use within the sim, but at least crew listings are of great help already.

I just did a quick analysis on this Simulator project to determine problems. For ease I used an UML tool to visualize it. As a result it also represents the program design.

Here I intended to write lots comments on the diagram, but I’ll list the next few things to work on.
1. Detailed interface description: which buttons do what and how a user can interact with it as a whole. Same for different modules.
2. Technical aspects: files specifications for missions, ships and data tables. First tests on interface implementation (a few experiments), etc.
3. UML models for the whole projects.
4. And now the programming starts.

I got a question since the Abh far advanced in the technical area, how long would took them reach the level of star trek tech.

Almael on Wed Dec 09, 2009 9:00 pm wrote:
Well, unlike us the Abh only need to advance spatial technology so that
they can enter plainspace anywhere they want. It can happen now or in
hundreds of years. It's a matter of material, energy and random
discovery.

From there it will take another 50 years until the
technology has spread to the civil sector. After a hundred years, they
might be close to TNG level.

In my fanfic stories it's about now.

Someone gave a nice lecturing reply on restraining one's idea I want to share:

Fact: Forget about any previous education in other fields, the more I
learn about boat design, the more I realise that "my revoluitionary new
idea" might not be a good idea at all!

I had arguments with people over simple things... one of those tall
tales, people telling me that their "X" length mono hull sail boat was
sailing much faster then the hull speed...try pulling a sail boat with
a high speed power boat and see what happens if you have enough horse
power!

Never copy a military design.. they just put in another 10 000 or 50 000 HP...
if they need to.
There is no free lunch, if it would be possible to make a boat to fly
on water running on solar power and carry 100 tons, it probably would
have been invented by lots of other smart people.

Early on when I just finished my education, frequently I felt that the
estabilishment restricted my inventive streak! (My youthful ignorance
combined with arrogance!)

I had my nose rubbed in it a few times and once a really smart engineer
who was my mentor told me: "Next time when you feel irreplacable, just
take a walk in the cemetery. All those big shots have been replaced!"

Now all this had nothing to do with the subject at hand, but I put it
in here just to show how important it is to stay with both feet on the
ground and not get carried away with dreams based on wishful thinking
and not solid practical science.

With respect,

Stephen I. M.

Original can be found here in post #29

I got question I been meaning to ask, do you think we can use abh ship designs and tech to be able make next generation space craft? I know that there would great deal of challenges would have to over come like engines designs and fuel.

It's possible for most of the Abh technology.
The problems are:
1-nano technology ist still beginning
2-mass production; we can't do this yet for the new technology
3-we still don't know all about gravity

At the earliest point 1 and 2 can be achieved in 50 years or 100+ years at latest.
For 3 it can take anywhere between 50 and hundreds of years. This depends on coincidences or scintific accidents.

Of course if we got WWIII it will take at least 50-100 years longer.

Abhs and their ships as well are product of science fiction...or did i miss something?  The designs and tech Abhs use are good collection of very up to date sci-fi ideas so i guess the books are on the right track.One thing i'm quite sure - we won't be seeing that cool symmetrical, clean ship design anytime soon as it's directly related to mass production/design and tech levels and production cost. It's easy to compare to car industry - how cars looked back in 40-50s (no american, that's just example of resource abundance).The future is not "now" - NASA still uses rockets based on ones bought from USSR decades ago and no one realy been on the moon...we're not as close to space as we'd like to believe.

Well, I answered when we could do it not when we actually will do it.
So yes, there is about a 30 year difference between possible and actually building/producing something. And yes, space application can take longer depending if we have starbases.

Then again I think humanity needs to unify first before we actually build starships.
So it's not really a technical problem but a political and cost problem (as always).

I see. I i just have problems understanding lymhfeubdach posts as her writing style is a bit unusual.

Anyway, i fear future of space exploration may not be as obvious at all - a minor crisis that lead to loss of income of population lower any space program priority by a lot. If out future won't be any better economy wise i think the only real source of resources for space will be military. "Ideology" factor doesn't help either - there's great deal that do not care about space (and expect and of the world son).
As for "unification" - either we start working on it pretty soon or the next 100 years will be years of conflicts...

Btw, among all technologies currently in early development - which one you think will have the largest impact on how soon we'll realy go to space? Is it nano thing, engines/energy source or space/time/matter theory?

There's this guy - Miguel Alcubierre and his hyperdrive theory, heard about it? Here's PDF with article with all the numbers and calculations:
http://kuasar.narod.ru/ideas/hyperspace-engine/cq940501.rar

AlexT wrote:As for "unification" - either we start working on it pretty soon or the next 100 years will be years of conflicts...

Btw, among all technologies currently in early development - which one you think will have the largest impact on how soon we'll realy go to space? Is it nano thing, engines/energy source or space/time/matter theory?

There's this guy - Miguel Alcubierre and his hyperdrive theory, heard about it? Here's PDF with article with all the numbers and calculations:
http://kuasar.narod.ru/ideas/hyperspace-engine/cq940501.rar

Unification won't happen peacefully, and even afterwards there will be problems. Reparations and then creating infrastructures for everyone will take time. So even under good conditions the process can take very long.

Technology impacts:
1. energy production, fuel
or
new understanding/theory; we could go without, but it certainly would give a lot of new technology
2. material (nanotech, chemistry)
3. biotech (self suffiency life support)
4. computer, robotics
5. sociology
hmm, seems I covered everything.

It's not hyperspace. You have 'hyper'space when you use a different space for travel.
I heard of his idea. It's really a nice convenient solution. Like most solutions it needs to use enormous energies to change space. The only problem or doubt I have with this one is time dilation. I'm not sure how exactly space is moved: around the ship bubble or through it?
Around would be best to avoid time dilation.
Well, if we solve the gravity problem maybe we can find tricks to cheat our way to the stars.

some more infos and other drives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interstellar_travel
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faster_than_light

I think you are right about reaching the levels of Abh tech not going happen peacefully? We have way too many problems right now, it hard get everyone on the same page so we can move forward into stars. For example, if naitons of world done better job straight their financials we would not be in trillions of dollars in debt. Then maybe nations down the road could restart the space race again.

Only peace allows more people to develop and invent things. As mankind is now we can't have peace. We could build something but war and conflict could destroy everything...
Our problems lies not only in living with each other socially but also in our economic system and the money value system we are using. If mankind were better we would already be on Mars hundreds or thousands of years ago.
For example math has a history of 5000 years but for 2000-2500 years (until 19th cent.) nothing new happened (actually, things got lost and rediscovered).

Almael wrote:Only peace allows more people to develop and invent things. As mankind is now we can't have peace. We could build something but war and conflict could destroy everything...
Our problems lies not only in living with each other socially but also in our economic system and the money value system we are using. If mankind were better we would already be on Mars hundreds or thousands of years ago.

Strange to hear it Actually war was the progress accellerator during all the history of mankind. All the greatest inventions were made as part of the war research. Nuclear power, internet, computers, space, airplanes...you name it.
Of course modern economical system replaced larger part of war's funcion with competition, but it still need to be backed up by war possibility as the last resort to resist monopolies...
Sometimes war - is the only way to take back your freedom - it shall always remain, even if not used.

As for Mars - no, we wouldn't. See people don't wanna support that medical program or many other smaller things just because it rises tax a couple percent (minus 1 big mac during breakfast) even if it could help many people and you want $ for space programs? Next thing you'll see they'll close NASA cuz everyone is waiting for world to end in 2012, why bother with space?

AlexT wrote:
Strange to hear it Actually war was the progress accellerator during all the history of mankind. All the greatest inventions were made as part of the war research. Nuclear power, internet, computers, space, airplanes...you name it.

Of course modern economical system replaced larger part of war's funcion with competition, but it still need to be backed up by war possibility as the last resort to resist monopolies...

That's a misleading perception.
Yes, during war time technology got introduced because of the need to put them to practical use, but the ideas and theories themselves that allow those technologies to be realized stem from peacetime. The math and physics for nuclear power have been around since before WWII; the understanding of semiconductors and light waves for computers and lasers, came after WWII&Korean & before Vietnam; airplanes and rockets were both before WWII and out of people having lots of free time. And internet was for universities during the cold war.

Dunno about NASA's future but none of us will probably live to see any man set foot on Mars.
Of course if you build a time machine...and go to a future were aliens wander around.

NASA's should see it coming they were not going to mars, unless they can find millions of dollars. Unless someone develops some type of tech in world of Abh, we will debating what should we do next?

Yeah, going to the moon and building a base alone will cost x0 billions. The ship to mars at least will cost that much. Everybody could have seen this coming since bush uttered the program.
Obama's speech doesn't specify anything (a wish list) and seemed not to have changed much compared to the beginning of the year. But it seems he is going to spend money on fusion drives for future mars mission.

This just crazy though, but if the Abh were good with ground wars as they with space combat. How would the deal with the current wars we fighing right now?

Part of me seriously thinks that the Abh put too little value on the kinds of raw offensive capabilities and threats a hostile planet can impose.

And not every situation (diplomatic etc) can be delt with by simply threatening to "Blow the atmosphere off the planet", because while I'm sure there would reach a point where the Abh might be willing to do that 90% of that is just tough talking. Planetary incursions are avoided due to extreme resource overhead and personnel involved (naturally) but are sometimes unavoidable.

Turning a planet into a stronghold couldn't be that hard, since you have basically infinite space and materials to fabricate extremely powerful weapons. Potentially dwaring anything the Abh have on their carriers- they simply wouldn't be able to advance close enough to do much.

This is theory though. I don't recall there ever being a "Written copy" of Abh policy regarding planetary warfare that has been made available to us readers via the author.

Please don't take this the wrong way, but Almael and I have both asked folks
from this board to move to the other one on several occasions.

The only reason this one remains open for posting is I believe Duke needs it for archiving.
It would be better to have people move and ignite conversation at the new place
than to keep kicking a dead horse so to speak.

If necessary I will lock the forum until such time as Duke is active again.

Again, please don't take it the wrong way. There is just little point staying here and
it does the community more harm to stay fractured than to reconvene.

JGZinv wrote:Please don't take this the wrong way, but Almael and I have both asked folks
from this board to move to the other one on several occasions.

The only reason this one remains open for posting is I believe Duke needs it for archiving.
It would be better to have people move and ignite conversation at the new place
than to keep kicking a dead horse so to speak.

If necessary I will lock the forum until such time as Duke is active again.

Again, please don't take it the wrong way. There is just little point staying here and
it does the community more harm to stay fractured than to reconvene.

And what is the new website then?

go here: http://forums.dualfans.com/index.php

I still will make a short reply:

The Abh would simply eliminate bad people and end it quickly. In their view it saves future trouble and future victims. It's like saving/killing some milions now or risking billions later. An alltime ethical question.

The reason why planetary weaponry are inferior is because it costs more to reach space then the other way. The disadvantage of a planet is being a sitting duck. Space=air power can hit anywhere. For munition using local asteroids will do. A defended planet can be viewed as a military base as a whole because the weapons used against it are all WMDs of sorts, and hence, it will be totaled. Therefore, it's better not to militarize a planet if you care about it or it's population.

I wonder how to Abh figure or know how beat the bad guys in fight?

lymhfeubdach wrote:I wonder how to Abh figure or know how beat the bad guys in fight?

First the modern Abh analyze the military strength on both sides based on intelligence. They come up with scenarios for all eventualities.
This is the same what today's military is supposed to do, but often plans only exists for certain strategic targets.

--------------
Anyway, let's talk about

"STEALTH in SPACE"

once again as it seem to come up from time to time anyywhere.
First you got to understand the physics involved then we can get into details.

Radar

1. Radar is based on electromagnetic waves just "like" light, radio. They are actually the same but have a different frequency.
So I will refer to electromagnetic waves in general.
However, it is (a bit) different in the way it is reflected. It reflects in a diffusive pattern similar to laser diffraction. Therefore, it is harder to implement stealth for radar than just using a mirror. Although, light does diffuse it is comparatively less for reflections. This is where the russian equations that made stealth possible come in as well as the german designs (Horten Ho_229, U-480).
The rest is not to be published.

2. electromagnetic waves lose energy and age while they travel even in vacuum. Of course they lose a lot more energy when in a medium like the atmosphere due to interaction with the molecules in the air.
As you may have heard already light is less intense at a distance which is given by the "inverse square law":
If a light source has an intensity of 4 at a distance of 1 m, then its intensity will be 1/4=1 at double the distance.
Intensity / (x * distance)^2
It belongs to the group of math called "the square-root law" and applies to the amplitude of noise and the intensity of light.
The rest is not to be published.

3. The overall energy of the light source is distributed over a virtual spherical surface as it goes out. This is governed by the "power law":
It works in the same fashion as the inverse square law but includes the third dimension as opposed to just two.
If the energy output on a surface is 8 at a distance of one meter, then it will be 1/8=1 at double the distance.
energy / (x * distance)^3

4. The distance traveled by the electromagnetic wave to an object and back to the emitter & receiver is different!
It is always double!
In practice this means if both sides use the same type of receiver with the same sensitivity, then the object will recognize a signal at double the distance as the emitter for a given strength!

5. Range depends on the frequency as they govern the energy loss.
Short waves lengths are powerful but don't travel as far as a long wave at comparable energy level.

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

Now, some practical examples to help you understand it for real:
Lets compare two objects and see how the sensor works on them.
We consider the emitter source to be constant and unchangeable.
Lets say we got an eagle with a reflection value of 1 and we got a raptor with a reflection value of 1/10000 (of the eagle).
Like most sensors and objects of its class the eagle is detected at a distance of 150 miles.

With the given information how far out will the raptor be detected?
Well, it will be detected at a distance of 15 miles.
fourth square root of 10000 is 10, hence, 150 miles / 10 = 15 miles.

Surprised?
You ask why I'm using the fourth square root, right?
Simple, it's the 2nd and 4th point combined.
So you got a square root of a square root which is the 4th square root.
If you think this was your only misconception you are wrong.

---------

Lets apply this to space.
Here, we got to consider the change of rules and our level of technology.
Keep in mind that the rules are modified at different levels of technology. Here we only take a look at the vary basic rules as that's where we are standing at anyway.

6. Speed and velocities in space are astronomical. While most pilots fly at about one mach the minimum to reach space is 40.32.
Leaving the solar require more.

Generally escape velocities are given as
Earth Escape Velocity : 11.2 km/s
Earth Orbit : 29.8 km/sec
Solar Escape Velocity : 42.1 km/s (From Earth's Position)
-> 617.5 km/s (From The Sun's Surface)
70+km/s from Jupiter
local Milkyway galaxy escape velocity 525 km/s

Because of the higher velocities, the detection range has to be increase such that the reaction time is at least the same.
In Earth orbit the range would have to be 40 times more.

7. Space is vast and a lot more energy is required than on Earth.
If we consider Earth orbit we would need comparable 40^3 more energy and 40^2 more intense beams.
With higher energy the detection range for the raptor is also higher.
In this case it's 40*15 = 600 miles.
Unless long range rockets and lasers are used no other weapon is useful at such distances. Although, the reaction time is the same, the main purpose of stealth (to carry weapon close to target & increase survival ability) is mostly defeated.

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

Infrared

All above points apply. Unlike radar, IR has a lot shorter wavelength, hence, its range is not very far. Taking diffusion and the power law into account and the detection range isn't favorable.

8. I can see further than you in space!
Of course only if you stay down on Earth. The rest is confidential.

9. Although, space is empty, it is full of background radiation from the Big Bang as well as other high energy emissions. Discerning
It will be difficult to discern it as well as actually looking at the right place. A given sensor can only cover a certain field of view.
And even then the further away the smaller the object. Its sensitivity and resolution has to be very high. This also increases the complexity of analyzing the whole picture. In order to help discerning, a sensor has to observe a certain area for longer period of time to detect movements. And all this extra time needed means the detection range must be higher.

8. Still, heat is a great problem for spaceships and they will emit significant amounts of it. In space there is no medium to disperse heat. Every amount of extra heat has to be emitted away through radiators. In order to reduce emission a stealth ship has to lower its power usage or it has to keep and hide the extra heat away. This can only be done by storing it in say water. Of course this can only be done for a certain amount of time until the "heat battery" is full.
Releasing that gathered amount of heat is a lot more significant and difficult. In a way, this makes it more dangerous at a time when you really need stealth, when you make a run after an attack.


All in all stealth in space is less significant than on Earth.
At a higher level of technology, it will become more important.
However, at a very level it becomes useless.

I really don't see how stealth would even be important in space combat(unless you happen to be
Romulan)in the first place.