Realistic-style mod

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peteyg
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Realistic-style mod

Post by peteyg »

Vega Strike is cool. It's in that happy-go-lucky airplanes in space style. And that's cool.

But the Vega Strike engine is capable of doing things quite realistically. And having a mod for realistic space combat to complement VS would be cool too.

Let us discuss this potential mod. What kind of combat do we want? How can we change Vega Strike's existing features to make this work? What should the ships look like? What should we call it?
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Post by DiGuru »

How is this for a start?

For a spaceship we need a hull that holds breathable athmosphere if we want to live inside. Let's take a large cylinder with closed ends. Make a glass window in front to look outside? No, that would be a very bad idea. Every micrometeorite (for example, a small fleck of paint, traveling very fast) would most surely break the window and kill you. And if the window was tough enough to survive those impacts, it would be opaque quite fast. And anyway, what would be there to see most of the time?

Of course we could just use a 'force shield' to keep things from impacting with the window. In that case, we have no need for armor, so a shield would be our only protection. But how would such a shield work in the first place?

Well, if it has to be a defence against collisions, we can project a huge electromagnetic field (using a large coil) to charge the small particles. If we charge the nosesection of the ship with the same polarity and make a coil around it at some distance with the opposite polarity, we would deflect the tiny particles. But that would limit the shipdesigners a lot, so let's forget about the tiny particles. We assume that the front of the spaceship is massively armored.

To deflect larger particles, we need something that tracks very fast and can vaporize and/or deflect things. A laser. But it has to be solid state, if it has a moving barrel, it will have a hard time tracking fast enough. We can make a solid-state tracking laser like we make a solid-state tracking radar nowadays: by covering a (semi-spherical) plate with a large amount of small lasers that can combine into one or more lasers that point to a specific direction, without moving parts.

But such an active defence would only work against still small particles, say the size of a pea at most. For larger ones, you have to take evasive action. Lasers have good range and speed, but little penetration. The vaporised material forms a barrier that absorbs and reflects most of the enery after the initial contact. Other beam weapons (like plasma or particle beams) have good penetration, but very short ranges, as the beam widens very fast. And unlike laser beams, it is quite hard to focus a lot of energy in the initial 'bolt'.

Still, a window at the front to sit behind still seems quite stupid, even with a good active defence. And, space being huge and empty, the idea of spending weeks or longer inside the chair piloting and navigating doesn't sound very nice. So, instead of a cockpit in the front, let's make a living space safely at the center of the ship. The front can be used as cargo space. If something does penetrate the armor at the front, the cargo can absorb the damage.

And we need lots of water. To drink, shower and whatever. And we can break it down into hydrogen and oxygen. We breathe the latter and use the former as reaction mass.

To accelerate, we need an engine. But, due to the lack of air around it and an efficient engine only pointing the exhaust to the back, you wouldn't see a flame or a bright area or such. Well, unless you were right behind it. In which case you would probably still see noting on account of you being an expanding debris cloud by then. Yes, a high power reaction drive makes a better (beam) weapon than most other things you could use.

And it would work quite well against incoming masses. So the best thing you can do for defence as well as offence, is to point your engine at your opponent. Which would be forced to do the same.

If small, fast closing masses are that much of a thread anyway, we can make it into a weapon. A railgun. Shoot metal (iron) pellets. But a fast acceleration over a short distance would melt and vaporize the pellet. It would become a plasma bolt. Which would disperse real fast. To have a working rail gun, we need to accelerate the pellet over a longer distance. We need a long tube covered with coils.

Such a tube would also be great to improve the efficiency of the engine. If we make the exhaust positively charged by adding protons (from the hydrogen), we can heat, compress and accelerate it magnetically. So, if we add a tube covered with coils to the back of the ship, we can use it for an engine as well as a weapon. And add to the destruction by shooting metal pellets or adding them to the exhaust.

So, if we want a window to look through during combat, we should make it at the back ;)

Ok, we've got a ship with a very large gun. How are we going to attack another ship? First, passively listen for signs of energy. If you find one, start your engine and accelerate towards it. Shut down your engine before you come into range of an active radar. Turn your ship. Fire pellets in a random-walk pattern. When you come within active radar range, restart your engine and aim it at the other ship. With luck, you'll damage or destroy it with the pellets or your engine. If you fail on the first pass, you can take some distance and start shooting pellets again. But the other will probably take flight fast.

If the other starts to get away, you cannot use your engine effectively as a weapon anymore, as that will push you in the opposite direction. Time to shoot missiles.

Is there much difference between torpedoes, rockets and missiles? In space, not really. It's just a different name. So let's call them all missiles.

The best thing to do, seems to shoot a missile at it with a huge atom bomb. Unfortunately, without air around, the explosion will mostly generate radiation that suffers the inverse square effect: the effect will diminish very quickly over a relatively short distance.

Another effect is a huge electromagnetic wave, that will cripple electronics. But as they are encased in a metal cylinder that is not connected to ground, that damage can be avoided fairly easy. So, if we can get the missile to detonate very close (say, less than 50-100 meter) from the other ship, it will destroy it. If the distance is larger, the damage is small.

A missile is reasonably easy to destroy, you can point your engine at it or use the laser turret(s). Or even a conventional machine gun will work. So, to improve the chance of a hit, you want the missile to be *FAST*. If it is fast enough, it does not even have to manoevre, as the other ship has no time to move from it's position.

One way to do that, is create a nucleair meltdown in a cylinder filled with water, with a nozzle attached at one side. The missile will accelerate extremely rapidly for a few seconds, after which it melts. And that is good, as the other ship will be hit by hundreds of kilos of molten metal traveling at high speed.

The only way to protect against that is shooting a missile at it and explode that missile just before it reaches it. But the first missile would only be effective at short range, and such a counter missile would only work on long range. But at short range, your engine or a 'conventional' nucleair missile would work as well. So, fighting would be done at long range, with masses of metal pellets and missiles. And the first hit would most likely be fatal.

An effective long-range missile should have to be a laser missile: detonate a nucleair warhead inside a very strong sphere, to which you attach one or more laser chambers (like a ruby rod with mirrors on the ends). The missile would be vaporized real fast, but just before that, a massive laser pulse will be released by the laser chamber.

For such a missile, manoevering isn't needed as well, as long as you can aim the laser itself. And there is not much you can do against it. The best overall protection would be to seed space around you with missiles and assign them a task when needed. Let the computer use them to take out missiles or order them to go and attack the other ship.

And a last defence can be layers of reactive armor. That is: honeycomb metal, covered with explosive tiles. When hit, the explosion protects the ship. But it only works once, and not against massive damage.

So, all combat would be long-range, all but the last defences would be active (turrets or missiles) and you would have your hands full just by instructing the computer that would do the actual fighting. But the first hit would most probably rip the ship open. So, no dogfights in small ships.

No, fighting would be done by carriers or huge transport ships. Everything smaller would be computer controlled. And your skill in ordering a strategy and the quality of your computer and weapons would decide who wins.

Anyway, those huge ships would be way to valuable to destroy. The worst that would happen to you (with a good legal system or payback money) is that you would lose the ship and be marooned somewhere. Hm. Not bad. That would make a different, but probably very enjoyable game!

:D
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Post by DiGuru »

A massive laser is a great weapon in space, but unless bomb-pumped, it would require a truly massive installation and have a very low refire rate to deliver a lot of energy to the target. But it would make a great gunship!

Instead of loading your carrier with 'conventional' fighters, load it with huge lasers that have some thrusters attached. When a possible hostile threat shows up on the radar, unload them and burn away at top speed.

Let the gunships take shots at the enemy from extreme long range. The only way the target can counter that attack, is flying a random-walk. That means, change course and thrust at random intervals in random directions.

When you are under such an attack, it becomes a game of chance how long you survive and you have to take out those gunships as fast as possible. Swarm them with missiles.

If the gunships are stationary, you can take them out relatively easy at long range with a bomb-pumped laser missile. So, they have to do a random walk as well and switch target to your missiles.

When you engage the gunships, they cannot aim and fire accurate anymore, as they have to point in the right direction and are busy taking out your missiles. So, turn away and give your engine full power. That makes you a small target. And drop a 'dirty' nuke every few seconds to scramble the sensors of the gunsips.



Both the above are reposts from another thread.
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Post by peteyg »

I think that the first step in planning this will be figuring out what kind of combat model we want to use. Then we could do up a few models, and put them into a test system and tweak the ship stats and game variables. Then we could worry about getting more ships, making a story, etc.

I recommend keeping ideas concise and non-rambling, so we don't all get lost.

I see a few possibilities for what combat would be like, and how the player would do stuff.

1. Standard fighter stuff, except with realistic physics. Perhaps beyond visual range missiles. More like modern air combat than Korea-era air combat.

2. Non-standard fighter stuff. Heavier ships to fly around in, more emphasis on slugging it out w/ various weapon systems. Slightly more realistic than standard fighter stuff, IMO.

3. Something new and crazy. Perhaps high-speed drones that ships launch at each other?
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Post by Duality »

Supposed you want to make a space ship with no window view.
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Post by DiGuru »

For maximum realism, I think the two most difficult things are:

- What kind of powerplant is used?

- How do we speed up the flying around?

We could 'cheat' a little by using a fusion power plant and leave it at that, and use 'hyperjumps' or something like that to keep the flight-time in check. The first is quite possible, the second is very debatable.
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Post by DiGuru »

Duality wrote:Supposed you want to make a space ship with no window view.
We can use camera's.
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Post by peteyg »

I think that hyperjumps would be the way to go for now. They would have to be expensive, and slow to recharge.

Perhaps in the future, an actual 'autopilot' can be done, that will keep a ship pointed in the right direction, fire the retros at the proper point to slow down, etc. Coupled with some automated time compression... that would be the slick way to do it.

Duality: How do you mean window view?
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Post by peteyg »

[quote="PeteyG"]I think that hyperjumps would be the way to go for now. They would have to be expensive, and slow to recharge.

Perhaps in the future, an actual 'autopilot' can be done, that will keep a ship pointed in the right direction, fire the retros at the proper point to slow down, etc. Coupled with some automated time compression... that would be the slick way to do it.

Edit: Powerplant probably isn't so important. It would be pretty reasonable to assume that, for science fiction purposes, fusion at least is in our future.
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Post by DiGuru »

PeteyG wrote:I think that hyperjumps would be the way to go for now. They would have to be expensive, and slow to recharge.

Perhaps in the future, an actual 'autopilot' can be done, that will keep a ship pointed in the right direction, fire the retros at the proper point to slow down, etc. Coupled with some automated time compression... that would be the slick way to do it.

Edit: Powerplant probably isn't so important. It would be pretty reasonable to assume that, for science fiction purposes, fusion at least is in our future.
Agreed.

An autopilot with time-compression would be best for single-player, but would be hard to do for multiplayer. So hyperjumps would be best.
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Post by Duality »

If I forgot, aren't realistic travel supposed to go at infinate speed?
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Post by DiGuru »

Duality wrote:If I forgot, aren't realistic travel supposed to go at infinate speed?
Yes, realistic travel would be very, very slow. That is the biggest hurdle gameplay-wise for a space sim.

EDIT: for single-player, we could speed up to relativistic speed (close to lightspeed), so the subjective time would be much shorter. But that is still not very realistic (as we don't know of powerplant or engines to make that possible) and would still take a very long time.
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Post by peteyg »

So what would the player's ship be like? What weapon systems?

I would imagine:
1. Some high-accelleration smart drones / nukes.
2. short range weapons (beams? gauss type?)
3. Point defense beams

Two player craft would toss the heavy stuff at each other at long range, then close to short range and try to blow each other up with the short range weapons.
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Post by DiGuru »

I have been thinking about long range lasers, I think I know how you can protect your ship against them: by coating it with a thick crust of ice, packed in plastic to prevent sublimation. When you hit it with a laser, it will explode into vapor and protect the ship against further damage.

Would that work, do you think?
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Post by peteyg »

Yeah, I guess. As long as there's enough of some kind of armor to make lasers NOT an easy-kill weapon.
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Post by DiGuru »

Engine-wise, a crust of ice could replace your shield. We could have the ships look quite white and use a damage texture that is dark. The more hits you took, the higher the chance it will go through and destroy the ship.

And it could be reapplied at bases, or probably even with your on-board water for emergencies.

That would also create the possibility of small ships that have a fair chance of survival in a short battle. That way, we can get a bit closer to what people like.

But I still think, that we should fight long-range only, with remote weaponry only, until one party runs out of weaponry and can be entered by the other one.

So, smaller ships would be possible, but they would still be a lot bigger than a 'regular' light fighter.
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Post by mkruer »

I am sooooooo tempted to show some of the ideas for Rylix. Everything you have just stated is in there. i have already classified all the weapons into 4 types. My biggest problem is just getting everything back up on the board after the crash. I have only placed the basics on and I am still missing most of the stuff though.

I got the ships (concepts and some drawings) for the carriers.

Style wise Rylix is suppose to be Macross (with out the transformable fighters) but with real physics. The average size of one of the fighters is about 200ft, but then again the average carrier is 1/2km and one up to 2.5km
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Post by DiGuru »

MKruer, that sounds interesting!

I am still having a hard time thinking of flying a fighter or dogfights in space. Weapons are made to be instant-kill. If they're not, the weapons manufacturers will make new ones that are. No fighter pilot will want to use his vulcan-cannon on another fighter! It will most likely mean that he will be killed as long as the other has a missile left.

For example, a F/A-22 only carries 4 long-range missiles. It has no cannon or short-range missiles anymore. And it is designed to be the ultimate air superiority fighter. It is designed to take out 4 other fighters.

Dodging missiles or using chaff/flares doesn't work anymore, a recent sidewinder missile still uses IR, but it uses IR-imaging. A flare won't fool it. So, the first one to spot the other and shoot a missile, will win.

In space, weapons are even more effective. The range at which you start shooting at each other is measured in light-seconds (one light-second is roughly the distance between the Earth and the Moon). So, only very long-range weapons (lasers, missiles and railguns) could be used. And a hit would be fatal.

But as the distances are that big, you have more options. Missiles can be shot down, railgun pellets can be dodged. Yes, even a laser can be dodged by flying a random walk. In one second, you can travel some distance and the laser has to hit you. And sensors can be scrambled by exploding atomic bombs. But if you are hit, it would be fatal, unless we change the weapons to do only a fraction of their real damage.

So, the best way to prevent instant-kills is, make sure you're not inside something that is shot at. And if we mounted large offensive weapons onto a carrier, the enemy would have to take the carrier out as well. If we only fit the carrier with defensive weaponry, the battle would be over when one of the parties would run out of drones/missiles and the carrier could be captured.

The distance is no problem when we use camera's/telescopes, and we can use an ice-shield for the large ships to 'prevent' the first hit by a high-powered laser being lethal. But dogfights in small ships aren't realistic any way you look at it. Space ships are BIG anyway, if they are able to travel long distances!

200 feet seems about right for the smallest manned ship that you could use to fly around. Anything smaller would be a drone or missile and computer controlled.
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Post by Ratbert_CP »

Don't know why I feel compelled to post, but here I am...

First thing: Realism sucks. Seriously, I get enough of it every stinkin' day.

Second thing: Games are about fun, not realism.

Third thing: I know (hope?) you're talking about a specialized mod for VS, not general design.

I understand that space (specifically the well-populated space of VS) is a reality few of us will experience first-hand, and therefore even the mind-numbing tedium and blink-of-the-eye death are valid paradigms for a compelling "game". But for most of us, we *want* "Hellcats of Tau Ceti". I *want* to fly the Sci-Fi equivalent of a P-24 around the backside of a moon in order to do battle with nefarious pirates, or try to make sure that the outer-space parallel of a tramp steamer makes it into "port" in a seedy section of a backwater system. Heck, I keep thinking of whipping up a visual and functional estimation of the old seaplanes that shlepped cargo all over the South Pacific. Without the dogfights and small-craft mechanics, you're basically devolving into something more akin to Stars!, Galactic Civilization, and any other of the high-level strategy/political simulators. As you've mentioned, all space travel will, out of neccessity, be computer controlled, leaving us enlightened apes to pray the family jewels make it out of cryo with no long-term side-effects...

Before anyone gets all bent out of shape, I don't want to dissuade anyone from persuing such a mod, just voicing my personal opinions on the whole aspect of realism in gaming. (It's interesting to note that MoH:AA got props for being "realistic", but was as far from real as anything out if id; it just "felt" real...)
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Post by peteyg »

Ratbert_CP wrote:Third thing: I know (hope?) you're talking about a specialized mod for VS, not general design.
As was stated quite clearly at the beginning of this thread, and is supported by the fact that it's in the modding section.
Ratbert_CP wrote: But for most of us, we *want* "Hellcats of Tau Ceti". I *want* to fly the Sci-Fi equivalent of a P-24 around the backside of a moon in order to do battle with nefarious pirates, or try to make sure that the outer-space parallel of a tramp steamer makes it into "port" in a seedy section of a backwater system.
Perhaps you didn't read the first post in this thread.

I don't think that a debate over the merits of realism levels in games is relevant to a mod that has already decided to take a more realistic approach.
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Post by Ratbert_CP »

PeteyG wrote:I don't think that a debate over the merits of realism levels in games is relevant to a mod that has already decided to take a more realistic approach.
Hence the initial statement:
Ratbert_CP wrote:Don't know why I feel compelled to post, but here I am...
You are, of course, completely correct. I'll STFU, and leave you to your devices... 8)
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Post by mkruer »

Ratbert_CP wrote:First thing: Realism sucks. Seriously, I get enough of it every stinkin' day.
How is your realism of today have any bearing on the projected realism of tomorrow.
Ratbert_CP wrote:Second thing: Games are about fun, not realism.
So you are saying that you cannot have both?
Ratbert_CP wrote:Third thing: I know (hope?) you're talking about a specialized mod for VS, not general design.
Yes... and like how is another mod going to change anything in VS other then perhaps making the underlying code better?
I know you believe you understand what you think I said.
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Post by DiGuru »

Well, in a realistic mod you wouldn't be able to fly your fighter, but you could remote-control a drone. It's the same thing really! And if it gets shot down, you can jump to another one. Or remote-control your gunship and take some nasty potshots. Or see, that missile is close! I'll jump in and trigger the killer laser puls myself! Yahoo!

So you can have wathever you want in a realistic mod as well. But instead of pretending you're inside the fighter and 'die' when it gets blown to bits, we just pretend you're safe aboard the carrier. So you can continue the fight when your fighter gets blown to bits. No need for messy respawns.

So, a realistic mod is even better, it gives you more options. You can deploy a WHOLE FLEET of different 'fighters' (drones, missiles and gunships) and jump aboard (remote control) the one you like!
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Post by peteyg »

This is giving me heartburn.

DiGuru: Pretty sure the F/a-22 has a cannon, and that it will carry short range missiles too. The F-4s back in the day didn't come with any cannons, and that didn't work out at all. So I think that cannons are an absolute necessity for modern fighters (especially if they have a little a), if only as a backup.

I hesitate to draw too many conclusions about how future space war will be like based on modern air war, though. Sure, missiles will probably be a big thing. But they will can still miss, and they can still get thrown off the scent. I know you argued against that, but this is science fiction we're talking about. If we want to be able to throw missiles off their targets, we can think something up to do it. (ECM, i'm thinking).

...

You raise an good point about ships needing to be big for long distance space travel. I'd be willing to bet, though, that a small one or two man ship can probably pack enough consumables for quite a while. I don't think we should discount smaller ships so quickly.
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Post by mkruer »

DiGuru wrote: I am still having a hard time thinking of flying a fighter or dogfights in space. Weapons are made to be instant-kill. If they're not, the weapons manufacturers will make new ones that are. No fighter pilot will want to use his vulcan-cannon on another fighter! It will most likely mean that he will be killed as long as the other has a missile left.
This is the problem that 99.99% of the people have when trying to design such a game. The game ends up being boring because everything thing become instantly lethal. The problem that everyone seems to have is coming up with an equally plausible protection. For Rylix it was my goal that every system has a counter system. And to find some of those systems, I usually have to go through several iteration.
DiGuru wrote: For example, a F/A-22 only carries 4 long-range missiles. It has no cannon or short-range missiles anymore. And it is designed to be the ultimate air superiority fighter. It is designed to take out 4 other fighters.
Untrue read here http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... eapons.htm
If the F/A-22 is all by itself, in order for it to lock onto a target, it has to use active radar, effectively giving away its stealth. For this reason in order for the ships to work properly one of the fighters or some other ground based system still has to tell the F/A-22 where the target is to remain stealthy, but once you are in a dog fighting range, sheath becomes more or less useless other then not being able to track the other ship behind you. For this reason, stealth is great for getting you there without being seen, but once there; the old school rules still apply. Ironically, missiles become almost useless, and this is the primary reason why the cannon IS still mounted on the fighter. i.e. if you see it, you can shoot it. Only IR (Image Recognition [this include laser guided]) and HS Heat seeking missiles would be effective, and shaft and flares would still work.

If I could make a observation. The way you might have been thinking is a stealth fighter vs a non-stealth fighter, then what you said will be true. If you were to have a stealth vs stealth you would end up seeing each other before you could see them with radar.
DiGuru wrote: Dodging missiles or using chaff/flares doesn't work anymore, a recent sidewinder missile still uses IR, but it uses IR-imaging. A flare won't fool it. So, the first one to spot the other and shoot a missile, will win.
This is way systems such as the Phalanx anti missile system are in existence. In the future, it is not hard to imagine them using lasers instead. But then again what I mentioned above still holds true.
DiGuru wrote: In space, weapons are even more effective. The range at which you start shooting at each other is measured in light-seconds (one light-second is roughly the distance between the Earth and the Moon). So, only very long-range weapons (lasers, missiles and railguns) could be used. And a hit would be fatal.
Again this is based upon the assumption that you would be able to detect them before they come into visual range (let me point out also that finding them visually is a very difficult thing to do)
DiGuru wrote: But as the distances are that big, you have more options. Missiles can be shot down, railgun pellets can be dodged. Yes, even a laser can be dodged by flying a random walk. In one second, you can travel some distance and the laser has to hit you. And sensors can be scrambled by exploding atomic bombs. But if you are hit, it would be fatal, unless we change the weapons to do only a fraction of their real damage.
All you said is true, but again you are only thing one sided. You can make Missiles more resilient by making them “walk the random walkâ€
I know you believe you understand what you think I said.
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