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Message: <blockquote data-quote="aramis erak" data-source="post: 9731525" data-attributes="member: 6779310">The thing is, space warfare realistically is going to be about the population centers. Taking a city is preferable to burning it in almost all cases where one isn't outnumbered severely (>3:1).Ep IV: ANH, it's basically a SFnal retelling of The Dam Busters.There've only been a few games that get space combat realistic in the first place. BTRC's SpaceTime, T&I's Albedo Ship Sourcebook. Both of which, space combat is a single preprogrammed pass, with the meat all in clench factor 4 hoping that their defense systems are better than the accuracy of the other side.System Survey ships if FTL is expensive, gate crashing if using gates. In gate crashing, it's all about getting the guns off the carrier as fast as possible to make too many targets. And then, those, and the ship, should be entirely automated, too. The space fighter is going to be an analogue of the PB or PT or W (Cutter)... or maybe the LCAC. A way of getting more maneuver elements.Many should be forward anti-impactor defenses.Webber borrowed that from Starfire... Fans of Starfire 2nd or 3rd will likely be able to visualize the rolls in the first several Honor Harrington Novels. (Webber was the line developer for those 2 editions, and with Ian White, wrote the first Starfire Novel.)Detection of targets is going to be a light minute or more, with resolutions of sub second of arc. Vera Rubin Observatory is 50 mas... 50 milliarcseconds, or 0.05/3600 of a degree, with a smaller placement accuracy. It's issue isn't spotting things moving, it's not triggering "something interesting here" in post-processing for known objects. It's detected 2100 or so new asteroids with 10 hours of observation. It's over 4000 already, with orbital calcs.Now, the actual preferred sensor for ship detection is going to be a pair of arrays: one sensitive to IR, one to a broader spectrum... but anything within a light minute is extremely likely to be detected given neuromorphic computing and really good GPU clusters... The one thing  you can't hide is your blackbody radiation, and 260 Kelvin is a pretty strong signal in IR. The targeting solution is dependent upon several factors:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">sensor return time</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">sensor processing time.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">cross-sectional area of target</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Target's maneuver</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">time to target </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">time to train the weapon on target</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Accuracy of aim.</li> </ul>Assuming a 100% accuracy... the sensor return time plus the time to target sets the maneuver time.The maneuver time sets the maximum displacement. So, let's say 0.1 LS range, and a laser battery with 0.1s combined sensor processing and aim time. This is a stretch for damage capabilities due to diffraction and collimation...  but it's 0.3 seconds.  A 1g ship gets d=0.5AT² = 9.8/2 · 0.3²  = 4.9 · 0.09 = 0.441 m off axis, assuming no need to pivot. No laser is likely to miss unless the turret traverse/aim time and sensor processing exceed several seconds. Which just isn't likely. Which gives the one reason for fighters - they're the only thing lasers might miss. They won't be manned, and they will likely be expended... Lasers are best point defense; KKMs are best for offense.Getting out of the way of a laser in any reasonable sized laser's effective collimation & diffraction based effective range is a practical impossibility with survivable kinetic drives, whether or not they're reaction based or handwavium. The only hope is to overload the targeting.I prefer neither.  My preference is for roughly Travelleresque, which is WW I in space, plus a few other things, or starfire-esque (which also means Honorverse-esque), which are also roughly WW I & II in space. (ISW II includes "Scenario 4. The Paurl Harbor Raid – December 7, 2244," "Scenario 6. Midway Station – June 10, 2245," and "Scenario 9. The Destruction of Rigel IV – June 21, 2246" — that last is equivalent to the nuking of Japan)Noting that Starfire after Imperial Starfire changed focus, and is primarily a strategic game from Galactic on; 1st to 3rd were mostly tactical, with David Webber pushing it to a 4x game starting with 1st ed's Starfire III: Empires, then New Empires, but the ISW I and II future history was Steve Cole of ADB (ISW I) and Barry Jacobs (ISW II) of TFG.Also, one tech note on Honorverse: FTL is a keyhole drive - it only works at specific points, and only with the sails up. The fan is for the high speed sublight drives and the shields. the Sails are for FTL. I give Albedo credit: The comic makes the assumptions, and Paul Kidd and crew at T&I rendered it faithfully... 10-30 minutes of planning for a 20 second automated pass.</blockquote>

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