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Futuristic Light in a Lonely Galaxy OOC

Hey, I'm working on some details for space warfare, so in case you have any space battles planned, I sugest you avoid them for a while.
 
kursku said:
That Future War Stories is just HUGE! I'll read it soon
Click to expand...

Hah, you think that site is huge? Check out Atomic Rockets, it'll blow your mind with how much content it has on hard science fiction. Just scroll down to the bottom of the page and you'll see.

If youre gonna start reading any of these, I recommend you start with Tough SF. It's lighter with the textwalls, and has a more modest stack of material compared to the others.
 
Allright, first I'm gonna dump some of the weapons that we could feature in this setting. A lot of it will be fragments from articles of the sites I mentioned before, since this is a much more technical topic than warp drives and genetic engineering, and I'm not nerdy enough to know all the details by word.

I dont think I'll have to touch on the topic of lasers too much since it's already an obvious element of science fiction that you can read about yourself, so I'll just make sidenotes about their play in space battlefields as I go trough this.
But do feel free to add some other, more exotic types of weapons if you happen to know about them.

I'm gonna start with kinetic weapons:

+Mass Drivers: Stuff that shoots things with mass at people's faces.

They have one advantege over lasers that is unlikely to change for a good spectrum of technology levels: you can hit things from any distance, as long as you can ensure the rounds meet their targets.
You cant exactly do that with lasers, since they suffer energy dispersion as they travel. You could compensate for this by deploying drones with portable lenses that capture the laser and refocus it, but still, you can only go so far with this before the thing loses too much energy.

For realy high-tech civilizations, this advantage would hardly matter, but, for advanced civilizations with close levels of technology, kinetic weapons could prove usefull to the underdeveloped side to give the other one a kick in the groan from beyond the range of their better laser cannons. It's likely the Starmaker would keep kinetic-based warships just in case it finds itself in the "under-developed side" role, even if laser weapons play a much bigger role overall.

--Dangerously fast payloads:
"One way to throw it [the bullet] is to shoot it out of a gun — probably electrical, a railgun or coilgun. This, however, requires a heavy, high-power installation. As with lasers, coilguns with serious hitting power thus require big ships to carry them and their power supply. Another way to throw a slug, however, is to put it on the front end of a missile. The launching ship has to carry the missile, but this requires nothing more than a launching box, or even a clamp on the side. The third way to deliver a kinetic slug is the simplest of all: Head toward the target, fast, release the slug — then veer aside before it hits.

This last tactic has a lot in common with World War II dive bombing. In practice you would probably combine "bomb" and "missile" - the slug having a guidance motor to steer it into the target and counter any evasive moves on the target's part. Henry Cobb on SFConsim-l came up with the term lancer for this tactic and the ships used to execute it.

In contrast to zapping with lasers or similar weapons, lancer tactics favor small, agile ships. You need good maneuver performance, first to line up on collision course with your target, then to veer clear of the target — and its defensive fire envelope — after releasing your ordnance. Large size is no advantage, because the lancer ship needs no powerful on-board equipment, and because several small lancer ships are preferable to one big one. They can engage several different targets — or come at one target from several directions, boxing it in."

Comment: It's a prety cheap method of space warfare, so I doubt the ships of the Starmaker's fleet would resort to this. There's only one scenario I'd expect this to be used; I like to call it an "Orbital Jousting Match". Two ships approaching at very high relative velocities would be able to hit eachother with enough deadly force by just crapping out their ammunition, steering out of the way, and then finding out who got the "lucky hit". If they are allready approaching at the kilometers per second range, which isn't impossible for transplanetary orbits, firing said ammunition from a railgun wouldnt add much.

Source: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fighter.php

--Coilguns:

"[commenting on the efficiency of particle beams as a means of transfering kinetic energy to a ship]
This would lead to a thermal beam divergence of about 2 million kilometers per light year. This could be reduced if the beam particles condense to larger particles after acceleration. To reduce the beam spread by a factor of a thousand, the number of mercury atoms per condensed droplet needs to be at least a million. This is an extremely small droplet (10^-16 grams) by macroscopic terms, and it is not unreasonable to believe that such condensation might take place in the beam. As the droplet size increases, this propulsion concept approaches that of momentum transfer by use of pellet streams, considered for interstellar propulsion by Singer (1980).

In that paragraph, Landis discusses the theoretical and practical lower limits for beam temperature, which decreases thermal blooming and expansion of the beam significantly. An alternative in the form of beam condensation was given. The accelerated particles merge to form small droplets, which expand much more slowly. [...]

We do not need near-lightspeed projectiles, nor is there interstellar gas to knock projectiles off-course. [Adapting this idea to a military scenario,] the pellet gun is perfectly suited to our requirements. It shoots tiny metal projectiles from dozens to hundreds of kilometers per second. There are design challenges, but it:

-Can cross space combat ranges in sufficient time
-Does not lose energy in transit
-Extreme efficiency is possible (99.9%+)
-Operates on coilgun or particle accelerator principles
-Difficult to detect
-Can be rapid-fired to bypass interceptors and Whipple shield defenses
-Negligible ammunition mass "

Comment: This model of a coilgun weapon could have a variety of variants for all sizes of ships. Big capital ships would utilize heavy versions that give them excelent range to keep the enemy away, while smaller vessels would use lighter models and close the distance trough superior maneuvering (unless theyre fighting laser warships, in which case they'll just have to back off). They'd probably pack these in clusters of barrels that fire sequentialy, instead of a single one tasked with rapid firing alone, for the sake of technical simplicity.
Coilguns are rather fragile, tough, so they might have to share room with railguns in a battlefield despite their advantages.

Sources: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-solution-to-long-range-space-combat.html#more

--Railguns:
"Railguns are simple to handle, and the kinetic energy at the muzzle is the energy that is delivered to the target. They are relatively compact, and do not require fragile equipment.

Railguns are limited by the ranges space combat takes place at, and the melting temperature of its components. At ranges of 10-100km, railguns can efficiently accelerate projectiles to several kilometers per second velocities and still hit targets. However, the presence of lasers can push ranges to a hundred times that, and it increases further with advancing technology. Higher velocities means that the friction between projectile and rail produces higher temperatures. Efficiency degrades as temperatures increase, creating a vicious cycle. Railguns are expected to be limited to velocities of 7-10km/s before rails and projectiles of any material melt."

Comment: With this argument, I believe railguns would be well suited for agile figther drones, that mount them on their spinal structure for maximized armoring and bracing. They'd use their higher acceleration to dodge and approach bigger targets, and work in small swarms to saturate any defensive systems. Railguns would possibly be a much cheaper weapon than coilguns or lasers, so they're fit for mass production.

Sources: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/03/electric-cannons-and-kinetic-impactors.html

--Missiles: I'm sorry to say I just dont have anything interesting to say about missiles. They're rounds that can fire autonomously, they have terminal guidance, and that's about all I have to say. I'm afraid you'll have to look up more on them on your on.

--Trans-jovian Artillery:

A wonderfull idea I picked up with Matter Beam from Tough SF.

"[talking about possible comercial interests a juvenile jovian industry could hold to the inner Sol System]
One trade that can be set up between Jupiter and the Inner planets is energy for energy. Jupiter can sell kinetic energy, while the Inner planets sell nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is of critical concern to military forces, as it allows the use of spaceships that can operate independently of any energy network.

Jupiter's kinetic energy 'exports' take the form of small robots, under 100 grams. Micro-satellites, in essence, with miniature thrusters and accurate guidance systems. Using the power network around Jupiter, they are accelerated away from Jupiter using laser beams, or simply shot in the right direction with a railgun. A minimum velocity of 13km/s is required.

13km/s is the orbital velocity of Jupiter. Shooting the miniature satellites 'backwards', or 'retrograde' at that same velocity cancels out their motion relative to the Sun. The Sun's gravity pulls on them, and they start to fall.

From an altitude of 5.2AU, they pick up a lot of speed while travelling inwards. At 1AU, Earth's orbital altitude, they reach 37.8km/s! Relative to a spacecraft orbiting Earth, they can have a velocity of up to 45.6km/s. "

Comment: Do I even need to explain it? This could make gas giants and distant bodies, hell, the outer rim of any system even, very valuable positions that astromilitaries would fight ferociously to secure.

Source: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/02/how-to-live-on-other-planets-jupiter.html

--Relativistic Kill Missiles:

" As Larry Niven pointed out, any space drive that obeys the law of conservation of energy is a weapon of efficiency proportional to its efficiency as a propulsion system. Today's boringly old-hat chemical rockets, even in the absence of nuclear warheads, are formidably destructive weapons: if you can boost a payload up to relativistic speed, well, the kinetic energy of a 1Kg projectile traveling at just under 90% of c (τ of 0.5) is on the order of 20 megatons. Slowing down doesn't help much: even at 1% of c that 1 kilogram bullet packs the energy of a kiloton-range nuke. War, or other resource conflicts, within a polity capable of rapid interplanetary or even slow interstellar flight, is a horrible prospect. "

Comment: This is more likely to be used against astromilitaries of kardashev 2 civilizations, as once a civilization already has settlements, industry and surveillance over it's whole native system, the only place where you could keep a minimal level of ambiguity about your location and actions will be in transtellar space. This could also be used inside systems, of course, but it sound like a bit of overkill, safe for the very "modest" 0.1 c 1kg slug mentioned in the paragraph.

Sources: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/apocalypse.php (keep in mind this page talks about Doomsday scenarios, so you might feel some existencial anxiety reading it.)
 
Mr.Sandstorm said:
Allright, first I'm gonna dump some of the weapons that we could feature in this setting. A lot of it will be fragments from articles of the sites I mentioned before, since this is a much more technical topic than warp drives and genetic engineering, and I'm not nerdy enough to know all the details by word.

I dont think I'll have to touch on the topic of lasers too much since it's already an obvious element of science fiction that you can read about yourself, so I'll just make sidenotes about their play in space battlefields as I go trough this.
But do feel free to add some other, more exotic types of weapons if you happen to know about them.

I'm gonna start with kinetic weapons:

+Mass Drivers: Stuff that shoots things with mass at people's faces.

They have one advantege over lasers that is unlikely to change for a good spectrum of technology levels: you can hit things from any distance, as long as you can ensure the rounds meet their targets.
You cant exactly do that with lasers, since they suffer energy dispersion as they travel. You could compensate for this by deploying drones with portable lenses that capture the laser and refocus it, but still, you can only go so far with this before the thing loses too much energy.

For realy high-tech civilizations, this advantage would hardly matter, but, for advanced civilizations with close levels of technology, kinetic weapons could prove usefull to the underdeveloped side to give the other one a kick in the groan from beyond the range of their better laser cannons. It's likely the Starmaker would keep kinetic-based warships just in case it finds itself in the "under-developed side" role, even if laser weapons play a much bigger role overall.

--Dangerously fast payloads:
"One way to throw it [the bullet] is to shoot it out of a gun — probably electrical, a railgun or coilgun. This, however, requires a heavy, high-power installation. As with lasers, coilguns with serious hitting power thus require big ships to carry them and their power supply. Another way to throw a slug, however, is to put it on the front end of a missile. The launching ship has to carry the missile, but this requires nothing more than a launching box, or even a clamp on the side. The third way to deliver a kinetic slug is the simplest of all: Head toward the target, fast, release the slug — then veer aside before it hits.

This last tactic has a lot in common with World War II dive bombing. In practice you would probably combine "bomb" and "missile" - the slug having a guidance motor to steer it into the target and counter any evasive moves on the target's part. Henry Cobb on SFConsim-l came up with the term lancer for this tactic and the ships used to execute it.

In contrast to zapping with lasers or similar weapons, lancer tactics favor small, agile ships. You need good maneuver performance, first to line up on collision course with your target, then to veer clear of the target — and its defensive fire envelope — after releasing your ordnance. Large size is no advantage, because the lancer ship needs no powerful on-board equipment, and because several small lancer ships are preferable to one big one. They can engage several different targets — or come at one target from several directions, boxing it in."

Comment: It's a prety cheap method of space warfare, so I doubt the ships of the Starmaker's fleet would resort to this. There's only one scenario I'd expect this to be used; I like to call it an "Orbital Jousting Match". Two ships approaching at very high relative velocities would be able to hit eachother with enough deadly force by just crapping out their ammunition, steering out of the way, and then finding out who got the "lucky hit". If they are allready approaching at the kilometers per second range, which isn't impossible for transplanetary orbits, firing said ammunition from a railgun wouldnt add much.

Source: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fighter.php

--Coilguns:

"[commenting on the efficiency of particle beams as a means of transfering kinetic energy to a ship]
This would lead to a thermal beam divergence of about 2 million kilometers per light year. This could be reduced if the beam particles condense to larger particles after acceleration. To reduce the beam spread by a factor of a thousand, the number of mercury atoms per condensed droplet needs to be at least a million. This is an extremely small droplet (10^-16 grams) by macroscopic terms, and it is not unreasonable to believe that such condensation might take place in the beam. As the droplet size increases, this propulsion concept approaches that of momentum transfer by use of pellet streams, considered for interstellar propulsion by Singer (1980).

In that paragraph, Landis discusses the theoretical and practical lower limits for beam temperature, which decreases thermal blooming and expansion of the beam significantly. An alternative in the form of beam condensation was given. The accelerated particles merge to form small droplets, which expand much more slowly. [...]

We do not need near-lightspeed projectiles, nor is there interstellar gas to knock projectiles off-course. [Adapting this idea to a military scenario,] the pellet gun is perfectly suited to our requirements. It shoots tiny metal projectiles from dozens to hundreds of kilometers per second. There are design challenges, but it:

-Can cross space combat ranges in sufficient time
-Does not lose energy in transit
-Extreme efficiency is possible (99.9%+)
-Operates on coilgun or particle accelerator principles
-Difficult to detect
-Can be rapid-fired to bypass interceptors and Whipple shield defenses
-Negligible ammunition mass "

Comment: This model of a coilgun weapon could have a variety of variants for all sizes of ships. Big capital ships would utilize heavy versions that give them excelent range to keep the enemy away, while smaller vessels would use lighter models and close the distance trough superior maneuvering (unless theyre fighting laser warships, in which case they'll just have to back off). They'd probably pack these in clusters of barrels that fire sequentialy, instead of a single one tasked with rapid firing alone, for the sake of technical simplicity.
Coilguns are rather fragile, tough, so they might have to share room with railguns in a battlefield despite their advantages.

Sources: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-solution-to-long-range-space-combat.html#more

--Railguns:
"Railguns are simple to handle, and the kinetic energy at the muzzle is the energy that is delivered to the target. They are relatively compact, and do not require fragile equipment.

Railguns are limited by the ranges space combat takes place at, and the melting temperature of its components. At ranges of 10-100km, railguns can efficiently accelerate projectiles to several kilometers per second velocities and still hit targets. However, the presence of lasers can push ranges to a hundred times that, and it increases further with advancing technology. Higher velocities means that the friction between projectile and rail produces higher temperatures. Efficiency degrades as temperatures increase, creating a vicious cycle. Railguns are expected to be limited to velocities of 7-10km/s before rails and projectiles of any material melt."

Comment: With this argument, I believe railguns would be well suited for agile figther drones, that mount them on their spinal structure for maximized armoring and bracing. They'd use their higher acceleration to dodge and approach bigger targets, and work in small swarms to saturate any defensive systems. Railguns would possibly be a much cheaper weapon than coilguns or lasers, so they're fit for mass production.

Sources: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/03/electric-cannons-and-kinetic-impactors.html

--Missiles: I'm sorry to say I just dont have anything interesting to say about missiles. They're rounds that can fire autonomously, they have terminal guidance, and that's about all I have to say. I'm afraid you'll have to look up more on them on your on.

--Trans-jovian Artillery:

A wonderfull idea I picked up with Matter Beam from Tough SF.

"[talking about possible comercial interests a juvenile jovian industry could hold to the inner Sol System]
One trade that can be set up between Jupiter and the Inner planets is energy for energy. Jupiter can sell kinetic energy, while the Inner planets sell nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is of critical concern to military forces, as it allows the use of spaceships that can operate independently of any energy network.

Jupiter's kinetic energy 'exports' take the form of small robots, under 100 grams. Micro-satellites, in essence, with miniature thrusters and accurate guidance systems. Using the power network around Jupiter, they are accelerated away from Jupiter using laser beams, or simply shot in the right direction with a railgun. A minimum velocity of 13km/s is required.

13km/s is the orbital velocity of Jupiter. Shooting the miniature satellites 'backwards', or 'retrograde' at that same velocity cancels out their motion relative to the Sun. The Sun's gravity pulls on them, and they start to fall.

From an altitude of 5.2AU, they pick up a lot of speed while travelling inwards. At 1AU, Earth's orbital altitude, they reach 37.8km/s! Relative to a spacecraft orbiting Earth, they can have a velocity of up to 45.6km/s. "

Comment: Do I even need to explain it? This could make gas giants and distant bodies, hell, the outer rim of any system even, very valuable positions that astromilitaries would fight ferociously to secure.

Source: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/02/how-to-live-on-other-planets-jupiter.html

--Relativistic Kill Missiles:

" As Larry Niven pointed out, any space drive that obeys the law of conservation of energy is a weapon of efficiency proportional to its efficiency as a propulsion system. Today's boringly old-hat chemical rockets, even in the absence of nuclear warheads, are formidably destructive weapons: if you can boost a payload up to relativistic speed, well, the kinetic energy of a 1Kg projectile traveling at just under 90% of c (τ of 0.5) is on the order of 20 megatons. Slowing down doesn't help much: even at 1% of c that 1 kilogram bullet packs the energy of a kiloton-range nuke. War, or other resource conflicts, within a polity capable of rapid interplanetary or even slow interstellar flight, is a horrible prospect. "

Comment: This is more likely to be used against astromilitaries of kardashev 2 civilizations, as once a civilization already has settlements, industry and surveillance over it's whole native system, the only place where you could keep a minimal level of ambiguity about your location and actions will be in transtellar space. This could also be used inside systems, of course, but it sound like a bit of overkill, safe for the very "modest" 0.1 c 1kg slug mentioned in the paragraph.

Sources: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/apocalypse.php (keep in mind this page talks about Doomsday scenarios, so you might feel some existencial anxiety reading it.)
Click to expand...
Thanks for doing the research and such on this! I'm near-finished with my CS, I'll work on some more setting stuff for our initial missions and the like after that's complete.
 
Mr.Sandstorm said:
Allright, first I'm gonna dump some of the weapons that we could feature in this setting. A lot of it will be fragments from articles of the sites I mentioned before, since this is a much more technical topic than warp drives and genetic engineering, and I'm not nerdy enough to know all the details by word.

I dont think I'll have to touch on the topic of lasers too much since it's already an obvious element of science fiction that you can read about yourself, so I'll just make sidenotes about their play in space battlefields as I go trough this.
But do feel free to add some other, more exotic types of weapons if you happen to know about them.

I'm gonna start with kinetic weapons:

+Mass Drivers: Stuff that shoots things with mass at people's faces.

They have one advantege over lasers that is unlikely to change for a good spectrum of technology levels: you can hit things from any distance, as long as you can ensure the rounds meet their targets.
You cant exactly do that with lasers, since they suffer energy dispersion as they travel. You could compensate for this by deploying drones with portable lenses that capture the laser and refocus it, but still, you can only go so far with this before the thing loses too much energy.

For realy high-tech civilizations, this advantage would hardly matter, but, for advanced civilizations with close levels of technology, kinetic weapons could prove usefull to the underdeveloped side to give the other one a kick in the groan from beyond the range of their better laser cannons. It's likely the Starmaker would keep kinetic-based warships just in case it finds itself in the "under-developed side" role, even if laser weapons play a much bigger role overall.

--Dangerously fast payloads:
"One way to throw it [the bullet] is to shoot it out of a gun — probably electrical, a railgun or coilgun. This, however, requires a heavy, high-power installation. As with lasers, coilguns with serious hitting power thus require big ships to carry them and their power supply. Another way to throw a slug, however, is to put it on the front end of a missile. The launching ship has to carry the missile, but this requires nothing more than a launching box, or even a clamp on the side. The third way to deliver a kinetic slug is the simplest of all: Head toward the target, fast, release the slug — then veer aside before it hits.

This last tactic has a lot in common with World War II dive bombing. In practice you would probably combine "bomb" and "missile" - the slug having a guidance motor to steer it into the target and counter any evasive moves on the target's part. Henry Cobb on SFConsim-l came up with the term lancer for this tactic and the ships used to execute it.

In contrast to zapping with lasers or similar weapons, lancer tactics favor small, agile ships. You need good maneuver performance, first to line up on collision course with your target, then to veer clear of the target — and its defensive fire envelope — after releasing your ordnance. Large size is no advantage, because the lancer ship needs no powerful on-board equipment, and because several small lancer ships are preferable to one big one. They can engage several different targets — or come at one target from several directions, boxing it in."

Comment: It's a prety cheap method of space warfare, so I doubt the ships of the Starmaker's fleet would resort to this. There's only one scenario I'd expect this to be used; I like to call it an "Orbital Jousting Match". Two ships approaching at very high relative velocities would be able to hit eachother with enough deadly force by just crapping out their ammunition, steering out of the way, and then finding out who got the "lucky hit". If they are allready approaching at the kilometers per second range, which isn't impossible for transplanetary orbits, firing said ammunition from a railgun wouldnt add much.

Source: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/fighter.php

--Coilguns:

"[commenting on the efficiency of particle beams as a means of transfering kinetic energy to a ship]
This would lead to a thermal beam divergence of about 2 million kilometers per light year. This could be reduced if the beam particles condense to larger particles after acceleration. To reduce the beam spread by a factor of a thousand, the number of mercury atoms per condensed droplet needs to be at least a million. This is an extremely small droplet (10^-16 grams) by macroscopic terms, and it is not unreasonable to believe that such condensation might take place in the beam. As the droplet size increases, this propulsion concept approaches that of momentum transfer by use of pellet streams, considered for interstellar propulsion by Singer (1980).

In that paragraph, Landis discusses the theoretical and practical lower limits for beam temperature, which decreases thermal blooming and expansion of the beam significantly. An alternative in the form of beam condensation was given. The accelerated particles merge to form small droplets, which expand much more slowly. [...]

We do not need near-lightspeed projectiles, nor is there interstellar gas to knock projectiles off-course. [Adapting this idea to a military scenario,] the pellet gun is perfectly suited to our requirements. It shoots tiny metal projectiles from dozens to hundreds of kilometers per second. There are design challenges, but it:

-Can cross space combat ranges in sufficient time
-Does not lose energy in transit
-Extreme efficiency is possible (99.9%+)
-Operates on coilgun or particle accelerator principles
-Difficult to detect
-Can be rapid-fired to bypass interceptors and Whipple shield defenses
-Negligible ammunition mass "

Comment: This model of a coilgun weapon could have a variety of variants for all sizes of ships. Big capital ships would utilize heavy versions that give them excelent range to keep the enemy away, while smaller vessels would use lighter models and close the distance trough superior maneuvering (unless theyre fighting laser warships, in which case they'll just have to back off). They'd probably pack these in clusters of barrels that fire sequentialy, instead of a single one tasked with rapid firing alone, for the sake of technical simplicity.
Coilguns are rather fragile, tough, so they might have to share room with railguns in a battlefield despite their advantages.

Sources: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/10/the-solution-to-long-range-space-combat.html#more

--Railguns:
"Railguns are simple to handle, and the kinetic energy at the muzzle is the energy that is delivered to the target. They are relatively compact, and do not require fragile equipment.

Railguns are limited by the ranges space combat takes place at, and the melting temperature of its components. At ranges of 10-100km, railguns can efficiently accelerate projectiles to several kilometers per second velocities and still hit targets. However, the presence of lasers can push ranges to a hundred times that, and it increases further with advancing technology. Higher velocities means that the friction between projectile and rail produces higher temperatures. Efficiency degrades as temperatures increase, creating a vicious cycle. Railguns are expected to be limited to velocities of 7-10km/s before rails and projectiles of any material melt."

Comment: With this argument, I believe railguns would be well suited for agile figther drones, that mount them on their spinal structure for maximized armoring and bracing. They'd use their higher acceleration to dodge and approach bigger targets, and work in small swarms to saturate any defensive systems. Railguns would possibly be a much cheaper weapon than coilguns or lasers, so they're fit for mass production.

Sources: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2016/03/electric-cannons-and-kinetic-impactors.html

--Missiles: I'm sorry to say I just dont have anything interesting to say about missiles. They're rounds that can fire autonomously, they have terminal guidance, and that's about all I have to say. I'm afraid you'll have to look up more on them on your on.

--Trans-jovian Artillery:

A wonderfull idea I picked up with Matter Beam from Tough SF.

"[talking about possible comercial interests a juvenile jovian industry could hold to the inner Sol System]
One trade that can be set up between Jupiter and the Inner planets is energy for energy. Jupiter can sell kinetic energy, while the Inner planets sell nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is of critical concern to military forces, as it allows the use of spaceships that can operate independently of any energy network.

Jupiter's kinetic energy 'exports' take the form of small robots, under 100 grams. Micro-satellites, in essence, with miniature thrusters and accurate guidance systems. Using the power network around Jupiter, they are accelerated away from Jupiter using laser beams, or simply shot in the right direction with a railgun. A minimum velocity of 13km/s is required.

13km/s is the orbital velocity of Jupiter. Shooting the miniature satellites 'backwards', or 'retrograde' at that same velocity cancels out their motion relative to the Sun. The Sun's gravity pulls on them, and they start to fall.

From an altitude of 5.2AU, they pick up a lot of speed while travelling inwards. At 1AU, Earth's orbital altitude, they reach 37.8km/s! Relative to a spacecraft orbiting Earth, they can have a velocity of up to 45.6km/s. "

Comment: Do I even need to explain it? This could make gas giants and distant bodies, hell, the outer rim of any system even, very valuable positions that astromilitaries would fight ferociously to secure.

Source: http://toughsf.blogspot.com/2017/02/how-to-live-on-other-planets-jupiter.html

--Relativistic Kill Missiles:

" As Larry Niven pointed out, any space drive that obeys the law of conservation of energy is a weapon of efficiency proportional to its efficiency as a propulsion system. Today's boringly old-hat chemical rockets, even in the absence of nuclear warheads, are formidably destructive weapons: if you can boost a payload up to relativistic speed, well, the kinetic energy of a 1Kg projectile traveling at just under 90% of c (τ of 0.5) is on the order of 20 megatons. Slowing down doesn't help much: even at 1% of c that 1 kilogram bullet packs the energy of a kiloton-range nuke. War, or other resource conflicts, within a polity capable of rapid interplanetary or even slow interstellar flight, is a horrible prospect. "

Comment: This is more likely to be used against astromilitaries of kardashev 2 civilizations, as once a civilization already has settlements, industry and surveillance over it's whole native system, the only place where you could keep a minimal level of ambiguity about your location and actions will be in transtellar space. This could also be used inside systems, of course, but it sound like a bit of overkill, safe for the very "modest" 0.1 c 1kg slug mentioned in the paragraph.

Sources: http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/apocalypse.php (keep in mind this page talks about Doomsday scenarios, so you might feel some existencial anxiety reading it.)
Click to expand...

The only comment I would like to add is the likely existence of HVM's in this universe. (Hyper Velocity Missiles) More of a strategic level weapon, though this could change dependent on drive technology. The smallest deep space drive and it's energy source you can construct. Add an AI smart enough to home in on it's target, and you have a KK (Kinetic Kill) device travelling at relativistic speeds. No warhead needed. Biggest disadvantage, no real ability to strike anything with any degree of maneuverability. Biggest advantage... Nearly impossible to intercept if fired from far enough out to build serious C-fractional velocity. Tends to render planets into asteroid belts. Use not recommended.

(I know you mentioned relativistic bombardment, but if the drive systems are small enough, and the accelerations high enough, these could be a tactical rather than strategic weapon, especially for system defense if you know the incoming enemies trajectory).
 
Uh, in case anyone is interested in using my race for their own characters, here's a "little" compendium of details of the Svessi (ignore the parts mentioning my OC, I'm too tired to edit him out of the text) :

History:
The Svessi of Vaycherslav System have a substantialy long history dating about 5 thousand years since their arrival to it's only habitable planet, the arid planet Vayr, under desperate conditions. The reasons have been lost to time and tragedy, but their colony ship landed under such traumatic conditions that only a fraction of the settlers onboard survived what was most likely a genuine crash.
The accident destroyed all, if not most, of the equipment, and they had lost virtualy all records of their origins in the event. Many Vayrian archeologists commented that most who look back at this period of their history consider it nothing less than a miracle that they managed to find biological compatibility with their new planet's ecosystem and survive, altough some suggested that they might have recieved their marking traits specificaly to survive in Vayr, and that was their saving bless. Perhaps they simply forgot that detail after so many millenia.

Despite this setback which trew his people back to extremely low stages of civilization, and despite wars, calamities and continuing tragedy, Len's race managed to get all the way back to K-1.4 by the time the Starmaker arrived. As an agreement to acquire information about nieghbouring stars from the Starmaker's travels, five voluteering families emigrated to the ship to travel by it's (in)side during it's future journeys.

--Appearance:
The Svessi are commonly described by the other guests of the Starmaker as a cross between an insectoid, a bird, and a humanoid; as any member of his species, Lettli shares the base traits of a semi-rigid pseudo-exoskeleton covering the majority of the body, sharp, four-fingered hands and feet, almost unmoving lips that makes the pronounciation of b, m, and p sounds nearly impossible, and big, wide irises almost seeming to glow against the pitch dark globe of their slightly bigger and elongated eyes.
Len also shares the pale-white shell color that is most predominant in his species, but lacks the facial "headtallons", semi-flexible skin extensions used to redirect and irradiate heat that could be mistaken for a human haircut, or even a beard, altough only male svessians develop headtallons in the jaw and mouth areas. Instead, his white scalpel is smooth; this is quite a rare occurance amongst the Svessi. His irises appear to glow with a blueish taint.

--Personality:
The Svessi have a tendency towards colectivism that fits rather oddly for the other races on the ship. They have a nearly instinctual tendency to put the considerations of the group in front of the individual's in just about any matter: identity, politics, relationships and even entertainment. They are, in fact, extremely afraid of the idea of isolation from others, and their culture reflects that heavily: they consider the family a nuclear entity in society with the highest conviction, and place much reverence in paretnhood.
Svessians also have the quite interesting, altough often disturbing, habit of uncounciously embracing a momentary task by simply witnessing a group of people endeavouring in it as well. This simple gimmick led to the construction of some of the gratest wonders of archeology in Vayr, but it might have equally led to the beginning of brutal events of violence. If a svessi sees a group kicking a helpless bystander, he automaticaly feels the urge to join the activity, even if just to kick the aggressors.
Because of this, little moments of tension that would have resulted in a bunch of hot air for other species can easily turn into fully acomplished bloodshed for svessians. The Svessi have achieved very advanced levels of ethics and civics, and despite multiple worldwide wars that all equally threathened to rid Vayr of life, they strived to salvage the survivors with zeal and undo the catastrophy. And even if a single individual can hardly be considered a threath to the established peace, general discontent and hatred can easily tilt the Svessi to bring forth brutal levels of violence upon their enemies once more.

Their mithology is filled with frightening stories of sadistic spirits that prey on the souls of the lonely, be they lonely as travellers on the badlands and sand dunes of Vayr, or lonely as members of society.
To them, isolation is a punishment, ostracism is death, and individualism is a curse; quite literaly, in fact. Some Svessians manage to diverge from the psychological profile of their kin and develop a individualistic view of the world that is much more familiar to other humanoid races; this condition is believed to be epigenetic.
This mindset reconfiguration appears to be a defensive mechanism to cope with conditions of prolongued isolation and extreme stress, and there are plenty historical and medical cases to show the effectiveness of this trait. By embracing individualism, many important svessi troughout history found whitin themselves an inner strenght and independence to overcome the blood haze that their fellow svessi happened to be sinking into, and managed to carve a path to peace despite the stigmas and hatreds of their periods.

Amongst them is Callihjelah, the legend amongst the Svessi from north to south. The legend goes that, after his dunesailer was destroyed by a powerfull sandstorm and everyone aboard died except for him, he had to claw his way out of the sand and traverse the northern tropical desert region of Vayr entirely alone. The Scrolls of the Dunehiker have entire chapters dedicated to the mental dismantlement that ensued "as he held back the two fronts of Madness, the demons of the souless sands and the agonizing echoes of his solitude.".

By the time he made it to the city-state of Katranne, his mind had already embraced itself, and he accepted the mission set upon him by the dismembered dragon, The Reshaped One; likely another one of his hallucinations during his trek.

Sunk in the middle of the Hagoda Period, when different Houses fought for technical dominance of newly discovered resources and the tradicional industries of the planet, and Clans began to form, starting with the Metal Clan which held a hegemony in extraction and refinement of Iron and Bronze tools and weapons, the man once named Cal Caleeh set out to unite the more intelectualy-minded Houses of the Tropical band of the northern hemisphere, and then as Callihgen of the Desert Holds led a emmigration effort to pass trough the burning, sterile sands of Vayr's equator, towards the Southern Pole of the planet, where it was believed to exist habitable land whith an ecosystem completely untouched by the fires of war on the North.

As they finaly made it trough the Equator and restarted their lives in the peaceful southern pole, the North nearly destroyed itself during the Metal Clan's strife to mantain dominance over metal production. As the north collapsed into a period of ceaseless strugle and infighting, the scientific Houses found in the south the sanctuary they needed to settle down, and trough this blessing managed to rediscover technological marvels that proved essential to the reconstruction of the planet during the beginning of the Second Monetary Period.
And thus a secluded man of the trade once named Cal went to the history books as Cal Caleeh Callehgen Callihjelah, Patron of Sanctuaries and Father of the Southern Clans.

In many more moments of Vayr history men and women like Cal proved to be the instruments to vital changes in Vayri society. For this, Svessi as a whole have a very complicated relationship with Individualists; they deem them abherrations, but nonetheless cannot admit that they'd still be alive without them.

-

Having dificulties associating virtues or traits with individuals, they prefer to identify others by their corresponding group, family, clan, nation, before even considering their own personalities.
Their public lives shift almost seamlesly between close intimacy and complete formality; even amongst family, they can be at one moment celebrating a new birth with tears and joy, and at the other meticulosly cleaning the house like nothing else matters.

And despite all that, they still have very unique personas as individuals. Their personalities can sometimes gain such intensity that many of the crew of the Starmaker, organic or AI, have come to nickname them as "living archetypes". Despite a rigid society, the Svessian is capable of a plasticity rarely seen in most other races.
 
Tarmagon said:
The only comment I would like to add is the likely existence of HVM's in this universe. (Hyper Velocity Missiles) More of a strategic level weapon, though this could change dependent on drive technology. The smallest deep space drive and it's energy source you can construct. Add an AI smart enough to home in on it's target, and you have a KK (Kinetic Kill) device travelling at relativistic speeds. No warhead needed. Biggest disadvantage, no real ability to strike anything with any degree of maneuverability. Biggest advantage... Nearly impossible to intercept if fired from far enough out to build serious C-fractional velocity. Tends to render planets into asteroid belts. Use not recommended.

(I know you mentioned relativistic bombardment, but if the drive systems are small enough, and the accelerations high enough, these could be a tactical rather than strategic weapon, especially for system defense if you know the incoming enemies trajectory).
Click to expand...


It's still prety much the same thing, but I guess they could benefit from minituarization.

About defense, if the attack is another KK ( or RKV) you might not even need a relativistic round yourself. These things werent meant to stop, so troughout the whole trip, the missile will be traveling at dangerous speeds, and any collisions are likely to destroy the missile and dissipate it's remains. You could achieve that by just trowing a slow satellite at it, as for the missile, said satellite will practicaly arriving at relativistic speeds towards it.
If the satellite has maneuvering thrusters, it could home in on the missile and make sure to collide with it long before it gets to the target, which would likely be a planet. With the distances involved, the resulting debree and plasma would have a lot of time to dissipate.
 
Mr.Sandstorm said:
It's still prety much the same thing, but I guess they could benefit from minituarization.

About defense, if the attack is another KK ( or RKV) you might not even need a relativistic round yourself. These things werent meant to stop, so troughout the whole trip, the missile will be traveling at dangerous speeds, and any collisions are likely to destroy the missile and dissipate it's remains. You could achieve that by just trowing a slow satellite at it, as for the missile, said satellite will practicaly arriving at relativistic speeds towards it.
If the satellite has maneuvering thrusters, it could home in on the missile and make sure to collide with it long before it gets to the target, which would likely be a planet. With the distances involved, the resulting debree and plasma would have a lot of time to dissipate.
Click to expand...

Depends on the speed and albedo of the incoming mass. The light reflected off the incoming won't arrive that far in front of the actual impactor. You'd need incredible reaction and drive to intercept it. Not to mention that while lots will be converted to plasma, the wavefront will still be traveling at relativistic speeds, so orbital intercept wouldn't do much but flash fry the side of the planet closest to the impact.
 
Tarmagon said:
Not to mention that while lots will be converted to plasma, the wavefront will still be traveling at relativistic speeds, so orbital intercept wouldn't do much but flash fry the side of the planet closest to the impact.
Click to expand...

Assuming you didnt intercept it soon enough, of course.
 
How drastic can changes in appearance be for a character? As in barely recognisable as a human? Or not so much?
 
Rathalosa said:
How drastic can changes in appearance be for a character? As in barely recognisable as a human? Or not so much?
Click to expand...
Your changes can be pretty drastic. There are many species that are technically descended from humans but share less DNA with them than your average mouse. Genetic engineering allows for some extremely major changes.
 
I'm gonna post some ideas I have for astromilitary fleet composition soon. And I might also dump another batck of weapons: this time, it's nuclear weapons.
 
Here's a sketch of two military ship classes I made:
Ships.jpg

The first one's a Watchtower-class Frigate. Notice the triangles on the top of the ship; those are an array of laser cannons. The holes are tubes holding Casaba Howitzer missiles. This arrangement is the same on the bottom of the ship, so the frigate has a total of 12 laser cannons and 10 Casaba Missiles.

The second one is the baseline desingn for the Fighter Drones. They have a 4-vector fusion drive and three radiator "wings". The main weapon is mounted on the tip of the drone.
 
Mr.Sandstorm said:
Here's a sketch of two military ship classes I made:
View attachment 317567

The first one's a Watchtower-class Frigate. Notice the triangles on the top of the ship; those are an array of laser cannons. The holes are tubes holding Casaba Howitzer missiles. This arrangement is the same on the bottom of the ship, so the frigate has a total of 12 laser cannons and 10 Casaba Missiles.

The second one is the baseline desingn for the Fighter Drones. They have a 4-vector fusion drive and three radiator "wings". The main weapon is mounted on the tip of the drone.
Click to expand...
Awesome! I know at least one person who's going to submit a CS soon, and there may be a few others, so once the next CS or two are submitted we'll get started.
 
Now, this is my idea for the classes of astromilitary ships:

First, the ships that operate at 0.5 light-second ranges.
--Fighter Drones:

These combat drones are the cheapest fight-competent assets of the fleet. Their fusion reactors, thrusters, armor, hardware and weapons are desingned for massed production, quick deployment, little weight and maximized maneuverability.
With a 4-vector propulsion bus that can constantly dodge at 1 to 4g's and perform limited 10 g burns, they can easily move to an enemy's "flanks", push into their defensive bubbles, and apply overwhelming numbers and superior maneuverability to overcome defenses and hurt the enemy.

They also double as expendable platforms for nuclear weapons and cheap sensors that in numbers can provide constant readings on the enemy ships and their equipment. Due to the former application, they're also commonly tasked with destroying enemy fighters as well.

Fighter Drones come in three varieties:

-Lancer: Utilizes a Railgun, coupled with it's own drive to deliver enough Delta-V to hurt the enemy. This is the cheapest and most numerous class of Fighter Drone.

-Wasp: Utilizes a Short-ranged Laser. It can do enough damage but only at closer ranges, so these things are mostly used to make a push against a weak spot that shows up on the enemie's defensive bubble. At longer ranges, they can be used in good numbers to wear down enemy armor with time.

-Defender: Utilizes two Coilguns firing droplets of mercury. Their guns carry little punch on their own, and their technological cost limits the number of Defenders that can be available, but their fast projectiles can intercept enemy fire very quickly. Theyre mostly used as mobile defensive "turrets", either for supporting bigger ships or to protect their own wings during attacks.

-- "Wingmaster" Corvette:

AI's are perfectly capable of administering a fleet, but bring with them the risk of compromised security.
Even if most ships are utilizing tightbeamed comm. channels, anomalies in the vessels' software and hardware may lead to gaps in the security.
Besides, superinteligent AI's are a rather common ocurrance around the Milky Way, and they are very capable of overwhelming lesser AI's.

For this reason and this reason alone, even amongst the drone swarms an organic must step in and ensure that the command net of the fleet wont be corrupted. The "Wingmaster" is a modified fighter drone desingned to temporarily hold organics that manualy recieve and relay commands from the rest of the fleet to their local drone wings.
Officialy, they're acting as security "bottlenecks" that malware cant (mostly) affect, but in practice they have the control of all drones in their wings- hence the name this position gets: Wingmaster; the same name of their ship, in fact.
They're usualy armed with either lasers or defensive coilgun turrets.

--Frigates:

With lower maneuverability but much tougher armor than fighter drones, these ships are the first class of ship that is permanently manned, as their top acceleration rate can barely reach 4 g's. They fight at longer ranges than drones, but still keep close enough not to worry about light lag. They usualy hold about 4 crewmembers that provide field maintenance during long missions, another layer of tactical decision-making, and another bottleneck for cyberwarfare threats.

With their lower numbers compared to drones, they can afford to hold more expensive/dangerous equipment, and so just about every Frigate is automaticaly armed with at least 10 Casaba Missiles, tough they mostly use these as an emergency weapon in case their main guns fail during battle.

-Watchtower: Carrying 6 laser cannons on each "broadside" and equiped with finer sensors than other classes of frigates, they make the bulk of the fleet's defensive force. They hardly ever push towards the enemy, instead keeping back and defending the bigger ship classes from drones and missiles, tough they can focus their broadside lasers on single targets for considerable damage, if it comes to that. In more civil enviroments, they're also very usefull as ship security against random hostiles and Nuclear Laser Mines.

-Shieldmaiden: Another support vessel, the Shieldmaiden class holds and deploys a variety of utility equipment that can help the fleet with remote sensors, cyberwarfare suites, and the particularly usefull "mirror drones"; mobile lenses that can capture laser fire from ally ships and refocus them towards the target, effectively increasing the defensible bubble of the fleet. They're also trusted with the second biggest amount of nuclear devices of all the frigate classes, including Nuclear Laser Mines and "stealth" Casaba Missiles.
With all the amount of dangerous, high-tech and otherwise expensive equipment, the Shieldmaiden class has an increased crew of six, instead of the usual four.

-Bowman: The main offensive vessel in orbital combat, the Bowman utilizes it's large spinal-mounted Coilguns to fire a variety of kinetic and nuclear weapons: the most high-yeld Casaba Missiles available for frigates, fragmentory missiles that create "sand screens" upon detonation and severely damage exposed sensors and laser lenses, and all types of anti-fighter missiles.
With some modifications, the Bowman Frigate can launch some of the lighter versions of the NEFP (Nuclear Explosively Formed Projectile), literal boulders of tungsten massing at the ton range that can accelerate up to 800 km/s trough a focused nuclear blast. These rounds are extremely hard to shoot down with anything short of a relativistic round, due to their heavy mass.
 
Finished sketching all the Frigate classes:
Ships3.JPG

From left to right: Watchtower, Shieldmaiden and Bowman.

Notes:
The Shieldmaiden doesnt have a main weapon, and tough her fair stock of nuclear weapons can do quite some damage, she cant quite keep herself completely safe from constant enemy fire. To compensate a little for that, she has an additional set of strafing thrusters that the Watchtower lacks. Theyre the holes to the sides of the ship.

The Bowman, on the other hand, has to constantly maintain his nose pointed at the enemy, and so his propulsion system is modified to handle that. Unlike the Watchtower and Shieldmaiden, he doesnt have a main thruster at the back. He instead relies on a 6-vector fusion drive both to maneuver in battle and to move around. He is quite slower when it comes to cruising trough orbits, but is much more capable of evasive action than the other frigates.
 
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