Space combat will likely have a lot in common with the age of sail.
You can spot the enemy a long ways from where you can identify or shoot him.
You'll know who he is long before either of you can shoot; but you're so close that you'll swear you should be in range by now.
There really isn't any place to hide.
Once the shooting starts the ranges are terrifyingly short.
The weapons don't do as much damage as you'd think they'd do from watching movies.
Nah, i bet there would be only 2 types of warships - carriers and missile launchers. First one - will launch fast and small jets, which would carry even more fast rockets. So the idea - transport to enemy more troubles than he could, and do it faster. It would be dogfight for this torpedo-carrier and interceptor, but the main ship would avoid direct fight as long as possible. So - no side by side shootings, almost no hull armor, but a lot of 'eyes' and anti-rocketry weapons. The other one type of ships - rocket carriers. Almost the same principle, but for those who cannot afford previous kind. It would be a hybrid of carrier capable to travel at far more distant places than jets, but a lot bigger target than it. That's why i suppose that real fight would be at hands of small-ship pilots, larger one - would be more like bureaucracy.
ReplyDeleteCheck out atomic rockets sometime, I'd link but I am on my tablet because of a dead router. Lots of great stuff there.
ReplyDeleteI'm depressed about this conversation. A lot.
ReplyDeleteWhy does humanity suck so much that when we break the bounds of interstellar travel and reach into the mystery of the universe, that it's going to be necessary to take weapons with us?
Oh, don't get me wrong. I know we will, and I know it will be absolutely necessary. I'm not stupid.
But a guy can dream, can't he?
A fundamental underpinning of Traveller is that merely moving out into space did nothing to change Man's essential nature.
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