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SlothfulCobra posted:I've never actually seen any sci-fi work acknowledge the ways that we observe objects in space in the real world. Nobody uses telescopes (visual or radio) it's always some obscure sensors that can detect things like weapons powering up and "lifesigns" whatever that means. Not space-combat but Blindsight does a good job of this, from memory. Not 100% super hard sci-fi, but pretty decent. Also free.
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Sep 16, 2019 19:18
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Saint Celestine posted:that only works for things with defined, known orbits. How the hell are you going to target a hypothetical fleet from light years away? A planet, sure. Anything smaller then that, good luck even with handwavey magic tech. The relevant EM wavelength is infrared. Picking out warm things against a 3K background is pretty easy. WISE has picked up -50C objects at a range of over 7 light years. Geisladisk posted:It's hard to spot things in space, it's relatively easy to track them once spotted - things in space, even things doing insane double digit G acceleration, move predictably. Once a craft is spotted you would absolutely be able to track it indefinitely. Things doing insane double digit G acceleration are going to be trivially easy to spot.
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Sep 16, 2019 19:23
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Hot drat hard sci-fi looks boring as poo poo. Like modern ship battles, but your AShM is an "autonomous projectile" that can move at almost light speed and any ship that gets hit is even more hosed. CIWS isn't even invited anymore and steely eyed Superbug pilots are replaced by drones that have almost as much personality as the space missiles they have. It was terrible when they applied this to infantry in the one culture novel I read: your suit and gun fight for you, you're just in there for the ride.
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Sep 16, 2019 19:51
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We made our annual trip to the local Renaissance Festival this weekend, which for me means drinking a lot of beer and having at least one turkey leg and then ogling my scantily clad wife. I never really paid much attention to the outfits in the years before this one, but I did this year, and doing so got me wondering what exactly the background is for this kind of thing. People seemed to choose one of four areas: Viking, fantasy/elf/etc, late medieval/early-early modern, and pirate. Population seemed to be spread equally between the four. Where does this mix of stuff come from? Like, how did we end up choosing these three historical periods to recreate, of sorts? Has there ever been any worthwhile study on it? Why people gravitate to these three periods and places and so on? Also, why do they all speak with English accents?
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Sep 16, 2019 19:51
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JcDent posted:Hot drat hard sci-fi looks boring as poo poo. Like modern ship battles, but your AShM is an "autonomous projectile" that can move at almost light speed and any ship that gets hit is even more hosed. CIWS isn't even invited anymore and steely eyed Superbug pilots are replaced by drones that have almost as much personality as the space missiles they have. Yeah that's why they fudge it even in the hardest sci fi show ever made, the Expanse. Because space combat isn't dramatic without dudes flying space fighters or other dudes standing on bridges calling out attack patterns and maneuvers. Probably even irl military ops are inconceivably boring and not anything like on TV/movies I ASSUME as a mere civilian. bewbies posted:We made our annual trip to the local Renaissance Festival this weekend, which for me means drinking a lot of beer and having at least one turkey leg and then ogling my scantily clad wife. I never really paid much attention to the outfits in the years before this one, but I did this year, and doing so got me wondering what exactly the background is for this kind of thing. People seemed to choose one of four areas: Viking, fantasy/elf/etc, late medieval/early-early modern, and pirate. Population seemed to be spread equally between the four. Is it too simple to argue that those are just genres with absurd amounts of media devoted to them?
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Sep 16, 2019 19:56
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JcDent posted:It was terrible when they applied this to infantry in the one culture novel I read: your suit and gun fight for you, you're just in there for the ride. I haven't seen the full movie but the recent robocop movie handled this just a bit. There is a clip where the doctor is explaining that the guy thinks he has control, but the software is doing everything for him.
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Sep 16, 2019 19:57
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Ice Fist posted:There is a clip where the doctor is explaining that the guy thinks he has control, but the software is doing everything for him. Ah you mean just like actual human beings in their day to day lives
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Sep 16, 2019 19:58
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zoux posted:Ah you mean just like actual human beings in their day to day lives Hey, I'M CHOOSING TO TYPE THIS TERRIBLE POST RIGHT NOW. IT'S MY DECISION.
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Sep 16, 2019 19:59
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Us building systems that start dwarfing and overtaking us is kinda the cool bit about hard sci fi, it's not the place for generic fighter pilot drama
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Sep 16, 2019 20:01
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bewbies posted:We made our annual trip to the local Renaissance Festival this weekend, which for me means drinking a lot of beer and having at least one turkey leg and then ogling my scantily clad wife. I never really paid much attention to the outfits in the years before this one, but I did this year, and doing so got me wondering what exactly the background is for this kind of thing. People seemed to choose one of four areas: Viking, fantasy/elf/etc, late medieval/early-early modern, and pirate. Population seemed to be spread equally between the four. To be fair, between the non-fantastic eras, that's a pretty substantial time span. Is there some era you would expect to see that isn't among those.
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Sep 16, 2019 20:03
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Geisladisk posted:It's hard to spot things in space, it's relatively easy to track them once spotted - things in space, even things doing insane double digit G acceleration, move predictably. Once a craft is spotted you would absolutely be able to track it indefinitely. How much has technology advanced in your mind for this to be feasible?
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Sep 16, 2019 20:17
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What happens when I start dumping autonomous projectiles programmed to find and defeat the other autonomous projectiles? Aha! While you're sitting there staring at your screen erupting in complex Game of Life patterns and meditating on the anonymity of industrial war, I'll sneak into your airlock and unfold my space pike!
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Sep 16, 2019 20:20
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Excuse me, I have a question. Once you have the capability to accelerate multi-ton projectiles to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, why are you doing fights between spaceships? If someone is pissing you off get a big old lump of rock, put it at 0.99c and crack their loving planet in half. Then of course they'll try to do the same so you need a way of stopping big fast rocks, like other big fast rocks from a carefully calculated angle. Then they'll do the same thing so now your rock needs to be able to dodge. Basically a future space war is going to look like the slowest, highest stakes game of Pong ever played.
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Sep 16, 2019 20:22
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How does all of this calculus change if you're trying to recover something or someone intact from a hostile (ship, satellite, station, delete as appropriate)?
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Sep 16, 2019 20:26
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FrangibleCover posted:Excuse me, I have a question. Once you have the capability to accelerate multi-ton projectiles to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, why are you doing fights between spaceships? If someone is pissing you off get a big old lump of rock, put it at 0.99c and crack their loving planet in half. Why do the rest of the armed forces exist when we have nukes? Same logic applies. Well it would if space wasn't cold and empty and worthless.
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Sep 16, 2019 20:27
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FrangibleCover posted:Excuse me, I have a question. Once you have the capability to accelerate multi-ton projectiles to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, why are you doing fights between spaceships? If someone is pissing you off get a big old lump of rock, put it at 0.99c and crack their loving planet in half. THen we will simply invade the bugs homeworld and easily defeat them
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Sep 16, 2019 20:35
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FrangibleCover posted:Excuse me, I have a question. Once you have the capability to accelerate multi-ton projectiles to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, why are you doing fights between spaceships? If someone is pissing you off get a big old lump of rock, put it at 0.99c and crack their loving planet in half. I think if you accept the premise there, what would inevitably happen is that all the advanced space civilisations decamp to live on spaceships full-time.
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Sep 16, 2019 20:58
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aphid_licker posted:Us building systems that start dwarfing and overtaking us is kinda the cool bit about hard sci fi, it's not the place for generic fighter pilot drama You can replace it with generic office drama, but instead of terrible software or whatever they all fly space fighters.
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Sep 16, 2019 21:10
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Ensign Expendable posted:You can replace it with generic office drama, but instead of terrible software or whatever they all fly space fighters. A drama about...the F-35    Speaking of boondoggles https://twitter.com/AaronMehta/status/1173578528014684161 Wouldn't that be ambitious under like WW II design-and-build standards
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Sep 16, 2019 21:15
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zoux posted:A drama about...the F-35 Under WWII standards? Not really. gently caress, or even early cold war. The time frame between the P-36, P-38, P-39, P-40, P-47, and P-51 isn't exactly huge, not to mention how quickly some of those went from prototype to production to a B/C/D model. Those are just the production aircraft too, you've got a fair number of failed designs to account for also. Now look at how quickly we were iterating and putting new aircraft into service in the 50s and 60s. Way, way, way less than 5 years between accepted designs. Now, can you do that with a modern jet that you want all the bells and whistles on? No idea. I suspect how much money you're throwing at it and how acceptable it is to have failed designs is a big part of that equation. Obviously designing a 6th gen fighter is a bit more complex than a P-51, but there's a solid argument to be made that you don't need multiple decades to work it out. The important take away isn't necessarily the specific number of years or the breathless reporting, it's the move away from a single too-important-to-fail design that's concurrently developing a dozen new technologies and a move back towards iterative designs with an understanding that if one is a dog you learn from it and move on.
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Sep 16, 2019 21:21
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Cyrano4747 posted:Under WWII standards? Not really. gently caress, or even early cold war. The time frame between the P-36, P-38, P-39, P-40, P-47, and P-51 isn't exactly huge, not to mention how quickly some of those went from prototype to production to a B/C/D model. Those are just the production aircraft too, you've got a fair number of failed designs to account for also. Now look at how quickly we were iterating and putting new aircraft into service in the 50s and 60s. Way, way, way less than 5 years between accepted designs. So, more mission-specialized aircraft rather than the current Swiss Army Planes. Is there a world where this is cheaper than the current aircraft development and procurement process?
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Sep 16, 2019 21:24
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One thing to keep in mind is that these ideas of what space combat would be like are supremely spherical cows and the reality would be very heavily dependent on various assumptions, technological, strategic and otherwise. Trying to say what space combat would be like is a bit like trying to say what terrestrial combat is like without specifying if we're talking pike squares or tanks in the Fulda Gap. That said, there's some basic commonalities - like pike squares and tanks both have to cope with terrain - but they're very general things that don't say all that much.
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Sep 16, 2019 21:29
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Elukka posted:One thing to keep in mind is that these ideas of what space combat would be like are supremely spherical cows and the reality would be very heavily dependent on various assumptions, technological, strategic and otherwise. Trying to say what space combat would be like is a bit like trying to say what terrestrial combat is like without specifying if we're talking pike squares or tanks in the Fulda Gap. That said, there's some basic commonalities - like pike squares and tanks both have to cope with terrain - but they're very general things that don't say all that much. Simple: the pike sphere
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Sep 16, 2019 21:31
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Elukka posted:One thing to keep in mind is that these ideas of what space combat would be like are supremely spherical cows and the reality would be very heavily dependent on various assumptions, technological, strategic and otherwise. Trying to say what space combat would be like is a bit like trying to say what terrestrial combat is like without specifying if we're talking pike squares or tanks in the Fulda Gap. That said, there's some basic commonalities - like pike squares and tanks both have to cope with terrain - but they're very general things that don't say all that much. Tank Square. 40 tanks moving so close the tread guards touch, guns pointed every which way. Rear files of tanks are driving backwards, panning their turrets around frantically. Combat is closing to point blank and attempting to parry the other tank's guns by swiping them with yours. The side with the stronger rack-and-pinion linkages emerges victorious
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Sep 16, 2019 21:41
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Uncle Enzo posted:Tank Square. 40 tanks moving so close the tread guards touch, guns pointed every which way. Rear files of tanks are driving backwards, panning their turrets around frantically. Combat is closing to point blank and attempting to parry the other tank's guns by swiping them with yours. The side with the stronger rack-and-pinion linkages emerges victorious I see that you, also, have played Flames of War.
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Sep 16, 2019 21:45
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bewbies posted:Where does this mix of stuff come from? Like, how did we end up choosing these three historical periods to recreate, of sorts? Has there ever been any worthwhile study on it? Why people gravitate to these three periods and places and so on? Also, why do they all speak with English accents? I mean, I speak with an English accent because I'm English.
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Sep 16, 2019 21:48
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bewbies posted:Also, why do they all speak with English accents? Men in Tights is a better movie than Prince of Thieves.
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Sep 16, 2019 21:52
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FrangibleCover posted:Excuse me, I have a question. Once you have the capability to accelerate multi-ton projectiles to an appreciable fraction of the speed of light, why are you doing fights between spaceships? If someone is pissing you off get a big old lump of rock, put it at 0.99c and crack their loving planet in half. Yeah, pretty much space combat is what you get after you've run out of easier (read: unable-to-maneuver) targets, which includes planets and space stations. It's distressingly easy to create clouds of high-energy dumb projectiles that are basically impossible to detect (they don't maneuver) or deflect. A spaceship can dodge that kind of threat by making tiny maneuvering adjustments that, over the course of a few hours, move it thousands of kilometers off of its original path. Similar to how convoys zigzagged to dodge torpedoes in WW2. You can't really do that with a city though. Davin Valkri posted:How does all of this calculus change if you're trying to recover something or someone intact from a hostile (ship, satellite, station, delete as appropriate)? Hackers and infiltration teams, or you try to starve them out. Even today you don't generally try to capture something by going in hot. It's a lot easier to just convince the enemy to leave of their own accord and move in afterwards.
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Sep 16, 2019 22:04
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bewbies posted:We made our annual trip to the local Renaissance Festival this weekend, which for me means drinking a lot of beer and having at least one turkey leg and then ogling my scantily clad wife. I never really paid much attention to the outfits in the years before this one, but I did this year, and doing so got me wondering what exactly the background is for this kind of thing. People seemed to choose one of four areas: Viking, fantasy/elf/etc, late medieval/early-early modern, and pirate. Population seemed to be spread equally between the four. I'm not sure where it comes from, or why the accent, but I can tell you the audience varies between serious historians and reenactors, and people who want to have costumed fun or roleplay. I don't think anyone's ever done a serious historical study of it though.
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Sep 16, 2019 22:16
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zoux posted:So, more mission-specialized aircraft rather than the current Swiss Army Planes. Possibly? That's a giant question mark and really has more to do with the current model where a multi-decade project is underwritten on what might as well be a cost plus basis. One of the things to remember is that a huge part of the giant sticker price you see with current aircraft models is the cost of all the R&D divided by relatively small numbers of planes. The B2 is a great example of this. Everyone always points to them as costing $2Billion per aircraft, but that's including a massive R&D process that yielded only 21 aircraft. The order was slashed once the USSR fell apart. I forget what the original number of aircraft was supposed to be, but IIRC it was low three figures. During the Clinton administration there was a proposal to build an additional 20 and the fly away cost of those new aircraft would have been about $500 million each. It was still a ruinously expensive airplane, but that's a lot more in line with what modern aircraft cost. To put things in perspective, an F-15, a relatively mature design produced in large numbers by that point, cost about $25 million in the late 90s. Now, if you're getting a new design every few years does that mean R&D costs just eat everyone's budget and we get a handful of new $2 billion aircraft every 5 years, or does it mean R&D is lower and we get a trickle of cheaper, less revolutionary designs that we can afford to pull the plug on if one is a lemon? Again, giant question mark and entirely dependent on how it gets run. If you're doing a more iterative approach and not spooling up fifteen ground breaking technologies with every new airframe then R&D could be a lot less. Like, maybe your fancy off-axis targeting system is the new hotness on the 2010 model, the 2015 model adds on the new high tech radar-absorbing paint, the 2020 model has new super-cruise engines, 2025 some crazy new avionics system, and then by 2030 you're looking at upgrading the by now old targeting system to some sci fi holographic poo poo. Meanwhile tweaks are being made to airframe geometry, radar cross section, etc. the whole way down. Think more like how car design is iterative - a 1990 Honda looks nothing like a 2019 Honda, but there's no single year that just flat out changes everything. Which is a lot of words to say no one really knows, but the fact that it's being floated is more of an indictment to the way the process works currently than a solid plan for the future.
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Sep 16, 2019 22:43
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Uncle Enzo posted:Tank Square. 40 tanks moving so close the tread guards touch, guns pointed every which way. Rear files of tanks are driving backwards, panning their turrets around frantically. Combat is closing to point blank and attempting to parry the other tank's guns by swiping them with yours. The side with the stronger rack-and-pinion linkages emerges victorious At this point why not have a Bolo with a fascination with ancient combat screaming "duel me cowards" at bewildered tank crews? Or a possessed Baneblade. Polyseme fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Sep 16, 2019 |
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Sep 16, 2019 23:08
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Cyrano4747 posted:Possibly? That's a giant question mark and really has more to do with the current model where a multi-decade project is underwritten on what might as well be a cost plus basis. What block are F-16s on now I've heard, but one hears so many things on line, that the F-16 was designed primarily as an air superiority fighter but has turned out to be the best multirole fighter in the USAF. Seems like getting an actual good multirole fighter is just designing a good plane rather than try to design it to do a lot from the outset (F-111; f-35, others?) zoux fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Sep 16, 2019 |
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Sep 16, 2019 23:15
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Cyrano4747 posted:
Now I'm picturing Tim Cook bringing out Kelly Johnson to introduce this year's model.
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Sep 16, 2019 23:32
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wdarkk posted:Now I'm picturing Tim Cook bringing out Kelly Johnson to introduce this year's model. Do F22s have headphone jacks
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Sep 16, 2019 23:36
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zoux posted:Do F22s have headphone jacks Yes, but they're the same ones used in the Space Shuttles, which are the only remaining sources of those jacks left on the planet. Elukka posted:One thing to keep in mind is that these ideas of what space combat would be like are supremely spherical cows and the reality would be very heavily dependent on various assumptions, technological, strategic and otherwise. Trying to say what space combat would be like is a bit like trying to say what terrestrial combat is like without specifying if we're talking pike squares or tanks in the Fulda Gap. That said, there's some basic commonalities - like pike squares and tanks both have to cope with terrain - but they're very general things that don't say all that much. Phanatic posted:Things doing insane double digit G acceleration are going to be trivially easy to spot. Space warfare, but at extremely sub-light year speeds where wars are conducted by self-sustaining colony ships over a period of thousands and thousands of years.
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Sep 16, 2019 23:42
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WW2 Data Back from a small hiatus, its more German containers! We get to see a rather descriptive passage of the AB 250-1 container, as well as an interesting look at the mechanisms for the AB 70-3's deployment. There's also a cluster munition that is deemed unsafe for landing and should always be dropped or jettisoned before returning home. Everything else and more at the blog!
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Sep 17, 2019 00:00
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zoux posted:Simple: the pike sphere
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Sep 17, 2019 00:06
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Casaba howitzers for all.  briefly.
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Sep 17, 2019 01:56
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That's more like an orbital plasma lance than an intrastellar or interstellar weapon, though. Nowhere near enough coherence to be useful at long range.
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Sep 17, 2019 02:05
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TooMuchAbstraction posted:That's more like an orbital plasma lance than an intrastellar or interstellar weapon, though. Nowhere near enough coherence to be useful at long range. Nicoll-Dyson laser, then. (Use your Dyson swarm as a phased-array emitter, vaporize planets in other galaxies.)
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Sep 17, 2019 02:37
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