Discussion Solving the problems of space combat in Orbiter

[Urwumpe]

I used to think so, but I keep seeing Machiavelli's influence everywhere I look. It may seem illogical until you recognize a few less obvious factors.

Yes, but you should also read the Anti-Machiavelli, to see why Machiavelli is wrong in his work, and how many important historic factors he ignored.

Machiavelli is good for noticing criminal trends in politics as it describes a political egoism... but a bad guide to rule nations, which should survive longer than the current ruler.

The Art of war has a higher political significance especially inside democracies...You will never find a better test for Sun-Tzu's theories than a parliament of many politicians and parties... You can for example explain with the Art of War, why Obama became president, and McCain not - despite McCains election team following Machiavelli's recommendations.

 

[Eagle]

The Art of war has a higher political significance especially inside democracies...You will never find a better test for Sun-Tzu's theories than a parliament of many politicians and parties... You can for example explain with the Art of War, why Obama became president, and McCain not - despite McCains election team following Machiavelli's recommendations.

We're going to have to disagree here. I just read a translation of Anti-Machiavel. And I'm going to say that Obama followed more Machiavellian principals than those of the Anti-Machiavel.

 

[Albinon]

For a simple shoot-'em-up like space combat simulator, you don't need no politics, no economy. Only a "There is the enemy, and stop asking questions.".

My impression of this thread was the establishment of a realistic combat multi-player simulation. Head-to-head shooter has been done pretty well in other formats. You don't need orbiter for that. With the add-on capability to make bases and cities, strategic targets will enter the picture. Defense and threat. The ol' MAD scenario of cold war.

Yes, the infantry grunt lasts just 2 seconds, but when theres a million of them, that 2 seconds adds up. War of attrition or logistics if you will. Supply lines and resources. Manufacturing zones, training facilities. To quote my favorite author, Heinlein, from "Moon is a harsh mistress", Just toss rocks at them. Once the "high ground" is taken, it will be hard to neutralize.

Tactics will be about the defense (keeping and elliminating) of the "ground logistics". Both sides will eventually need it and it should be kept intact or what is the purpose of the excercise.

Strategy will be utilizing the best method to enforce one side's will over the other. Note that there are always more than just 2 sides in any conflict. And more than one method.

I know I am sounding like an old blow-'ard. I was in the military. I was taught to think this way.

Orbiter is a great tool for realistic space flight. Turning it into a head-to-head shooter game diminishes it a bit. If we can figure a way it simulate an actual and realistic space based war, then great. Something like Harpoon 3 - ANW comes to mind.

 

[Eagle]

Strategy will be utilizing the best method to enforce one side's will over the other. Note that there are always more than just 2 sides in any conflict. And more than one method.

I know I am sounding like an old blow-'ard. I was in the military. I was taught to think this way.

Yup, the good old "What is the best way to accomplish what I want?" as opposed to just killing anybody. "What do I want?" is a pretty important question.

Orbiter is a great tool for realistic space flight. Turning it into a head-to-head shooter game diminishes it a bit. If we can figure a way it simulate an actual and realistic space based war, then great. Something like Harpoon 3 - ANW comes to mind.

How realistic do you want it? I only played Harpoon 2, which isn't terribly more complex than a tabletop wargame.

Triplanetary has some pretty simple but effective mechanics on a 2d solar system. Attack Vector supposedly can simulate full 3d. Some modification is going to be needed for either to achieve the technology levels that are desired.

Face Centered Cubic might be a fun extension to the traditional hex map...or do people prefer Hexagonal Close Packed?

 

[Andy44]

We still haven't decided on what sort of "space war" we're talking about.

We need to know what era, for starters. 1960s, current day, near future, far future?

Then you need to construct a "world" for your era. The historical/current era is easy, just google space operations. The future involves envisioning what space ops would be with whatever speculative or extrapolated technology and politics you come up with.

Once you've got all that down, you have to decide at what level of combat you wish to simulate. Short-term tactical, operational level or strategic/long-term.

For current day or 1960s strategic would be interesting but tactical would be very boring (I fire an ASAT. Consult the chart, roll the die, BANG, you lose. Game over). But strategic would involve an Axis and Allies-type of game in which you have to decide what hardware to buy, where and how to deploy it, and make decisions on the strategic level. Combat turns would be at least a day long, or maybe based on the operational cycles of the ground and space systems involved, or maybe abstract a la Axis and Allies. You wouldn't need a realistic "map", it could be a symbolic game board, based on operational tempo and orbit cycles. The victory conditions would be based on who has the strongest control over space lines of communication, and the whole thing could be theoretically "won" by political or diplomatic means without firing a shot, simply by forcing you sign a treaty saying you won't launch rockets or something (you would need to assume failure of diplomacy at some point to make the game interesting).

Orbiter is not suited to this type of strategy game; it simulates physics in realtime, which is good for at best a short tactical engagement involving futuristic craft with absurdly high delta-V, since shooting ASAT missiles means the scenario would be one shot and over in a five minute satellite pass.

I keep writing these posts, but I don't think anyone is reading them. Everyone seems to think of a space war sim in terms of a combat flight sim. But every fun combat space sim to date was just a flight sim in space that used fake physics at some level to make it fun, whether it's FTL drives or Star Wars maneuvering or whatever handwavium. You have to clear your head of preconceived notions and start with a clean slate if you want to simulate realistic space warfare.

 

[Eagle]

I keep writing these posts, but I don't think anyone is reading them. Everyone seems to think of a space war sim in terms of a combat flight sim. But every fun combat space sim to date was just a flight sim in space that used fake physics at some level to make it fun, whether it's FTL drives or Star Wars maneuvering or whatever handwavium. You have to clear your head of preconceived notions and start with a clean slate if you want to simulate realistic space warfare.

I read them and I find modern day scenarios less interesting in the Orbiter environment for the reasons you stated. It might be fun if we considered the logistics, launch a high resolution imager and call it a weather satellite, set up a constellation to provide a reliable service and redundant capacity against failure, orchestrate some serendipitous oopses in orbit...

High atmospheric maneuvers can be very fun too. Or fast atmospheric orbits like what was done with the XR-2. The technology exists, just the capable vehicles haven't been developed.

Personally I'm interested in relativistic with delta v's of 20-50 kms system and 300 kms to torchship interstellar. Mostly because you can do lots of fun maneuvering. Weponry is nerfed to my mood, but I'm usualy complacent with light minute beam weapons.

 

[Andy44]

Okay, well, let me go and think about this for a while. I'll bet that with some alternate history I can come up with some Cold War scenarios that would actually be fun to wargame, especially with atomic rockets and nuclear pulse Orion drives.

But no matter what it would still be some boring maneuvering leading up to a few thrilling moments of engagement. Even assuming high delta-V, space combat is not going to look like Star Trek or BSG, with fighters and exciting battles. The fun would be in the precision and planning leading up to a brief shootout, and then watching it all happen and seeing how well you did.

ETA: Kurt's OP said he wondered if Orbiter could be used to predict what space war would be like, and that's what I've been trying to explore. My answer is "yes, but for realistic technology it would be difficult". Whether it would be fun to simulate it in Orbiter is another question, I suppose.

 

[Hartmann]

The actual era could have two steps, first, the phase of missiles, and other tactical weapons, aircrafts, armed spacecrafts.

and the second phase, the carpet bombing with nukes, rocks , and kinetic weapons against civilians and strategic targets. at this point casualties could reach the number of millions or more.

 

[Eagle]

But no matter what it would still be some boring maneuvering leading up to a few thrilling moments of engagement. Even assuming high delta-V space combat is not going to look like Star Trek or BSG, with fighters and exciting battles. The fun would be in the precision and planning leading up to a brief shootout, and then watching it all happen and seeing how well you did.

That's no different from combat aircraft. Take off from a forward base, fly a few hours, refuel from a tanker, fly another hour or so, reach the target, shoot and get shot at for less than two minutes, fly an hour back to the tanker, refuel, fly a few more hours back to base and land.

 

[Andy44]

No, combat aircraft can maneuver and dogfight. Bombers have to maneuver into and out of a target area, and react to being jumped by fighters. Air combat is much more human-involved and takes place at a slow enough speed that people have time to make decisions and fly instinctively.

A space engagement will last the blink of an eye. As you approach the battle, you program a few maneuvers in, tell the fire control system which targets to shoot at, and then sit back and watch. If you are actually aboard the craft, you sweat it out and hope you still exist when it's all over. From the moment the shooting starts, it's all computers. If you guessed the right sequence of programmed maneuvers you may get lucky and beat the odds. As fast as it started, it's over as you shoot past each other at many km/s.

 

[Albinon]

As fast as it started, it's over as you shoot past each other at many km/s.

Which is why I harped on turret based weaponry earlier. Easier to lead a shot. Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD as I keep saying. Manned flight may not be the best thing to do. Directed flight, mayhap. A stand-off RPV carrier and then you can realistically have those High delta-V ships. The side with the most resources will more than likely win.

I think we are finally getting down to the basics here. I would concur with an operational level field of battle. Strategy already decided in a scenario, all that is left is picking the tools and "tossing the die". Military axim: No plan ever survives its initial phase.

 

[Hielor]

Which is why I harped on turret based weaponry earlier. Easier to lead a shot. Mutually Assured Destruction or MAD as I keep saying. Manned flight may not be the best thing to do. Directed flight, mayhap. A stand-off RPV carrier and then you can realistically have those High delta-V ships. The side with the most resources will more than likely win.

I think we are finally getting down to the basics here. I would concur with an operational level field of battle. Strategy already decided in a scenario, all that is left is picking the tools and "tossing the die". Military axim: No plan ever survives its initial phase.

I think an example scenario that would go well with Orbiter:
-You're the pilot of a high-altitude strategic bomber which starts from orbit, enters the atmosphere (perhaps with a large aerodynamic plane change to disguise the final target), drops its payload (which could just as easily be small special forces troop carriers as bombs), and then heads back to orbit to rendeszvous with a carrier craft. All the while you have to either avoid detection (not exactly feasible considering the amount of heat generated by re-entry) or avoid/fight off intercepter fighters/missiles.

 

[Andy44]

Well, I was looking through Dyson's book about Project Orion, and one of the ideas proposed for a military Orion was to use them as strategic "bombers", placed in very high orbits beyond GEO and loaded with warheads.

The idea was that this would be a more sane nuclear deterrent than siloed missiles, since missiles must be fired in 30 minutes or you may lose them all.

Instead, in the event the US was attacked, the president orders the Orions on station to attack. They then enter an elliptical attack orbit and start an hours-long trip to their weapon delivery points. At any point up to weapons delivery, the president can call them off, or even safer, if they receive no confirmation they automatically call the attack off on their own. Since they are far less vulnerable than bombers and certainly missile silos, this was thought to be an idea worth considering.

Orion never came to pass, of course, but an NTR-propelled vessel could fill the role in a near-future scenario.

So let's flesh it out a little. Both sides have similar vessels, and for some reason one decides to start a war. In addition to these vessels, there are also ASAT weapons galore and a comm sat network and ferry shuttles to service the warships. Nation A (the aggressor) has to find a way to strike Nation B and take out Nation B's warships before they can retaliate.

At the tactical level this filters down to the type of fast pass drive-by shooting described in the last few posts, which could be interesting to simulate.

At the operational level there could be an attempt to disrupt each other's comm networks in order to delay enemy reaction time or to keep him unaware of what's happening. This would be the sort of thing Orbiter would not be well-suited for, but if simulated would make the war game much more fun and multi-dimensional.

The strategic level is taken care of by the existence and initial positioning of the various systems in their orbits or on the ground, and by the forgone conclusion by Nation A to shoot first, so we don't need to worry about this.

 

[Albinon]

At the operational level there could be an attempt to disrupt each other's comm networks in order to delay enemy reaction time or to keep him unaware of what's happening. This would be the sort of thing Orbiter would not be well-suited for, but if simulated would make the war game much more fun and multi-dimensional.

Once the decision is made, its "fire and forget". Nuclear protocol has it that once the order is given, shoot regardless. Side A is coming communications or no communications. The crux of the matter is detection. When side B figures out when side A starts and what direction it takes. Plus the objective of side A. Side B will be delaying unti last possible moment before committing the majority of their resources for defense/intercept. Side A will be tossing dummies into the mix if they are smart.

Both sides know what the other side has to a degree. Spy Sats and other intel gathering devices give that info. To make the scenario interesting would be to figure the "fudge" factor that the other side has or the accuracy of the intel. This is where you can toss in either an algorythm based on an imaginary set of assets predetermined, or have each side include those assets as part of their total - This puts a form of economics into the mix. How many intercepters/intel devices/strategic bombers etc...

I feel this will bring the game down to a tactical level where a player can either look at the macro game or jump into the indivdual asset as desired.

The draw back is - how many objects can orbiter support before getting dragged into the brick wall of no processor capacity left?

I think it will be self correcting in the late game play, but in the middle when everyone is jockying for position, what happens?

 

[Andy44]

Once the decision is made, its "fire and forget". Nuclear protocol has it that once the order is given, shoot regardless. Side A is coming communications or no communications. The crux of the matter is detection.

Understood, but since this is not magic tech let's not assume that Side B knows Side A has begun an attack. In addition, the reason for basing nukes many hours away by orbit is to give the command authority time to think before destroying the world, so we're trying to get away from the "shoot regardless" protocol. If Side A stops after a small attack, then it may have been a mistake and not a full-scale attack, in which case Side B could decide not to retaliate and kill billions of people. In the meantime, Side B orders its warships to enter attack orbits.

But if the comm network is disrupted, B's warships may not know there is a war yet, and won't get the "go" command. The longer A keeps B's space forces in the dark, the better A's chances to take them out before they can strike.

As you say, detection is key, too. If we do not assume perfect omnidirectional sensors, B's warships won't necessarily know they are under attack until too late to warm up the reactor and maneuver.

So A's success depends on disrupting B's comm network and taking advantage of B's sensor limitations. If A fails to disrupt comm, than B may be warned about the surface attack, and worse, B's warships may be alerted by other observers of a move to attack them. If sensor data is networked, disrupting comm is key.

 

[Eagle]

Note that major comm failure is itself information. 30 busted satellites a bit fishy if there isn't any increased solar activity.

 

[Andy44]

Note that major comm failure is itself information. 30 busted satellites a bit fishy if there isn't any increased solar activity.

That's true. But there are other ways of disrupting comm that may not look so suspicious. Jamming, maybe, or other sneakiness. In my scenario, A only has to keep B in the dark for a limited time. Is B wise to the trick, or unprepared to deal with it?

Electronic warfare and deception is an entire world all its own, and while Orbiter may not be the best platform to simulate it, it would play a huge role in any space war.

 

[Albinon]

give the command authority time to think

In a shooting war, the command authority has already thought out its plans. I am picking nits here. It would be the political authority that would be the major "waffler". The military would be very annoyed that their assets moved from advantage for no good reason. Don't pull the trigger unless you intend to destroy something thought process type of thing. The economics and political distrust of such a move is incredible. Moving a fleet, dropping only 1 to 2 bombs and then saying, Oops, I didn't mean it.... The other side has already committed by this time. It would be too late to back out.

With space warfare, at least with current levels of tech, the MAD principle applies. If you are going to use it, use it, because the other side will. There will be no nobility or chivalry in this style of warfare. Do it to them before they do it to us. Detection is the key. EM radiation jamming is not as usefull as it once was. Fiber optic command and control backbones on the ground. Major telescopes of all sorts hooked in. Lased light communications from the ground can issued orders. Nuclear protocol still exists, because once the fleet is launched, then it becomes hard to contact. Jammers themselves look like a bright star in EM. They give away their position. I would use the submariner's trick, move as if you fould yourself a hole to crawl into, then pull it in behind you. I would put effort into running quiet, in a ballistic unpowered orbit with as much absorbtion coating on as I could wear. I would trickle my delta-v a little as I could. I would only hope to never eclipse a heavenly body. Takes time, Yes. Chance of success - far greater than tossing a A-Bomb out my rear to get to where I want to go. I'd save that for when I need to dodge quickly.

Drat, I'm on my high horse again. If they can't see you, they can't find you. Sight occurs in many wavelengths of the spectrum. Detection will be key.

 

[Hielor]

In a shooting war, the command authority has already thought out its plans. I am picking nits here. It would be the political authority that would be the major "waffler". The military would be very annoyed that their assets moved from advantage for no good reason. Don't pull the trigger unless you intend to destroy something thought process type of thing. The economics and political distrust of such a move is incredible. Moving a fleet, dropping only 1 to 2 bombs and then saying, Oops, I didn't mean it.... The other side has already committed by this time. It would be too late to back out.

With space warfare, at least with current levels of tech, the MAD principle applies. If you are going to use it, use it, because the other side will. There will be no nobility or chivalry in this style of warfare. Do it to them before they do it to us. Detection is the key. EM radiation jamming is not as usefull as it once was. Fiber optic command and control backbones on the ground. Major telescopes of all sorts hooked in. Lased light communications from the ground can issued orders. Nuclear protocol still exists, because once the fleet is launched, then it becomes hard to contact. Jammers themselves look like a bright star in EM. They give away their position. I would use the submariner's trick, move as if you fould yourself a hole to crawl into, then pull it in behind you. I would put effort into running quiet, in a ballistic unpowered orbit with as much absorbtion coating on as I could wear. I would trickle my delta-v a little as I could. I would only hope to never eclipse a heavenly body. Takes time, Yes. Chance of success - far greater than tossing a A-Bomb out my rear to get to where I want to go. I'd save that for when I need to dodge quickly.

Drat, I'm on my high horse again. If they can't see you, they can't find you. Sight occurs in many wavelengths of the spectrum. Detection will be key.

That's all fine and dandy, but as has been established several times in this thread--there is no stealth in space. End of story.

 

[Kozak]

but as has been established several times in this thread--there is no stealth in space. End of story.

Well, those who "established" it should be more accurate with their statements.
Stealth doesnt' mean invisible. It means less observable than ordinary. That is, if "standart" spaceship has 1000m^2 RCS (Radar CrossSection here), a ship of same size with 10m^2 RCS (and that means detectable only 100 times closer) is stealth. Nothing more, nothing less.
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Maybe, it's better to go away from "high theory" and think of particular weapons that would be used in such conditions - because weapons are half of what defines tactics.