Gaming Largest space battle in gaming history

[Urwumpe]

Or a mirror! Hahaha.

Mirrors work only for the wavelengths they are designed for. Use a UV or IR laser, and a mirror will be ruined quickly.

 

[MJR]

Most of it is conceptual, but this was what I was basing the other mirror concept off of. http://www.ausairpower.net/APA-DEW-HEL-Analysis.html

 

[jedidia]

You would need to produce a lot of smoke to upkeep it

I just had the weird image of a bosnian farmer building his smoke-cabin and starting to light sawdust... in a spaceship. :lol:

 

[Izack]

And then we come to EW, drone hunter/killers and rail-guns as air-defense. Also laser could be effectively blocked by a smoke screen. You would need to produce a lot of smoke to upkeep it, but still it would be a simple solution against lasers for everything that is moving slowly.

While drones can be a nice addition, I don't think they are the ultimate weapon for the next decades. Even a poor (and drugged by airforce doctors) brain is better in evaluating the situation than any UACV projected. It will take a while until drones could be smart enough to be not fooled by a human.

I was referring to spacecraft. Not sure how easy it would be to hit a drone with even a railgun, if it had enough acceleration in several axes. Perhaps too hard to predict where it will be in a second or two. (But I am of course no expert.)

 

[Urwumpe]

I was referring to spacecraft. Not sure how easy it would be to hit a drone with even a railgun, if it had enough acceleration in several axes. Perhaps too hard to predict where it will be in a second or two. (But I am of course no expert.)

If you don't know where it will be, you can always use the shotgun effect or use area volume effect weapons. It is not a new problem after all, the old AAA before fire control radar was used, also relied on simply exploding near an aircraft to damage it.

 

[N_Molson]

Space battles never seemed believable to me. Fun and good looking, but not credible. Engagement distances are ridiculous. Missles have to be accelerated to extreme velocities and launched in swarms if they want to have a chance to escape defensive laser systems, which requires a decent acceleration run. Lasers beams lose coherence with distance, that's true, but not in a few kilometers in space. Stuff like AA guns seem a bit absurd as long has you have laser beams. Just small, numerous and fast to charge and to dissipate heat ones for "close" incoming threats interception, and large ones with insane capacitors to blow massive threats at hundreds or thousands of kilometers.

And don't ask me how magnetic shields are supposed to deflect laser beams, or why warships would stick together in stupidly dense formations (so that, even the enemy laser beams miss, which seems unlikely as they travel to lightspeed, there is a good chance that another ship would be hit, and if its propulsion is damaged, there is a good chance it will run in another warship and give a double kill for free). The only good reason to group warships is to concentrate firepower and overhelm enemy defenses, and that can be done with intervals of dozens or hundreds of kilometers.

Spacefighters are flying coffins if manned. Drones seem a better idea, sent in huge swarms to overhelm the enemy defense. But that could be cheap, conventional missles instead, hardly makes a difference.

 

[fsci123]

Space battles never seemed believable to me. Fun and good looking, but not credible.

For the average person the fun of many games and movies and shows would be ruined if the main character spent time aiming invisible laser weapons at a dot on a screen 20000km away.