What sort of scifi magic would be needed to make space fighters with burst fire energy weapons and torpedo boats (bombers) viable?
>>65396166>energy weaponsCan we just use kinetic energy and call it good enough?>what magic The magic of getting to space without computers. That’s what makes combat gay.
>>65396166Having like 100000s isp and being able to withstand like 100gs
Sorry I meant Tactically, although the insane specific impulse would be needed too.In the game starlancer I think speed is actually acceleration but is simplified for gameplay.
>>65396166>What sort of scifi magic would be needed to make space fightersif space were filled with air, it would be so
>>65396166For the laws of physics to change or some sort of new element that changes the rules that I shall call bullshitium.
It will likely take the form of a gun that ejects a cartridge containing a heat-absorption agent for the high-energy weapon after every shot.
>>65396166>>65396178>>65396679All you need is antimatter mass production and its prerequisite technologies. Antimatter engines give you the insane ISP required to mount equally powerful forward and retro engines on spaced out pylons. Enough differential thrust can sort of approximate the manoeuverability of an atmospheric fighterObviously antimatter warheads can be arbitrarily powerful, so the power of your bombs is only limited by how many seconds of national production you're willing to put inside each oneAlso antimatter reactors make for cinematic explosions when they fail, unlike fusion reactors
>>65396166>What sort of scifi magic would be needed to make space fighters with burst fire energy weapons and torpedo boats (bombers) viable?I can fully justify a HARD-SF REALISTIC concept of Space Fighter as small monopilot combat vehicles doing aggressive maneuver.But it requires to go back to a blank state and void every WWII & cold war tropes anon take as reference.Here is how:>Not every war are genocidalIf the war turn genocidal, this is a mere spam of missiles.If you want warship fighting, you need stakes that require finer approach>Stealth is impossible in spaceYes it is.>Space debrisEveryone fear them like they fear nukes, space warfare is built around minimizing them.If you shoot down a warship coming toward your pricey space station, the result is loosing 100years of investment and an orbit full of storms of anti-ship railgun projectiles from 10 to 10,000 years.Asteroids and deep space installation don't have a real risk of Kessler effect and cannot be protected or self-sufficient, no matter how deep you dig.>StrategyFollowing the above, the goal become to disable or control Orbits/Planets, without justifying a genocidal answer.If you do not want your warship to be one-shot by a missile swarm while travelling, the only solution is to make it too dangerous for the enemy to do so.If they shot it down, it plows into a target.>Ship warfareUnder that logic, warship will avoid easy-destruction, but they can still be disabled by laser burst & more exotic weapon, resulting in a mission failure and even capture.So what now?>Space FighterFinally,To capture target, you'll now need a vehicle that can safely navigate around space station, disable hard to reach systems from multiple direction, support space-boarder.It will require to be able to survive & counter attempt to disable it, a crew will lessen the risk of hacking or jamming working, even with good AI on board.
>>65396924what if energy shields were invented though
>>65396166Extant physics.>Laser range is determined by wavelength and aperture diameter>Laser power is determined by how much wasteheat you can deal with>this also determines how many hard-kill capable lasers you can have (not many)>combined, this results in effective defensive ranges in the single- to maybe doubledigit km range>it's not any better for kinetic interception, since time on target makes them avoidable>missiles on the other hand, can coast essentially to infinity, only very short bursts needed to correct the trajectory>you therefore need something that can intercept missiles at range>a small enough spacecraft that it can be an acceptable loss, large enough it can mount an energy- or kinetic weapon>the same kind of spacecraft can also be used to protect missilea from such interceptor spacecraftFighters make perfect sense in space.Admittedly, bombers don't, since you can just let your missiles cruise freely and with basically no limitation, but that's all.
>>65396807>Enough differential thrust can sort of approximate the manoeuverability of an atmospheric fighterWhy would you ever want to do that? Just launch missiles. Every bit of delta v a torpedo boat spends to go towards a target and launch torpedoes it will have to spend again to come back. Just using all that delta v on the torpedoes is better in every way. It's not like earth where you can use air breathing jets and aerofoils for high efficiency and then rocket motors for the munition for high velocity.You basically need an uber efficient engine that only works for a fighter size craft but not for a weapon sized one so that you can come up with a gay confected reason why you need fighters to carry weapons and launch them instead of just launching more and better weapons from further.
>>65396990with high maneuverability you make the enemies engagement envelope smaller, if they launch missiles early, they burn out and you can then move out of the way, forcing the enemy to invest in bigger missiles with more burn phases
>>65396990Because the question was about space fighters and not a manned lifejacket-booster stage for a missile. I'm not going to talk about the abysmally low tactical utility of one, since that was not the question being asked. There's a million different ways you can justify sub-optimal designs being used by a military in a fictional story.
>>65396927They already exist, the limitation is you need a dead star, and survive in its presence for it to be of any use.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnetar
>>65397016>with high maneuverability you make the enemies engagement envelope smaller, if they launch missiles early, they burn out and you can then move out of the way, forcing the enemy to invest in bigger missiles with more burn phasesI don't think you understand what's being discussed here at all.
>>65397056I read your message then the message I wrote after re-reading the message I responded to and I suspect one of us is drunk and I know I don't drink alcohol
>>65396166Torpedo boats might work on shear Quantity over Quality. Fighters...not so much.
>Fission/fussion reactor to heat propelant mass>Propelant mass to cool it down>Liquid compressed hydrogen for fast acceleration>Something like ammonia, water, mercury for travel acceleration>Dumping the plasma of the reactor directly as after burnerThat should work well enough for in system travel and fighting or just dump nukes behind your back, or use a xray pumped nuke maybe as traveling, you could also use ion cannon as both propulsion and attack system and laser also generate thrust albeit minimal so there is thst also
>>65396807Well there's really no need to dogfight even if you have antimatter. Missiles would be insane in space and able to outmaneuver anything manned
>>65396166There will be no space fighters, i.e., small 1-2 manned spacecraft. Why? Because there is no air nor gravity in space, so engines and spaceframe can scale up almost linearly. On earth, planes can only get to a certain size before aerodynamics and square cube law brings it down. Basically, there's no reason you can't build a spaceship the size of the Yamato that can zip around in space like the Zero as long as you scale up the engines. In fact, larger ships should be faster due to the potentially larger engines.
How can a spacecraft cruising at high speed after a long period of acceleration agilely change its vector?
Yeah we already have them in the secret space force.
>>65396927Then obviously physics is turned upside down and you don't get fun things.
>>65396969For the job you describe a drone would be infinitely better, and given the difficulty of powering/cooling a laser, bigger is better.As space warfare goes a laser spam follow missile spam closely and make both fighter and can make conventional warship extinct.
>>65396166>scifi magic>energy weaponsJust have all fights happen in a terrain with NO atmosphere aka outer space.
