Lightspeed & Combat (Range)

[Moriarty]

After a quick search of the forums, I'm wondering how such a major point was missed now that FO is at the combat-engine stage. I'm guessing everyone automatically made assumptions based on all the other games around.

I'm refering to combat range with direct relevence to light speed.

Basically to save a long waffling post, it boils down to this:
1) What ranges will combat be fought at? Light seconds (300,000km = 1ls? Light Minutes (18million km = 1lm)? More or less? You could have it at 1 Light hour, but "sped up 3600 times" so that it seemed to be light seconds.

2) Will light travel at lightspeed? Specifically laser weapons etc. If you're fighting at even 1 light second this means that laser weapons would be based on targetting data 2 seconds old when they get to their target.

All space-combat in all games that I can think of results in combat being at mere 1000's of kilometers (or at least gives the illusion of).


Remember that every weapon you fire that has mass (i.e. rail guns/missles) should essentially have infinite range and should continue at it's final momentum until it hits something (Newton said so ). So why on earth would you get within 100,000km of the enemy when you can just saturate the area with fire from a distance?

This leads me to a new (to me) concept for a missile. Fire from mass-driver, and when it gets within reasonable range of the target it activates it's engines (as limited fuel) and homes. Thus 100% accuracy (excluding ECM's) from ANY range in the solar system.


This then results in me postulating as to the ultimate question. If you could hit an enemy at those distances, WHY would you get into range of a fortified planet? You'd surely stay out of it's range and try and lure the enemy fleet out. If their fleet didn't come, you could simply bombard everything from afar.


Personally I think I'd prefer it at multiple light seconds (up to 5) with no speed up. Thus lasers take 5 seconds to cross an entire combat zone (assuming they are big ala moo3). Ships going sub c could still manange it at in a reasonable time (I'm not sure what you guys decided but it's a simple divide by sum to work out engine speed )


Moriarty
Seems I ended up waffling anyway

[Combatjuan]

I don't think that the game should specify or hint at a combat range or a combat length. Perhaps it takes the entire turn (presumably 1 space year or whatever), perhaps it only takes 3 seconds of the turn due to relativistic speeds.

The thing is, you can attend all the university phyics lectures you want, and read all manner of scientific journals on the subject, and what you'll find is that only the most arrogant scientists and scholars will claim to have any idea about how things really work at relativistic speeds, or really big or small distances/masses/energy levels.

I think that the game would shoot itself in the foot by trying to model any kind of real physics that didn't directly improve the play experience. Most models will not improve the game at all, and what's worse, any model that we choose to use and claim is based on 'real' science will likely be outdated in a decade.

Therefore I propose that we declare no such combat distance. And if a planet or star is visible in the tactical map, that we have no qualms with making smaller ships a significan fraction of its visible size, that we ignore true inertia and relativistic effects, and just make the game fun.

[Moriarty]

I think that the game would shoot itself in the foot by trying to model any kind of real physics that didn't directly improve the play experience.

My point is that how do you know that this wouldn't be more fun if no-one has ever tried it (to my knowledge).

I don't recalling relativistic effects or any of that mumbo-jumbo. Simply trying to clarifty at what range combat would take place at, and if light-speed weapons would hit instantly or take a few seconds.

[transcend]

I know this is an old post but I've thought about the whole laser targetting/speed of light/old information issue for a while.

Basically, the closer you got to an enemy ship, the more often and faster you will have to do "evasive maneuvers" to avoid being hit by their lasers. As you approach the enemy as well, they may find it economical to try to "guess" where you will be in 2 seconds by firing randomly or in grid-patterns to try to damage you.

How much you can continue to evade the enemy depends on your ship size, maneuvering speed and how much fuel you have/how much fuel it costs to accelerate your ship at the speed required to avoid enemy fire. Given this, it would seem that stealthy, fast, small laser drones would be a good bet to attack an enemy, especially a relatively stationary one.

Regarding planetary invasions, you can perhaps design the game so that planet fortifications have a disadvantage. For example, perhaps orbiting defense satellites will have a more predictable orbital path and therefore a higher chance of being hit. Also, perhaps ground fortifications (missile sites, laser beams, fighter bases, etc) are more easily targetable than their space-bound enemies since their positions are static, and thus they can be hit from farther away since they cannot "maneuver" out of harm's way. One potential drawback to this idea is that realistically, perhaps they would put planetary defenses on rails to allow them to shuffle around while they fire.

[Airshipjones]

I am a big advocate of varying the timeflow so that we can keep the rate of travel consistence, but still keep the play moving along. This allows for combat across an entire solar system, and for weapons effects moving at LS to to be essentially ignored. I think the only faster than LS movement should be out of combat (or perhaps via teleportation, which is an 'effect').

In regards to attacking a fortified plant from long range, just think of the defenses (and the scanners detecting stuff coming in at near LS) and over long distances having plenty of time to take it out. The only way that would work is if the number of items is too great for the defense system to stop them all, and then the range isn't the issue anyway. It is valuable though as a way to pin down planetary defenses so that an attacking fleet can get in range to start doing some serious damage with beam weapons or perhaps board space stations or even get assault ships to the surface.