Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[syvarris]

((Somehow I managed to post this in R&R by accident.  Don't ask how, I have no idea.))

Hmm.  Stealth would be one advantage.  It depends on how the sensors work, but presumably it's easier to detect a massive battleship with hundreds of crewmembers than to detect a cramped fighter with a single pilot.

Also amp weapons.  Automanipulators might be able to be used instead, but I think the abilities of a space wizard shouldn't be discounted- especially if you modified the fighter to enhance space magic in the same way as the Avatar of War.

That's an interesting thought... space based avatars...

Overloads too, because those need people nearby.  Although that's getting into the area of manned kamikaze missile rather than fighter.

Also, being small and hard to hit is a possible advantage, if the enemy ship's PD is taken out or ineffective against fighters.  If it just has big anti-ship guns, fighters can sandpaper away at it with impunity.

[Taricus]

@Radio: Maybe, but by that point you may as well get the fighter since costs for all that would be pretty high there. Theoretically though, small fighter craft would be useful because of the energy shielding on most ships, yet most of them seem to lack something against ballistic weapons. Mount a cannon or two on a fighter, have them make short runs on the ships.

And one thing I just thought up that should be said about the boarding: Do expect the UWM ships not only to have a self-destruct protocol, but expect them to use it as well.

[kisame12794]

If worst comes to worst, we can always exit via the many hull breaches that are sure to have been created.

[Xantalos]

Oh, kisame, expect Xan to demand his token for the knife provided you survive.

[BFEL]

RC that setting idea is awesome. Do make.

[kisame12794]

Eh, worst comes to worst, I can always check if entering voidspace preserves momentum. Only as a total, "Here comes the sudden stop" last resort.

[renegadelobster]

@Radio Not really, just thinking a general upgrade for the steve-bots to help defend the laser batteries, but I have a feeling you have a better idea

[GreatWyrmGold]

Ms Paint strikes again!

*applause*

Or we could just uninstall the drop point.
They couldn't get us then.

I don't think we could, and even if we did, we would also incidentally seal ourselves off from the rest of the universe.

ACTIVATE RECALL FUNCTION: Bluesmokes cause someone to become more logical and intuitive. Longtime smokers have been known to have almost precognitive intuition, but no regard for their own safety.

So, if you smoke them long enough, you're basically the same but with precognition? And lung cancer?

What do fighters do better than, or exclusively related to, larger ships? Answer this, and you get a reason for fighters in a setting.

The only possible advantages are maneuverability (which of course makes fuel tanks need to be significantly bigger in harder science fiction), maybe being harder to hit, and probably being cheaper (possibly enough to swarm?). They're probably best-suited to near-suicide missions, like assaulting Death Stars.
That, and as orbital defense vehicles or somesuch. Maybe a version for helping with the point defense of larger vessels?

While doing so, it has no physical presence in the way we know it (could expand on it, but won't, would take too much time). However, it keeps going until it either runs out of fuel or it gets pulled out of the jump. This is because everything that has mass sends out a 'gravity field', the more mass the bigger the field. And the chance (and distance from the object) of an object forcing you out of jump increases with both your and his mass. The distance at which a ship is forced out of jump isn't always the same though, but follows a probabilistic approach, like a bell curve.

Is this "gravity field":
A. something sensors can detect?
B. the only way things in phasespace or whatever interact with the world?
C. actually a gravitational field?
And for that matter, can the gravity fields of two phasing ships interact?

Also amp weapons.  Automanipulators might be able to be used instead, but I think the abilities of a space wizard shouldn't be discounted- especially if you modified the fighter to enhance space magic in the same way as the Avatar of War.
That's an interesting thought... space based avatars...

Another synthflesh spaceship? Only, more intended for the rigors of space?
Whatever happened to our first human spaceship?

[Gamerlord]

Since when does ER have it's own subforum?

[Xantalos]

Since it was BADASS

[GreatWyrmGold]

Since when does ER have it's own subforum?

Since last night. Well, last night in this time zone. A bit under 25 hours ago.

Since it was BADASS

It has been badass for much longer than 25 hours, or even 25 days.

[Tiruin]

What do fighters do better than, or exclusively related to, larger ships? Answer this, and you get a reason for fighters in a setting.

The only possible advantages are maneuverability (which of course makes fuel tanks need to be significantly bigger in harder science fiction), maybe being harder to hit, and probably being cheaper (possibly enough to swarm?). They're probably best-suited to near-suicide missions, like assaulting Death Stars.
That, and as orbital defense vehicles or somesuch. Maybe a version for helping with the point defense of larger vessels?

Hmm, other than go back in movie history, I hope this piece of relative history would help.

1. Fighters were used as pinpoint precision weapons. They delivered the exact strike to where it was needed. This is expounded in #3
2. Space. Space is 3D. 3D much like how we've got dogfights and such in the earlier days-sans the note of gravity. Attacks may be made from any and all angles.
3. Big ships only have computer and targeting modules to guide any ordnance from big ship₁ to big ship₂. Fighters, being human-controlled, can make the split critical decision which aids in the effectivity of a strike and the position of the projectile or bomb in question. Our problem is manpower--we cannot field that many fighters given our people...as far as I know.
Anyway: Take that in mind. Fighters, while tiny and seemingly insignificant (I wonder if many others here just think big and not the minor details o_O) HAVE a vital role to play in wars. They can take out and disable strategic points in larger ships or installations, as well as load up boarding crews (if needed). They can harass the enemy when larger weapons would take longer and worsen the problem as a whole. They can penetrate shielded facilities and deep-strike from therein.

Oh, and knowing that we can load quite powerful weapons on -relatively small- platforms? That's a huge plus to fighters.

[GreatWyrmGold]

1. Why can't the big spaceships do the same? Or automated drones?
2. The problem is, anything little ships can do big ones can do better.
3. Humans are not inherently superior to computerized targeting. If they were, we wouldn't have targeting computers.

Why can't we load the powerful weapons onto larger platforms?

[smurfingtonthethird]

Little ships are little. This makes them cheap and harder to hit. Then we can make thousands of the suckers as opposed to hundreds of bigger suckers which are easier to hit.

[GreatWyrmGold]

Why not make them smaller and cheaper by making them...not fighters, but instead drones/missiles?