Way to get me to agree with you.
You do have to agree, however - because you do, evidently. Both of those are entirely reasonable assumptions.
Still, you couldn't have found ANY other way to word it?
Anyways, the former is a pretty damn good reason AGAINST fighters and the second is oretty much unrelated to this whole issue. I don't see how they lead to your idea of fighters being useful.
Which means you essentially didn't read the whole thing properly. I did explain why the ships being valuable gives rise to PD and counter-PD weapons. If they weren't, the name of the game would be ship-busting weapons, and attacks to destroy rather than capture. Mobile, low-power weapons would mean nothing, as they would not be targeted first, except as a means to get a clear shot at the enemy with a few big guns. Holding weapons in reserve would be meaningless. Missiles would be doubly meaningless with their travel times. PD would exist as a secondary mode of operation for primary weapons, and as a means to quicker destroy enemy lifeboats, and would only see combat use in the rarest of cases. It'd be an entirely different evolution path, so to speak.
Just to point out, your whole argument kinda falls apart if ships are cheap enough that people throw away tons of them on fairly minor battles, or for slightly-above-average-wealth people to drive around in like high-end cars. Which is basically every science fiction thing ever.
Why would the mobile weapons need to be low-power? We've repeatedly pointed out that no, they really don't.
Why would holding weapons in reserve be "meaningless"?
Wouldn't fighters also need to close? Missiles as in explody things maybe, but they have the advantages of being smaller and being able to pack a higher amount of reaction mass while not needing as much (since they don't need to fly back), and "missiles" which are one-use drones armed with railguns or lasers or whatever are as capable of attacking enemies as similar-sized fighters. And they're also cheaper.
I also just noticed something about your argument...
You never actually explain why the magtanks wouldn't work.
They wouldn't work for the same reason a NASCAR stock car is wouldn't work for the bi-annual Russian Rural Rally Cross Championship. Think of how fast a turret like that would need to go, using the smooth surface of the armor to attach itself firmly and not accidentally fly off when there's a curve or the ship lurches suddenly. Think of what would happen if it hits a strip of armor melted by a laser beam at speed. Depending on how its magnets work and how fast it was going, it might become the inspiration for the detachable drones. 
Ha ha. Um, first off what kind of non-ship-destroying weapons are
melting large sections of hull?!? Second off, molten metal is also magnetic, and if it was molten enough to slip off you'd have problems of big holes appearing in the ship because you basically jellied a big section of hull, and since it's big and loose enough to impede a magnatank rolling across it, it's by far big enough to blow outwards under the pressure of air inside and cause major problems for people in the ship. Forget fighters, that laser is the big weapon.
Anyways, the idea that fast-moving turrets are going to be flying off the hull...not happening with smart design, and if it is for some reason you just have competition between railturrets and magnatanks. It's not enough of an issue for people to waste the resources and such on fighters.
In other words, where rail turrets can be boxed in by destroying their rails, magtank turrets can be boxed in by simply shooting up the ship hull around them. Not a perfect weapon by far.
Don't try to look for the perfect weapon--there isn't one.
And again, your "evolution" path requires a specific line of steps, of jumps in ideas, which I just don't see as being the likeliest or most logical ones. Most importantly, you are taking the idea of "mobile weapons become new paradigm" to unreasonable levels, where the mobility of the weapons reach a point where increasing it costs more than it's worth.
I don't think these levels are unreasonable. The jumps of ideas I see are logical - to me, at least, obviously. How would you propose the weapons and tactics to evolve given the initial conditions? I have only outlined one of the possible paths I see - but no matter which path I see, in those conditions all of them lead to the appearance of mobile weapons. Be it as a weapon meant to hide or as a weapon meant to ambush after a supposed defeat, but they appear. I'd be interested in a counter-take.
Well, I'd be glad to do that if I had time to think this through and a better handle on the starting conditions. Sociopolitical/Economic issues are implied but not stated. Why are they fighting a war? How much resources do they have? And past that, what "tech level" are we talking about?
...Did I mention that I'll probably overthink it?
A fighter takes a LOT more resources to make and support than a railturret or a magtank or something, for one, and being silhouetted against the non-metal depths of space (as well as a hell of a lot larger), plus their reliance on their limited reaction mass, makes them easier to hit...which counteracts the whole point of mobility.
Again, limited reaction mass. That is really only true for the modern rockets. In the case of a mobile weapon, using the same powerplant to feed the weapon and the engines, interchangeably, you could have more delta-V than whole heavy lift vehicles - with, say, fusion engines. Like the one Simus is currently trying to turn into a missile warhead in VR. Support? They're unlikely to need repairs, have self-sufficient power, and only need to be topped up on fusion fuel every now and then. Maintenance? If they return from an engagement they only need a refuel and a checkup - at all other times they are dormant and don't have moving parts that could wear out or need replacement. They can EVA themselves into a hangar or a drydock. Replacing them is a trivial matter. They incur far less logistical expense than ship-based mobile weapons, the use of which requires constant repairs and drydock time - this alone might be enough to offset their cost.
You still have limited fuel, which is kind of a major issue. And how the heck are you going to be maneuvering without sending mass in the opposite direction? Isn't that a violation of Newton's Third Law of Motion?
And, um, are you saying that fighters
wouldn't need to be repaired? Because that implies that they would keep getting destroyed.
Again, I can't accurately project that far out, so I'm reaching for specifics. The core of the idea still stands, though. Taken far enough, a war waged by ships too valuable to destroy will move the fighting away from the ships, one way or another.
And the "ultimate" (at some point in time) solution is to make more ships, small and fragile enough that they'll be destroyed by any good hit?
What are you guys arguing about?
Who is Best Pony.
PyroDesu goes with Rarity, but GWG counter-argues his many points for AppleJack.
Hell no.
I'm just skimming through this argument at this point, but I find it incredibly funny that some people took the point defence tank idea seriously.
Well, it's not impossible, and it requires less resources than a whole fighter, as well as having looser design constraints and not needing reaction mass.
Author
Topic: Einsteinian Roulette: OOC and NEW PLAYER INFO (Read 2544585 times)