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[forsaken1111]

Got that right.

I'm really depressed right now cause I won't see all this glorious technology implemented. Unless they perfect cryogenics.

But anyway. Is a black hole part of a quasar?

The consensus is that a quasar generally surrounds a supermassive black hole, yes. Whether that is true will have to wait until we can go visit one.

[Johnfalcon99977]

I am not joking at all. In fact, I am dead serious. These are real facts. Super Heated plasma is extremely hot, enough to melt through titanum and raw steel.

Lightspeed travel is also impossible. Its a common fact.

Oh ok, so we'll do this one at a time.

I think spaceship to spaceship warfare will include firing super-heated peices of plasma at other ships (It can be done!).

Enlighten me as to how one fires a 'piece' of plasma. I'm not saying it can't be done, but I've heard of no experiments regarding the controlled emission of weaponized plasma.

Missles will have to be ruled out because the boom would require oyxgen.

Okay, first... many explosive chemicals can burn or react without the presence of atmospheric oxygen. Some of them have the oxygen in the substance itself. We even include the oxygen with rocket fuel so that it can burn in space, as far as I know. That aside, why would we use chemical explosives at all? I would go with a fission or fusion based reaction in missiles myself. We already have the technology to do both.

I have heard of Railguns, but I do not have enough proof to support that so I will not try.

I touched on 'railguns' (i.e. kinetic weaponry) earlier. Beyond a certain (fairly short) range, a kinetic kill vehicle is simply too inaccurate to be useful. It generally has none of the in-flight course correction or guidance which makes missiles a useful weapon. The target will simply drift out of position before your shell arrives, even if it doesn't know it's been fired upon. This is compounded by the difficulties of light-speed limited sensors such as radar.

Hacking ships controls will be, in all likelyhood, a major killer.

I really don't see how. Ruling out actual sabotage, as in an infiltrator placed there to disable the ship, the only way to 'hack' a ship's controls would be to establish a connection with its computer system. This is easily preventable, as one could simply turn wireless input OFF during combat except for very specific frequencies, and on those frequencies one could accept only telemetry or voice/visual data from allied spacecraft. Even that could be shut down should it become apparent that an attack is being attempted through them.

With wireless input off your only other option is a physical connection. If you can get inside the ship to connect to the computer, you may as well plant a bomb.

Also light sabers are impossible, but you can mail super heated plasma and give em' a good scorching like that.

Traveling a superhigh speeds will be a problem, seeing as the speed of light is impossible and warpholes are way too small.

I'm not even sure what to make of these two sentences. They make no sense at all. What is a warphole?

First, you will not hear tests about super-heated plasma because were not currently trying to fire super heated plasma in space (NASA geeks perfer to go to Mars then test the future of warfare). Space is still a widely unknown part of science. Its still a theory and this is my thought, not fact.

Second, I said openly I do not know much about these "Railguns". It may be like you said. Then again, science may prove otherwise.

Third, nothing is as simple as simply turning a swich on and off and expecting it to work like magic. It is impossible to completely cut-off a ship from all outside sourse. Another computer could try and hack the code to the frequencies. The only real way to protect yourself is to shutdown all communitaction to the outside, thus also making you more likely to get hit by friendly fire due to the fact you may not be marked as friendly anymore.

Fourth, A warphole is a ultra-tiny hole that leads to a another place in the middle of who knows where.

[Urist is dead tome]

I assure you by the time there are wars in space, we will be able to decide who to talk to during combat. And I'm sure that they will have distinctive ships.

I'm not sure a warphole exists. You might mean a wormhole but I'm not sure those exist either. 'cause last I checked warpholes were in Mari Brothers.

[Johnfalcon99977]

I assure you by the time there are wars in space, we will be able to decide who to talk to during combat. And I'm sure that they will have distinctive ships.

I'm not sure a warphole exists. You might mean a wormhole but I'm not sure those exist either. 'cause last I checked warpholes were in Mari Brothers.

Yeah... I meant wormholes. My bad.

[Johnfalcon99977]

I assure you by the time there are wars in space, we will be able to decide who to talk to during combat. And I'm sure that they will have distinctive ships.

Then again, these will be fought in places that have no light to show the ships, so that means sensors will be the only way of seeing things.

[forsaken1111]

First, you will not hear tests about super-heated plasma because were not currently trying to fire super heated plasma in space (NASA geeks perfer to go to Mars then test the future of warfare). Space is still a widely unknown part of science. Its still a theory and this is my thought, not fact.

Okay, so it's a theory. Its your theory. You assured us that it 'can be done!' but actually you meant "I really think it can maybe be done!"

Second, I said openly I do not know much about these "Railguns". It may be like you said. Then again, science may prove otherwise.

There is only so much science can do about an unguided kinetic projectile. Unless you have a system that can predict the future, you still don't know where the target will be when the projectile arrives.

Third, nothing is as simple as simply turning a swich on and off and expecting it to work like magic. It is impossible to completely cut-off a ship from all outside sourse. Another computer could try and hack the code to the frequencies. The only real way to protect yourself is to shutdown all communitaction to the outside, thus also making you more likely to get hit by friendly fire due to the fact you may not be marked as friendly anymore.

Actually it is as simple as turning off a switch. I can turn off my wireless router and nobody can 'hack' my computer without plugging into it. You're also assuming that any incoming data stream can be 'hacked' and hijacked for any purpose. What if I leave my communication system open to the world but I don't network it with my piloting controls? You're free to hack the comms system all you want, you still can't magically connect to unconnected computer systems. This is one of a few things Battlestar Galactica got right. The cylons could hack through their defensive barriers in no time, so they simply disconnected the networked systems. Now it doesn't matter if the cylons hack through into their comms... they can't overload the power plant or shut down life support because there is no connection.

Fourth, A warphole is a ultra-tiny hole that leads to a another place in the middle of who knows where.

Yeah, there is actually no such thing as a warphole. That isn't even a word. You're thinking of wormholes, or Einstein-Rosen bridges.

I assure you by the time there are wars in space, we will be able to decide who to talk to during combat. And I'm sure that they will have distinctive ships.

Then again, these will be fought in places that have no light to show the ships, so that means sensors will be the only way of seeing things.

One doesn't fly in space relying on light. But just because you use sensors doesn't mean those sensors have to accept commands from their data inputs, or that those sensors are connected to any other important systems.

[Shinziril]

Any sort of plasma weapon would diffuse into complete and utter harmlessness before it gets a hundred meters out, which is hilariously shorter range compared to basically any other practical weapon.  This is because plasma is, basically, hot gas, which will expand into the vacuum of space and fizzle out almost immediately. 

Even nuclear devices aren't as effective as you'd think.  Without air to create a shockwave, what you get is basically a gamma ray/x-ray flashbulb, the intensity of which will fall off as the inverse square of the distance from the explosion as is standard for all point sources.  Get it close enough and you'll get fun vaporization effects from the radiation impinging on the target's hull and possibly radiation effects on the crew, but you have to get it decently close to the target for that to work.  Think under a kilometer, which is pretty close range when a tenth of a light-second (probably a reasonable range to hit someone with a laser without worrying about lightspeed lag too much) is 30,000 kilometers.  Neutron bombs are better if the ship is crewed, since it doesn't take a lot of neutron radiation to kill the crew.  A big (one-megaton) bomb might to able to kill out to, say, 300 km.  You could probably get a missile that close to the target. 

Lasers are nice and fast, but their effectiveness also falls off with range due to focusing difficulties unless you have a REALLY powerful laser, or a very good lens. 


For a very, very good introduction to some ideas about rockets and space, go to Project Rho. 

[forsaken1111]

Yes... this is why I said wars in space would likely be fast, cruel things with single quick passes and then a lot of maneuvering. Ranges are just too damn short for effective weaponry.

The purpose of a weapon is to deliver a large amount of energy to a target in a very short amount of time. Delivering that energy over long ranges (more than 1 light second) is very difficult. Delivering it accurately is even harder.

[Johnfalcon99977]

Third, nothing is as simple as simply turning a swich on and off and expecting it to work like magic. It is impossible to completely cut-off a ship from all outside sourse. Another computer could try and hack the code to the frequencies. The only real way to protect yourself is to shutdown all communitaction to the outside, thus also making you more likely to get hit by friendly fire due to the fact you may not be marked as friendly anymore.

Actually it is as simple as turning off a switch. I can turn off my wireless router and nobody can 'hack' my computer without plugging into it. You're also assuming that any incoming data stream can be 'hacked' and hijacked for any purpose. What if I leave my communication system open to the world but I don't network it with my piloting controls? You're free to hack the comms system all you want, you still can't magically connect to unconnected computer systems. This is one of a few things Battlestar Galactica got right. The cylons could hack through their defensive barriers in no time, so they simply disconnected the networked systems. Now it doesn't matter if the cylons hack through into their comms... they can't overload the power plant or shut down life support because there is no connection.

I respect yout point and theory. However, messing with the comms can cause some damage if you do it right and have a bit of luck.

For example, you can hack into their comms systems and start yelling that "the enemy" has hyjacked the ship next to you. Under battle pessier he may order to open fire on them without checking. Then they could hack into another ship and say that the ship that is supposedly attacking a ship "hyjacked by the enemy" is a hyjacked ship so they will attack him. And so on and so on.
Creating confustion in the enemies comms is a way to cause havoc in enemy ranks, but it still is risky. Many things can go wrong. For example, the commander of the ship may be talking with the ship that is subject to "enemy hyjacking". He would instantly dismiss it because it would make no sense. Or perhaps the commander may be smarter then most and figure out its a trick. Its dangerours, but once the first is attacking it would be a whole lot easier. It can also be used to make false trails or confuse the enemy to the location of an ambush. Hacking the comms to cause havoc is a very effective way of destoring your enemies ranks. But still, its risky.

[forsaken1111]

I respect yout point and theory. However, messing with the comms can cause some damage if you do it right and have a bit of luck.

For example, you can hack into their comms systems and start yelling that "the enemy" has hyjacked the ship next to you. Under battle pessier he may order to open fire on them without checking. Then they could hack into another ship and say that the ship that is supposedly attacking a ship "hyjacked by the enemy" is a hyjacked ship so they will attack him. And so on and so on.
Creating confustion in the enemies comms is a way to cause havoc in enemy ranks, but it still is risky. Many things can go wrong. For example, the commander of the ship may be talking with the ship that is subject to "enemy hyjacking". He would instantly dismiss it because it would make no sense. Or perhaps the commander may be smarter then most and figure out its a trick. Its dangerours, but once the first is attacking it would be a whole lot easier. It can also be used to make false trails or confuse the enemy to the location of an ambush. Hacking the comms to cause havoc is a very effective way of destoring your enemies ranks. But still, its risky.

Right, I was arguing against your original point of people 'hacking the controls' and it being deadly. You don't need to hack the communication system to insert false comms signals, you just need to break whatever encryption scheme they're using though I guess if the transmission comes from a friendly it might add veracity to the deception.

Seems like a lot of work to maybe confuse them when you could just shoot em.

[Duke 2.0]

For example, you can hack into their comms systems and start yelling that "the enemy" has hyjacked the ship next to you.

"What is the verification code?"
"Verification code?"
"Yes, the code you say to verify that this is a secure signal."
"Uhh..."
"Shut off the coms, it's useless now."

 Because the military has already thought of these.

[Johnfalcon99977]

I respect yout point and theory. However, messing with the comms can cause some damage if you do it right and have a bit of luck.

For example, you can hack into their comms systems and start yelling that "the enemy" has hyjacked the ship next to you. Under battle pessier he may order to open fire on them without checking. Then they could hack into another ship and say that the ship that is supposedly attacking a ship "hyjacked by the enemy" is a hyjacked ship so they will attack him. And so on and so on.
Creating confustion in the enemies comms is a way to cause havoc in enemy ranks, but it still is risky. Many things can go wrong. For example, the commander of the ship may be talking with the ship that is subject to "enemy hyjacking". He would instantly dismiss it because it would make no sense. Or perhaps the commander may be smarter then most and figure out its a trick. Its dangerours, but once the first is attacking it would be a whole lot easier. It can also be used to make false trails or confuse the enemy to the location of an ambush. Hacking the comms to cause havoc is a very effective way of destoring your enemies ranks. But still, its risky.

Right, I was arguing against your original point of people 'hacking the controls' and it being deadly. You don't need to hack the communication system to insert false comms signals, you just need to break whatever encryption scheme they're using though I guess if the transmission comes from a friendly it might add veracity to the deception.

Seems like a lot of work to maybe confuse them when you could just shoot em.

But in the end it would pay off. Would rather fight the enemy in extremely dangerous space combat where you (And many others) could die in a instant, or would you rather sit back and watch the enemy kill each other off?

[Johnfalcon99977]

For example, you can hack into their comms systems and start yelling that "the enemy" has hyjacked the ship next to you.

"What is the verification code?"
"Verification code?"
"Yes, the code you say to verify that this is a secure signal."
"Uhh..."
"Shut off the coms, it's useless now."

 Because the military has already thought of these.

Thats why you have computer hackers and spies.

[Duke 2.0]

 If you have a spy then just sabotage it.

 If you hack into the military database it's far more valuable to know the present course of the ship than the ability to perhaps confuse them maybe. Then you can fire a railgun at their trajectory and hit them.

[Johnfalcon99977]

But in the end it would pay off. Would rather fight the enemy in extremely dangerous space combat where you (And many others) could die in a instant, or would you rather sit back and watch the enemy kill each other off?