I don't see how you can say that as someone who likes giant robots...It also looks kind of dumb to be honest
I have a pretty demanding sense of aesthetics on top of everything else.
Space combat concepts
- Thread starter Ford Prefect
- Start date
- Worldbuilding Original
-
- Tags
- space battles
- Location
- The Hague
- Pronouns
- He/Him
PhoenixMercurous
Soaring through the stars
- Location
- USA
- Pronouns
- He/Him
Some random thoughts, if you don't mind.
I like the idea of having space combat be more dispersonal and sanitized on the surface then ground combat, but no less savage at it's core. I think the juxtaposition of combat styles could help reinforce the idea that technological progress doesn't equate to moral progress (which I think is your main theme). My thoughts would be to use a combination of several of your ideas to produce a space combat paradigm where neat formations of ships exchange laser (or particle beam) fire as directed by officers who treat the affair like a math problem, even though they fundamentally are just beating on each other with really sophisticated "hammers," while the lives of thousands of soldiers and who knows how many civilians hang in the balance.
The first part is built off idea #4, where all ships have force fields in addition to their armor. The force fields protect their weapons and engines, which might otherwise be weak points, and prevents veltgetters from landing on the ships' exteriors so long as the force fields are up. The force fields aren't magic though, they have some finite (if absurdly large) energy density and spend some of that energy to block attacks so they require constant power input when under fire. Breaking through a ship's force field can be done in two ways, either (a) a single attack with higher energy/area than the defending force field or (b) depleting the defending force field's energy reserve through attrition. Method (a) leads away from the paradigm I'm aiming for, so I'll focus on method (b).
In method (b) of breaking through force fields, the battle boils down to a literal power struggle where the attackers try to fire more watts at the defender than the defender can pump into their force field, slowly wearing down the defender's energy reserves. Missiles are defeated by the defender's electronic warfare and kinetic weapons are limited by ammunition, so energy weapons dominate this stage of combat. Ultimately this is about power output, which scales (approximately) with reactor volume, and thus ship size cubed. The idea is to produce a situation analogous to the veltgetters beating on each other with hammers, but instead of hammers it's lasers and reactor size. To add more depth and prevent the biggest, most sphericalcow in a vacuum space ship from always winning, heat management is an important factor in space combat. Spheres have the highest possible volume/surface area ratio, which makes them the best shape for maximizing reactor power output, but the worst possible shape for heat dissipation, which scales (approximately) with surface area and thus ship size squared. Having to deal with heat dissipation also limits the maximum ship size and encourages allied ships fighting in formation, you don't want the infrared radiation from one ship's radiator's hitting an allied ship. This allows for some diversity in ship design, how each faction approaches the power output vs heat management problem, and some room for tactics.
The next step is defeating the defender's armor. There are several possibilities, depending on the aesthetics and themes you're aiming for. The first is either wearing down the defender's armor, just like the force field was worn down. If the armor is incredibly expensive, smaller battles might end when one side starts taking armor damage. This could be used if you want to make a point about the "cold calculus of war" by having ship's armor be more valuable than victory. Another possibility is the attackers could try to dump more energy into the ship's armor than it can dissipate, heating up the defending ship until the crew and/or internal components are cooked to death while the armor remains mostly unharmed. This is a rather brutal, inhuman option, but it somewhat reflects veltgetter combat being about killing the person in the suit, not destroying the suit itself. Either of these options would produce clean looking space combat, where formations of high-tech ships exchange invisible laser fire, that hides a brutal "human" cost.
Based on idea 2, missiles, fighters, and/or veltgetters could be used to deliver devices that damage the armor through some method. The defender's electronic warfare would need to be dealt with here as well. Missiles would need defensive ECM or to be fired in large enough numbers to overwhelm the anti-missile defense. If defensive ECM is too expensive to be mounted on disposable missiles, the armor breaching devices would need to be delivered by fighters or veltgetters. All of these feel a bit cliche, but they could work.
Disabling ships through hitting vulnerable spots or electronic warfare, followed by boarding are also options, but I'm too tired to think about them right now.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on one direction you could go with space combat.
I like the idea of having space combat be more dispersonal and sanitized on the surface then ground combat, but no less savage at it's core. I think the juxtaposition of combat styles could help reinforce the idea that technological progress doesn't equate to moral progress (which I think is your main theme). My thoughts would be to use a combination of several of your ideas to produce a space combat paradigm where neat formations of ships exchange laser (or particle beam) fire as directed by officers who treat the affair like a math problem, even though they fundamentally are just beating on each other with really sophisticated "hammers," while the lives of thousands of soldiers and who knows how many civilians hang in the balance.
The first part is built off idea #4, where all ships have force fields in addition to their armor. The force fields protect their weapons and engines, which might otherwise be weak points, and prevents veltgetters from landing on the ships' exteriors so long as the force fields are up. The force fields aren't magic though, they have some finite (if absurdly large) energy density and spend some of that energy to block attacks so they require constant power input when under fire. Breaking through a ship's force field can be done in two ways, either (a) a single attack with higher energy/area than the defending force field or (b) depleting the defending force field's energy reserve through attrition. Method (a) leads away from the paradigm I'm aiming for, so I'll focus on method (b).
In method (b) of breaking through force fields, the battle boils down to a literal power struggle where the attackers try to fire more watts at the defender than the defender can pump into their force field, slowly wearing down the defender's energy reserves. Missiles are defeated by the defender's electronic warfare and kinetic weapons are limited by ammunition, so energy weapons dominate this stage of combat. Ultimately this is about power output, which scales (approximately) with reactor volume, and thus ship size cubed. The idea is to produce a situation analogous to the veltgetters beating on each other with hammers, but instead of hammers it's lasers and reactor size. To add more depth and prevent the biggest, most spherical
The next step is defeating the defender's armor. There are several possibilities, depending on the aesthetics and themes you're aiming for. The first is either wearing down the defender's armor, just like the force field was worn down. If the armor is incredibly expensive, smaller battles might end when one side starts taking armor damage. This could be used if you want to make a point about the "cold calculus of war" by having ship's armor be more valuable than victory. Another possibility is the attackers could try to dump more energy into the ship's armor than it can dissipate, heating up the defending ship until the crew and/or internal components are cooked to death while the armor remains mostly unharmed. This is a rather brutal, inhuman option, but it somewhat reflects veltgetter combat being about killing the person in the suit, not destroying the suit itself. Either of these options would produce clean looking space combat, where formations of high-tech ships exchange invisible laser fire, that hides a brutal "human" cost.
Based on idea 2, missiles, fighters, and/or veltgetters could be used to deliver devices that damage the armor through some method. The defender's electronic warfare would need to be dealt with here as well. Missiles would need defensive ECM or to be fired in large enough numbers to overwhelm the anti-missile defense. If defensive ECM is too expensive to be mounted on disposable missiles, the armor breaching devices would need to be delivered by fighters or veltgetters. All of these feel a bit cliche, but they could work.
Disabling ships through hitting vulnerable spots or electronic warfare, followed by boarding are also options, but I'm too tired to think about them right now.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on one direction you could go with space combat.