So? Capital spacecraft are absurdly energetic objects. When you calculate their engine output you realize that they are essentially riding particle beams - and yes, their engine exhaust is able to slice habitats into two. See my unfinished analysis at http://www.aleph.se/EclipsePhase/EP%20naval%20strategy.pdf for more details about why space combat is a bad place to be.

Cyber-Dave wrote:

I don't know if you mention this in your analysis, but it should probably be noted that explosions/nuclear explosions are a lot less effective in space.

Yes, I deal with it. Without a medium they are pretty tame (still, when they are close enough your spaceship is the medium). The real issue is how well you can dodge missiles, lasers and railgun projectiles - at typical space velocities even a simple chunk of matter is highly explosive.

Yea, I just wonder how accurate the idea of a "storm" of metal flying at an enemy spaceship really is. 1) I imagine that ships start shooting each other from very far away. 2) I imagine that ships deploy a large number of fighter crafts, and have a large number of automated tracking guns, all of which work to shoot down incoming missiles long before they come close to capital vessels. Sure, vessels will go down if they are hit by one or two nukes. But I imagine that a) they have some pretty impressive armor and b) they usually fire from far enough away that it is easy enough to avoid incoming rail projectiles. Not always, of course. Eventually a ship will die eventually. I just don't imagine that ships would go down as fast as people are suggesting. Fast? Yes. But in 30 seconds? Only if you imagine that everything will hit, and I don't. I imagine most things shot at an enemy vessel will miss due to the ranges at which ships would likely stay from each other. I imagine that capital ship to ship combat would look much like it does in something like Battlestar Gallactica. Swarms of fighters, and capital ships taking largely useless pot shots at each other until their defense systems are finally breached (after which one or two shots end up destroying your opponent). But what do I know...

Ok, that sounds very much like how I imagined space combat (though, I don't usually imagine ships flying at maximum speed during combat). Based on that description I will give your paper a read. Though, I must admit, I don't know why you feel that such situations don't sound conducive to good gaming. It sounds like quite an interesting scenario to roleplay and game to me! Some sort of sensor checks used instead of fray checks. The sensor vs. fray checks are handled like melee checks at X (farther distance), but regular ranged combat checks at Y (closer) distance. Nukes are one hit kill weapons (for the most part), but screens of fighters / anti-missile turret systems grant a high chance of destroying the nuke before it hits. Prior planning and prepping of a battlefield grant significant equipment bonuses. Sounds fun to me! Though, while the skill system would be the same, to keep things simple I would probably create a separate ship HP and weapon damage system. I sort of figure ships can just be assumed to be immune to regular person vs. person based weapons, and ship based weapons should probably be handled as a plot device when used against people/for planetary bombardment.

Space combat needs to be kept simple. We have to remember this is a game and therefore the rules need to be quick, memorable, fluid and above all, fun. I have used the Full Thrust rules, with some minor adaption, and they worked quite well.

Thinking about it a little, [url=http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=100018&src=su... ebook[/url] might contain some useful information that is pertinent to the discussion thread. I have not yet purchased it, but the table of contents (reprinted in the description) hints at the book's usefulness.

A strong force negator would release awesome energy. It is not quite up to the energy levels of matter-antimatter annihilation (it would only release the nuclear binding energy), but that is still plenty. But I can see a problem: the range of the force is very short, so the negator has to be close to the stuff it negates. That is, it is going to be single use when things go boom... An even more fun device would be something that strengthened the strong force, making matter implode into nuclear density globs... which would then explode as soon as the device failed to hold them together. Let's see, 12 grams of carbon has 6e23 atoms with 12 nucleons each. If it instantly fused into iron it would release about 1 MeV per nucleon - about 1.15 TJ. About 1/60 Hiroshima-bomb.

I'll give the paper a reading, however, these are my thoughs on EP's spacce combat (considering Panopticon and The Stars our Destination is the latest I've seen of EP): First, there is this old, old Asimov's robot saga about an Earth's detective going to a colony called Solaria to solve a murder. One of his conclusions points to a robot ship with a single consciousness. In that regard, I believe it is best (considering EP's technology) to craft space ships as a synthmorph of variable size. More than likely, this synthmorph would follow the rules of habitat control (several egos working together). Second, nothing prevents you to field kamikaze ego forks or LAIs inside explosive and agile "morphs", thus turning the ships into carriers. Of course, the ships themselves will have anti-"fighter" defenses, and nanotech defenses. Remember, the smaller the ship, the more nimble... but it will have less fuel (thus requiring the carriers). Third, given the numbers I've read on the OP, I'd say that either the AM container is the prize target of any space combat, or (more likely) the AM containers are detacheable and left behind of the battle zone. Four, while the Jovian Republic won't have this kind of stuff (they will use regular spaceships with organic crewmembers, but I believe they will use robotic or remote-controlled fighters), but they have one definite advantage, one definite strategy, and one big disadvantage they more than likely have turned into an advantage. Elaborating: Their strategy is of autharchy and isloation. As such, they have the big advantage of being limited in the space they will cover, but they turn it into an advantage thanks to the definite advantage that Jupiter is. In essence, this puzzle of words is that they play close to one of the biggest magnetic fields of the Solar System, meaning that instead of loading AM in their ships they can load some arcanotech that allows them to "ride" the magnetic waves on Jupiter (giving them more agility than the other, transhuman, ships, which they need since the Jovian ships will be bigger). As a conclussion, if you want to play a space battle involving the PC's, unless they are with the Jovian Republic it can be as simple as fielding them as the control egos of one ship treated as an habitat and consider the following points: - Cover is (usually) nonexistant, relying instead on stealth and distance for protection - Electronic Warfare (and Electronic Counter Warfare, or EW and ECW) are what defines your defense against attacks, inertia makes your travelling something easy to predict. - While there are no cover in space, some phenomenons canbe used to improve one's defense (like flying "with the sun at your six", or hiding in an asteroid field, etc...). - Hacking is possible, unless it is a single ship against many. - The Jovians rely on outdated concepts that gives them some degrees of protection against other dangers transhuman ships have to face, like hacking. I'd say both factions are balanced, as long as the Jovians "play at home" (inside Jupiter's magentic field). - Rules can be recycled: see the ships as Morphs, and the "fighters" as nanoswarms, consider only distance, stealtth and perception really matters, and you can make approximations to space battles that players might enjoy wihtout breaking anything. Personally, I see the space naval efforts as window-dressing from almost all sides (the Jovians might believe a space war with transhumanity might come, but I'm not sure of that), with the only practical side being against an alien invasion. Everything else would be solved by infantry battles, since orbital support can consists mostly on orbital bombardements... and if we read some BattleTech (for example) we can see that the best "bunker" against an orbital bomardement involves placing your troops INSIDE the facility the enemy wants to conquer.

I had a look at the .pdf mentioned earlier... my god, a lot of number-crunching XD. I believe it is too technical for the standard role-player (it was too technical for me, too XD), but the conclussions seem solid, and I'd try to explain the different steps taken to reach the conclussions in each chapter, and expand upon the final one.

Well, it is nice to have all the data, but you usually place it where people can find it if they want (not where people need to desperately dodge physics and maths and... XD). Anyway, I was thinking where did I saw the closest space combat to this document, and maybe it was "The Forever War" (http://www.amazon.com/Forever-War-Joe-Haldeman/dp/0312536631), which was quite appropiate: people is just the starters and infantrymen, while the ships fight on automatic (while the meatbags remain in special chambers that will allow them to survive the impressive amount of gravities required to high-speed space combat). That would imply that space combat would be 100% narrative.