Newtonian Space Combat

[Battlehymn Republic]

Is there a website that explains it? If not, can anyone please explain to me the advantages of using one-man fighters in space? Or at least point me to relevant games, shows, films?

[Molyneux]

Is there a website that explains it? If not, can anyone please explain to me the advantages of using one-man fighters in space? Or at least point me to relevant games, shows, films?

...there really isn't any, under most circumstances.
Unless you get to the point at which one man is all that's needed to handle a ship of sufficient power to actually pose a threat in combat, it's a brainbug, taking the idea of one-on-one fighter combat from the atmosphere and into space.

A good example of a setting where one-man ships are actually useful is Ender's Game - the size of the ship doesn't affect the power of its weapons in that, so a single pilot can handle a fighter that can destroy a capital ship.

[Admiral Valdemar]

What does this have to do with Newtonian mechanics which has nothing about one-man fighters being the tour de force of a future navy?

[Sharpshooter]

Is there a website that explains it?

Sorry, nothing I can point out on that front.

If not, can anyone please explain to me the advantages of using one-man fighters in space?

The way I see it, there are very few: unless they've got damn impressive inertial compensaters and all that sort of stuff, the things are going to be floundering around in space trying to orient themselves and keep on their target, and any well-designed battleship should have enough anti-fighter/anti-ordinance weapon mounts to take care of them as they're headed in or correcting their course. Bombing and missile runs are probably the only kind of operations in which they might have any real value, and even then, it's going to be a task to get them from the flight desk to the enemy aircraft without drifting off course or getting shot down by enemy fire. Not to mention the problem of speed: if a battleship has the capability to go clipping along at a rate of several to several dozen kilometers a second and the acceleration to get to that rate in decent time, then your fighters are going to be left in the dust unless they have one hell of a propulsion system.

Or at least point me to relevant games, shows, films?

Well, the best example I know of of a game that uses an engine featuring semi-plausable Newtonian Physics is Vega Strike, which was that engine used in the Privateer Remake that was the buzz in G&C six months or so ago. You get drifting, slow as hell acceleration and deceleration, and all that jazz - which, to be honest, I think is part of the reason why I could never stand it as compared to Privateer. Of course, it could also be attributed to the fact that ships will spawn five hundred meters in front of you when you approach a base, or the extreme ease with which enemies can blow the crap out of you while yorq quad auto-tracking beam cannons can't do shit...

By the way - didn't we have this discussion about a month or two ago?

[Admiral Valdemar]

No, the best space-sim to use Newtonian mechanics is the I-War series (I am, of course, excluding the godliest of all space-sims: Elite). There you will find what it's like to fly a real spacecraft, no stupid single-seater fighters that take out the equivalent of battleships and no silly flying like an aeroplane stuff either.

[wolveraptor]

A thing I've found extremely annoying about X-wings and such is that they have better maneuverability than fighters in atmospheres. Our own jets can't swoop and swerve like that, not just because the pilot could die, but because atmospheric gases don't offer enough resistance to push off of while still retaining sleek shapes for speed. Only slower planes can manage those aerial acrobatics.

As for one man fighters, you're better off using missiles: more expendable, more bang for its buck. A fighter will be flying around like an idiot, trying to avoid the ship's own defenses while delivering increments of non-lethal, near worthless attacks. A missile flies straight in and kicks ass.

[Battlehymn Republic]

Maybe one-man fighters save resources? Or make smaller targets to hit?

I'm writing a story when eventually a space navy based on large battleships fight against a larger navy that's based on massing fighters. I'm also trying to preserve aspects of Newtonian space combat, so I'm trying to think how this would work out.

Doesn't Wing Commander, Starlancer, and Freelancer have Newtonian mechanics? What about Freespace?

I haven't played Freespace, alas.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I suggest looking up what Newtonian mechanics is for a start since none of the games listed have it as they all fly like hopelessly agile aeroplanes. There's no atmosphere and very little gravity in space, so why this brain bug persists I have no idea.

[Netko]

Once you get a feel of the system, I-war is so much more tacticly flexible that going back to the WW2 fighterplane equivalent systems you can feel the limits painfully. I also recently found a space strategy game Nexus: The Jupiter incident that somewhat limitedly simulates newtonian physics for its craft with counterthrusts for slowing down and such (unfortunatly it relativly fast goes into magic alien tech teritory even tho it starts out fairly realisticly with ships having rotating sections for gravity and looooong times for travel within the solar system which is very mindfull of the position of the planets during transit).

To help you out in general, "newtonian system" greatly simplified means that the only thing affecting the craft's movement in space are its own trusters (or whatever propulsion source you want) and if they are shut off the craft will continue to go in the direction it was heading at the speed it achived (notice that in all games you mentioned there is a magical counterforce that slows you down and stops you once you shut down your engines).

[Admiral Valdemar]

Inertia exists, that is what makes the difference. You thrust forward at 10 gees and you get to a few klicks/second velocity then stop thrusting, you keep on going. And slowing to a stop again takes just as long, typically longer unless you do a 180 and burn or have similarly powerful bow thrusters to your main aft ones.

You do, however, get to do nice tricks such as flying towards an enemy vessel at high-speed (realistic, that'd be several klicks/s, no one can fight at the best part of c) and then swing round 90 degrees and strafe the vessel as you fly past, not losing speed or moving direction of travel at all.

It's tricky to master, but most of these sims have computers helping you (there is a mode in I-War that allows the navcom to control, thrusters to give a near atmospheric flight model).

[GrandMasterTerwynn]

Maybe one-man fighters save resources? Or make smaller targets to hit?

I'm writing a story when eventually a space navy based on large battleships fight against a larger navy that's based on massing fighters. I'm also trying to preserve aspects of Newtonian space combat, so I'm trying to think how this would work out.

Doesn't Wing Commander, Starlancer, and Freelancer have Newtonian mechanics? What about Freespace?

I haven't played Freespace, alas.

Haha, excuse me while I roll on the floor and laugh, making my co-workers wonder what the hell is wrong with me.

With that out of the way, all of those games fly like WW2 sims in space. Just like TIE Fighter, X-Wing (all games), and XvT do. Spacecraft would not fly that way in space without wasting obscene amounts of fuel in the process.

For something that will show you how a spacecraft will handle using real mechanics, download Orbiter which is free and (with sufficient amounts of free time, understanding of spacecraft mechanics, and a good modeling program) will allow you to create your own spacecraft. (Not that there's anything wrong with the craft they have.)

Essentially, a space fighter is useless for a number of reasons.
A) They won't be able to perform as well as an anti-ship missile of the same size, due to the requirements of a life-support system, and the requirement that the pilot not be subjected to enough G-forces to kill him or render him unconscious. To get a powered range comparable to (or, ideally, greater than) that of an anti-ship missile, the fighter will have to be a lot bigger so it can carry more fuel to feed its engines, which will be pushing around a larger reactor/set of batteries, and a weapons system.

B) A fighter will require at least two crewmembers, and a lot of computers, or one man and a lot more computers. Computers that would be remarkably similar to the guidance system of an anti-ship space missile, except lobotomized to provide a human with top-level control.

C) The only weapons a fighter can carry that will be of any threat are missiles. These missiles, being smaller than the fighter, will be much shorter-ranged, and much less powerful than a missile of the same size as the fighter will be. In all likelihood, the sum of the fighter's firepower will be much less than that of the missile. While a fighter can carry railguns and lasers, their power will be limited to whatever the fighter's reactor can spare, and their accuracy will be complete shit beyond very short ranges (as a hundred or thousand-ton fighter isn't a very steady mount, unlike a multi-megaton starship.) In short, the only thing a fighter could be a threat to is another fighter, or maybe even a small non-combat starship.

D) To make a fighter a credible threat against a starship, you have to make it big enough to launch anti-ship missiles. (Albeit small ones.) And you have to make it big enough and have large enough fuel reserves to exceed the range of the standard anti-ship missiles or lasers your enemy can deploy against you (otherwise, you're better off putting those weapons on your starships.) After all is said and done, the smallest space fighter that can hurt a capital ship would be the space-going equivalent of a WW2 PT boat. As it is big enough to be a target, it will have to have its own means of defending against a capital ship, since it will now be just large enough to be targeted.

[White Haven]

CNV-301 Dreadnought forever!

Byt yeah...Independence War's a very good example. The sequel's excellent too, and (Patched, the release had some nasty bugs) is a great case of freeform gameplay. Freelancer felt a lot like an I-War2 wannabe, when I played it.

[Admiral Valdemar]

The fighters in the I-War series are few and far between. There are the odd one or two that are pure engine with a gun on them, but they are little in the way of threat and since you tend to pilot a patcom of some 100 metres in length typically with near the same agility (if you have the cash), they're soon dispatched.

Cruisers that volley off a dozen missiles at once that home in from all directions and at 40 gee are a much bigger problem, even if you are handy enough with CIWS to take most out. Best bet, if you can't target and shoot them down, is to fly right at them, then jink to one side. Hopefully, they'll overshoot and at that velocity, it'll expend most of its fuel to circle round or slow down and turn to catch up again.

[White Haven]

Or just spin up the LDS drive and sodomize Newton for a few seconds.

[Battlehymn Republic]

I suggest looking up what Newtonian mechanics is for a start since none of the games listed have it as they all fly like hopelessly agile aeroplanes. There's no atmosphere and very little gravity in space, so why this brain bug persists I have no idea.

...

I've never actually played any of them. You've caught me.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Or just spin up the LDS drive and sodomize Newton for a few seconds.

Nice for dictating combat engagements, but you can't use it to fight, sadly. I would love to see such a system in use against the craft from other sims.

[SirNitram]

Hey, I'd love purely Newtonian space combat. Then you can get yourself some Etheric Shock cannons and outrun light without that pesky Dialation shit.

Okay, yea, I'm gonna get slapped.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Someone, slap Nitram. Lady T? Where art thou?

[fgalkin]

I suggest looking up what Newtonian mechanics is for a start since none of the games listed have it as they all fly like hopelessly agile aeroplanes. There's no atmosphere and very little gravity in space, so why this brain bug persists I have no idea.

B5:IFH has Newtonian combat. And it's free. Which is why I love it so.

EDIT: For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, click here.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

[White Haven]

LDS was great for evading the Missile Swarm o'Doom, usually. That or the slightly more deadly Corvette Swarm. Course if you got going fast enough under normal thrust, the AI would assume you were in LDS mode and try to LDS to keep up. They'd even fire LDSi missiles at you, despite the fact that you're on reaction thrusters.

[Admiral Valdemar]

Doesn't work with me. I tried that, even managed to evade the LDSi missile as it was launched prior to me jumping out.

"Hah! You think those missiles can take out me?"

*Activate LDS*

"Bye bye."

*30 minutes later*

"Why won't you give up? WHY?!"

Whatever the AI was thinking, it really hated me that day. I was almost in another system from simply running on LDS, then coming off it, trying to hit him with missiles as he came by, then running off again. Damn thing was persistent. Think it was an old corvette too.

[phongn]

Hey, I'd love purely Newtonian space combat. Then you can get yourself some Etheric Shock cannons and outrun light without that pesky Dialation shit.

Hush, you. Those are MY guns.

[White Haven]

Run it up to about 40km/s, the enemy keeps going to LDS to catch you, then falling away. Wait til you've got a breathing room, yank the bow up, and punch your LDS.

[Admiral Valdemar]

I think I was doing near 100 km/s by the time I managed to get them shaken off. I know I was going shit fast, and away from any Lagrange point where I could jump away.

[His Divine Shadow]

Or just spin up the LDS drive and sodomize Newton for a few seconds.

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