RotS: worried about the space battle (very minor spoilers)

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Illuminatus Primus
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Post by Illuminatus Primus »

Vympel wrote:Close range slugfests are fine, I'd just like to see some focus on them for once.
Yeah, and then welcome to Star Trekish "our ships can't engage at over 10 km". Can't wait for that. :roll:
Matt Huang wrote:Battle for Coruscant in Clone Wars, where you have two huge fleets of capships unloading into eachother, and they're close enough that some of them are actually crashing into eachother.
Clone Wars the animated series? What Battle of Coruscant? They're depicting the one in the film?

And what the fuck does this have to do with my point that if we had more involved cap ship battles they'd almost certainly be at ultra-close unrealistic ranges and this would suck from both an analytical and realism perspective.
NecronLord wrote:It's far from impossible though. Again, B5 did it pretty well now and then.
Any film clips of this available to see? I would like to see how it can be well-portrayed. Additionally, what kind of ranges are you talking about?
Last edited by Illuminatus Primus on 2005-04-27 08:30pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Vympel »

Illuminatus Primus wrote:
Yeah, and then welcome to Star Trekish "our ships can't engage at over 10 km". Can't wait for that. :roll:
What are you talking about? There's no connection between seeing the ships fight for a little more (for once!) and Star Trek.

Clone Wars the animated series? What Battle of Coruscant? They're depicting the one in the film?
It finishes at the start of the Battle. Go to SW.com and watch the 5 chapters, they're freely available for viewing, even for non HS members.
And what the fuck does this have to do with my point that if we had more involved cap ship battles they'd almost certainly be at ultra-close unrealistic ranges and this would suck from both an analytical and realism perspective.
See above- I don't see why you think this would change anything, since that's the ranges we've seen on screen, and we already know it's highly unusual and not the norm from both RotS novelization (ships engaging at hundreds of km firing at c in the same battle) and RotJ.
Any film clips of this available to see? I would like to see how it can be well-portrayed. Additionally, what kind of ranges are you talking about?
B5 has done both short and BVR ranges (Narn ships engaging Shadow vessels) in its space battles. Mostly short, but the point is you can have capital ships fight and be interesting.
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Post by Illuminatus Primus »

Vympel wrote:What are you talking about? There's no connection between seeing the ships fight for a little more (for once!) and Star Trek.
I would prefer that all canonical examples of capital ship fighting in space were not broadsides exchanged at under a kilometer. That's an awful precedent. I would prefer more realistic engagements, but it is hard to portray such with good pacing and with excitement. So I'm ok personally if the canon goes hands-off with capital ship combat.

Star Trek has a much longer run in terms of duration, and therefore ended up portraying capital ship combat more often, and it ended up falling into the "all capital ship combat must take place under five kilometers" rule of SF. In the STvSW debates its noted many a time that apparently and incredibly, the Federation's ships have an effective engagement range of a few kilometers and sometimes even hundreds of meters.
Vympel wrote:It finishes at the start of the Battle. Go to SW.com and watch the 5 chapters, they're freely available for viewing, even for non HS members.
Ok.
Vympel wrote:See above- I don't see why you think this would change anything, since that's the ranges we've seen on screen, and we already know it's highly unusual and not the norm from both RotS novelization (ships engaging at hundreds of km firing at c in the same battle) and RotJ.
It still sucks when those are the only actual examples. I'm saying I am not of the position that we should've seen more cap ship combat in general in SW, because it invariably would've been unrealistic shit like ROTJ and ROTS. You can only play the unique circumstances card (Lando's gambit and Palpatine's stupidity and then the shield ceeling confining them under) before it becomes contrived.

I would like to see the way it ought to be IN CANON.

But yes, when we're already stuck with it for ROTS, I'd like something like Old Plympto suggests. But I am not sad about their not being more capship battles, because I think it'd end up being more of the same.
Vympel wrote:B5 has done both short and BVR ranges (Narn ships engaging Shadow vessels) in its space battles. Mostly short, but the point is you can have capital ships fight and be interesting.
Well if they were able to do BVR well for capital ship battles, than I'd support implementation of that wholeheartedly.

Still, any clips though? I have trouble imagining it and I'm wondering how they did it.
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Post by Bob the Gunslinger »

For the B5 battles, I suggest you netflix season 2's The Long Twilight Struggle or the last half of season 3 and season 4.

Mostly, they just show one side at a time with long beams or bolts flying in from off-screen and hitting the ships. They use a lot of interesting cut-scenes to the interior and editing to make the battles more exciting. Every now and then they'll show a perspective shot with, say, the Narns firing into the distance at their enemies.
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Post by Stravo »

Illuminatus Primus wrote: Well if they were able to do BVR well for capital ship battles, than I'd support implementation of that wholeheartedly.

Still, any clips though? I have trouble imagining it and I'm wondering how they did it.
The Long Twilight Struggle. Amazing battle where the Narn fleet emerges from hyperspace, picks up Shadowvessels coming in at extreme range. They portray the long range weapons fire taking time to reach theri target, then fightes deploy, then the shadows begin firing as they approach visual range,

The long range is depicted a bridge officer reporting what they were firing, the screen cuts to the energy mines flying away at a far distance then the shadow vessels are hit, the vessels return fire hitting Narn vessels. The Narn then fire their particle beams, the shadows return fire by deploying fighters and finally the ranges begin to close as the Narn get totally destroyed but at no time were the Shadow vessels ever seen in the same frame as the Narn ships plus you have weapons deployed in order of their effectiveness via range.

A very good depiction of long range combat in any sci fi franchise. Also Amdromeda regularly depicted BVR combat where they either used icons and blips or they did what B5 did and just cut from the weapons fire to the enemy ship getting hit.

In fact in Season 1 the writers specifically stated that almost all Andromeda combat took place at ranges and speeds that could not be accurately depicted so they had a policy that the dialogues trumped the visuals. So you have two franchises that regualrly did BVR combat and I liked alot of Andromeda's battles.
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Post by McC »

As usual, I'll provide the capture. Give me a bit of time ;)
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Post by NRS Guardian »

Anime, like Macross also usually does a good job of showing long-range cap ship battles but they're usually rare since they focus more on the mecha fighting.
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