Space Combat Techniques Discussion

[Coolhand]

- Make a system were any fast firing gun - automatic weapons, Gatling guns,... would be handled like a laser, but affected by gravity. Basically check the flight path instantly for vessels, while keeping the ability to fire VESSEL derived shells, for tanks and artillery...

sorta like a CCIP mode in aircraft fire control systems, you'll also need to account for velocities and in an atmosphere perhaps wind, certainly dynamic pressures, no?

but still you'll not want to work out the impact point for every single round... or you don't need to... I'd have figured on simply rendering tracer, say 1 in 10 rounds? so if you're firing 500rpm then you're only calculating a maximum a 50 impacts per minute (and only drawing 1/10th of total rounds), but account for 10 impacts or a damage multiplier for each impact. perhaps give targets a wider hit-box to account for shotgun effects with a reduced number of calculated projectiles.

 

[Wishbone]

I'm sorry folks, but there are tons of books and miles of papers on marksmanship and ballistics, with fine statistical distributions (and deviations therefrom) defined, tested and re-tested ad nauseam. For single (say, sniper, and nowadays - antimateriel) shots, law of large numbers does not apply and so you'd have to track the bullet as hit or miss can change the force ratio dramatically, for instance disabling a critical piece of equipment. For anything else in firefights, statistical approach is the most practical, unless you want to limit your audience to cluster supercomputer sysadmins.

 

[Hielor]

In either case, I'd limit the range of bullets (not shells) to a few kilometer range and have them delete themselves when crossing it...

I thought of another potential optimization here: ignore the possibility for collateral damage and have bullets only be capable of hitting whatever their original target was. If they pass their target without scoring a hit, they can be safely deleted (since you know they're never going to hit it).

This also saves a whole lot of math with collision detections against ships other than the primary target, at the cost of some realism--but if you're looking for performance gains, it's probably realism that you can afford to sacrifice.

 

[Wishbone]

This will work only if you're simulating exclusively uncluttered, target-poor environments. However, there are cases when the enemy would love to spray your massed formations before they disperse.

 

[Hielor]

This will work only if you're simulating exclusively uncluttered, target-poor environments. However, there are cases when the enemy would love to spray your massed formations before they disperse.

"Massed formations?" :facepalm:

Someone's been watching waaaaayyyyy too much sci-fi. As has been discussed in this thread and elsewhere on the forum, realistic space combat won't have space fighters swooping and diving around capital ships while dogfighting like something out of a WWII movie. Bullets and traditional guns probably wouldn't be particularly useful--things are going to be usually a whole lot longer range than that.

 

[Wishbone]

You're refuelling your AFVs before the spurt to the objective. You're bunched together, you're a juicy target.

You're dismounting or mounting your vehicles, again vulnerable to an arty strike.

"It's not the one with your name on it that you should be worried about. It is the one with ' to whom it may concern ' message that matters."

 

[Hielor]

You're refuelling your AFVs before the spurt to the objective. You're bunched together, you're a juicy target.

You're dismounting or mounting your vehicles, again vulnerable to an arty strike.

Is this in orbit?

If so, you'll have plenty of warning before your opponent gets within gun range...

 

[T.Neo]

Well, in terms of spaceflight, a gun can have a pretty long range, as long as where you want to get it is within the Dv capability that the gun can provide to the round. At those ranges, it is no longer "point and shoot", because orbital mechanics comes into play.

The problem is, is that the time it takes for the rounds to reach the target would be quite long. A projectile travelling in a straight line at 1000 m/s (comparable to the velocity of some 30mm shells) would take something like 16 minutes to cross a megameter. If your projectiles have to do a quarter or a fifth of an orbit (assuming you're in LEO) to reach the target on the trajectory you've put them on, then it will take them even more time.

There is one purpose traditional chemical guns could have, and that is point defence. A nuclear weapon does not suffer sympathetic detonation, and is very reliant on proper operation to work. And considering that a nuke would have to get within a relatively short range of a target, using a gun to disarm incoming nukes might make sense.

Of course you then get into things like the nuke potentially being armored by whipple shields and stuff like that...

 

[Wishbone]

I'm confused by contradictory remarks (space vs. ground combat)... What, exactly, are the boundaries of simulation in OBSP?

 

[SolarStorm]

Falcon 4 / Freefalcon, if anyones played that (if not get it, its freeware and its a great sim) uses a 'bubble' system, so groups of units are treated as 1 entity with attrition of individual units calculated statistically. until the player comes within a certain range only then will the machine have to think about individual units. so they can have a large war persisting over the entire country (and its a dynamic, not scripted campaign) even on the 1998 hardware it was originally designed for.

Falcon 4? Dear God, all those wonderful memories just came flooding back. I used to play quite literally for at least 8 hours a day without a break. Orbiter comes close to taking over numerous (unhealthy) records I set just sitting and playing. I didn't know that there was a freeware version of it. That's fortunate because the my (really old) Falcon 4 CD doesn't work anymore and I've been craving it recently - yes, craving. Kind of like when you go through the day and realise you haven't played Orbiter at all and you break out in a sweat while your legs suddenly feel tired. Or is that just me?:huh:

 

[deltawing777]

Umm I'd just keep it simple...We are talking about space right? Just use light (lazers) air-to-air, air-to-ground, in a atmosphere or zero gravity you cant miss. Damage can be by a force of 2X 4X 8X and so on multiplyed by how many lazer beams are firing.It is near future,not star wars but believable,can be mounted on any platform ground based or air based.Where does the power come from? dunno! but if the deltaglder can goto jupiter and beyond then why not carry a gattlin laser chain cannon in its payload bay

 

[T.Neo]

Gatling... laser... chain cannon?

Right. I'll remember that; it should be easy to power with my quantum flux handwavion acceleration engines. :rofl:

 

[deltawing777]

Gatling... laser... chain cannon?

Right. I'll remember that; it should be easy to power with my quantum flux handwavion acceleration engines. :rofl:

Of course we will have to have shields also! no seriously ill admit gattlin chain cannon might be a little far fetched but...im thinking near future. no gamma ray burst or E.M.P. pulse cannons or torpedoes... just believable type weapons

 

[StevoPistolero]

Well, if you model a weapon with a certain probability of armor penetration, you can model anything. It is just numbers in a field.

Assuming you are using a probability-based combat model, which I have advocated.

 

[deltawing777]

Well, if you model a weapon with a certain probability of armor penetration, you can model anything. It is just numbers in a field.

Assuming you are using a probability-based combat model, which I have advocated.

The reason I like lasers is they can have a dual role not just for combat but also for melting ice,mining ore,data transmissions,temperature readings,making fuel,pushing asteroids out of the way just all kinds of things. Turn up the intensity now your talking armor penatration in the combat role. The possabilites it could have on the orbiter sim would be in my opinion truly remarkable

 

[StevoPistolero]

While I am all in favor of pushing things around, I am concerned that the technical difficulties with physics and collisions is hindering development of an operable combat engine.

I think there should be a laser-tag version of space combat first: Target in range, targets "firing", and so on. Then they should work on introducing collisions, mesh creation and cleanup. We could be here for another decade as we try to make a delta glider drop bombs.

But don't look at me. I am not ready to teach myself c++ yet.

 

[Ghostrider]

The reason I like lasers is they can have a dual role not just for combat but also for melting ice,mining ore,data transmissions,temperature readings,making fuel,pushing asteroids out of the way just all kinds of things.

Lasers however lose power over range: the beam that punches through armor at 1km will probably just heat up your hull at 10km and be completely useless at 50. In combat they would be more useful as CIWS, blinding missile sensors and rupturing solid-fueled rocket casings. At medium to long range KK and missiles make more sense.

 

[deltawing777]

ummm yeah ill agree with that. hell, anything with enough kinetic energy, you wont even need a warhead of anykind to do damage. But a laser sure does look purdy :lol:

 

[T.Neo]

Making a laser multi-use is difficult. A system built to destroy, and a secondary, smaller system built to communicate is far easier to do. Melting ice in space is also difficult, since with such a low pressure you just get sublimation. Same thing goes for mining and fuel production; I fail to see how a laser could be used for fuel production.

And moving asteroids out of the way with lasers would be very difficult indeed, though pushing stuff with surface ablation is easier than pushing stuff with light pressure.

I'm not sure about probability of armor penetration. If you have a projectile of a certain mass, travelling at a certain velocity and with a certain density/shape, it will penetrate the same amount of armor every time (provided that the characteristics of the armor are identical and no other variables change).

Probability might be better for working out hits and misses or glancing blows, but terminal effect does not change randomly at a whim.

At least, it shouldn't. If it does you have a badly constructed weapon system.

 

[RisingFury]

I am concerned that the technical difficulties with physics and collisions is hindering development of an operable combat engine.

There aren't really any technical difficulties. No, the only thing keeping development back is lack of time. If me and ETF wouldn't need to go to school, OBSP would be done by now...