Posted by: alex_brunius
« on: March 09, 2015, 09:16:30 AM »Missiles are a completely different beast but should be the primary weapon in space for the sole reason it is the only secure weapon. With that I mean you can attack someone without being attacked back or even revealing yourself. You really need to expand on the electronics and the whole passive/active kind of engagement and approach missile warfare more with torpedo duels between modern submarines. At least that is my opinion on the matter. Ships in space would be more like submarines and reveal themselves by providing gravitational ripples in space or emanating heat waves, but heat only travel at light speed and should only be viable method for understand the general location of ships. The gravitational waves on the other hand could be picked up by newtonian technology in a different way and also introducing stealth technology to reduce this more gradually would make space combat more interesting. Missiles would still be you primary weapon but communication and electronics are usually that ends up being the most important factor in reality.
Agreed. I really would love to see some more complexity here like holding position for an ambush with reduced heat / no active sensors and relying on the enemy revealing them-self. The launch platform would be firing on the enemy heat signature with onboard sensors on the missile or, dropping active sensor bouy's / drones that work as decoys and to relay targeting information about your enemy.
These are real war examples of what long range combat looks like when you either can't or don't want to achieve active lock to target the enemy from your launching platform.
Perhaps even the heat and proximity of the sun could play a role like someone suggested so that if you position your ship between the enemy ship and a bright start it will be very hard to tell apart from the massive background heat radiation.
But anything that can only move in one direction MUST be a very short range weapon and the size of the target should have a big impact on the distance in which you hit something with such a weapon.
Yes, A big balancing problem with Aurora combat is that it's equally easy to hit a 70000 ton behemoth and a 70 ton fighter if they move at the same speed.