Newtonian Aurora

[bean]

As for detecting the projectile... I find that unlikely with Aurora tech.  If its unguided it will emit no thermals, and even if it is guided thermals can't lock a targeting solution.  It has no EM to speak of and its mass and thus gravity distortion is negligible compared to even the smallest missiles.  It IS possible to detect the firing of a mass driver realistically, considering the huge amount of magnetic forces used to accelerate a slug, but I'm unsure whether such a detectable EM pulse is implemented. (Might be fun for a 'oh smeg' moment?  It will however destroy stealth for attacking ships)  Even if the shot launch was detected however, I'm unsure that enough resolution is possible to determine the exact vector of the slug, though it might provide an ETA (if the velocity of the slug is known, either prior engagements or a guess from the MJ of the shot.)  Such a warning could be useful for saving fuel with evasive maneuvers, since you can coast until under fire.  Then again, much less useful against lasers.  Your warning of a laser attack IS the laser striking your hull.

It's going to heat up quite a bit from launch anyway.  As for firing, if the enemy fires spreads, you can't tell where they will go.  And you've pinpointed the issues of laser dodging vs. projectile dodging.

Reactive Armor would be a way to decrease the force of the projectile by spreading the damage over a bigger patch of armor, but it's only a benefit if you can prevent the projectile from breaching into the inside, which will be pretty hard unless you also have shields and are not flying in the direction of the enemy.
Though Steve has repeatedly shown his discontent for different armor types by ignoring such suggestions^^.

Reactive armor would be useful because it would basically serve as a "whipple bumper" with a large standoff distance, counterbalanced by limited use.

[Yonder]

It's going to heat up quite a bit from launch anyway.

This is true, some portion of the waste energy from the launch will heat up the rail gun, and some will heat up the projectile. Steve could model this, and the subsequent cooldown. Then, at least at first, projectiles would be visible, at least to thermal sensors.

Reactive armor would be useful because it would basically serve as a "whipple bumper" with a large standoff distance, counterbalanced by limited use.

To clarify for those unfamiliar with the term "whipple shields" are shields for high velocity impacts that are based on the fact that at high speeds even hitting something thin and weak can begin breaking down and deforming the impacting projectile, so that when it hits the hull itself some of the impact energy has been absorbed, and the projectile itself has been destroyed and as such  spreads more of it's kinetic energy around a larger section of the hull, making it easier to stop.

They are currently used on man-certified space stations and spacecraft, and consist of a very thin aluminum shell (think soda can thin) spaced a few millimeters from the rest of the hull (which is slightly thicker than a soda can).

The problem with applying this idea to the game is that I think many of the projectile impacts are going to go at velocities where this isn't useful anymore. When you are deflecting paint chips at 6-7 km/s like our space station is, then that the destroyed and spread out paint chip can still be stopped by the hull. Once you start getting hit by things going a thousand times faster than that they will probably go entirely through your ship no matter what. You are better off minimizing the cross section of the projectile when it does so. (Of course at that speed a projectile isn't going to deform and spread much, even if the spacing of the whipple shield is meters instead of mm, so this is probably something that won't hurt for high velocity impacts, and will help for low velocity ones.

[Panopticon]

But the Whipple Shield concept could work if extended to planetary size to protect against genocidal kinetic strikes, call it a large energy shield extending some thousands of KM from the planet, not strong enough to block attacks or prevent ships from just barging through it and bombarding at close range, but able to deflect or slow long range kinetic strikes into uselessness or near uselessness.

And of course, the equipment needed to produce the shield is far too bulky for ships, restricting its use to colonies only.

[jseah]

If the Energy Whipple Shield is implemented to prevent long range kinetic strikes from killing your planet, make it do this:

Reduce momentum of any incoming object by a set %.  (requiring energy that scales to the square root of the momentum dissipated)
This happens at a circle a few kkm from the planet.  And doesn't apply to anything shot out under that limit. 

In which case, the planetary shield also serves as a ship-catcher, allowing you to brake civilian ships and thus save on delta-v budget (and fuel for that and the fuel for that fuel etc.)

[bean]

No, that's not how whipple shields work.  For one thing, penetration peaks at around 1 km/s.  A projectile going at 10 km/s plus will tend to explode instead of penetrating.  The whipple shield disrupts it farther out, limiting damage.
I'm not sure where the handwavium shield came from.  And I honestly don't know how it would interact with large projectiles.

[UnLimiTeD]

The "handwavium shield" is a brainstorming by various community members to find somehting that prevents GFFP, as thats something Steve generally tries to achieve.
Now I've always been an advocate of making orbital bombardment more varied, but I certainly agree that unlimited weapon range doesn't end well in respect to this topic.
As such, there needs to be a sort of Shield that either makes attacks above a specific range ineffectual, or slow down all projectiles with either a very high mass or speed or a combination thereof, but is not feasible on the average warship.

[Panopticon]

From what I am given to understand the Whipple Shield works not by outright stopping a projectile, but causing it to deform or fragment so it either misses the target or doesn't hit with enough force to do serious damage, the shield I propose also does that, I realize it is not an actual Whipple Shield but we are imaginative folks here and probably can accommodate the stretch.

I've been pondering it more and it could actually be a tech line, with successive techs slowing incoming by more and more. It could also be an installation built on the planet, likely expensive, and difficult or impossible to move, this means you probably wouldn't be putting one on all your asteroid mining colonies, and new colonies would be vulnerable until they are built up enough to make one themselves, this would give those who do want genocidal strikes the ability to do so while still keeping main industrial centers relatively protected and forcing new tactics.

[wedgebert]

I'm guessing at the velocites in Aurora, a Whipple Shield doesn't care what material the impactor is made from (although a solid iron object is different than a micrometeorite).

The more important question is, what if my rail gun projectile has a Whipple Shield of its own?  Would that negate your whipple shield?  Will there be an arms race of trace-buster-buster-busters?

[UnLimiTeD]

Here's a tip:
Use Lasers.
And if that doesn't work:
Use nukes.
certainly cheaper than rapidfiring partially guided projectiles with their own shield generator....^^

[backstab]

I think people are looking way to deep.  It is suppose to be a war game not starship simulator

[UnLimiTeD]

Which is why we do all the simulation right now, so afterwards you just need to know the rules instead of the physics.

[GeaXle]

Steve,

what about acceleration of ships concidering human being? What I mean is, will there be "inertia compensate" stuff (sorry, I don't know the english word). Like in Honorverse?

I imagine a module that would allow stronger acceleration with tech upgrades. If that module get destroy and if the ship is accelerating, it could kill everyone aboard, if they don't stop engines fast enough or something.

Thanks,
Gea

[Commodore_Areyar]

@ First post: There are some typos,
Because as I read it you are using 'fuel efficiency' and 'fuel use' as interchangable,
they are inverse properties of the same engine property. It is clear what you want to say, but at some point you are writing:

...and decreasing thrust can provide huge savings in fuel efficiency

Where you obviously mean either a 'saving in fuel use' or an 'increase in fuel efficiency'.

Interesting effort though.
It would be so awesome if you'd create a game that actually works,  proving the universal idiom that realistic space games are impossible false.
In truth though: the dogfighting in Frontier was very much more like jousting than in the original ELITE. :/

[Bremen]

I'm going to be the advocate of simplicity here.    It might be something like being a snowball in hell, but it's my position  

Evasive maneuvers: All ships should have an evasive maneuvers option; when active ships do not change velocity at all on the strategic level (it can be assumed they are making completely random course changes in such a way that long term they all cancel out) but it uses fuel as if it was running engines at full burn.    Note that this totally precludes slowing or accelerating, yet another reason to slow down before battle.   

For firing accuracy: I wouldn't suggest modelling each projectile's path.    Instead, when firing, have two choices "Dead Sight" and "Compensate for Evasion".    Dead Sight is 100% accuracy if the target maintains course, 0% if it evades (for simplicity, this should be if the target activates evasive maneuvers and is capable of evading before the shot lands; assume that any non-random movements can be predicted, including planets in their orbit); compensate for evasion gives an accuracy value based on the formulas mentioned in previous posts; the area of the ship vs the area where the ship could be in based on its ability to maneuver.    The shots hit with this accuracy rate regardless of if the target is evading or not.    The projectiles may or may not actually travel, depending if they're interceptable by point defense (Lasers and other lightspeed beams probably shouldn't need to be modeled, but railgun shots I could see going either way.   )

For guided projectiles: More of an advanced feature, but if added I see them basically working like missiles (return of torpedoes?).    They'd need to be more expensive/less efficient stat wise because they have to be tough enough to withstand the magnetic fields and acceleration of railgun launch, and you'd of course need a railgun to launch them rather than just a missile tube.    They'd probably also need a fairly large minimum size (maybe reduced by tech?).   This last would have some interesting effects; they'd be more efficient in extremely large railguns (which would also serve to reduce their firing rate) and make them much more accurate in situations where fleets were approaching each other at high speed and a boost from the railgun was not as necessary.   They could serve an interesting role as a mid-range weapon between missiles and beams. 

Deflection shields: Kind of taken by surprise on this one, but it seems to have advocates.    My suggestion: They take the place of normal shields, but instead of absorbing energy they deflect attacks that would otherwise be "glancing hits".    Mechanically, they reduce the ship's area by a % for the purpose of accuracy calculations, since shots that are dead on or nearly so don't get deflected.    I could see this being a ruins or invader tech.   

One problem I see with this system: Against non-evading targets projectiles have effectively infinite range.  While in some ways this makes sense even for moving targets (you can probably predict how a freighter will move) there probably needs to be some (reasonably long, maybe 20m km) limit on targeting.  Or else you could fire at things like inhabited planets or shipyards from outside the system.
It would also make surprise attacks devastatingly effective, but I don't see this as a problem

[UnLimiTeD]

Thats the entire point, in space, there is no range.
As such, we're discussing a possibility for large handwavium shields to prevent planets from being victimized by this.