Strategic scaling issue...or, "Why warships don't actually break the setting.."

[Vehrec]

You're shooting from 15-45 AU away from your target, dispersion is going to cause you to miss completely if you are aiming for absolute stealth that nobody can pick up on NCSS.

And, here's a dimension-time.  I don't think you understand how much time your plan would take to execute.  Let's assume you want to avoid small NCSS, so you jump in 30 AU away from your target, which might or might not have such a system.  You fire 8000 rounds of gauss ammo, at 5km/s.  They cover 1000 kilometers in 200 seconds, so it takes you about 22 hours and 12 minutes to fire all that from a single barrel, and you've launched a stream 400,000 kilometers long of gauss rifle ammo from your thousand-ton ammo supply.  You wait....well, you wait 9 weeks to leave because the solar radiation out here at the orbit of Neptune is *terrible* but you get there eventually.  And after all your shots haven't arrived yet.  They only cover 5 km/s, 1000 km/3 minutes 20 seconds, 100Mm each 5 hours.  Each Astronomical Unit they have to travel is 149 million Km. That's 29.92 million seconds for a 5 km/s gauss rifle to cover on AU of 30.

Your shots are going to be traveling for over 28 years.  You are shooting at where unborn children might one day crew a space station or patrol ship.  Even if you shoot with 10 times the velocity, that's still nearly three years of 'hang time' on your shots.

[Cannonshop]

You're shooting from 15-45 AU away from your target, dispersion is going to cause you to miss completely if you are aiming for absolute stealth that nobody can pick up on NCSS.

And, here's a dimension-time.  I don't think you understand how much time your plan would take to execute.  Let's assume you want to avoid small NCSS, so you jump in 30 AU away from your target, which might or might not have such a system.  You fire 8000 rounds of gauss ammo, at 5km/s.  They cover 1000 kilometers in 200 seconds, so it takes you about 22 hours and 12 minutes to fire all that from a single barrel, and you've launched a stream 400,000 kilometers long of gauss rifle ammo from your thousand-ton ammo supply.  You wait....well, you wait 9 weeks to leave because the solar radiation out here at the orbit of Neptune is *terrible* but you get there eventually.  And after all your shots haven't arrived yet.  They only cover 5 km/s, 1000 km/3 minutes 20 seconds, 100Mm each 5 hours.  Each Astronomical Unit they have to travel is 149 million Km. That's 29.92 million seconds for a 5 km/s gauss rifle to cover on AU of 30.

Your shots are going to be traveling for over 28 years.  You are shooting at where unborn children might one day crew a space station or patrol ship.  Even if you shoot with 10 times the velocity, that's still nearly three years of 'hang time' on your shots.

The NCSS isn't omnidirectional, Vehrec, if it were, nobody would be able to pull off a sneak attack, and sneak attacks are staple for the setting.

I used a week for a reason-how long will it take your reaction team to get there if they detect immediately, versus how long before I relocate?  The point of the strategy isn't to just do damage.  a spy with a briefcase nuke can do that.

It's to get the reaction forces to move in response and measure their time and competence before the main event, also to make them spend fuel, time, resources and wear and tear reacting.

total undetectablity is actually COUNTER to the strategy, which is to impose stress and trigger reactions.

You can think of it as overcoming a perimeter grid by working the staff via stray dogs and wildlife before staging the raid.

Sight lines are, after all, infinite-if someone is looking in the right direction at the right time, they'll see something. If they aren't? well...

[monbvol]

Okay what's a fair amount of impossible to correct for random dispersion for the sake of argument?

Based off game rules and what I know of real world physics even in deep space, manufacturing defects, and the fact we're talking past naked eye ranges 1 millimeter for every 1 km seems pretty fair based off under standard rules 900 KM is maximum effective combat range.  With that level of dispersion there are a lot of Warships and Space stations that would outright be missed by a Heavy Naval Gauss Rifle despite perfect ranging, bearing, and relative acceleration data.

Now yes one can say this is exactly what rules like Bracket Fire are meant to cover and what Cannonshop is meaning by sending a cloud of attacks.

Counter point is that doing so from any point inside 100,000 km is going to be detected.  Which means even a space station can respond/have options/introduce additional outside variables, some of which cannot be predicted.

So launch from outside that range becomes the obvious easy answer.  Which is fair until you realize that your shots are a minimum of 1,000 km from your intended target point.  Since this is impossible to predict dispersion you cannot correct for it or reliably build it into your firing solutions.

[Cannonshop]

Okay what's a fair amount of impossible to correct for random dispersion for the sake of argument?

Based off game rules and what I know of real world physics even in deep space, manufacturing defects, and the fact we're talking past naked eye ranges 1 millimeter for every 1 km seems pretty fair based off under standard rules 900 KM is maximum effective combat range.  With that level of dispersion there are a lot of Warships and Space stations that would outright be missed by a Heavy Naval Gauss Rifle despite perfect ranging, bearing, and relative acceleration data.

Now yes one can say this is exactly what rules like Bracket Fire are meant to cover and what Cannonshop is meaning by sending a cloud of attacks.

Counter point is that doing so from any point inside 100,000 km is going to be detected.  Which means even a space station can respond/have options/introduce additional outside variables, some of which cannot be predicted.

So launch from outside that range becomes the obvious easy answer.  Which is fair until you realize that your shots are a minimum of 1,000 km from your intended target point.  Since this is impossible to predict dispersion you cannot correct for it or reliably build it into your firing solutions.

The basic function of the tactic is to make the defender react in a way that leads to defeat in detail later-by pulling his defenses out of position to present an effective wall of battle when your main body shows up.  Vehrec's force concept is totally newtonian movement, that's his thesis he is defending-that dropships are adequate for the role of defending an entire system, when backed by fixed installations.

My counter, is that fixed installations like space-stations are supremely vulnerable targets, not invulnerable fortresses, and should be treated as such, and that a pure dropship/fighter defense is only good for defending a single fixed point such as a planet or moon.

Which is, hilariously, demonstrated repeatedly in the same canon that insists dropships are adequate defenders.

we up to speed here now?

In simplest terms, the static defense can be defeated without having to destroy it entirely, by an enemy willing to use mobility and strategy instead of relying on static firepower.  It doesn't have to DO a lot of damage, if it draws the bulk of a defender's mobile forces out of position using simple tricks...which, properly employed, CAN destroy a lot of important, hard to replace equipment if it ISN'T countered.

I don't even need a proper Warship to do it, which is the point of the exercise-I just need to have strategic mobility of some kind.

[monbvol]

Which is fair enough.

I admit to being in something of a middle ground between you two.

I don't think space stations are as vulnerable as your claiming or that your tactic will get an enemy to reveal their cards as reliably either.  Likewise Dropships can be far more useful assets than I think you give them credit for.

Yet at the same time the kind of initiative you can have as an attacker if the defender has no hyperspace jump capability at all will certainly make it much easier to create localized numerical superiorities even if at absolute strategic numerical inferiority and do some pretty horrific things to the defenders of a system.  Doubly so if they only watch the close orbitals/where the important stuff is.

[Cannonshop]

Which is fair enough.

I admit to being in something of a middle ground between you two.

I don't think space stations are as vulnerable as your claiming or that your tactic will get an enemy to reveal their cards as reliably either.  Likewise Dropships can be far more useful assets than I think you give them credit for.

Yet at the same time the kind of initiative you can have as an attacker if the defender has no hyperspace jump capability at all will certainly make it much easier to create localized numerical superiorities even if at absolute strategic numerical inferiority and do some pretty horrific things to the defenders of a system.  Doubly so if they only watch the close orbitals/where the important stuff is.

that's the thing about Decisive Battle-you only want it, when you can win it.  Otherwise, it's something you build up to, but avoid granting until you CAN win it.

as the more mobile player, you can work the other side's nerves, and slowly degrade their ability to win that decisive battle, and do so cheaply, because even if you're not using my example scenario, there are ways to force a defender to spread out where he can be bypassed or defeated in detail, when you have the initiative of choosing when, where, and what to engage, while he still has to defend everything (or cope with losing things he might not be able to afford to lose, such as an expensive space-station-fortress.)

From the defense point of view, having that strategic mobility means I don't have nearly as many problems from committing or reacting to probes on, say, the nadir point, while the enemy is streaming in through the zenith or L1.

By accepting that stations are at best, expensive targets, I'm not going to overcommit to a vulnerable asset that MUST have maximum active protection at all times-I can build them in a way where losing one isn't a major loss, but neutralizing them can be a major pain for the attacker (a situation that, again, is served BETTER using a moon or other major body to force an attacker into the gravity well if they want to fully neutralize it, or force them into a predictable path in order to neutralize it.)

This requires investing in a mobile, as opposed to static, defense...which still works better, since it allows me more discretion as to when, where, and how to engage an attacking enemy force.

Naval warfare is always strategic, the tactics are secondary to achieving strategic objectives.  That said, a Warship properly employed is not a bombing platform unless you don't care about what's in the vicinity of the bombing.  Anything worth orbital bombardment to capture, is probably not going to survive the orbital bombardment, and anything worth an interstellar campaign, has to be worth the resources you're committing to or it's not worth it.

[Vehrec]

The NCSS isn't omnidirectional, Vehrec, if it were, nobody would be able to pull off a sneak attack, and sneak attacks are staple for the setting.

I used a week for a reason-how long will it take your reaction team to get there if they detect immediately, versus how long before I relocate?  The point of the strategy isn't to just do damage.  a spy with a briefcase nuke can do that.

It's to get the reaction forces to move in response and measure their time and competence before the main event, also to make them spend fuel, time, resources and wear and tear reacting.

total undetectablity is actually COUNTER to the strategy, which is to impose stress and trigger reactions.

You can think of it as overcoming a perimeter grid by working the staff via stray dogs and wildlife before staging the raid.

Sight lines are, after all, infinite-if someone is looking in the right direction at the right time, they'll see something. If they aren't? well...

The basic function of the tactic is to make the defender react in a way that leads to defeat in detail later-by pulling his defenses out of position to present an effective wall of battle when your main body shows up.  Vehrec's force concept is totally newtonian movement, that's his thesis he is defending-that dropships are adequate for the role of defending an entire system, when backed by fixed installations.

My counter, is that fixed installations like space-stations are supremely vulnerable targets, not invulnerable fortresses, and should be treated as such, and that a pure dropship/fighter defense is only good for defending a single fixed point such as a planet or moon.

Which is, hilariously, demonstrated repeatedly in the same canon that insists dropships are adequate defenders.

we up to speed here now?

In simplest terms, the static defense can be defeated without having to destroy it entirely, by an enemy willing to use mobility and strategy instead of relying on static firepower.  It doesn't have to DO a lot of damage, if it draws the bulk of a defender's mobile forces out of position using simple tricks...which, properly employed, CAN destroy a lot of important, hard to replace equipment if it ISN'T countered.

I don't even need a proper Warship to do it, which is the point of the exercise-I just need to have strategic mobility of some kind.

that's the thing about Decisive Battle-you only want it, when you can win it.  Otherwise, it's something you build up to, but avoid granting until you CAN win it.

as the more mobile player, you can work the other side's nerves, and slowly degrade their ability to win that decisive battle, and do so cheaply, because even if you're not using my example scenario, there are ways to force a defender to spread out where he can be bypassed or defeated in detail, when you have the initiative of choosing when, where, and what to engage, while he still has to defend everything (or cope with losing things he might not be able to afford to lose, such as an expensive space-station-fortress.)

From the defense point of view, having that strategic mobility means I don't have nearly as many problems from committing or reacting to probes on, say, the nadir point, while the enemy is streaming in through the zenith or L1.

By accepting that stations are at best, expensive targets, I'm not going to overcommit to a vulnerable asset that MUST have maximum active protection at all times-I can build them in a way where losing one isn't a major loss, but neutralizing them can be a major pain for the attacker (a situation that, again, is served BETTER using a moon or other major body to force an attacker into the gravity well if they want to fully neutralize it, or force them into a predictable path in order to neutralize it.)

This requires investing in a mobile, as opposed to static, defense...which still works better, since it allows me more discretion as to when, where, and how to engage an attacking enemy force.

Naval warfare is always strategic, the tactics are secondary to achieving strategic objectives.  That said, a Warship properly employed is not a bombing platform unless you don't care about what's in the vicinity of the bombing.  Anything worth orbital bombardment to capture, is probably not going to survive the orbital bombardment, and anything worth an interstellar campaign, has to be worth the resources you're committing to or it's not worth it.

Okay I'm not going to point-for-point debate....all of this.  It's too much, I can't deal with it.

What I am going to say is that I will never agree with the preposition that static defense is inherently a losing proposition, that it is inherently weak and vulnerable, easily crushed by clever stratagem, the retreat of the weak-minded and predictable chattel who deserve only to be crushed by the true believers of MOBILITY.  Because, at the end of the day, static defenses are cheap.  They are filler material but in the same sense that Styrofoam or cement is filler material in road construction.  You kind of need these things, in the ground, to build upon in a balanced way. You need them because they are cheap and your expensive mobile assets cannot be everywhere, deal with every crisis.  And they are cheap, compared to say, warships.  If you have 90 planets and can afford to build 60 warships, well, do you leave those planets out to dry?  Or do you build 60 defense stations, and cut your fleet down to something more like 45 warships?  Because that's how much cheaper a bare-bones Capitol without the expensive drop-collar adaptor is than a Bonaventure.  You can buy five stations to one warship, and it's a bad warship.

Stations, in fact are far from expensive targets, they can be rather cheap defense-now, you might say that any defense that can't move is too expensive, but I will simply sigh, repeat that they can move, actually, and lets just leave it at that.  We disagree too much on this fundamental point to achieve a consensus by any means short of empirical testing via several extended wargames, and even then would likely disagree on interpretations.


There are of course, advantages to mobility, to being able to choose when and where to attack.  But there are paradoxically advantages to immobility as well.
You require less training and drill, due to simply having fewer tasks to be performed.  You can't move, but that means that you can't be moved around trivially.  You can't, for instance, hawk 2/3rds the system defenses to a resurected RWR if it doesn't have the ability to move over there.  And then there is the fact that some things you simply can't pick up and carry with you.  A static defense station on a moon, for instance, might have a giant telescope or other sensors that no ship can mount, but which cheaply duplicate the effects of an NCSS at the cost of simply being too bulky and fragile to move.  A dense cluster of space stations might conceal several CAPTOR-type mines that will release and 'swim out' capital missiles, but which would stand out obviously in open space.

And nothing says that you can't have a KF equipped defender.  It just doesn't need to be a system defender, that's the real waste here.  Have you got an HPG or a black box line to your local naval base?  Do they have a ship on-call for just this kind of situation?  Dial 1-900-278-4737.  That's 1-900 CRUISER for your own rapid-response task force.  Act now, supplies are limited.

[mikecj]

TAG

[Daryk]

This argument is as old as cavlary and castles... and it will still be going a thousand years from now...

[Giovanni Blasini]

One question I have about putting holes in space stations from across the solar system is what kind of angular resolution these telescopes being used actually have.

Let's take the Hubble Space Telescope for an example.  It's got an angular resolution of 0.04 arcseconds.  At 10 AU, the distance between Earth and Saturn, more or less, and also the distance to Sol's standard jump points, that works out to 290.1 kilometers: smaller than that, and it's not able to resolve an object.  That's why, when pointing at the Moon, the HST can't resolve objects smaller than football fields, or why when pointing at Pluto from 30 AU, it's barely able to resolve anything, since Pluto's 2400 km across, and the limit of HST's resolution at that distance is 1000 km.

For things closer to home, trying to look at one of the Moon landing sites from Earth would require a 200-meter telescope to be able to resolve the 4-ft wide flag.  Even the base of the lander, which is 9.5 meters across, would require a 25-meter telescope to be able to show up as a dot at the distance between Earth and the Moon.

Certainly, we can theorize that optics in the Battletech universe are better than they are now, but there are physical limits as to how good you can really get, which, since I don't have a degree in optics, I don't really know.  However, I'm willing to bet that's one of the reasons why optical/thermal detection of other spacecraft, barring detection of drive plumes, is limited to something like 25 thousand kilometers per StratOps rules.

[Cannonshop]

One question I have about putting holes in space stations from across the solar system is what kind of angular resolution these telescopes being used actually have.

Let's take the Hubble Space Telescope for an example.  It's got an angular resolution of 0.04 arcseconds.  At 10 AU, the distance between Earth and Saturn, more or less, and also the distance to Sol's standard jump points, that works out to 290.1 kilometers: smaller than that, and it's not able to resolve an object.  That's why, when pointing at the Moon, the HST can't resolve objects smaller than football fields, or why when pointing at Pluto from 30 AU, it's barely able to resolve anything, since Pluto's 2400 km across, and the limit of HST's resolution at that distance is 1000 km.

For things closer to home, trying to look at one of the Moon landing sites from Earth would require a 200-meter telescope to be able to resolve the 4-ft wide flag.  Even the base of the lander, which is 9.5 meters across, would require a 25-meter telescope to be able to show up as a dot at the distance between Earth and the Moon.

Certainly, we can theorize that optics in the Battletech universe are better than they are now, but there are physical limits as to how good you can really get, which, since I don't have a degree in optics, I don't really know.  However, I'm willing to bet that's one of the reasons why optical/thermal detection of other spacecraft, barring detection of drive plumes, is limited to something like 25 thousand kilometers per StratOps rules.

Mind you, drive plumes are pretty darn large, and a space station's going to have radio-noise as loud as Jupiter, especially banging away with broad-spectrum stuff like NCSs or coordinating patrol units, but also keep in mind this is an environment where we have laser weaponry capable of melting exotic alloys and ceramics at a distance.

and RDF can be pretty precise if you're less interested in what they're saying, than where they're broadcasting from.

and there's the role of peacetime intelligence gathering, including looking at where the drive plumes are gathering because those are going to be pretty damn bright and easy to see even from the ground.

Plus yer solar sails? are big reflectors, which geometrically increases brightness and makes it easy to pinpoint, AND, active sensors are a bit like lighting a flashlight on an open plain in the middle of a moonless night-as far as they can see, they can be SEEN from further away by passive systems.

a scout  unit or hunter-killer is going to be running dark as much as he can afford to run dark, and watching for that with passive receptors, likely any decently equipped ship is going to have both optical, and radiotelescope arrays because it's flat useful to have those on a starship...but only a "Heavy" is probably going to rock a Neutrino Detector because of the mass and cost involved.

To serve effectively a Station must be...stationary!! It can't go hauling off across the system or it loses the chief utility purpose for which it was built.

Spies to tell you where (generally) to look.

Scouts to identify in particular what to look at (or for) and triangulate the location.

then the decision tree of "bypass or destroy"-which largely depends on how cosmetically useful and/or expensive and irreplaceable the station is, and whether taking it intact is worth the bother.  (recharge stations? sure, those are worth taking intact, likewise for shipyard stations or fueling docks.  gun platforms not so much.)

If it's not worth taking intact, and you don't want to wait them out through cutting off resupply or support, you can hit the station from distances it's going to have a hard time responding to....or, if you don't consider it vital (it's sitting at one of the jump points, but not all of them, and not in orbit over something worth the effort to send troops to) you cut it off with a blockade from outside its easy weapons ranges, and starve them to death or freeze them out (aim at the big, reflective solar sails, they'll have to burn fuel just to keep the lights on.)

Note the almost complete lack of Habitat Cylinders in the setting when they used to be common.  There's a reason for that, and it's not that they dodged all the incoming fire.

[Daryk]

I think one of the underlying issues here is that canon "station keeping" drives are anything but by real world standards... A tenth of a G sustained is HUGE in real life...  8)

[idea weenie]

Plus yer solar sails? are big reflectors, which geometrically increases brightness and makes it easy to pinpoint, AND, active sensors are a bit like lighting a flashlight on an open plain in the middle of a moonless night-as far as they can see, they can be SEEN from further away by passive systems.

Why would solar sails be reflectors?  Wouldn't they be as absorbent as possible to get the sunlight?  Also, you'd likely want the solar sails to be flat towards the local star, instead of at an angle (IIRC as the angle increases, efficiency decreases based on the cosine)

So you might look for dark areas rather than bright areas.  The waste heat from the station might be something to look for though.

To serve effectively a Station must be...stationary!! It can't go hauling off across the system or it loses the chief utility purpose for which it was built.

Agree on this.  A Space Station that has stuff docked to or in it can't use its station-keeping thrusters safely, or have a solar sail deployed.  A Space Station that runs on internal power and uses Small Craft to transfer personnel/cargo from itself to other vessels can maneuver, but I don't think it can safely launch Small Craft during that time.  Let alone what the randomized .1G burns are doing to crew morale on board, plus ignoring the steady fuel demands for those burns.

Wish the game allowed for using station-keeping to perform in-system maneuvers.  It would take over 3* as long as a Dropship accelerating at 1G, but it would be useful.

Heck, even .01G for Station-Keeping would be useful (and only take 10* as long as a 1-G Dropship)

[Vehrec]

Mind you, drive plumes are pretty darn large, and a space station's going to have radio-noise as loud as Jupiter, especially banging away with broad-spectrum stuff like NCSs or coordinating patrol units, but also keep in mind this is an environment where we have laser weaponry capable of melting exotic alloys and ceramics at a distance.

and RDF can be pretty precise if you're less interested in what they're saying, than where they're broadcasting from.

and there's the role of peacetime intelligence gathering, including looking at where the drive plumes are gathering because those are going to be pretty damn bright and easy to see even from the ground.

Plus yer solar sails? are big reflectors, which geometrically increases brightness and makes it easy to pinpoint, AND, active sensors are a bit like lighting a flashlight on an open plain in the middle of a moonless night-as far as they can see, they can be SEEN from further away by passive systems.

a scout  unit or hunter-killer is going to be running dark as much as he can afford to run dark, and watching for that with passive receptors, likely any decently equipped ship is going to have both optical, and radiotelescope arrays because it's flat useful to have those on a starship...but only a "Heavy" is probably going to rock a Neutrino Detector because of the mass and cost involved.

To serve effectively a Station must be...stationary!! It can't go hauling off across the system or it loses the chief utility purpose for which it was built.

Spies to tell you where (generally) to look.

Scouts to identify in particular what to look at (or for) and triangulate the location.

then the decision tree of "bypass or destroy"-which largely depends on how cosmetically useful and/or expensive and irreplaceable the station is, and whether taking it intact is worth the bother.  (recharge stations? sure, those are worth taking intact, likewise for shipyard stations or fueling docks.  gun platforms not so much.)

If it's not worth taking intact, and you don't want to wait them out through cutting off resupply or support, you can hit the station from distances it's going to have a hard time responding to....or, if you don't consider it vital (it's sitting at one of the jump points, but not all of them, and not in orbit over something worth the effort to send troops to) you cut it off with a blockade from outside its easy weapons ranges, and starve them to death or freeze them out (aim at the big, reflective solar sails, they'll have to burn fuel just to keep the lights on.)

Note the almost complete lack of Habitat Cylinders in the setting when they used to be common.  There's a reason for that, and it's not that they dodged all the incoming fire.

You can probably resolve drive plumes as a point source, but I don't see what lasers have to do with anything.  In fact, laser range limitations are part of the optics limits on focusing the darn things before their beams diverge beyond the limits to damage stuff.

RDF gets you bearings, and while those are useful, they're not absolute, and don't include all the data you need to target something.

There is no reason to use solar sails, especially at the Zenith or Nadir.  I'm sorry to tell you this, but sunlight at 10 AU is 100x weaker than on earth, so you only get 13 watts per square meter, before conversion inefficiencies.  Just...install a fusion APU and be done with it.

"Hit the station from beyond it's range" gonna need a source on this...ever happening to combat platforms.  If it was so easy, why not do it instead of ramming all those fireships into things?  And like, what makes you think it's gonna be easy, that's a platform big enough to mount warship grade ECM/ECCM and it does have enough thrusters to slow-dance with you.  How does the calculus change if the Station has the effective range-advantage or even parity compared to your cut-rate attacker?

Habitat stations are not armored and are defenseless generally, so their destruction doesn't really...compare?

Agree on this.  A Space Station that has stuff docked to or in it can't use its station-keeping thrusters safely, or have a solar sail deployed.  A Space Station that runs on internal power and uses Small Craft to transfer personnel/cargo from itself to other vessels can maneuver, but I don't think it can safely launch Small Craft during that time.  Let alone what the randomized .1G burns are doing to crew morale on board, plus ignoring the steady fuel demands for those burns.

Wish the game allowed for using station-keeping to perform in-system maneuvers.  It would take over 3* as long as a Dropship accelerating at 1G, but it would be useful.

Heck, even .01G for Station-Keeping would be useful (and only take 10* as long as a 1-G Dropship)

There's...nothing stopping a space station from using it's station keeping drives to move around a system.  There's nothing stopping them from using their station-keeping drives in combat either.  Granted, it's ten turns from 'start burning' to 'one thrust point spent' but it's still something.

To quote Space Station Locations in Strat-ops: "It should be noted that space stations typically have station-keeping drives comparable to those of JumpShips, which means stations can get around a star system pretty good when they need to. They can’t get around between stars very well, but attackers shouldn’t get too complacent about the location of a battle station in a star system."

[monbvol]

I hate to say it but fire ships ramming into things never made any sense.  Not when I first read about it in the mid 90's nor now.  If anything that proves that normal operating procedures for space stations is not to use their station keeping thrusters.  Because those fireships?  They were Jumpships, not Warships, by in large.

Nor did it make any sense that stations could effectively defensively control Zenith/Nadir points.

Ultimately the early writers either didn't know squat about astrophysics or didn't care to know and here we are picking up the pieces for it.

[Cannonshop]

You can probably resolve drive plumes as a point source, but I don't see what lasers have to do with anything.  In fact, laser range limitations are part of the optics limits on focusing the darn things before their beams diverge beyond the limits to damage stuff.

RDF gets you bearings, and while those are useful, they're not absolute, and don't include all the data you need to target something.

There is no reason to use solar sails, especially at the Zenith or Nadir.  I'm sorry to tell you this, but sunlight at 10 AU is 100x weaker than on earth, so you only get 13 watts per square meter, before conversion inefficiencies.  Just...install a fusion APU and be done with it.

"Hit the station from beyond it's range" gonna need a source on this...ever happening to combat platforms.  If it was so easy, why not do it instead of ramming all those fireships into things?  And like, what makes you think it's gonna be easy, that's a platform big enough to mount warship grade ECM/ECCM and it does have enough thrusters to slow-dance with you.  How does the calculus change if the Station has the effective range-advantage or even parity compared to your cut-rate attacker?

Habitat stations are not armored and are defenseless generally, so their destruction doesn't really...compare?
There's...nothing stopping a space station from using it's station keeping drives to move around a system.  There's nothing stopping them from using their station-keeping drives in combat either.  Granted, it's ten turns from 'start burning' to 'one thrust point spent' but it's still something.

To quote Space Station Locations in Strat-ops: "It should be noted that space stations typically have station-keeping drives comparable to those of JumpShips, which means stations can get around a star system pretty good when they need to. They can’t get around between stars very well, but attackers shouldn’t get too complacent about the location of a battle station in a star system."

I wouldn't be too concerned about a space station zipping along at high speed, because it's goign to take as long (or longer) to slow back down in order to DO ANYTHING.

(frame of reference matters) aaannd given how long it takes to get UP to speed, by the time it slows down, the battle is already won.  In the meantime iut's not docking shuttles or fighters or dropships-because to do that, it has to either stop accelerating, or stop decelerating long enough to match frame of reference for yon docking maneuver.  (anyone who thinks otherwise should consider how much fun it'll be to fix the landing bay when it's been scorched by a running fusion engine with a quarter mile long flame hot enough to melt steel and other non-trans-uranic alloys.  Your exhaust from a BT fusion engine may be many things, but cold isn't one of them, and docking requires a certain...precision lest your smaller unit become involuntarily debris through impact with your larger unit.)

remember folks, constant thrust does NOT equal constant velocity, and while Firefly could do it, they weren't pushing speeds sufficient to cross the solar system in under a year...


Oh, and congratulations on invalidating your own 'cheaper to train' argument, because avoiding damage with a maneuver like that? that's like hooking your parasite fighter to a B-36 that's accelerating without scorching the coatings.

further fun food for thought-with a curve like that, you get to flee too slow to get away, or arrive too late to be of use.  It's only good for peacetime movement.

[monbvol]

Point of rules as written:

It is impossible to launch or dock/recover while either unit is under thrust and both must also be matching velocity too.

[Giovanni Blasini]

Mind you, drive plumes are pretty darn large, and a space station's going to have radio-noise as loud as Jupiter, especially banging away with broad-spectrum stuff like NCSs or coordinating patrol units, but also keep in mind this is an environment where we have laser weaponry capable of melting exotic alloys and ceramics at a distance.

(o_O)

Jupiter is a 2 trillion watt radio source.  That's...kind of a lot for even a fusion-powered space station to generate.

and RDF can be pretty precise if you're less interested in what they're saying, than where they're broadcasting from.

and there's the role of peacetime intelligence gathering, including looking at where the drive plumes are gathering because those are going to be pretty damn bright and easy to see even from the ground.

Plus yer solar sails? are big reflectors, which geometrically increases brightness and makes it easy to pinpoint, AND, active sensors are a bit like lighting a flashlight on an open plain in the middle of a moonless night-as far as they can see, they can be SEEN from further away by passive systems.

Battletech solar sails are energy absorbing, not reflective.

[Cannonshop]

(o_O)

Jupiter is a 2 trillion watt radio source.  That's...kind of a lot for even a fusion-powered space station to generate.

okay, a weee bit of an exaggeration there.   it's still going to be the loudest NON planet/non sun thing in the area.

Battletech solar sails are energy absorbing, not reflective.

When did they change that one? (did I miss an errata?)

[Giovanni Blasini]

okay, a weee bit of an exaggeration there.   it's still going to be the loudest NON planet/non sun thing in the area.

When did they change that one? (did I miss an errata?)

At the very least with the release of Strategic Operations.  I've gone back and looked at my 3rd Ed, 2nd Ed and my Pre-Print/Release copy, and all three match the description as being soot-black on the side that's collecting the energy from the local star.  So...15 years or so?  I don't have Aerotech 2 or Battlespace on PDF to be able to check those - they're in boxes somewhere.  But, wait, I do have DropShips & JumpShips on PDF.  That also describes it as absorbing visible light, and being nonreflective to radar.

The opposite surface of jump sails are usually depicted as decorated, but the side that faces a star would not be.

[idea weenie]

Point of rules as written:

It is impossible to launch or dock/recover while either unit is under thrust and both must also be matching velocity too.

So you cannot dock while the space station is under thrust, but after a space station and Dropship/Jumpship/Warship is docked can you use thrust (and how much)?


I know that a vessel inside a Repair Bay does not prevent a Space Station from using Station-Keeping Thrust.  (TO:AUE, corr 6th printing, p147)

[Daryk]

Thrusting while docked is generally not recommended...

[Maingunnery]

Thrusting while docked is generally not recommended...

Do not worry, the standard connectors can handle station-keeping thrust, and that level of thrust is also plenty enough to dodge projectiles that have hours of flight time.

[Daryk]

If you detect them, that totally works... :)

[Cannonshop]

So you cannot dock while the space station is under thrust, but after a space station and Dropship/Jumpship/Warship is docked can you use thrust (and how much)?


I know that a vessel inside a Repair Bay does not prevent a Space Station from using Station-Keeping Thrust.  (TO:AUE, corr 6th printing, p147)

mind that load is secured if it's in the bay, and probably tied down. (otherwise your load is playing bumper-cars with the expensive, delicate, equipment inside with it.)

if secured, it's adding to the mass, if not secured (locked or tied down) it's a separate mass, and will continue moving even when you cut thrust and hit retro-brakes, or keep moving more particularly when you activate your braking or thrust. (No inherent gravity to hold it to the deck, or in position on the gantry or whatever you're using).

[idea weenie]

The other option might be that the Station is coordinating its thrusters with the docked units' thrusters.  If the docked unit can provide at least .1G accel via its thrusters, carefully coordinated wit the station's helm computers, then the two would be able to slowly accelerate and not rip apart or jam into each other.

But if it is an Olympus station with a Leviathan II attached, that is a total of 3.4 MTons being subject to 100 ktons of thrust, or about .03 G acceleration.  Plus, the docking system between the Olympus and the Leviathan II is taking that 2.4 MTon strain.

[Cannonshop]

The other option might be that the Station is coordinating its thrusters with the docked units' thrusters.  If the docked unit can provide at least .1G accel via its thrusters, carefully coordinated wit the station's helm computers, then the two would be able to slowly accelerate and not rip apart or jam into each other.

But if it is an Olympus station with a Leviathan II attached, that is a total of 3.4 MTons being subject to 100 ktons of thrust, or about .03 G acceleration.  Plus, the docking system between the Olympus and the Leviathan II is taking that 2.4 MTon strain.

did you account for the unbalanced load?  (Center of Gravity)  an unbalanced load can impose angular deflection under thrust, yhou don't want the wall to suddenly be the floor (or the corner suddenly become the floor) as the station plus load twists due to inertia.

[Cannonshop]

dagnabbit, this stuff's giving me more ideas.

[Daryk]

That sounds exactly like a successful piloting roll to avoid damage when thrusting while docked...  8)

[idea weenie]

did you account for the unbalanced load?  (Center of Gravity)  an unbalanced load can impose angular deflection under thrust, yhou don't want the wall to suddenly be the floor (or the corner suddenly become the floor) as the station plus load twists due to inertia.

I'd assume they had planned it ahead of time and rotated so the center of mass for the carried load was going through the center of thrust.  A Station-Keeping thrust won't let them dodge projectiles up close, so all maneuvers would have to be planned in advance.

Even taking that into account that is a 2.4 MTon vessel sitting on a 1 kiloton docking collar, and at ~.03 Gs that is ~72 kilotons of weight (2.4 MTons * .03) being put onto the Collar.


If it is unbalanced I'd expect the station to be somewhat circling as the station's thrusters provide off-axis thrust to the center of mass, until the Docking Collar fails and the LevII breaks off.  It is only .03Gs so the onboard crew would have some warning of the thrust coming online, but the steady strain is another matter.

You'd also have the case where a Space Station that suddenly goes under Station-Keeping thrust while having a ship being worked on in a Repair Bay might result in a few components being left behind because they were outside the ship and not secured.  A Pressurized Repair bay might be even worse if a screw from the bow of the Repair Bay hits the rear of the Repair Bay and punctures it.