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HidesHisFace In reply to Ryuukei8569 [2015-05-14 06:57:04 +0000 UTC]

Akylea is still relatively small in comparison to the biggest ships of my universe. 
In scraps, Shata'lin sketch dump there is a basic comparison between Angel Destroyer, the flagship of Shata'lin Holy Fleet and some of the other, bigger ships, such as imubian Senate class battleship or nhilar Kraken class mobile factory.
Long story short - Angel Destroyer has a size comparable to a medium European country, and yet, it is still tiny in comparison to the continent-sized Shata'lin Mother-Ship - though building, and constant refitting of that thing took 6 thousand years.

As for 3-D art - there is a problem with that - time and resources - I don't have either to create proper 3-D models - I would rather sculpt them from something like modelling putty - more cost effective with what I can afford. And many of the ship designs have organic or rounded designs, and they would be rather difficult to model properly - especially for a newbie like myself.

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Ryuukei8569 In reply to HidesHisFace [2015-05-14 14:39:39 +0000 UTC]

Your Shata'lin don't do anything subtle do they. My own setting doesnt have anything close to the 100 + K designs that you have. Biggest ones I got, are around 30 K, and those ship designs have their own category that I refer to as Super Heavy Starships.

Yeah, when I got into 3D, that was one of the reasons that i switched from organic designs to more angular designs, organic designs are generally easier to draw on paper, but a lot more difficult to model well. But I figured that all the time I spent working on it was worth it, because I have a level of detail and consistency on my ship deigns now, that I would have never been able to achieve without it.

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HidesHisFace In reply to Ryuukei8569 [2015-05-14 15:58:14 +0000 UTC]

Well, with machines so big, subtlety is not an option, not when some guns are so huge that you could fit a full-sized city inside of a barrel.
There are problem with such a huge size - costly, hard to replace, huge targets, difficult to maintain and impossible to land - crash is enough to wipe out the entire planet.

New, smaller vessels have more options for subtle and novel designs - Sundancer class frigates for example - small, stealthy strike-ships designed to work behind enemy lines for extended periods of time, mostly as convoy-hunters, disrupting enemy supply lines, either in deep space or in atmosphere.

Akylea herself, despite rather prominent size is also far more subtle than old Shata'lin behemoths - more than capable of running circles around slower enemy ships.

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Ryuukei8569 In reply to HidesHisFace [2015-05-14 16:18:57 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, gun sizes on my ships usually don't go above 400 cm, but that's partially because I almost always use turreted guns rather than fixed. Yeah a fixed forward gun can get a lot bigger than a turreted one, but I've never cared for them, I've always seen such weapons as being rather impractical. plus you can only carry one or two usually, and if a malfunction happens, well then the ship is without its primary armament. however a ship with 8 to 12 turreted guns, if one fails, then its not really as big of a deal. Plus  find that the Axial weapons are usually just way overpowered anyway, and that there is little need for a gun that powerful.

Yeah, and of curse, the big issue with monster designs is difficulty of replacing them should they be lost. In my setting, yeah the ships are pretty big compared to the standards of a number of sci fi's, but they are a reasonable size for the industrial bases of the major powers in question. A major power can generally comfortably handle 5 to 10 capital ship per planet during peacetime. I only count Battleships, Battlecruisers, Fleet Carriers, Dreadnoughts, and other similarly sized warships as capital ships, cruisers and destroyers are not counted as capships. Given that even small powers can have several thousand planets, this means that even a battleship or battlecruiser is not that difficult to replace. But I also go with the motto, if the piece of equipment in question is irreplaceable should it be lost in war, then it has no business being in war.

No maneuverability and speed is all well and good, but there is a time and a place for it. The British found this out the hard way at Jutland with their Battlecruisers. My philosophy is that combined arms is always the way to go, having several different unit types that have different strengths and weaknesses that are used in ways that they complement each other.

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HidesHisFace In reply to Ryuukei8569 [2015-05-14 18:57:24 +0000 UTC]

In my case, giant ships are remnants of the Expansion Age. When every major power was making huge colonization efforts. Ability to transport huge populations from point A to point B. During this age, it made sense - giants allowed for mounting bigger and better weaponry and protection, they were also protecting the personnel and colonists from radiation much better than smaller ships would. They were expensive, true, but they were investments for thousands of years, quite literally - easy to modify. Large platforms were not getting obsolete - weaponry and internal systems could be re-fitted rather easily, and even in case of wars, critical damage was rare. Firghts were more about making ships incapable of further combat.

The fact that Shata'lin came up with ships of (relatively) similar, absurd size was a coincidence and effect of their megalomania. With their technological advantages, their returned fuelled the arms race anew - soon (again, relatively), at the end of Return Age, ship's armaments became powerful enough to render giants obsolete in every way other than mass transport and extreme range siege operations.

Currently, giants have limited usefulness and serve almost exclusively as fleet-level transport ships and flying supply docks, while major combat classes of ships have been reduced in size - for example, Battleships were reduced from around 80-100km in length to only about 3-4km - that is the size old Destroyers would have. 

The class distribution of ships is rather standard:
Strikecraft - fighters, bombers, interceptors, scout ships, dropships, boarding barges and other small machines, usually piloted by one or two men.

Corvettes - usually rather small, ships - used mostly as heavy troop transports and gunboats - piloted by one or two men, possibly with some additional technical crew. The smallest proper warships.

Frigates - usually escort and specialized small ships - relatively cheap and cost-effective but rather lacking in proper armament against heavier vessels. Usually equipped with powerful detection and communication devices. In terms of combat role, they are meant to defend convoys agaisnt strikecraft and stealth ships. Some classes of frigates are also popular ground attack and support ships.

Destroyers - these are usually dedicated escorts for larger vessels with significant point-defence batteries and light artillery coupled with good speed and manoeuvrability. Most are equipped with proper detection equipment against stealth attacks and boarding pods and such. Many classes of destroyers are also armed with some short and long range anti-capital weaponry (like missile destroyers or torpedo destroyers). Many of them are also used as cheap platforms for experimental weapons and systems.

Monitors - modified destroyers, replacing multiple small artillery turrets with one or two cruiser class weapons mounted either in hull or massive gun turrets. Cheap and cost effective force multipliers.

Scrap ships - usually destroyer-sized ships - basically up-armoured and up-gunned heavy civilian transports or freighters - a cheap replacement for military grade equipment.

Light cruisers - first proper capital ship class - dedicated destroyer division leaders - basically bigger destroyers armed with multiple multi-purpose gun batteries and absurd amounts of point defence guns. Relatively lightly armoured and very fast for their size. Often armed with heavy torpedoes to give them some striking power against heavier opponents.

Medium cruisers - proper line vessels with good mix of large and small weaponry and medium armour. Fast and versatile. Many of those can support sizeable fleets of strike craft not strictly for self-defence purposes, but for fleet level protection and more importantly - planet landing operations.

Heavy cruisers - these ships are designed to be the cruiser division leaders and independent patrol ships - armed to the teeth and reasonably fast and well protected, heavy cruisers are able to fill almost any gap. Smaller fleets and poorer systems use them as makeshift flagships if battlecruisers of bigger classes are not available. Because of this, heavy cruiser classes show a lot of variety - from dedicated artillery ships to half-carriers and fleet supply ships.

Battlecruisers - bigger cousins of heavy cruisers - same speed and armour but battleship or dreadnought class armament. Popular choice for second line ships, long range patrols, heavy escorts of merchant fleets and so on. They are also cheap alternatives for flagships if battleships or dreadnoughts are not available.

Carriers - typical force multipliers - carriers usually sport light cruiser class weaponry on battleship-sized hull and huge fleets of strikecraft and fleet support equipment, making them popular choices for flagships. Depending on strike craft loadout, carriers may fulfil roles of long range support, maintenance or main invasion ships. However, they are almost worthless alone, because strike craft usually can't pierce heavy shields by themselves.

Battleships - "have it all" type of ships - slow, heavily armoured and armed to the teeth with almost all types of weapons, able to engage multiple targets at different ranges. Designed to lead whole fleets from first or second line, depending on specific design and to fill gaps in formations should such a need arise. Designs vary - from multi-turret designs, though broadsides, to pseudo-carriers. 
They usually have couple of large gun batteries for long range and anti-capital combat and multiple smaller, intermediate and secondary gun batteries to combat smaller ships at closer ranges. They are armed this way to offset long recharge of larger guns.
Shata'lin ships of the line offset the recharge problems with sequential fire from multi-barrelled heavy solar lance batteries. 

Dreadnoughts - surprisingly not bigger or better than regular battleships just more specialized. They drop most of the secondary armament in favour of more bigger guns. Their secondary guns batteries are made mostly of AA guns and only few intermediate calibre weapons to pick off stragglers. Dreadnoughts are ships specialized in long range combat and planetary siege operations and powerful additions to almost any fleet. Their lacking secondary guns mean they are relatively vulnerable at closer ranges... but enemy would first have to be even able to get close in the first place. It makes dreadnoughts popular choice for flagships - as they are usually the most impressive of ships of any fleet, able to lay waste on entire planets.

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Ryuukei8569 In reply to HidesHisFace [2015-05-14 19:59:55 +0000 UTC]

I take it that during the early expansion ages, Faster than Light travel was also quite limited to nonexistent, necessitating the construction of very large ships to go on journeys that could potentially take dozens to hundreds of years even for relatively short journeys. That's one thing I did with my own SF, is that FTL was by no means an easy technology to attain. out of the thousands of species present in my setting, only about 10 or so of them actually developed FTL on their own. The only reason that other species ever attained it was the fact that one of the species sent out a bunch of unmanned FTL probes all over the galaxy, and inadvertently, spread the technology around as others reverse engineered it.

In terms of ship terminology I have actually pulled away from nautical specific terms, mainly because despite the appearance of my ships, I am not playing the space is an ocean card. For example, in terms of armor protection and firepower, ships are designed to fight with the front facing the enemy, the frontal armor is the strongest and the gun turret layout is designed so that they can fire all guns forward. While the usual center line arrangement of a ships main battery normally allows them a strong broadside as well, generally the side armor is weaker, so they aren't as good at it. Bt the reason I do this is that the properties of space allows space ships to maneuver differently than their naval counterparts. In space, all that matters really is thrust, and all my ship designs have, in addition to the usual rear mounted engines, they have side, top, bottom, and forward facing engines as well. Paired with thrust vectoring, this allows any of my warship designs to accelerate and maneuver in any direction at full speed, regardless of the direction that the nose is facing. So for example, a Battleship design of mine can move sideways, forwards, backwards, up and down at full speed. This applies to all warships and fighters, so my ships do not maneuver like their waterborne or airborne counterparts. This applies to any ship of any power. Big thing that I was absolutely tired of was the old school dogfighting that we see in so many sci fi's with their damn fighters, so my ships and fighters are deliberately designed to where that cannot happen. Plus long range guided weapons are ubiquitous, so visual range fights just simply do not occur.

But in terms of warship terminology, some terms would make sense in a space settings, others do not. battleship, Battlecruiser, Carrier, Dreadnought, Cruiser, Monitor, and Destroyer are all warship terms that would translate fairly well into a space setting. However frigates, corvettes, and missile boat do not. mainly because the terminology is very nautical specific, particularly a missile boat. I find it rather silly when the term boat is used for a spacecraft. Ship not so much, mainly because the term airship and landship do exist or has existed, so space ship is ok. So an alternative term to frigate could be light destroyer, fleet escort, patrol escort, or destroyer escort would make more sense. For you I would suggest redesignating frigate as destroyer escort or fleet escort. No need to change the ships function or name, just a terminology change. For you, Corvette would be a bit trickier. Honestly to me, the corvette for you sounds like a fast attack craft analogue really. Corvette is not really a good designation for the ship type your describing. Fast attack Craft would be a better term.

For me, I have a lot of ship designs and a lot of flexibility within each category, so many, that if I was to write them out here, what you just wrote would look positively dinky in comparison. But thats mainly because my setting has over 30 million known habitable planets, covering half a galaxy, whet ten major superpowers roaming around, and literally thousands of smaller ones. Given the vast amount of diversity present in my setting, naturally, the number of ship typs in existence is huge. Though just to mention a couple of thigs that I do differently. There are really just too many design philosophies present for me to really cover right now.

Other things that I do, Is that nowhere does the term torpedo exist. I use the term missile for all non rail gun weapons. Also I don't just use the term point defense carelessly either. A lot of people think of point defense as a catchall term for anti fighter and anti missile weapons. That isnt true. Point defense is the last layer defense. For long range anti fighter and anti missile weapons, the proper term is area defense. Area defense is generally the long range missiles that are usually equally effective in the anti fighter and anti missile roles.

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HidesHisFace In reply to Ryuukei8569 [2015-05-14 21:59:10 +0000 UTC]

Let's start from the bottom of things:

Torpedoes are different from missiles in my universe in couple of aspects - they are anti-capital weapons designed to bypass shields.
Now, the way that most energy shields (except the Lunar Shield used by Shata'lin) are designed to stop fast moving objects from getting inside - they do let slow moving targets in.
There are basically two types of shields - absorbers and deflectors - they do the same thing, but the way they work differs:
- deflectors use up energy to deflect whatever hits them - they can keep deflecting stuff as long as the generators ton't run out of juice - basically - they are optimal choice for ships with multiple, powerful generators/
- absorbers work the other way around, they well... quite literally absorb the energy and store it in heatsinks. They can stop enemy fire as long as they can store excessive energy, making them decent for smaller ships.
Anyway - the thing is that shields, no matter how they work, usually stop object travelling with certain speed - there are only few ways shield may be bypassed - either by travelling slowly, by piercing it or by lowering the density.
Lowering the density is achieved simply by hail of fire - it distorts the shield locally, allowing some shots to get through - this is exactly why shields have multiple layers, so it is not very effective unless shields collapse completely.
Piercing is achieved with pulse weapons - it does not actually bypass the shield but rather creates a "dent" in it, strong enough to damage the hull - damage from such attack will be only superficial, but it may be enough to knock exposed sensors or smaller gun turrets out.
Finally slow movement - this is exactly where torpedoes come in - torpedo is basically a huge missile with multiple devices allowing it to bypass enemy defences - average anti-capital torpedo is a huge machine - it is equipped with radar-blinding, stealth engines and sometimes even with own point defence cannons. It travels at high speed only to slow down right before the target, bypass the shields and then rapidly accelerate. Some more advance torpedoes are even equipped with short range jump drives allowing them to jump inside the target, bypassing not only shields but also the armour.

As for naval terminology - well, I still find it quite logical and effective in most cases. When it comes to ship coverage and gun placement - manoeuvring is easy, given the distances - thousands of kilometres - there is usually no dogfighting, unless the battle requires capturing crucial enemy assets or performing boarding operations. Basically - engagements start at extreme ranges while one fleet closes in (or both do, depends on tactical situation) - more and more guns come to play. This kind of set-up also limits the effectiveness os strike craft and carriers - they are mostly used as orbit-to-planet support and invasion vessels.

Missile ships are usually used as strike craft defence or surface support - but they do have their roles in ship-to-ship combat - cluster warheads dealing area of effect damage on shields are rather effective at creating distortions and lowering their density.

Now, as far as as the beginning of FTL in my universe goes - it all started with the jumpgate technology that was later used for over six thousand years. It was effective for what it was, but creating new gates was both expensive and dangerous. 
First of all, a jumpgate is a huge device requiring massive amount of energy to start up. It requires multiple steps:
- creating the entry ring of the gate
- setting up the coordinates
- powering up the entry gate
- sending the fleet to the other side (this is the most dangerous part - in case of power shortage ships may never get out and the exit without a ring on the other side is highly unstable - meaning that some ships jumping through it are guaranteed to NEVER jump out, they are just lost in the void, probably crushed by gravity effects.
- after jumping out, the fleet on the other side constructs and calibrates the second gate, powers it up and connects to the first one - from this point on the set of two gates is completely stable and fuels itself.
Stable gates allow for transport of matter (like ships) but also as information relays.

So, usually only a couple of such gates were built per star system - it made travel incredibly quick between them, but travels within star systems could still take weeks or months. More importantly - each set of gates was a structure of strategic importance, basically creating choke points. 
The fact that gates acted as info-relays also created information lag. For example - information sent from Imubian capital world to one of the outer rim worlds could take months or years to get to its destination.

Creation of proper jumpdrive technology at the end of the Return Age solved these problems, however. 

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Ryuukei8569 In reply to HidesHisFace [2015-05-15 00:11:23 +0000 UTC]

O.K., well I can see why you call them torpedoes. I would have used a different term, but hey, its your universe, and you are your universes god, so whatever you say about your setting goes.

Yeah, shields in my setting work differently, but I also have what is called a defense field. Essentially the defense field is the first layer of defense, and defense fields basically weaken incoming fire by however much they are rated by. Low powered weapons that are weaker than what the defense field is rated for will be repelled completely. Basically this makes nibbling away at shields with lightweight weapons essentially impossible. Defense fields also cannot be drained, no matter how much fire they take, they stay up at full strength. However Defense field generators are very large and very bulky, so only cruisers and capital ships can carry decent strength defense fields. Smaller ships don't have them. Shields are pretty much your standard draining type, blocking incoming enemy fire until they run out of power. I have yet to fully devise any weapons capable of bypassing them, but needless to say, slow moving ordinance is not one of them. I may devise other types of shield systems that other powers wil use as well, but for now I am still focused on finishing the Akurians.

So your carriers don't really do much in ship to ship combat. Yeah, that is a bit unusual, but all too many sci fi's like to portray the starfighter and the carrier as being the ultimate weapon in space combat, second to absolutely nothing. Looking at star wars here on this one. I am honestly rather tired of that.

Yeah, the development of your FTL tech is not to dissimilar to how the Akurians first FTL technology worked. Basically what they developed first was a wormhole gate technology, while there where no real hazards associated with the practical version of the technology, it had the inconvenience of requiring a receiving end gate to be built to work at all. So to make a wormhole gate link, a large starship had to go to the target system at STL speeds, which usually took many years to do, and then build a receiving gate when they got there. It was helpful that the Akurians adapted ageless medical technology before hand. Eventually they adapted the technology to be ship mounted, but even in the current timeline, only ships with a mass of 1 billion to 250 billion metric tons can efficiently use them. But my setting has multiple types of FTL drive in use anyway. Most ships use warp drive and hyperwarp drive, not to dissimilar from the allicubere drive theory, but that drive is generally limited to moving ships of at most 500 million metric tons, but that is also affected by the specific variations of the tech as well. Other FTL drives will have different rules on the matter.  The other factor for my FTL technology is that no form of FTL technology works if they are too close to a strong gravity well. While planes only limit FTL for a few 10 thousand kilometers around them, its the Star's mass that makes a difference. Generally a Sol type star has a no FTL radius of about 120 lightminutes, or roughly 40 light minutes past Saturn's orbit. Again, only exception to that rule is the wormhole gates.

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HidesHisFace In reply to Ryuukei8569 [2015-05-15 00:37:22 +0000 UTC]

When it comes to carriers and strike craft - it is hard to even imagine a tiny little bomber craft to be able to destroy or pose any real threat to 2km long cruiser or 4km long battleship, not even mentioning the old giant ships. In case of the latter - even if they could effectively punch through shields they would still have literally kilometres of armour layers to chew threw - ships in my universe do not have ridiculously obvious, fighter-friendly weak spots like Death Star's cooling systems. 

To become any threat such small crafts would have to be deployed in tens of thousands, given the efficiency shielding alone. Slowing down to get below the shield bubble is a viable tactic... If enemy ship has no point defence - otherwise slowing down would be a suicidal thing to do. 

Basically - strike craft in ship to ship combat have very limited role - mostly as an escort for boarding pods at close range, anti-missile defence and harassment. While they are not a direct threat capital ships, they can still be dangerous to destroyers and smaller machines AND their massed fire may weaken the shield density, allowing heavier ships to fire more effectively. However, this is still a minor role and is not efficient manpower-wise. Strike-craft are primary used as cover for invasion landings. Capital ships loose their manoeuvrability in atmosphere, while small and nimble fighters and bombers are very effective there.

Even speed wise, fighters do not have any significant edge over massive capital ships other than acceleration value. In fact, top cruising/travel speed of all capitals is much higher than that of any fighter or scout craft (though this speed is not suited for combat), while combat speeds are more or less equal, depending on type of the ship. 

Basically - strike craft are no miracle solution in space combat, given the range, size, protection and fire power of bigger ship - they are still essential in ground operations as part of any invasion force.

When it comes to jump drives - they have one massive disadvantage - low energy-efficiency - FTL drives usually require long recharge and have rather limited range on smaller ships due to energy losses. This is one of the reasons why giant ships are still in use as fleet transports - they are simply large enough to fit properly sized generators to "feed" jump drives even for long travels.
Long range jumps at low energy cost are possible, of course - but the jump may be either unstable or lacking in precision - in other words, there is a risk of the exit never opening or opening in the nearest high gravity point - like a star. And well... jumping out in the middle of a star is quite... deadly.

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Ryuukei8569 In reply to HidesHisFace [2015-05-15 01:15:08 +0000 UTC]

Well, that depends upon the size of the bomber in question. If the bomber is no bigger than your average world war 2 era fighter aircraft, yeah that's rather silly that it could carry anything to threaten a 2 to 4 km long warship. That's why fighters in my own setting are at least  a minimum, 40 to 50 meters long, with some of the largest ones reaching sizes of over a hundred meters in length. But even then, fighters in my setting are typically used against more lightly armored targets, like destroyers and carriers, and some of the smaller cruisers. Though ships that have very strong frontal armor, but weak side armor, fighters can defeat those designs as well. The other kicker, is that all my fighters are drones. No manned fighters in my setting. Carriers usually carry thousands of fighters, and attrition rates are very high. Often a carrier will have replaced its fighter wings several times over in a good campaign, let alone one that went badly.

But yeah, dumb weaknesses like thermal exhaust ports are only conceived by idiots whom cant come up with more sensible drawbacks for their ship designs. But lets face it, George Lucas wanted to ensure that fighters in star wars would be the ultimate undisputed gods of war in star wars. the kings of battle that could never be beaten except by other fighters. And unfortunately too many other people decided to follow that example. A lot of people are still stuck on the idea that the only thing that can counter fighters is other fighters, and that everything else is just target practice for the all important fighter jocks, despite the fact that even today, one of the mot dangerous things that a modern fighter aircraft can face is a surface ship armed with a crap ton of AA missiles like a modern guided missile destroyer. Of course, also too many sci fi's like to dumb down fighter defense to world war 2 levels anyway. Though granted, George Lucas had Star wars set so that capital ships had about all the anti fighter defense of a pre-dreadnought era battleship. Star wars capships have horrible anti fighter defenses even by early world war 2 standards. And hell, in world war 2, the most dangerous targets to take out was the battleships, they could mount more AA than any other warship afloat, on top of being the hardest to sink.

I have decided to make it where every ship and fighter type in my setting is good against some targets, but lousy against others. Fighters are good for some thing, but they arent the solution for everything. Combined arms is a must have in my setting, but fighters in of themselves are not strictly necessary for a power to have, because alternative options exist. However one other thing tat I do, is that space fighters and atmospheric fighters do not mix. My space fighters have the aerodynamics of a brick, and as a result, they are incredibly clumsy, and far too big to use efficiently in atmosphere, where as atmospheric fighters are much smaller, and even though they can fly in space for very short distance, their fuel capacity is far too limited to be of any use in space, other than flying from a close orbiting starship to go and perform whatever strike mission is needed. I don't really believe in the aerospace fighter concept, atmospheric combat and space combat are just simply too different to be able to mix the two.

Well, that's the way you ave set your FTL drive on how they work, and really the important thing is just maintaining consistency. No real FTL drive so far has been invented, so there is no right or wrong answer for FTL right now. Thoug I am guessing that some of these giant ships also tend to perform the mobile starbase function form time to time as well. That's mainly what I use my giants for.

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HidesHisFace In reply to Ryuukei8569 [2015-05-15 07:37:30 +0000 UTC]

In case of my strike craft - they are not meant for long range operations - their fuel cells are quite limited due to their size.

When it comes to fights in the atmosphere - not all of the strike craft are strictly aerodynamic but they are able to maintain high efficiency thanks to small gravity drives, countering the air friction to a large degree.

As for mobile star bases - nhilar Krakens (invented and patented by Abhair corporation) are a good example - mobile factory and mining ships - completely self sufficient, huge ships able to perform almost any given task - maintaining entire fleets, building ships, gathering resources, terraforming and creating colonies (by dropping entire structure modules to the surface - land crews only have to connect them and functional building is ready).
Krakens quickly became vital part of nhilar colonization efforts - perfectly able to perform basic terraforming and build a colony for a billion of inhabitants within couple of months.

Most of the remaining giants however, act as mobile maintenance docks for smaller ships and mass transports for colonists and troops alike. Stationary deep space stations are pretty much useless now, when the gate technology is obsolete. Semi-mobile stations are built only in resource-rich asteroid belts, to act as home for mining crews and jump beacons for supply ships.

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Ryuukei8569 In reply to HidesHisFace [2015-05-15 17:25:22 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, I ont find it realistic for a strike craft to have exceptionally long range anyway. The most absurd idea though is, once again, star wars, with their fighters able to fly clear across an entire galaxy. Noticing a pattern here.

Yeah, newtons first law of motion actually works very much against any immobile space station in combat anyway. Simply for the reason, that weapons fire in space will continue going unless stopped by something. In the case of any unguided kinetic weapon, their range is generally limited by how fast the target can move out of the way, if the target is unable to move out of the way, well then you can basically hit them from an unlimited distance away, while any shot that the station fires, the warship has ample time to get out of the way. Even with guided weapons, which have limited fuel capacities, a stationary target means that the missile would not need to expend anywhere near as much fuel making course corrections, as a missile would going after a moving target. That's why I have pretty much abandoned the idea of stationary starbases in my setting, I replaced them with the baseship concept, which basically is a very large vessel that acts as a starbase in just about every way, except that it has full sublight engines as well, though typically no FTL.

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HidesHisFace In reply to Ryuukei8569 [2015-05-15 18:06:13 +0000 UTC]

I still find some orbit-stationary installations handy for civilian use in my universe, but not really for military, unless we are talking about massive shipyards.

Anyway - civilian stationary deep space stations can serve their purpose even with reliable, ship-mounted FTL around:
Trade stations - it is hard to expect regular travellers to land on planet's surface with their small ships only to buy some basic goods.
Resupply deep space stations - basically similar to trade stations, acting as waypoints for travellers with ships with more limited range.
Mining/resource stations - in most cases resource rich asteroids or dwarf planets can be exploited for decades or hundreds of years, so building a new station is simply more efficient than moving the old one anyway.
Research labs - especially the ones dealing with biological or chemical research, things that may prove dangerous if released upon populace. Such stations simply provide sealed environments.

Basically - in case of stationary or semi stationary civilian stations - they are meant to be exploited for hundreds of years and are usually tied to star systems or specific planets, so moving them significantly would be pointless in a long run - adding expensive engines on something that would keep orbiting the closes star would be a waste of money for something without any military value.

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Ryuukei8569 In reply to HidesHisFace [2015-05-16 23:54:26 +0000 UTC]

Yeah, I guess that's true, but it is worth pointing out, that when to powers get engaged in total war, where one is genuinely trying to kill the other, than anything becomes a target, military value or not. Destroying your enemies economy is a very common and very old strategy, and one that has worked quite effectively I may add. Simply put in a total war, if it has economic value, then it becomes a military target as well. But that is setting dependent, if none of your powers have ever engaged in that style of warfare, then it is easy to see why they wouldn't consider it a problem.

In my own Sci Fi, Total war is a fairly common occurrence, and civilian infrastructure frequently becomes a target, hence why just about every starbase has sub light engines, and at least some weapons and defenses.

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HidesHisFace In reply to Ryuukei8569 [2015-05-17 00:51:19 +0000 UTC]

Total conflicts in my universe are relatively rare and destroying civilian assets is usually seen as counter productive. Most star systems are pretty well fortified and punching through multiple systems would require massive and very well organized operations and insanely good supply lines.
Civilian assets provide some resources and planetary installations are pretty defensible.
Most conflicts are waged over territories or resources, so keeping infrastructure as intact as possible is a very logical move in a long run - wars are waged to bolster own economy in the end, not to pump more cash into rebuilding and re-colonizing from scratch.

Planetary bombardments, or in most extreme cases (Shata'lin are more than capable of that), like extinguishing whole stars is more of a fear tactic - if you kill a population of an entire planet that failed to surrender, chances are others will not even try to resist.

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