Semi-OT: A General Tech Question Thread for me :)
 

Howdy all it's me Starhawk with a question for all you techno nerds and nerdets I have a question for ya'll on Ship's Powerplants in Sci-Fi and WTF it all means.

Now the reason I ask this is because while writing up a tech sheat for my Icaran SuperDreadnought (just for kicks) I had it like this

main power plant generates 100 Terawatts

each turret micro reactor provides 2 Terawatts of firepower per cannon per shot (meaning a total of 6 Terawatts from each main turret per broadside)

Now in ST we hear Riker claim that the Enterprise D does not generate even ONE Terawatt of power and he is astonished to come across a Terawatt powersource.

Now here's where it get's tricky:
In Babylon Five's Tech guide a Narn G'Quan heavy cruiser (not the most advanced ship in B5) Generates 37,500 TERAWATTS!

Now given that Bab5 is considerably less advanced than anything in ST (Aside from First Ones and Minbari) how is this power measurement come across?

Also being that Icarans are much more advanced then any ST race (cept maybe the Pre Voy Borg) I figured a 100 Terawatt powersource for a ship 3 kilometers long that bristles with weapons and has null space shielding would be reasonable but am no longer sure of this.

Any of you guys able to answer what is a reasonable power generation ratio for a ship with energy weapons, shields and powerful drives? Especially considering I read somewhere that the Entire PLANET EARTH only generates a few hundred Terawatts at any given time.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Essentially, since it is SF, you can say whatever the hell you want to say and no one can say you're wrong! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif That's the beauty of it. 100 Terawatts sounds good to me.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

lol I was looking for a more "scientific" answer like just how much IS a Terawatt on the grand scale of things other then the obvious in "numbers of watts" http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

A heck of a lot of juice, that's what. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Invent something, makes things much easier. In one of my sci-fi shorts (War feed four) one of the characters mentions a "4000 BlatterWatt Phased Polaron Array".

http://www.dogscoff.co.uk/fiction

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

As the old joke goes: Watt/what is a unit power? Not actually accurate or indeed that funny. Hey ho.

A watt is a joule a second and a joule is the work done when you apply a force of one newton over one meter. A newton is the force required to accelerate one kilogram at one meter per second every second. Hope all is clear. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif However all that doesn't really matter.

Usefully. A lightbulb is 100 watts, which is mostly heat only a tiny amount is light. Your PC will have a ~300 watt power supply, again mostly heat. Are you seeing a pattern emerging? http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif Heat disperation is a major factor, especially on energy weapons with thermal blossoming etc. That will sap alot of your power ~90% is not uncommon on lasers.

Other points: Riker is an idiot, so we can't trust anything he says. At all. The man is a goon. B5 ships are huge, as in several times bigger than your average Trek ship so would need more power being bigger.

A smallish nuclear attack sub will have a 200MW nuclear plant for all it's needs, crew of ohh 100 or so and about 90m long. Of course a sub doesn't have power weapons, shields or artifical gravity, but its as good a starting point as any.

US total generating capacity is about 850/900 GW installed. Use is around 3500 Terrawatt hours/year. So your ship will generate over a 100 times more power than the whole of the US, just to put in into context. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Finally one ton of TNT is 4.2 Gigajoules of energy, as it all comes out at one time joules is right. Now a gun can't be measure in watts unless its a continuous output gun. Eg a constant beam of 500 joules would be a 500watt gun. Fudging through it a 6TW turret might fire for a couple of seconds so for each second it fires it produces 6,000 gigajoules. Now if 90% is wasted as heat, etc. 600 GJ might hit the enemy. So that means each turret hits the enemy with a force of 142 tons of TNT.

The above is quick and nasty but, I think, fairly solid. However it's not alot in the grand scheme of things, I do recall someone working out that the trek quantum torpedo is around 128 MegaTons of TNT. That was off at, another place.. A place where people who need a new hobby and to see some sunlight post alot.

This is a long confused post so if any of it is rubbish or needs clarification please say so. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Power usage for the Enterprise D at a speed of Warp 9 is 1519 megajoules a second... Average. So, a megajoule a second would be a million watts. So the Enterprise D would use up about 1.5 gigawatts. Okay, another example of how Star Trek physics are screwed, right now one nuclear power plant has enough power to run the Enterprise D at warp 8...

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

WOW thanks for the help guys http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif As far as the "Lasers" they're not heat based weapons for Icara as they are not true Lasers I just didn't have a good name to throw in and didn't want anything like "atomic ray gun" lol I suppose an Icaran weapon would be more akin to a Fusion beam.

Anyway as some of you know I am planning on writing a book (after much practice http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif) and I think I'd like to get into some of the techno stuff in the book right away and maybe make a tech manual eh http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif



Question 2:

Okay so we all see on Star Trek and Bab 5 and yadda yadda that Artificial gravity is the ultimate sign of the advanced uber race well I have a question regarding this.

As we have seen in such things as Babylon 5 Earth Alliance and Nexus: The Jupiter Incident rotating sections is the poor mans way of getting gravity on a starship, so my question is this why if it is as simple as a rotating section does the US not crank out space ships with rotating sections?

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

'Laser' was an acronym. 'Light Amplified by the Systematic Excitation of Radiation.' given that visible light and IR are all part of the electro-magnetic spectrum it doesn't really matter what part of it, your going to get energy losses.

One question you should consider, what is a fusion beam? Ohh it turns up all over sci-fi, but what is it? A beam of particles undergoing fusion? It just sounds wrong, aside from being inherently impossible of course. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

What on earth do you want gravity for? It will massively increase the cost and complexity of said ship and remove the only reason for doing research in space, zero gravity. Other than that a space lab is just really expensive and not as good normal.

Seriously a rotating section on the shuttle, or the next version, would be horribly expensive and almost certainly decrease payload. You'd be chucking hundreds of tons of extra weight into space, just to make life a little easier for the shuttle crew. No real advantage and massive costs.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

some SI prefixes:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
Factor Name Symbol
10E24 yotta Y
10E21 zetta Z
10E18 exa E
10E15 peta P
10E12 tera T
10E9 giga G
10E6 mega M
10E3 kilo k
10E2 hecto h
10E1 deka da

10E-1 deci d
10E-2 centi c
10E-3 milli m
10E-6 micro �
10E-9 nano n
10E-12 pico p
10E-15 femto f
10E-18 atto a
10E-21 zepto z
10E-24 yocto y
</pre><hr />

so to answer your question, a terawatt is 1000 gigawatts; or 1,000,000,000,000 watts (12 zeros).

edit: typo

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Many of your questions (and many more) are answered a tthe excellent http://www.projectrho.com/rocket/index.html - which basically looks at the physical limitations of engineering (as they are currently understood) and applies them to all the essential aspects of spacecraft design. It's an invaluable read for any aspiring scifi author who hopes to write with a degree of scientific credibility.

There is a section there headed "artificial gravity" that answers your latest question quote neatly, as well as frequent references to power requirements in the propulsion and weaponry sections.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

First, artificial gravity is only really useful for manned spacecraft, and the most important reason for sending people into space nowadays is so that they can perform experiments in zero g. Having the whole ship rotate would make those experiments possible only at the center of the ship, and having just a section of it rotate would cost extra. Also, and perhaps most important, the rotating section would have to be BIG in order to avoid seriously disorienting the astronauts. If you've ever been in a centrifuge and looked away from the center, you'll know what I mean. The human perception system does not handle that kind of rotation very well.

Nothing except artificial gravity can prevent muscles from atrophying and bones from weakening during extended stays in space. Even with highly rigorous exercise regimens, astronauts that stay in space for months, or maybe even weeks, aren't even able to stand up on their own when they return to Earth. The whole human maintenance cycle evolved around the assumption of gravity always being present, and the human body has a distinct tendency to deteriorate in long term weightlessness.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Not entirely sure but here are some reasons I can imagine:

- the "zero g" environment is preferred for lots of things:
-- some experiments are specifically designed for zero g. Yes, you could place them at the exact center of the craft, but true zero g only exists at a point.
-- making the robotic arms and mechanical things requires much less power/strength. If there were centripital forces needed to be overcome, in practical terms, this means more weight=more money=less payload for other things.
-- reorienting the ship/craft takes less thrust. To overcome gyroscopic forces created by rotation requires more fuel =costlier, less payload, etc.

- the "gravity" will decrease to zero at the center; making it somewhat cumbersome to manage placement of things. (see 2001: Space Odessy for a pretty realistic portrayal)

- in order to simulate earthlike gravity, either the rotational speed or the radius must be increased. But in general the size of the ship/station would need to be larger to make "gravity" somewhat uniform; =costlier, etc.



Perhaps if humans were to undertake a long space journey there would be another solution to simulate artificial gravity. Picture this: A large spacecraft with a huge funnel "scoop" in the front. The scoop would catch residual hydrogen to use as fuel and accelerate at 1g toward the destination. This way the crew lives under 1g all the time. At the halfway point, the crew section and the engine (not the scoop) is rotated 180 degrees and the ship is decelerated at 1 g for the remaining half of the trip. The crew still sees 1g toward their feet during the second half of the trip. I just thought of this, so there are probably a million things that make this just as impractical. (edit: like exceeding the speed of light in a short time...)

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Constant acceleration at 1 g is the perfect solution - if you can find enough fuel. Trying this over any significant distance (astronomically speaking) would require a truly colossal amount of fuel if you carry it all with you, and your collection array would have to be incredibly large to gather enough on the way. Interstellar matter density is typically on the order of 1 atom per cubic meter IIRC.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Not to worry, though.

Relativistic time dilation and length contraction will ensure you reach your destination (regardless of if it's a finite distance or not) before that happens.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Crunched a few numbers:

At 1g, you could accelerate for 353.8 days and still not reach the speed of light (barely).

During that time, you would travel 2.85 E12 miles (yes, Starhawk, that's teramiles http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif )

So if you would start decelerating at 1g at the halfway point, you could travel ~5.7 E12 miles (just under 1 light-year) in 2 years.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Not bad at all.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Hey thanks for that link I've always been a fan of space ships and the like (as you can probobly tell lol) so that web site will probobly keep me entertained for hours http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

One reason I've asked some of these questions is because the first book of the Icaran series (hopefully I can write a series http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif I have a plan for 3 books) would cover their earliest days of space travel within the Sol system and I was considering ships with rotating sections toward the aft section of the ship for the sleeping quarters and the like while the duty stations were all in zero g.

I've also heard people saying that within my lifetime we'll probobly see the earliest stages of Space based colonization and therefore military expansion (early infantry security forces and primitive space warships) from the Super Powers, I don't know if this is at all true but it could be very interesting (and probobly somewhat scary) to see it come true.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Slick writes: "At 1g, you could accelerate for 353.8 days and still not reach the speed of light (barely)."

In a Newtonian universe, yes. In our relativistic universe, however, the ship's speed can asymptotically approach c, the speed of light, but never reach it. Meanwhile the ship's mass increases, its length decreases, and time slows down for the ship and its crew. For an entertaining look at relativistic space travel I recommend Poul Anderson's 1970 novel "Tau Zero".

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

You will never see infantry in space, not even super shiny mechanised space marines 'o' doom. Planets are very easy to slag with just kinetic weapons making invasions a waste of everyones time. You'd have to kill every weapon system capable of shooting down a shuttle/drop pod/etc before a landing. Once you've done that why not just take out the land forces from orbit? Or just say 'Give in or we kill you.'

Ship boarding is equally pointless, by the time you've supressed the enemy ship enough to board it, you can just threaten it into giving up. Plus it's probably a flaming (as the internal oxygen burns up) wreck from end to end and so not worth boarding and easier just to analyse the wreckage.

Kinetic energy weapons, although not dramatic and so on, are the way forward. 1/2 mass x velocity2 produces ridiculous energy very quickly thanks to that squared. Rail Guns are the way forward!

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

LOL El-Phil that sounds like the theory people used when we first got the A bomb and some goons in the senate wanted to disolve the army and navy because "Hey we can always just nuke em"

If you think about it you will always need a ground pounder because yeah you can just destroy the colony outright but then what was the point of even fighting for it? Land, population and money would be against the whole "Just glass it and recolonize it" theory.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Isn't there currently an international treaty forbidding the militarization of space?

In either case, you can bet that wouldn't stop any nation that wanted to do it!

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Yes, I learned the same equations in college decades ago. I never mentioned that it would be practical, just that it would be possible - and speed is not the only relativistic limit approached at c. I just posted that as an interesting tidbit because when I calculated it, I found it a little astonishing that you could accelerate for almost a year at 1g and not exceed the speed of light. Therefore it would work in a Newtonian or relativistic universe, but be practical in neither.


As far as "entertaining" space travel, I like the "infinite improbability drive" in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Not glassing, just slagging any millitary unit from orbit. If you control space you will control the airspace, then just scale up any air superiority doctrine. Now crowd control and whatever you will need, but that is a police job, not a millitary job.

I seriously can't see any role for a ground force in space. They wont be fighting any organised millitary force, that can easily be taken out from space/air. Hell we've seen what modern air power can do, now imagine that but massively scaled up. Any organised land force is just a selection of targets to space based weapons.

So your not fighting enemy forces on the planet, what do these troops do? Put down any opposition on the planet perhaps. No. Against irregular forces your best weapons are political, getting the planet not to oppose you in the first place. If the majority of a population want you out you will lose, no millitary force can change that without getting very bloody hands and doing some unpleasent things. Even then that just gets the population to fear and hate you. Yes they stop, but only until they can build up strength to hit you again.

Besides such things are so far in the future with such totally different tech and physics it's impossible to predict. Hell its worse than that, there's a whole extra dimension. Space and orbiting weapons change things more than airpower and we've barely scratched the surface of possibilities. Try getting Henry V to predict how the Gulf War would be fought is probably a good parallel. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Ah, but what do you do when the regular military forces are stationed in the cities with millions of civilians? Doesn't sound like you could take them out from orbit without frying a few hundred thousand civilians at the same time...which would cause the already mentioned political unrest and turn all the population against you. Which, as you pointed out, would mean you've lost the planet.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

So they're hiding among civilians. What are ground troops going to be able to do about that? Other than wade in and take horrendous casualites and hit lots of civilians as well.

If you can't identify what is a civy target and what's millitary using sensors, satellites and UAVs what magic device do men on the ground have? And don't say eyeballs, just have a man watching the output of your sats and UAVs for the same effect, but at a fraction of the tonnage.

Re: Semi-OT: A General Tech Question Thread for me
 

Regarding spinning to generate gravity, a group of engineers have written a website over {here}. They pretty much rip on bad physics in general, and the link above is to the movie Armageddon, where they spin-up Mir to make Bruce Willis feel more at home.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Hey, I love Armageddon! I didn't want to know it's physics were totally screwed! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif Even though it was obvious...

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Armageddon sucked something serious man http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif and yeah the phyisics were obviously totally screwed not to mention the question of how they got two shuttles designed specifically to take out a meteor they only discovered what a week prior? As far as I recall the current rather unsophisticated shuttles we have today (in comparison to those ones) took months to build lol.

Oh and to El-Phil as far as urban warfare goes if modern US and British level forces are any indication a decently trained army would do rather well without taking all that many losses in comparison to those they inflict on their enemies. And air power HELPS win wars it doesn't win them all by it's self as Clinton proved by randomly attacking various countries during his administration with missiles and fighters lol...now assuming that a soldier of the future will have even more advanced body armor then what we have to day odds are it would be a rather interesting ground battle lol

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Wow, I thought that it's surprising that it would take so long to approach the speed of light accelerating at 1 g, so I tried the math and you're right! I guess light is really really fast!
Armageddon wasn't a bad movie, it was pretty good. Also, beautiful Liv Tyler was in it! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/smile.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Thanks for backing up my calcs, Kamog. Here's a real geeky approximation an old physics prof told me 20+ years ago and somehow I still remember it:

a pretty good approximation of the number of seconds in a year = pi x 10E7

I use this for "quick &amp; dirty" approximations. Frequently the pi cancels out with something else and people wonder how I can do that kind of math in my head.

I don't know why I remember that one and still use it till today even though it makes no real sense that pi has anything to do with units of time, but it just works out that way and somehow my brain finds it easy to remember those kinds of silly numbers.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

The infantry vs orbital bombardment debate reminds me of a very interesting article written by Iain M Banks about his Culture novels.

Here an extract:
And here's the URL: http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Why a ground battle? You still haven't explained this. You've got constant total surveillance of the planet, you can project power to any point very quickly. Why drag several thousand men through space to a planet at a fairly high cost when they provide no big leverage?

Yes body armour will probably get better. So will the weapons, there is no unstoppable weapon or unbeatable defence (or not for long anyway. ABM shields and alike could have been developed earlier but were banned.)

Urban warfare against civilians mixed in with insurgents is bloody, I think the couple of thousand dead US soldiers would agree. And that's one part of one country, luckily the far north (Kurds) and south (British knowing what their doing and not shooting eveybody) are fairly quiet.

It also comes down to why you want to conqueror said colony I think. Again why? Realisticaly any space yard/refueling base(if such things ever exist)/etc will be orbital to avoid wasting fuel on going in/out of the planets gravity well. If it's a levy of materials you want, diplomats backed by the big guns of the fleet do it better.

Various scenarios :
1. Conventional millitary force: Take 'em out from space
2. Insurgents in citys: Going to be messy using troops and it wouldn't work anyway. The only way to win anyway is a political solution, no country has ever put down an insurrection with out popular support. So offer the population a good deal, isolate the extremists and sit safe in your orbital base losing no people. If the entire population is up in arms against you, you can't bring enought troops to supress a planet. If it's only a small minority then the planet's security forces can take care of it.
3. Hidden conventional force: Wait for them to move, then blast 'em from space. Assuming your ground penetrating radars, IR, etc equipped UAVs can't sniff out their hiding places.

A root my question is: What unique ability do grunts bring that you can't do better with unmanned equipment? I just can't see the reason to massively enlarge your fleet with troop ships, extra logistics, more food, oxy, etc for minimal gain of capability. What's the big advantage?

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

"Armageddon" set out to prove that Hollywood could make an even stupider save-the-earth movie than "Deep Impact". Unfortunately, it succeeded.

They should have just shot a two-hour video of Liv Tyler. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...es/biggrin.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

They were out around the same time weren't they? At least in these parts. Hence the advice, you wanted the first half of Armageddon for Mr Willis firing golf balls at Greenpeace, then walk out to miss the awful ending. You then walk into Deep Impact halfway through to catch the special effects at the end.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Yes, one of those Hollywood bandwagon things. As I recall, it happened again with "Mission to Mars" and "Red Planet" (don't get me started!). http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Okay El-Phil first off US Casualties are not "A Couple thousand" it's just over 1,000 in a period of what threee YEARS? Compare that to the several THOUSAND terrorist casualties and your talking about a good ratio.

US Military has unfortunately killed some civilians (AS HAVE THE BRITISH) they have hardly "Shot everything" and for the most part civilian loses are inflicted by the Terrorists. The only reason British forces aren't having as many problems is also the fact that they are ocupying the less resistant parts of the country (go figure eh)

People die in war, civilians die in war and that's the way it will be forever no matter what and Urban warfare even with casualties is markedly better then simply dropping weapons from orbit and killing anything that even TRIED to show resistance.

The point of warfare is not usually the extermination of the entire enemy populace or even mass casualty infliction because the fact is your idea of simply taking any formation out from space would be even more "politically FUBAR" than sending in ground troops who yes may kill some civilians but will have a better idea of what they are actually shooting at.

I mean for all oyu know your orbital strike would be taking out a massive cluster of refugees with a military escort?

The problem is Air Power (OR Space power) probobly will never win wars because politics simply is not the answer to everything you know, as Starship Troopers (the book) pointed out, for every group that wants to solve something with politics another group will want to solve it with military force and usually the political element loses because they're too busy trying to talk.


Think about it this way El-Phil if say another country had a warship over your city would you just go "Aw what the hell I'll switch sides" Just because they ask you too? NO you probobly wouldn't because you didn't want to be part of that country in the first place and say you've got people in your city that want to fight back (even assuming you rolled over) now do you want that warship turning your city to slag just to get that handful of folks that wanted to fight back? Troops on the ground would provide them the option of going in without having to massacre the entire city and yeah ground losses would probobly be heavy on both sides but probobly a lot better then simply bombing everything from orbit.


Now lets go into another reason ground troops are far better than simply bombing the hell out of your target, they can think for themselves they know who and what to shoot at and are a lot less likely to cause an accidental bloodbath than a guy aboard a ship who just spots a mass of people and decides to open fire on them.

Troops are population control, just because you put a ship in orbit and maybe they go "Okay we'll join you" the second you leave they'll probobly snicker and go back to serving their own country and your little police force will get slaughtered.

A garrison of heavily armed soldiers will definately make any resisters think more about the military power that first took them over to begin with and will probobly make them feel a litte more wary then a few cops.


Also your not thinking about the fact that we in the modern day could effectively do what you suggest (Just sit there with a fleet and take out any formations you see) but it's not an effective way to fight a war because yeah you've got ships there HELL we have nukes that could level an entire country and yet people still resist.

WAR is the failure of politics your looking at it too much like "Oh talk solves everything" it doesn't so odds are anyone who wanted to fight you in the first place won't simply roll over and pout because your politico's are sitting up in orbit with a fleet.

Also planetary weapons batteries may be in place and your getting warships into range of their weapons could get your fleet destroyed so launching a few hundred troop shuttles may get a few of them destroyed and a lot of ground troops killed but once those troops hit the ground they could proceed to take out the weapon platforms OR even keep them intact for your own forces to use after the planet falls.

To bring my little rant to a conclusion, GROUND TROOPS unlike a space bombardment CAN take out a target in the middle of a city with minimal civilian losses while firing ANY Weapon from orbit that's not the size of a pea would probobly level a city block and ruin your little "Let's talk" idea right there.

Add this little quote to that for another example of what ground troops can do that air or space power may not:

During the first Iraq war an Iraqi soldier told a US Soldier he gave up to that when the air force bombed them "We lost a few men and a couple of tanks, but when your ground forces came in we lost the entire brigade in a single afternoon."

Basically you can HIDE From air or space power or do things to make it so they can't simply drop stuff on you, you can't hide as easily from a ground force intending to hunt you down and kill you.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

OK the US has lost under 2000 soldiers since the campaign started for starters
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4132058.stm

Given that in both the north and the south the coalition was welcomed, why has everyone in Baghdad start shooting while Basra stays quiet? Could be the difference between troops in berets patroling and men in tanks threatening anybody who looks shifty? I think it might you know.

Right I never said slag the place. I said 'selectively target' Clearly you've never heard of precision bombing. You know when the US can amazingly accurately hit Chinese embassys because they mis-read street maps. Now I'd say it's reasonable that sensors will get better, they aren't going to get any worse that's for sure. So you can just take out the target in the middle of the city, without risking any of your men.

Ah silly me. You can't ever hide from ground troops, no ground troops have ever been ambushed or surpised! Hush my mouth I keep forgeting the amazing stealth defeating abilities of human eyeballs. If your hiding stuff, it's harder to hide from radar and decent sensors than an eyeball.

For evey Iraqi who said that you can't find dozens who said 'Most of our unit was killed by B-52s we never even saw.' because they all died or ran away to avoid capture.

Finally name a time when anyone has taken down a rebellion when the majority of the population supports it? Ever.
That's why you have to talk. It's a simple fact. Sending in ground troops just gets them killed and the population still don't like you, in fact probably like you less.

Unless the majority is on your side you will spend the rest of time fighting a losing guerilla war until it's not worth your time or blood. Bear in mind this is just 'I don't want to be ruled by country x' not 'Species x'. If you can offer a decent deal 'We leave you alone just give us the same amount of ore (maybe less to sweeten the deal) you gave the old goverment and we'll just stay in orbit and leave you alone.'

You try an opposed landing against a population that doesn't want you there... **cough** Vietnam in space **cough**

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

If you have the 3d model of that ship you can make a 3d detailed schematic. I did something similar once, heres an idea for you:

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Hey El-Phil congratulations for crossing from civilized discussion into snide *** rather foolish and obvious political crap that you started the last time I brought up a discussion that had nothing to do with the overall war in Iraq and this time I will not rise to your attitude that US soldiers are some how inferior to your "gods almighty" royal army buddies and btw this is my last reply to you on that subject at all as you are obviously sure yours is the only possible solution to anything in the world I'll let you keep on wrongly thinking that. The British have made plenty of stupid mistakes and I won't start debating something like that since you are either too immature or too arrogant to look at anything other then the way you want to see it.

And what I was referring to is that your "precious all seeing sensors" will probobly never exist as there is always something to counter it you'll need troops on the ground for that sort of thing because yeah they might be ambushed but they'll be a lot more capable of fighting back then simply blasting to bits a whole forest to get one squad that might be hiding from your sensors.

Oh and "Hush my mouth" Radar doesn't detect organics very well......(rolleyes)

You want a "clean bloodless" war for whoever is attacking that ain't gonna happen no matter what you do.

BTW Vietnam was a political FUBAR on many levels the US had it's hands tied and if it hadn't things probobly would have turned out much differently as they would ahve been able to pursue into Louse and Cambodia and kick the hell out of the viet kong there it had nothing to do with "Landing against opposition" we were opposed in WWII and won and many other invasions have won look at the formation of Rome, France, Spain, your beloved little Brits all of whom forged empires on the Blood of people they invaded and conquered who didn't exactly want them there, it was thanks to internal fighting and or streign of wars only that those Empires broke up.

Hmmm Taera that's a great idea http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif that would definately be more detailed and look impressive plus it would help me get some better ideas on it for the books so I don't do the typical Trek technobabble where one thing can work this week and suddenly be totally different the next (Transporter ranges anyone? phaser abilities eh lol)

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Alright, I've only just read the first couple sentences of the last few posts, but I'd suggest taking a little time off from this particular discussion, and perhaps getting the thread back onto it's original heading??

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Indeed. Starhawk, you should edit out some of the stuff in your last post, or else a moderator will probably be forced to lock this thread. Looking over the discussion, Iraq didn't come into the discussion until you (meaning, Starhawk) brought up Clinton to bring the discussion into recent/current politics. El_Phil didn't have to throw in the current analogy for orbital invasion of an unwilling population, but you need to realize that it was _you_ who opened that door, not him bringing it into an "unrelated discussion".

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Agree with Will.

To address the style of this quote from Starhawk rather than the content:
If you're going to write a novel, you're going to need to more full stops. Here, have some of mine........................

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Well as I appear to have touched a nerve I will apologise. That was a somewhat baiting post, which I probably shouldn't of phrased it a bit better. You live and learn.

What I will say is this, anything like this is so far in the future it is beyond anyones ability to predict or even guess at. Well you can guess but you'll probably be wrong. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

You people change topics too fast.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Change is good, stops things festering. Like yoghurt.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

Yeah yeah I know doggie http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif, I am working on my writing already I just got a little ticked and unfortunately when I do that I type as well as I talk http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/image...ies/tongue.gif

Eh no Problem El-Phil you are right about the fact that it's probobly so far in the future none of us will ever be right about what will be there.

Re: Semi-OT: A question on Power Ratios in Sci-fi
 

A little.. Jesus or a tricycle. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/eek.gif
Remind to steer clear if you ever get very ticked. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

Troops in SE IV
 

Starhawk writes: "you are right about the fact that it's probobly so far in the future none of us will ever be right about what will be there."

Actually it COULD be happening right NOW just a few light years away. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

Seriously, though, given the uncertainties of future technology it's probably better to confine ourselves to the fictional Space Empires game "universe"; those of us who enjoy using troops can try to rationalize the use of ground forces (actually air/land/sea forces) in that limited context.

Off the top of my head I can think of two possibilities to start:

1) Suppose most of the planetary population would rather be "red than dead", but government and/or military officials insist on "death before dishonor" (as, for example, the Nazis and Japan's military at the end of the Second World War). Suppose further that it's impossible to take out all the die-hards from orbit without taking most of the planet along with them, but ground troops can accomplish the mission.

2) Suppose that, for whatever reason, domestic politics requires a sincere attempt to minimize "collateral" casualties, as for example with the US in Iraq, 2005 (as opposed to Japan, 1945). If SE IV sensor/weapons technology makes space-based pacification excessively bloody, then politics, rather than military considerations, may dictate the use of ground troops instead. Obviously this isn't in the game itself, but players can role-play, and fiction based on game events can include it.

Game-based fiction can also include interstellar politics, e.g. neutral empires that would likely join the enemy out of fear if the player glasses too many worlds. A writer may also use a low-casualty policy to explain the relative ease of winning the loyalty of captured populations in the game: suppose the Terrans, for example, capture Pyrochette worlds with troops, but the Pyrochette AI nukes its own (former) people just to nail a few occupying Terrans. That might not convince every Pyrochette to love the Terrans, but it might produce enough Quislings to make planetary occupations a lot easier.