How to trivially defeat anti-shield weapon equipped fleets

[Pax]

1.001g's of constant acceleration upwards will kill nothing, and if you can apply that level of force to the ship in a stabel sustanable way, the ships' mass doesn't matter.

Remember, it's not the energies applied that matter to crew and cargo. It's the ACCELERATIONS imposed, a.k.a. the NET FORCES.

1.1G upward force-and-acceleration won't kill anyone. Yes, for a 1500kT Baseship, that's a BLOODY LOT of energy.

But it's still only 1.1G of force, and 1.1G of acceleration. And only an added 10% to perceived mass ...hell, elevators subject people to that, or slightly more.

People could probasbly take a fairly-lengthy period of 2G net force (which woudl be 1G net upwards speed, which would be like falling away formt he planet); I'm not a doctor of space medicine or the like, but I suspect we can tqake 2G's for a few hours, maybe a day or two, without Lasting effects. Discomfort yes, but not death, and certainly not death as a mass of hyperdense goo against the rear bulkhead.

The only catch is, the sustained output, over time, of engines that can MOVE big objects at that steady accelerative speed, wouldbe prohibitive. That is really one of the only TWO reasons (the other being ease of stability maintenance during flight) why modern space-launch vehicles use such tremendous accelerations to get into orbit fast-fast-fast: COST.

[Phoenix-D]

"In order to lift off from a planet, you need to have enough force (Escape velocity) to overcome inertia. Heavier the ship, the faster the escape velocity."

Not quite. Escape velocity is the *same* for any and all objects. It's the force required to get there that differs. 600kt of ship would take quite a lot of thrust to get up.. but nothing says that thrust has to be delivered like it is now (i.e. really fast HARD rocket kick).

Put it this way. In a car, you can floor it, and reach 60mph quickly. Or you can accelerate gently and reach 60mph slowly. The percieved force is quite less the second way, but the speed is the same! The hard part is finding that point. 1.001G of thrust on an earth-mass planet would do it. The only reason we can't do something like that now is we'd run out of fuel before we hit orbit.

Phoenix-D

[TerranC]

Thank you for killing my ignorance, I was taught different

But then, please answer me why we can't just attach 2 fuel rockets to the ISS and lift it up into space.

[jim]

I know it is a band-aid solution, but can someone tell me why it would be hard to make anti-shield weapons unable to target fighters?

As it currently is, no AI can be scripted to use anti-shield weapons w/o setting them up for this exploit. Nor can I, in moi vs AI games use shielded fighters w/o undue advantage if such could be the case.

Similarly, I cannot use anti-shield weapons because most of the AI races use at least some fighters. For all the statements that PDC is too powerful, stacks 20 - 50 double-shielded fighters do not die very easily to PDC. Since they can have CSM Vs or the parasite equivalents in their wake, it can get tough to dispose of such fighters w/o the ability of having non-PDCs begin their attrition beyond the short range of PDCs.

I like anti-shield weapons, and cannot really use them because of this BBBUUUGGGGGG!

[Phoenix-D]

"But then, please answer me why we can't just attach 2 fuel rockets to the ISS and lift it up into space."

More mass, more thrust, more fuel needed. As I said we can't do it because no matter what we do we'd run out of gas first.

Phoenix-D

[Baron Grazic]

To make "anti-shield weapons unable to target fighters", in the Component File change the below line to remove the fighters tag.
Don't forgot to change all types of Shield damaging weapons, including Tempory weapons

Weapon Target := Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat

Anyone tested what effect 'Anti-Shield weapons' have on a Planet with a Shield on it?

[ August 28, 2002, 01:09: Message edited by: Baron Grazic ]

[Q]

Originally posted by Baron Grazic:
To make "anti-shield weapons unable to target fighters", in the Component File change the below line to remove the fighters tag.
Don't forgot to change all types of Shield damaging weapons, including Tempory weapons

Weapon Target := Ships\Planets\Ftr\Sat

Anyone tested what effect 'Anti-Shield weapons' have on a Planet with a Shield on it?

I would recommend that you change it to:

Weapon Target := Ships

Otherwise you will still have problems with satellites and weapon platforms on a planet. I do not know if shield depleter work against planetary shields (massive planetary shield facility or something like that, which is a unique ancient ruins technology). But they will not work against shields of weapon platforms.

[Zanthis]

Since I don't have Gold yet, I only did some small bit of testing on the matter of how fighters in particular accumulate damage. My tests were quite interesting however, and in hindsight the way it works is not surprising. The quick answer is shield-depleting weapons work just fine against fighters...sometimes.

Ok, the way a stack of fighters takes damage with respect to shields is only the top fighter is available to take damage. So if each fighter has 60 shields, once you've killed 60 points of shields, until the stack has at least one fighter killed, no more shields can be lost by any fighters in the stack. As soon as one or more fighters in the stack dies, a new fighter is on "top" and his shields are set to maximum.

Damage past shields works differently. The entire stack has one set of "hit points." Damage past shields is accumulated against this total. So, suppose a fighter has 60 shields and 28 structure. Hit by PDC V for 65, all 60 shields gone and the stack takes 5 damage. No fighter dead yet, because it takes 28 to kill one. Now the second PDC V hits doing 65 damage, and since the shields are down all 65 is structual. So the stack has taken 70 structual damage total, two fighters are destroyed by this hit and the shield value is rest to 60. Notice how damage was able to slip past the second fighter's shields and kill it as if it didn't have any shields at all!

As long as you can only kill 1 fighter per weapon shot, shields on fighters work fine. But shield depleting weapons cannot kill and so they can only ever drop the top fighter's shields to zero.

Again, I do not have Gold (although it shipped today!!! *cheer*) and I will rerun a more extensive set of tests once I get it to make sure everything still works in the same fashion.

[Q]

Zanthis which Version you used??
I cannot reproduce your results neither in Version 1.78 nor in Version 1.49. The shield depleter never had an effect on shielded fighters in my tests. In the combat simulator I do not see the detailed damage results you report. Only when a fighter is destroyed the shield value drops and the damage taken increases by the value of this single unit. Did you do your tests in real tactical combat??

[Zanthis]

Version 1.35 . Yes, I used real tactical combat. I find using strategic combat physically painful. Watching the AI control my ships causes me to suffer intense migraines. I only use it if I am extremely bored and I can be certain even the computer can win the battle for me without any damage to my fleet.

As far as shield depleting weapons, what kind are you using to hit fighters with? In 1.35, the only thing with better than 1% to hit is PDC. I think I'll mod them real quick to be shield depleting to test it for sure, but otherwise, ship-to-ship weapons never hit (although, guess I could use a talismon).

[ August 28, 2002, 18:47: Message edited by: Zanthis ]