OP, do you even realize what real space combat could possibly look like? I'm pretty sure you don't, but I can give you a few hints:

1) About design - there wouldn't be such thing as design. At all. Ships would take some of the simplest forms, like cyllinder or sphere.

2) Size - is the relative term. DN ships have the average size of 200-300 meters (destroyers and dreadnoughts) and 50-60 meters for corvette. Is it too big? It depends on the distance to the target.

3) The distance - is the fundametal thing. DN has operating distances up to 12 km. For real space combat this is pretty much point-blank. Even modern weaponry allows to reliably hit targets smaller than 10x10 meters at distances up to 10000 km. Although, it's would be pretty safe thing to do, if we increased those distance to 1 million kms.

4) Now, weaponry - the main criteria - it should be very precise and hit reliably. Is LAZOR precise at 1 million km? Well, more or less. Is it deadly at such range? Not very, as it relatively easy to protect against. But you ask, how about TRUE sci-fi weapons, something like railguns and gauss guns, huh? Well, again, if you want to reliably hit targets at such distances, you need your projectiles to move at relativistic speeds. Anything less than 0.5c would be too easy to dodge. But noone cancelled laws of physics, and Newton's 3d law, right? If you shoot something with SUCH force (and 1 kg slug shot at 0.5s would require ABSOLUTELY IDIOTIC amount of force to accelerate) - this something recoils with EXACTLY the same force. In other words - you either need a HUUUUUGE guns to fire that, or you risk destroying your ship after the 1st shot. Which leaves us only ONE option - good old guided ROCKETS (with nuclear warheads, or what not). Let's assume sci-fi rockets move faster than modern day ones, let's say 1000 km/s. So, for 1 million km fly-time would be around 17 minutes. Cool, right?

Now think about it: how big do you think something of the size of 300m appears from 10000 km? from 1 million km? It's a dot. At best. At worst (and this is most possible scenario) you won't be able to see it at all. This won't be a game of "shoot things". This would be a game of "who spotted whom first". Gameplay would be basically "stare at the radar for 1 hour straight, then press 1 button, then wait for 17-20 minutes, match over, you won". Terrific gaming experience.

Do you really want realism, OP? That's what realism approximately looks like. Do you think it would be a good game? I don't.

Aersdri#5059 posted (#post-207132) said:

3) The distance - is the fundametal thing. DN has operating distances up to 12 km. For real space combat this is pretty much point-blank. Even modern weaponry allows to reliably hit targets smaller than 10x10 meters at distances up to 10000 km. Although, it's would be pretty safe thing to do, if we increased those distance to 1 million kms.

4) Now, weaponry - the main criteria - it should be very precise and hit reliably. Is LAZOR precise at 1 million km? Well, more or less. Is it deadly at such range? Not very, as it relatively easy to protect against. But you ask, how about TRUE sci-fi weapons, something like railguns and gauss guns, huh? Well, again, if you want to reliably hit targets at such distances, you need your projectiles to move at relativistic speeds. Anything less than 0.5c would be too easy to dodge. But noone cancelled laws of physics, and Newton's 3d law, right? If you shoot something with SUCH force (and 1 kg slug shot at 0.5s would require ABSOLUTELY IDIOTIC amount of force to accelerate) - this something recoils with EXACTLY the same force. In other words - you either need a HUUUUUGE guns to fire that, or you risk destroying your ship after the 1st shot. Which leaves us only ONE option - good old guided ROCKETS (with nuclear warheads, or what not). Let's assume sci-fi rockets move faster than modern day ones, let's say 1000 km/s. So, for 1 million km fly-time would be around 17 minutes. Cool, right?

In my opinion, fighting distances like one million km and more are pretty stupid in most scifi battles, unless you have FTL weapons or missiles with ftl engines. The only exception would be sniper like long range shots at targets, that cannot dodge (like some base at a planet or a space station) AND cannot see the incoming projectiles/energy blasts/deathrays, or have little to no reaction time, IF they can spot them before impact.

Just think about it, even a laser would need 3,33 seconds to cover 1 million km. The main advantage of the laser is, that they really move at lightspeed, so unless FTL sensors exist, you notice the laser at the same time it hits you. Everything, thats movling slower than lightspeed, and emits any kind of energy in flight direction, can be detected by automatic defense systems and evasive maneuvers would start (same if sensors can detect it). Depending on acceleration speed of the target and time difference between notice and impact, a ship could even dodge a laserlike weapon. And things will be much easier with everything, that moves noticable slower than lightspeed. Missiles and projectiles can even be shot down at short notice, i mean, real world military already have shot down artillery grenades during their flight with lasers, same would happen with railgun/coilgun slugs and missiles.

And for cannons, there is the old problem with spread/deviation. Lets say, you actually have a cannon, that somehow can fire a projectile, that reach 1c. At 1 million km, you need said weapon to aim really precise, because even a 0,0001 degree spread will cause a 1,745 km wide impact area for its projectile, if it cannot correct its flightpath during flight. Even at 0,00001 degree, its still a circle with 175m diameter. I am not sure, which gun, that is not a sniper cannon in a completely stabilized ship, is that precise during a fight

Current naval and air battle tactic is to detect the enemy, fire a long-range missile (20km + air, over the horzion 70km + naval), do a 180° turn and run away.

If we extrapolate this into space we get the same with the added possibility of pre-acceleration via mass drivers, or smart-munition mass-drivers. Now the issue with space is that there is no horizon and space-ships need a lot of space just for life-support, thus are even bigger than todays warships. Those will be detectable over rather big distances, so the only defense against detection is distance.

Another issue is the lack of an atmosphere, as the atmosphere limits the speeds of planetborne weapons, after reaching higher Mach-numbers your projectiles simply burn up thanks to friction. This is not true for space, so you can shoot faster projectiles which are harder to detect, track and intercept. And might not even have a large heat-signature, as they keep their speed thanks to no friction.

Last but not least, inertia is a female dog. Most larger ships will not be able to actually do evasive maneuvers as they might simply break apart or the acceleration in the "outer" parts might hurt or kill people that are present in those areas.

So simply overwhelm the enemies defences via massed volleys of missiles and smart munitions using a smaller stealthy scout vessel for targeting, then get away as fast as possible, since those launches will be detectable.

Lasers simply lack the focus to be useful at larger distances, so the real battle would be: Can we make our shots faster and stealthier than the ability of the enemy to detect and destroy them.

I read mass divers and my mid went to this Babylon 5 scene.

As a real life space ship pilot I can tell you guys that Dreadnought is pretty close to reality.

hi everyone, im writing from the ISS.

we up here! just got bored being in space and having nothing to do and all. so we wanted to give you some input on your game, which we heard about when we intercepted a radio transmission between an eskimo and a russian sub marine crew who were talking about dreadnought. its important that you know that.

so now to why we write you earthlings. and to sum it up, we are really dissappointed by the lack of realism in this game!

the game is basically fake! it has fake ship design, so fake, so fake and unrealistic, against military protocol, so sad.

to make space games great again, you just need to add more realism! build a wall against all that unrealistic stuff! why? people love realism because of the unrealistic life they live and want to escape from, so obviously they want to play something really real. like totally!

tata and talk you later!

@Patrazor: Same.