I am trying to figure out tactics and strategies for ships that move in a Newtonian regime and use weapons at or near the speed of light. Signals are also at light speed, being lidar and radar; ECM and ECCM are also present.
Total delta-v is at least in the hundreds of km/s, peak acceleration is ...
This is quite a beefy question with a lot of details and nuance. I'd split it into several different questions because you're asking a lot of different things.
Agree with @DragonGeek but don't give up, Di. Carve a single question out of this mass and put it on top. Save additional questions for later. There is no limit to how many you can ask.
I concur: lots of good questions here. In response to your point, I ám in fact going to VTC simply because there are too many questions. But I also agree with you: space war strategy is perfectly fine here. Just break this up into a half dozen related questions!
This question supplies the technobabble but not the actual relative characteristics, ranges, damage output, effectiveness, limitations, etc. of the ships and weapons. Without that, no meaningful answer is possible. (Personally, the scenario described kind of sounds like Star Fleet Battles, an exceedingly complex space wargame, minus the shields. You might consider playing the computerized version, the Starfleet Command series, for inspiration.)
How do I ask how to use things unless I say what the things in use are? Most people aren't aware of electron beams with a high Lorentz factor, or what a Lorentz factor even is! Likewise, ranges across light seconds shooting targets at most a few dozen meters across creates situations where aiming jitter, ECM/ECCM and drunk dodging has to be addressed. This isn't about video games, unless someone made one that simulates this. I'd rather have some idea of what makes rational sense without having to create CoaDE 2 or work for DARPA.
@DragonGeek I edited things; I'm not sure what splitting is possible copying and pasting the gamut and then saying "just tactics" or "just strategy and maneuver" or "just ship design", which seems extremely redundant. What would you suggest?
While not perfect, David Weber actually has a lot of good stuff to say about this. Get past the force-field stuff and intersystem FTL, and there's lots of good strategy, tactics, and thought about some of the realistic problems associated with this sort of fight - like BIG solar systems and huge distances, "slow" light-speed sensors & communication, and how stuff isn't where you think it will be by the time you target it.
@DWKraus My setting does have going between star systems and even interstellar combat; I'm having FTL Jamming available to space militaries to force a more realistic regime and try to black-box away the 'magic' of FTL. I'm trying to figure out how these superfast kinetics and the basically light speed electron beams of doom will change things. Legend of the Galactic Heroes features maneuver and beam saturation, but I don't know what time to kill based off of hit probability as a function of distance and number of ships firing (or in what formation) is, for instance.
it is a good and a well put question, and as long as we wait for it to be re-open(2 votes left), or not; and not let my 6-hour work to waste, I put my answer here. I hope u do not mind I copied u question as well. Lookup for more space war questions here on wb, there are more than just one u found, this as an example even if does not deserve hardscience tag.
also it looks to me that originl formulations were better, however a bit lazy to reread and compare
Hard-science is special type of tag, read its description, it does not mean hard scify, even DARPA guys wont satisfy it's reqirements in this setting and type of problem
Along with Project Rho you may want to look at the blog of "Children of a Dead Earth", an attempt to create a space combat simulation game based on realistic considerations--there's a post here linking to a bunch of previous posts on the technical considerations involved, also see the project's origin story and misconceptions about space warfare.
@Hypnosifl Oh, I have. I also beat the campaign! CoaDE has a few problems, though: the lasers are too weak and not pulsed, no particle beams, no macrons, no UREBs, and sensors are just handwaved away. It's also an environment where the ai and movement commands are more for "space navy" setups than actually having the maneuvers I expect. It's not really useful for the light speed weapons and torchy maneuverability I want to work with, and without open sourcing or mod support, it won't be.
@MolbOrg, thing is, what I'd really like would be, if possible, some sense of how to model hit chance and then model "time to kill" (TTK) based off of a set of parameters! "Requires answers backed up by equations, empirical evidence, scientific papers, other citations, etc." I might not have any way to go build a space navy and model it, and if I did I certainly wouldn't have to ask for help, but some sense of modeling based off of distances, geometry, jitter, expected accuracy, and how many vessels are firing at a target at a time would be very helpful. If I knew the math I'd run sims.
So, what I've come up with in the past day or so: Chance for hits while dodging: sqrt(diameter^2/(pi * hit chance)) = Uncertainty radius Uncertainty radius/time^2 * 2 * 0.6 = necessary mean acceleration (1-hit chance/100)^(time*shots/s) = % of missed shots as 0 to 1 0 = 0% 1 = 100% Now I need to figure out, if I can, the expected degrees of accuracy with both targeting and ability to aim lasers, UREBs and macrons.
No one here works at darpa as well, wasn't it u argument, eh. U just abusing the tag as others. To get formulas u need follow up questions and just state such desire - very narrow, very focused, and expect necessity to provide more substancial details parameters. As modeling in cod - just scale things for some aspects - lasers too weak put paper armor, speed too slow reduce distances . AI part sucks there so as moding and other stuf but adjusting stuff u may get some useful results for some aspects. Compaighn sucks and u need custom things there and it capable to some degree.
I understand your craving for modeljng, i would like to have plenty of things modeled - but there is a harsh reality as well, so only next good thing is available. U won't exchaust the topic with just one question, it is also a harsh reality. U buld concept and step by step analyse it, some questions can be helped, some are not - but attempt is free. As u curent formula not sure about it, it needs explanation, and i suspect it beeing not 100% correct, so as it will be different for diferent cases and strategies and will depend on other variables as well
And btw weak lasers it is quite realistic - lasers as ship weapon sucks, as i mentiont. Not convinced by random statement - fire a question, get answer u like, but it won' t change the matter - lol
Discussion on question by Diamond Eye…
Discussion on question by Diamond Eye…