"Dofights : far future stuff VS Thruster Nasa style " Topic

Poor Title but thanks for wanting to know more…

I`m wanting to look at space combat between fighters and if i was going to design a game around it i wanted to know peoples thoughts on the two types in Tv and films and get your thoughts on the two styles for gaming on tabletop.

Question 1

So far future is like x-wing the game and that style of aircraft in space combat. Not sure in the shows what device makes a space fly in turns but they do.. Input from any hardcore starwars fans maybe on input ( or startrek ).

The other is thrusters like babylon 5 star furys, when thust is needed to turn Etc.

If both was used in a tabletop game, which would win..? By the time a x-wing turns around the fury would have fired at it…?

Second question is

On a tabletop game, would you get to turn 360 anyway as you can easier turn around, and so no turning rules are needed, just "Thrust" action to to push in the new direction because of the speed of direction after turning on stop.

Would Hex system help, or just use a open tabletop then Hex play..?

Last question

In Nasa Style combat ( thats babylon 5 ) would fighters be rated for agility for dodging etc, if its all about thurst, then the ability is the same for each fighter..?

If your difting ( up to 1 hex say ) you should be a easy target. Thrusters to turn around would be a alittle harder, and using main thrust to change direction and move in a straight line must make you so hard to hit.. Of course size matters…

And i feel its more about software to target and work out where you be when you pull the trigger..

I have been watching "Moonlight Mile" and the space combat got my thinking…

We chat about lasers and missiles later maybe..!

Thanks guys for dropping in with ideas and input.. ant links to good sites, let me know.

Alan, Uk

Give lasers to a nuBSG Viper and it'll eat an X-wings lunch and steal its girlfriend. X-wings shoot in the direction of travel and thrust only, Vipers can pivot 360 on Z, X, and Y axis while maintaining their current vector.

The 'who would win' question seems pretty straightforward in favor of the the 'thruster' style spacecraft, since they could pivot to fire in any direction and can dodge in ways the 'airplane' style spacecraft could not hope to match.

If you want to compare the two in the same game system you could hunt down a copy of Hard Vacuum; the game has vector movement, except one of the later factions (released as a web supplement) had weird gravity tech that gave them 'airplane' style movement.

-Will

I was watching a show on one of the "science" channels and they were talking about space fighters. The new BSG was the most realistic,but ships like in Star Trek would be practical. The larger ships would be giant gun platforms.

Vipers can pivot 360 on Z, X, and Y axis while maintaining their current vector.

Don't recall seeing it in the old BSG, so proper credit should go to B5 Star Furies, if not Last Starfighter. Sorry, have vague memories of spin on a dime and shoot…

Give lasers to a nuBSG Viper…

AND assume the same strength of vectors; LOOKS the same doesn't mean IS the same. Maybe SW fighters have inertial dampers, maybe Vipers don't. Maybe ID requires hull orientation. *shrug*

Gawd, I hate 'my PSB is better than your PSB' matches…

Doug

First line of credit goes to B5 Star Furies but I have to backup Aldroud on this in regards to BSG. I've also seen the moves done on BSG. By Starbuck herself no less.

8)

Hard VBaccuum has a nice movement systen , plays on a hex grid .

There is some scientific blurb about velocity and energy needed to 'turn' or redirect that in zero-g…….( someone will jump in..)….

I favour the idea that many fighters will be atmosphere capable too and have lots of power for aircraft type flight ( without the aerodynamics if necessary) and others would be pure 'space fighters' with the turn on a dime thrusters……..so perhaps allow both types of manoeuvre but determined by 'speed' of the fighter on the table……at 'x' inches of movement or below an 'agile' craft can turn its 'facing'…..less agility and less able to change etc……
(Not in the same scale but I once joined a Star Trek game at a convention with a fellow Klingon 'bird of prey' captain , we 'flew' into the table centre, scattering the Feds, with no forward movement we were able to 'spin' without penalty and pick off the 'good guys' ……..that was Full Thrust v.1 and a jolly jape……the guys running the game were all in Federation uniforms too…….zapping Jean Luc was fun)
Jon Tuffley (gzg & author of Full Thrust) has a simple set of fighter rules on the net for free……
Back on topic -I use hexes…….

JFL…tongue-in-cheek…whatever other qualifier intended to label this post as not-at-all-serious… ; )

Here's my take on it… link

The 'who would win' question seems pretty straightforward in favor of the the 'thruster' style spacecraft, since they could pivot to fire in any direction and can dodge in ways the 'airplane' style spacecraft could not hope to match.

A real world example of this dichotomy straight from Mother Nature Herself is the humble Hummingbird. I had an opportunity one year to observe a Hummingbird defend his territory against a much larger bird – a Red Tailed Hawk in fact! The "fight" if you could call it that consisted of the hapless bird of prey flapping his wings as fast as he could trying to get as far away from the Hummingbird's territory as fast as the hawk could go, while the Hummingbird was attacking the much larger bird at will, literally buzzing , diving, pulling straight back after striking the hawk with the Hummingbird's hyperdermic horse needle of a beak and the hawk shrieking in impotent rage and outrage at every stab!

If you're at all familiar with how Hummingbirds maneuver, I suspect that this is essentially how an advanced space fighter that follows the NASA vector model would operate, only limited by how fast the onboard piloting interface can react, and how many G's the occupant(s) can stand from one second to the next.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

As for who would win, your question does not have enough detail. Since Star Wars type ships are breaking all known laws of movement it is impossible to say if they would win or lose against ships that follow the laws (in other words it is the same as asking if the Enterprise or a Star Destroyer would win a fight). My suggestion is to make up some rules and slug it out.

> In Nasa Style combat ( thats babylon 5 ) would fighters be rated for agility for dodging etc, if its all about thurst, then the ability is the same for each fighter..?

This is easy, yes it is still needed. Larger ships will not be able to maneuver as smaller ones. That spaceship site (forget the name) probably has details on it but it falls under ships in space not having weight but still having mass and if they put too much torque (or whatever it is called in space) they could rip the ship apart doing things too suddenly. Going any speed is no problem, changing speed or vector quickly could cause structural failure.

Hummingbird vs hawk: YouTube link

Where did the BSG mention come into this? BAB5 and BSG used essentially the same physics where Starfuries and Vipers are concerned.

Squadron Strike addresses this in a fairly balanced way (and also includes "pick a speed" movement--UFOs, Star Fleet Battles, etc.). The costs are different for acceleration and pivoting depending on movement mode.

Vector ships actually have some serious problems against "Swooosh!" ships because the swooshers retain their thrust through turns, so they change the direction of their vectors near-instantly. Vector ships have to thrust to kill their "forward" vector and establish a "lateral" vector is they want to make the equivalent of a 90 degree turn.

Gawd, I hate 'my PSB is better than your PSB' matches…

Please, oh, please, let me take it back! I LIVE for that kind of discussion, even if this particular one less so.

Was in the midst of one of THOSE mornings…

Terribly sorry!

Doug

Devil's in the details. How fast can it pivot vs the turn rate of the swoosher? If an X-wing takes 3 seconds to turn through 90 degrees, but the vector fighter needs 6 seconds to pivot that far, who's in the better position? How big the firing arcs are makes a big difference at the edges here. Are we talking about 1v1, 2v2, or big squadron battles? Is firing from the rear a big advantage? If so, a squadron of swoosher might pincer a group of vector fighters and kill them by shooting up the enemies that are facing the other direction.

Squadron Strike addresses this in a fairly balanced way (and also includes "pick a speed" movement--UFOs, Star Fleet Battles, etc.). The costs are different for acceleration and pivoting depending on movement mode.

Vector ships actually have some serious problems against "Swooosh!" ships because the swooshers retain their thrust through turns, so they change the direction of their vectors near-instantly. Vector ships have to thrust to kill their "forward" vector and establish a "lateral" vector is they want to make the equivalent of a 90 degree turn.

This is quite true.

The hummingbird v hawk fight is what happens when you have a hyper-maneuverable monster versus a much less maneuverable opponent. For example, Harrier fighters versus Mirages. The Harriers can change their flight vector in a way that no other aircraft can.

The aircraft movement means that the starfighter can apply a huge delta-vee without burning remass. While this does mean that the aircraft-movement starfighter has limits on where it's nose can point in relation to it's direction of movement, the fact that an aircraft-movement starfighter can execute a 7+g directional change is nothing to sneer at (and that's merely with WW2 level maneuverability like Star Wars. Modern fighters can actually pull more than that).

Even the Renegade Legion thruster starfighters (highest thrust fighters I'm aware of) rarely were capable of 7+g acceleration in a straight line.

An airplane-maneuverability starfighter doesn't have a whole lot of straight-line acceleration with immense turning "acceleration" (even an F15 barely exceeds 1g thrust but can pull 7+g turns), while a thruster-maneuverability starfighter will probably have much higher straight-line acceleration with quite low turning acceleration (the fighters from Jovian Chronicles can push 2.4g in a straight line but only have ~2g turning capability).

So as a thruster-maneuverability starfighter pilot, I'd want to make fast passes against an aircraft-maneuverability target. I'd have to get creative with my approach, but an aircraft-maneuverability starfighter can't outrun me, and I can quickly get out of his attack range with my speed.

The Harriers can change their flight vector in a way that no other aircraft can.

Once, then you've lost energy.

ViFFing is a technical and credible capability of the Harrier family. Nevertheless, it has only ever been considered an absolutely last ditch manoeuvre.

It was never employed in the Falklands or indeed any other op UK Harriers have been involved in simply because its use immediately bleeds all energy and leaves the aircraft wallowing and vulnerable to missile (the defeat of which is largely predicated upon speed combined with defensive aids) or even a guns kill. ‘Energy management’ (ie maintaining sufficient speed and energy to retain maximum options not turning off the light in the crewroom) is probably taught on Day 1, Basic Air Combat at Tac Weapons Unit

So as a thruster-maneuverability starfighter pilot, I'd want to make fast passes against an aircraft-maneuverability target. I'd have to get creative with my approach, but an aircraft-maneuverability starfighter can't outrun me, and I can quickly get out of his attack range with my speed.

Slash n' Dash n' Slash Again. I pull that tactic in Silent Death with fast moving but unarmored craft like the Shark or Kosmos. If I can have a wing mate, the fun only grows exponentially.

It's the same dichotomy that evolved during the late 1930s as air forces transitioned from vic three tactical elements and dogfighting WW1-style, and the more modern wing pair/four ship element approach pioneered by the Finns, the Germans, and Claire Chenault. Fighter aircraft designs that emphasized maneuverability in a turning dogfight were quickly outclassed by faster, less agile designs when the users of the later learned to capitalize on the advantages of superior speed.

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

This is an interesting thought discussion. The comparison to WWII dogfighting is actually quite appropriate.

You have described two real world classes of fighters: Turn-and-burn maneuverability fighters and boom-and-zoom energy fighters.

In WWII the Japanese zero dominated early engagements against US fighters due to their superior maneuverability until US pilots adapted their tactics and learned to force the zeros into an energy management fight. US fighters were generally heavier and less agile, but could accelerate faster in a dive and could still maneuver at speeds higher than the zero could handle. Once the US pilots figured out they could pounce on the enemy fighters from altitude in a high speed pass and then zoom back up and away to maintain their energy advantage the engagements started to favor the US fighters.

I imagine the thrust vs. turn space fighter matchup would be somewhat similar. It could actually be an interesting matchup. A good turn pilot could break at the right moment forcing a very high deflection low probability shot on the thrust fighter's gun passes.

The thrust fighter would have a significant energy advantage and would be able to control the engagement to a certain extent as long as he properly manages his energy while the turn fighter would have a significant defensive advantage as long he times his break maneuvers properly. Whoever screws up first would probably wind up losing the fight.

Well said Daricles. The question is how do you translate that into a game?

I'll start with a hexgrid game:

Aircraft-maneuverability starfighters can make any number of facing changes (at no cost in movement points/burn points/thrust) during their turn, but must always move into the hex they are facing. They will also have far fewer Burn Points than a thruster starfighter (less than half would be a good maximum).

A Thruster starfighter must pay one burn point for each heading change it makes, regardless of number of facings changed at one time. However, thruster starfighters explicitly do NOT go where the nose is pointing, they follow the direction of their vector arrow until they spend burn points to change their flight vector.

Note that you will have to do some record-keeping for what exactly the thruster starfighter's movement vector is. This could be as simple as +2X+1V-1Z, which translates to "for every 2 hexes I move in direction X, I move one 'hex' up and 1 hex in the negative Z." Your thruster-fighter record sheet will need a vector calculation section, which is a bit complex at first but gets much easier with practice.

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Jovian Chronicles (Dream Pod 9's spaceship game with both highly-maneuverable mecha and less maneuverable but faster fighters) allows Exo-armors (name for mecha in the game) to move anywhere within their movement points in cm of the position they started their activation. They can even fly to one side of their activation circle and fire, then fly clear to the other side of their activation circle and end their movement at that point.

Now, fighters can move up to their movement points in cm, but don't get the huge circle of where they could be. Fighters have to pay for heading changes: one turn of up to 90deg is free, but exceeding a TOTAL of 90deg turned costs half your movement.

A typical Exoarmor has a movement of 10/15 (10cm normal, 15cm in 'overthrust'), while a typical fighter has a movement of 15/45. So it's possible to chase down an Exo with a fighter, but the fighter pilot is going to have to work for it and probably expend a lot of Burn Points to do it.

"Swooosh!" ships That made me smile..Thanks all for the imput and details you have taken the time to talk about.

The cartoon "Moonlight Mile" season 2 has a little dogfight in it, 4 space fighters went up against china with its Killer Sat, it could thrust, and had missiles and a laser system.

The fighters had a powerful laser as its cannon, but seems to be that you should be not moving to open fire and score a hit, so targeting was important, and stealth too, what you scanner could not pick up when you could not attack.. Missiles of course could track a target down, but i`m guessing once you missed it would not turn around and come back.. Decoys was fired like missiles to fool enemy scanners… So i guess alittle like sub combat.. But thats all i have really… I still have a 4 parts to watch and see what else i can find…

Any links to shows etc on dogfights would be good, maybe a hunt about satellites and "starwars" lasers systems they had in mind in the 1980s Etc may help.

As for Gaming… i like to try and use my Hex map i have and as for book keeping, thats not my thing.. So maybe a action system like…

Drift: No engine, Just micro thrusts
Used to Aim weapons, and max stealth

Thrust: Used to Turn and correct spin and to point you in the direction you wish to go next
Harder to Aim and be hit
Burn: Use main thrust/Engine to move in new direction, used once you are pointing in the direction you wish to go.
Shooting would be a no-no at these speeds..

So you Thrust and Burn to move around, Drift to get a new direction, correct with thrust and burn again..

In a Hex Map, Drift would be the same hex, or just 1 hex and turn 2 sides maybe
Thrust would be a move of a few hexes and turn in any direction, and Burn would be a straight movement. Thrust is needed to control speed and direction..

So Maybe…

Gunstar ( Last starfighter )
Engines
Drift: 1 hex , 2 side turn
Thrust: 3 hex`s sliding from last direction, before coming to a stop, can turn 3 sides
Burn: 3 to 6 hexes, no turning.

So after a Burn action, Thrust means you travel half the burn distance before coming to a close stop. So burn for 6 hexes, then Thrust for 3 hexes again in same direction before turning up to 3 hex sides.

That would show the sliding across space…?

So thats off the top of my head, with maps and spaceships to play with… The bigger mass ships may drift more, or high Thrust rating, as it takes longer to bring under control..

Will thats me.. i pop back on Thursday and see where we are…

But for gaming.. i like a simple system, hex`s would be nice to try it out, no booking keeping, just maybe three lines for the movment as outlined above…. cheers Rocket heads..!!!