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Post by n2maniac on Nov 1, 2016 6:18:36 GMT
I would imagine that such installations would be destroyed prior to the ships arriving. They would be immobile for the most part, so missiles launched from distant orbits would be very effective. I would argue the opposite, if anything it makes them primary defences, seeing as a missile launched from long distance, even if moving at incredible speed, is visible due to background cross referencing and heat signatures, all the mass driver has to do is wait until the ideal interception moment occurs and fire off a slug, boom no more missile. If anything a better bet would be on the ground special forces insertion disabling the mass driver and as many systems as possible before subsequent attack occurs. Have you tried railguns/coilguns as point defense? Other than the physics-breaking coilguns, I have yet to see them effective against any but the largest or slowest missiles.
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Post by argonbalt on Nov 1, 2016 6:36:16 GMT
I would argue the opposite, if anything it makes them primary defences, seeing as a missile launched from long distance, even if moving at incredible speed, is visible due to background cross referencing and heat signatures, all the mass driver has to do is wait until the ideal interception moment occurs and fire off a slug, boom no more missile. If anything a better bet would be on the ground special forces insertion disabling the mass driver and as many systems as possible before subsequent attack occurs. Have you tried railguns/coilguns as point defense? Other than the physics-breaking coilguns, I have yet to see them effective against any but the largest or slowest missiles. Yes that is true but you have to remember that the game basically forces knife fighting as far as it's combat model goes, actual gw lasers could have ranges in the thousands of Km and inter system rail and coil guns are less like the puny ship mounted stuff or even the broken launchers we have in game. Imagine a subway tunnel 100km+ long for shooting subway train sized packages. If you were defending a body in the asteroid belt (or like Nausikaa 192) you would have at the very least several hours from launch to detect the ejecta heat, or relative background movement, from there it could be anywhere from a few days to a few months for the object to get to you. Sure they could make it tiny and unguided, but then it could outright miss, so presumably they would make it somewhat large of a payload. On your end you then stuff your subawy tunnel with a fat juicy interceptor and let her rip. As we have discussed before you are not waiting until the very last moment to hit this thing, instead you are simply trying to divert it at the optimum moment, or like in game, run it out of propellant. A bodies CIWS coil and rail guns would never be used ideally for intercepting anything like that. Anymore than they would be used to shoot down interplanetary ships. A main mass drive would ideally be capable of perhaps 20-30 km/s launches, make it a missile and even better.
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Post by bigbombr on Nov 1, 2016 8:40:52 GMT
Have you tried railguns/coilguns as point defense? Other than the physics-breaking coilguns, I have yet to see them effective against any but the largest or slowest missiles. Yes that is true but you have to remember that the game basically forces knife fighting as far as it's combat model goes, actual gw lasers could have ranges in the thousands of Km and inter system rail and coil guns are less like the puny ship mounted stuff or even the broken launchers we have in game. Imagine a subway tunnel 100km+ long for shooting subway train sized packages. If you were defending a body in the asteroid belt (or like Nausikaa 192) you would have at the very least several hours from launch to detect the ejecta heat, or relative background movement, from there it could be anywhere from a few days to a few months for the object to get to you. Sure they could make it tiny and unguided, but then it could outright miss, so presumably they would make it somewhat large of a payload. On your end you then stuff your subawy tunnel with a fat juicy interceptor and let her rip. As we have discussed before you are not waiting until the very last moment to hit this thing, instead you are simply trying to divert it at the optimum moment, or like in game, run it out of propellant. A bodies CIWS coil and rail guns would never be used ideally for intercepting anything like that. Anymore than they would be used to shoot down interplanetary ships. A main mass drive would ideally be capable of perhaps 20-30 km/s launches, make it a missile and even better. Would a comparably sized laser not be much more effective as a CIWS?
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Post by argonbalt on Nov 1, 2016 15:44:20 GMT
It might help a bit, but granted if you have not put the work in and used your mass driver to halt the round by this point then you probably won't be able to stop it unless you can burn through the outer armour and detonate the fuel/payload. This is assuming it is more of a conventional missile and not a guided/passive slug, in which case you are outa luck.
Now if you have already fractured the slug(instead of diverting it) CIWS gigawatt lasers could melt the shrapnel potentially, though if there is too much and or too many large fragments you might still be screwed as you have basically shotgun blasted your self.
If you mean a comparatively large laser to a 100km+ mass driver, ehh not so much. Even with potentially working ranges in the 1000+ km range, most planets work in the 1000000 km range of distance, so unless you are nuke pumping x-ray lasers you are never gonnah reach these interplanetary artillery shells, and even then sustainably burning a 10 ton hunk that's on it's way to you might simply be better to hit it with your own hunk.
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Post by Pttg on Nov 4, 2016 19:07:18 GMT
What would be the point of turning such an asteroid into a fortress? There's no reason for your enemy to attack it, since it has little inherent value, and they can always go around it to attack something else. If you're going to fortify something, it should be something valuable. Also, how would you aim a mass driver built deep into the asteroid? Asteroids are the population centers. They are likely loaded with fuel depots, too.
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Post by bigbombr on May 10, 2017 8:25:52 GMT
How would you go about attacking a celestial body?
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Post by Enderminion on May 10, 2017 13:49:59 GMT
How would you go about attacking a celestial body? Nukes, lasers, K-Rods, if it has an atmo where modified germ bombs could survive, I would also drop biological weapons. send in the ground pounders after most enemy aerospace defenses have been taken out
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