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Post by RiftandRend on Mar 5, 2017 1:18:29 GMT
I prepose that boarding would be almost exclusively done by remote controlled drones rather than marines. -Marines have a minimum mass of ~60 kg -They are quite fragile without prohibitive amounts of armor. -They have relatively low G tolerances -They take up space and resources in transit -Boarding drones can be made much smaller and lighter -They can carry heavier armaments -They are far more expendable Attachments:
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Post by bdcarrillo on Mar 5, 2017 1:30:14 GMT
Ehhh... The resulting close quarters combat might be rather chaotic, and might exceed the capability of near future automation to execute in an intelligent, methodical manner in the relatively unknown environment of an enemy vessel.
On the contrary, who says that boarding is feasible at all? Assuming that the enemy doesn't conveniently let you use their airlock, you'd have to be capable of penetrating a heavily armored and possibly pressurized space, and then subdue folks.
I'd suggest this: why bother with trying to board when you can destroy the weapons and reactor, then simply wait. Presumably, any intel you might seize would be sanitized long before you ever forced your way aboard, under any circumstance. The best you could hope for would be salvaging fragments of technology or raw materials.
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Post by RiftandRend on Mar 5, 2017 1:42:34 GMT
Ehhh... The resulting close quarters combat might be rather chaotic, and might exceed the capability of near future automation to execute in an intelligent, methodical manner in the relatively unknown environment of an enemy vessel. On the contrary, who says that boarding is feasible at all? Assuming that the enemy doesn't conveniently let you use their airlock, you'd have to be capable of penetrating a heavily armored and possibly pressurized space, and then subdue folks. I'd suggest this: why bother with trying to board when you can destroy the weapons and reactor, then simply wait. Presumably, any intel you might seize would be sanitized long before you ever forced your way aboard, under any circumstance. The best you could hope for would be salvaging fragments of technology or raw materials. First thing, "remote controlled drones". Boarding to seize intel is still a possibility. They would have to melt or smash their computer systems into dust to prevent any intel recovery. Of course most of the data will be lost so that will not be commonplace. The most common sort of boarding would probably be to capture high level personnel, like in the campaign mission "Main Belt Extraction".
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Boarding
Mar 5, 2017 1:47:37 GMT
via mobile
Post by bdcarrillo on Mar 5, 2017 1:47:37 GMT
Hmm... In the case of seizing high value personnel, boarding would be required in a rapid fashion, and ROVs might be feasible for that.
Sanitizing electronics doesn't require physical destruction, you simply zeroize it. That is an extremely common feature on military electronics, allowing an item to be wiped and rendered useless in seconds. No need to burn papers like the old days.
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Post by subunit on Mar 5, 2017 8:35:34 GMT
Even if you didn't use these things to literally breach the crew compartment, there are all kinds of CoaDE ships that would be vulnerable to little drones getting under the armor (partially-armored or just up the backside) and dumping a few mags into the crew module/reactor/whatever. It's a pretty esoteric technique I guess, but if you can pack thousands of these things in a drone carrier, it might work.
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Post by bigbombr on Mar 5, 2017 8:39:43 GMT
Even if you didn't use these things to literally breach the crew compartment, there are all kinds of CoaDE ships that would be vulnerable to little drones getting under the armor (partially-armored or just up the backside) and dumping a few mags into the crew module/reactor/whatever. It's a pretty esoteric technique I guess, but if you can pack thousands of these things in a drone carrier, it might work. They'd be excessively vulnerable to lasers though, so you could only use them after you've disabled enemy lasers, at which point you've presumably won anyway. Boarding a spaceship is like boarding a plane: feasable if the vehicle isn't doing crazy accelerations but still a pain and usually not worth the risk/effort.
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Post by subunit on Mar 5, 2017 8:44:47 GMT
Even if you didn't use these things to literally breach the crew compartment, there are all kinds of CoaDE ships that would be vulnerable to little drones getting under the armor (partially-armored or just up the backside) and dumping a few mags into the crew module/reactor/whatever. It's a pretty esoteric technique I guess, but if you can pack thousands of these things in a drone carrier, it might work. They'd be excessively vulnerable to lasers though, so you could only use them after you've disabled enemy lasers, at which point you've presumably won anyway. Boarding a spaceship is like boarding a plane: feasable if the vehicle isn't doing crazy accelerations but still a pain and usually not worth the risk/effort. Yeah, I tend to agree, and I wouldn't want to see any dev time put into this at this point. Still though, boarding is explicitly represented in the stock campaign, and it would be cool if that was less abstract than popup messages, eventually.
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Post by deltav on Mar 5, 2017 10:49:00 GMT
I prepose that boarding would be almost exclusively done by remote controlled drones rather than marines. -Marines have a minimum mass of ~60 kg -They are quite fragile without prohibitive amounts of armor. -They have relatively low G tolerances -They take up space and resources in transit -Boarding drones can be made much smaller and lighter -They can carry heavier armaments -They are far more expendable I think it's a great idea. You could send a swarm of these in maybe with missiles, and if one gets through, it tries ram the ship and force dock with it cutting into the hull. Then the robots inside try to take over the ship destroying internal components as they go. Not sure if it would ever be included, but it seems like boarding by drones would be an obvious tactic in space warfare. If you can hit the ship with a missile and penetrate the hull, you can send a drone filled with robots to try and penetrate the hull and board it. Why not?
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Post by Enderminion on Mar 5, 2017 14:33:47 GMT
A marine is more flexible, can open doors without special equipment and can adapt to any situation that arrises.
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Boarding
Mar 5, 2017 15:24:39 GMT
via mobile
Post by bdcarrillo on Mar 5, 2017 15:24:39 GMT
A marine is more flexible, can open doors without special equipment and can adapt to any situation that arrises. Depends on the goal... Forcible entry to try and snag a person from a derelict: marine makes sense. Combat penetration for pure destruction: drone, or rather a "limpet" In a tactical engagement, you'd likely want to cease firing or risk destroying your own limpets. Not sure how viable that would be. On the strategic level, heck yeah go for it.
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Post by deltav on Mar 5, 2017 15:55:31 GMT
Since we are complaining about every single person on our ships, carrying guys around just to board ships makes little sense. If we have to board, there are so many better ways than a person. A specialized robot team is expendable, and doesn't take up any energy, food, or water when it isn't active. Space Marines sound cool, but we all know Space Marines don't make much sense. Send in the robot drones, and if they all get blown up no sweat, but if the crew has even half a brain, they will surrender, because they lose either way. Each Limpet carries 1 heavy breaching robot armed with 2 plasma cutters and 2 hydraulic hatch breakers, 2 medium auto shotgun suppression robots with selection of less than lethal bean bag and rubber slugs, and lethal flettchet Dr. Hannibal Lecter rounds, and 30 micro spider robots about the size of a tarantula, with dazzler/flash/bang to rush in and temporarily blind, deafen and confuse the crew as soon as the hatch is breeched. You know what? Screw it. I want my space marines!
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Post by Easy on Mar 5, 2017 15:57:55 GMT
Boarding implies there is something of value to be recovered from the ship. First we need to reduce the ship's acceleration to zero or near enough zero so it can't get away and neutralize enough of the weapons so our boarding craft can approach.
Shooting the crew module indiscriminately doesn't help our goals of recovering the crew or recovering equipment that is adjacent to the crew.
Remote controlled gundrones that can hover through the semi-depressurized corridors to find and subdue emergency-mask wearing crew makes a lot of sense. You might even be able to use simple tether umbilical for the drones due to the relative small size of the crew module. Once your drones have explored and controlled for threats the more perishable marines can finish the job.
If the crew really doesn't want to be taken alive, well, they can be accommodated or shocked into submission.
A few months ago in the USA a bomb squad drone with a antipersonnel mine was used to kill a shooter who was in a defensive position. So we're already there.
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Post by ultravires on Mar 5, 2017 17:54:30 GMT
The problem with all Drones (drone fighters, boarders etc) Drones can be Hacked. Drone Control signals can be jammed/hacked. It won't do you much good to send your antipersonnel drone force aboard an enemy ship, if some tech savvy enemy breaks into your Drone Control system and turns them on you... or jams that control signal to make the drones completely useless.
Why do you think we don't already have Drone Bombers/Fighters in real life? Can the Taliban/Isis hack them? No. But Russia/China/Iran etc sure can hack or jam drones. The Iranians have already proven they can do it. Drones are not the end-all be-all weapons system that you guys seem to think they are. I can think of numerous situations where a good old fashioned human Soldier/Marine is gonna be your best bet. They can't be hacked, or jammed, and they can actually think independently... much better than any drone.
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Post by Easy on Mar 5, 2017 18:02:42 GMT
The problem with all Drones (drone fighters, boarders etc) Drones can be Hacked. Drone Control signals can be jammed/hacked. It won't do you much good to send your antipersonnel drone force aboard an enemy ship, if some tech savvy enemy breaks into your Drone Control system and turns them on you... or jams that control signal to make the drones completely useless. Why do you think we don't already have Drone Bombers/Fighters in real life? Can the Taliban/Isis hack them? No. But Russia/China/Iran etc sure can hack or jam drones. The Iranians have already proven they can do it. Drones are not the end-all be-all weapons system that you guys seem to think they are. Encryption won't be hacked and if you're exploring only a dozen decks or less you can run your drone off a tether which can only be physically disrupted. You can have more than one drone and if they are violently impeding your drone you can always perforate the offending deck with k-slugs through the thin walls. We've already got the target ship disabled, this is just clearing and subduing the already captive crew module. Unless the crew is fanatical they're probably going to surrender and they've already had a few minutes to hours to attempt to destroy the sensitive information from their computers. They probably won't be able to do anything about that fancy synthetic aperture radar and the computers on external modules especially if those modules don't have power or are otherwise damaged to prevent zeroize commands. It is kind of hard to blank the hard drive to your main computer when you've lost power and the computer has hyper velocity holes and deformation that jams the equipment trays in the closed position.
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Post by Enderminion on Mar 5, 2017 18:56:36 GMT
A marine is more flexible, can open doors without special equipment and can adapt to any situation that arrises. Depends on the goal... Forcible entry to try and snag a person from a derelict: marine makes sense. Combat penetration for pure destruction: drone, or rather a "limpet" In a tactical engagement, you'd likely want to cease firing or risk destroying your own limpets. Not sure how viable that would be. On the strategic level, heck yeah go for it. Stategic is of coruse the only reason to board, having the troops from a troopship do it would be the best idea though, you do need defensive marines to
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