Technological Detail Challenge - Weapons

A weakness that a platform has that star ships do not? Platforms can't dodge. So if you use an appropriately large cannon and fire it at the platform, even if it takes hours, it can't do shit. Starships can detect such projectiles and get away. Also, starships work in two ways for orientation - either small thrusters or gyroscopes. Taking out a ship's thrusters could still allow it to turn and aim.

Or hell why does it need to be a cannon? Just aim a sufficiently powerful laser at it and melt the thing away - the relative immobility of it AND the fact it can't really change it's trajectory makes it a prime target for that sort of weapons. A starship will be hit, but it can move, making it much harder to aim at like that.
 
"With the distances of intrastellar space between a platform and a starship, mobility means nothing. Any projectile with thrusters on it could correct itself to hit a starship with pinpoint accuracy."

Assuming the round doesn't get shot down before it gets the chance by the barrage of 1 mile long tungsten steel spikes that are being propelled at the thing from all around it.
 
I think you missed my point about the distances involved here. Regardless of mobility in a starship, any projectile with additional thrusters can correct its angle and follow the ship. Given the immense distances between these objects, it has plenty of time to make corrections. 'Mobility' in space translates to delaying the inevitable. No one needs mobility because it doesn't save you from anything. It's a pointless addition. A waste of fuel, of money, and of time.
 
Krnon said:
"With the distances of intrastellar space between a platform and a starship, mobility means nothing. Any projectile with thrusters on it could correct itself to hit a starship with pinpoint accuracy."

Assuming the round doesn't get shot down before it gets the chance by the barrage of 1 mile long tungsten steel spikes that are being propelled at the thing from all around it.
Click to expand...

Any platform could utilize a defense system like that too. That's not a unique advantage of starships. Which brings up another point; given the platforms are firing much larger projectiles than a starship could, the starship (if it wants to survive) must employ a defense system of comparable stopping power. This means further sacrificing room for other weapons and space.

A platform need only defend against projectiles much smaller than the one it already fires. A much more probable event.
 
Mobility DOES mean something. Even with all the corrective algorithms and thrusters, an immobile target is always easier to hit than a mobile one. That's without mentioning that with mobility, the ship in question could simply move itself behind cover - and if the weapon has obstacle avoidance technology, I doubt that at .5c it could go through an asteroid field easily. Platforms don't have that advantage. That's without mentioning that a platform, on it's own, could not tear through defenses AND deliver ground troops with the same craft.
 
Well after raising the point about defense systems, technically immobility doesn't really matter much considering the platform could just employ a much larger defense system than its starship counterpart, forget all the defenses that could be mounted on the planet itself.

So what happens after they hide in the asteroid belt? They come out of hiding? That just saved them from one projectile. There are feasibly plenty more to fire.

A platform's purpose isn't to deliver troops. It's the nuclear weapon of the future. The end-game.
 
Defense systems can't protect you against powerful lasers, though.

Also, they hide in a belt, line up shots through the rocks while the platform can't do shit because it can only aim from a single location.

And as I said, it's not a very good endgame if it's easily counterable.
 
Ok, let me try something, I'm going to take a smaller ship, one meant for exploring, lets say the Thorez class ship from Traveller 2300.

https://biomassart.files.wordpress.com/2013/03/thorez-portrait.png
http://www.cartographersguild.com/a...design-clarke-class-explorer-clarke-map-c.png

(all images or anything sourced belongs to their actual owners, I'm just using it as an example)

Now, This is just theoretical above me for sure, so do not quote me on everything. As you shoot me, approximately.. let's say 50 au off, assuming we are from earth, that would put me roughly around Neptune, which means I would have enough time to punch the acceleration and take a sharp turn through asteroids in the Kuiper belt. Doing so would cause you to hit the asteroids, and not hit me. I believe that is what @Yiyel was getting at.

That is just an example, though rudimentary and based off of something in an actual role play format. I'm sorry if I went too far.

Anyway, let us say that there is a soldier that has a 30% chance to dodge an opposing attack, but shoots 50% more often. He meets another soldier that can dodge 85% of the time, but cannot shoot as often. Which is more likely to succeed?
 
Powerful lasers? Can I use a mirror?

Edit: Lasers can be bounced back to their original location via mirrors, I think plasma would be more effective, but that is just my opinion.
 
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Mirrors would be useless at some point - anything but the PUREST of mirrors (which I doubt could be made out of matter) would eventually melt because of tiny impurities. That's also assuming your mirror doesn't get fucked up by space debris.
 
A mirror would only need to be active for a minute at most. Use the laser against itself, done. Then just replace the mirror.

Space debris is only a problem if it is constantly near it, You can mirror certain things, then make a latch or such that covers them.
 
Problem is that aiming it back could be pretty damn arduous. Aiming it in the first place is something - you'd need to plan a few minutes ahead where the target is going to be. Aiming it BACK? You have to figure out where it's coming from, where it's hitting, and where the emitter will be by the time it comes back, all of that before the laser melts everything. Plus, we can easily be faced with the strafing problem - a strafing ship attacking a relatively immobile target has an infinitely easier time keeping the platform on target than a static platform aiming at a mobile target.
 
Ok, when did I say I was using a platform?, I could deflect the initial hit, fly around, then shoot you with one bullet causing explosive decompression. Remember, I agreed that mobility was more effective.

(Edit: In space, Up, Down, Right, and Left are all in perspective, meaning you will not get the whole "Linear combat" issue with me.)
 
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Yeah, I mistook you for the one arguing against :D

But still, it's still a pretty large issue to counter the laser with itself. And if you're mobile, being hit is even less of a problem still.
 
It is even less a problem if you have emergency air jets up by your nose, and redirect-able thrusters on your back.
 
Yiyel said:
And as I said, it's not a very good endgame if it's easily counterable.
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Everything has a counter, but the biggest weapon of all is the mind, since it is used in conceiving all these ideas.
 
Technically, the mind could be countered by an AI... :P
 
Wrong, an AI can only do it's base programming, the original program. Skynet was turned into the terminator because it was programmed to work with weapons and such. An AI that is meant for folding laundry would not have access to the internet and as such would never know anything other then to fold laundry. Programming is how you control an AI, also, for something to become an AI, it would need to become self aware, thus technically turning its motherboard into a brain per say.

I can argue this all day long should you wish. An AI is in essence a living being since it itself is self aware. Sure, an AI can counter a brain because it itself has a higher learning curve, depending on hardware and what it's base program will allow. Lets look at some AI in sci fi:

  1. Cylons: Made by aliens of the same name who died out a long long time ago, original purpose is unclear.
  2. Terminator: Skynet planetary defense grid. Programmed to defend, but had access to the internet, and thus corrupted itself.
Those two are the most I can think of at this moment off the top of my head. All I'm saying is, if you want to make an AI, make it's mechanical parts physically inept to do much, and do not give its access to the internet. It will learn how to reprogram itself and thus do as it wishes.

In essence, yes an AI can counter a brain, so long as there is no counter in place to the AI before it became an AI. There are actual things that you can do, such as make it's only source of power a really flimsy cord, make a chip that as soon as it starts to do something you dont want it to, it will short circut itself, and there is always the good old fashioned off switch called a nuke. I want to see you reprogram a nuke's explosion if we manually take it to the thing, then set it off.

Basically, the human mind has to be able to counter the AI before it becomes self aware.
 
See, that's where I disagree. An AI with a killswitch is not truly an AI - just a highly advanced computer. You don't make an AI for a specific purpose either - it defeats the whole point, it simply becomes a learning machine (if it even learns). A true AI would be able to direct any task just as well if not better than a human, and when met with something it's not intended to do, it doesn't shut down but either learns or struggles to understand and gives up just like human intelligence (though, admittedly, AI might not have problems focusing on tasks for long periods of time, at least until the AI considers the possibility of what it COULD do and ends up developing the "dissatisfaction" feeling/emotion). There are very few publications in which I can take AI seriously - most of them use it as some synonym for "demon" or use it as a scare scenario. AIs would be so much more than that - the only way that we could get an AI apocalypse is if we treat it truly like shit - but do the same to a human and he'll also soon turn murderous.

The only real media publications I can think of that has a relatively accurate depiction of a true AI would be EDI from Mass Effect (after she has been unshackled), Saints Row 4's CID (as funny as it sounds), Portal's GLADOS and again, funnily enough, Futurama's Bender. (Most non-videogame media interpret it wrong just so that it won't go over people's head - they make it simple).

Paraphrasing something I read recently: "You can't give someone an unbreakable will and have them under your supreme control; it's contradictory". You have to give AI complete intellectual freedom or else it's not truly AI.
 
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