Re: Star System Attack

On Thu, 11 Sep 1997, Allan Goodall wrote:

> At 10:23 PM 9/10/97 -0400, you wrote:
> > If whatever FTL technology you use allows entry into a solar systems
at
> >*any* point, then there is no effective way to defend a solar system;
it's
> >just too damn big to position any kind of ships to protect against
all the
> >potential angles. Delta-V, thrust, etc., all prevent an adequate
coverage of
> >the area (unless you have unlimited defensive resources).
> 
> That's why in my own, home-brewed universe I have people jumping into
the
> corona (sp?) of stars. You fly into the star towards the jump point,
and
> come out the opposite jump point heading away from the star. Of
course,
> heaven help you if you miss...
> 
> Allan Goodall:  agoodall@sympatico.ca 
> "You'll want to hear about my new obsession.
>  I'm riding high upon a deep depression. 
>  I'm only happy when it rains."    - Garbage
> 
The CORONA of a star? Better have wonderous sheild-tech, even on
commercial vessels...sort of like in 'Mote in God's Eye' where the jump
point was inside some sort of dwarf star. They had to have fantastic
sheilds and radiators there...

I like the basic FT/MT idea, with open-ended jumping, but fleet cohesion
a
problem and gravity wells fatal, both causing fleets to jump to the
outskirts of a system and form up on their way in to the strategic
objective - planet, moon, base, etc.

The poster (sorry forgot your name) who compared defending systems to
defending oceans seems right -- there's no way and no point to defending
some isolated bit of vacumn or water, only the strategic/important bits
need to have a fleet, wet or space, near them - Pearl Harbour, say, or
the
appropriate colony planet, etc.

One idea I like is the idea of an exit from 'hyperspace' causing some
sort
of shockwave/ripple that can be detected, giving the defenders of a
system
some warning and therefor time to form up. But if normal-space drives
aren't detectable at the ranges hyperspace-exit traces are, where your
attackers go after they enter your system is still a problem - so some
grand-tactical stealth movement/spoofing/etc is possible.

Just my $0.02.

Brian (burger00@camosun.bc.ca)