Re: Detection

Roger Books wrote:
> 
> On 20-Apr-00 at 11:10, John M. Atkinson (john.m.atkinson@erols.com)
wrote:
> 
> > In 1817 the state of the art of sensor technology was an 18-year old
kid
> > on a horse on a hill wearing tights and a ridiculous hat.  What
makes
> > you think he could imagine a sonar suite?  Why should we be able to
> > predict the details of a sensor system equally far in our future?
> >
> > John M. Atkinson
> 
> Hand waving is fine, just don't expect your handwaving to be any
better
> than anyone elses hand waving.
> 
> Here is what I would like, skip all the hard science, hand waving,
> it works this way in the present day so it will work this way in
> the future.
> 
>  I want tension as ships close.  I want a period of "Is that a
> dreadnought or a heavy cruiser pretending to be a dreadnought".
> I want my opponent to possibly wonder, is everything on the
> board is is something sitting, weapons and systems down, waiting
> for me to blunder into it much as Weber does in his books.
> 
> Sure, a ship lights off its drive and we get clues.  If we know
> our opponent and we see contact BR549 accelerating at thrust 2
> we can make a fair guess there is a capital ship in the group.
> We get a little closer we can see that the mass of the ship,
> assuming nobody is playing EW games to make themselves appear
> bigger/smaller to our sensors.  We get in firing range we
> get to see the ship.	We get close and we can estimate damage
> (look at the SSD).
> 
> Does this sound reasonable?  Do you like a little tension and
> imperfect information in the game or do you want to be
> omnipotent?
> 
> I want to be able to have a battle.  In the situation you are
> discussing ships will NEVER fight save as a last ditch defense.
> You pop in system, I know what ships you have, I decide if I
> have more capabilities than you do and, if I do I stay, if
> I don't I leave.  You look at me and realize I have 2 SDNs to
> your BDN, you leave.	It would require a fool to stay.  So
> now the game is down to:  I pop in with more my opponent leaves
> or does a quick pass to blow up a ship or 2 with SMs before hitting
> the road.

	I guess it's mostly a question of why you play space combat
games. To
be honest, I play them because of the ways that space combat is
DIFFERENT from ground/sea/air combat now, not because of the
similarities. That's also the reason that I like vector movement -
vector movement is the one part of space combat that is ENTIRELY
different from anything we've seen before. I'm interested in how tactics
change when you DO know what ships the opponent has, and what mass they
are, before you enter combat. You have one theory as to how space
sensors will affect space warfare. Maybe it's the case, maybe not.
Either way, I prefer to keep as much science in the game as possible
(which is why my ships don't often mount screens - I see lasers as more
likely than particle beams, and it's damned near impossible to screen
against lasers), because without the science the game doesn't have as
much flavour (IMO).
	That's also the reason I'm involved in this debate. I am
extremely
interested in HOW science works in the GZG-verse, and I find it
extremely interesting to see the different beliefs. Still, I think it's
important to remember how much we already know. If you choose to
handwave away space sensors, that's fine. After all, it's a generic
game, and we're all free to re-write the rules. In these debates,
however, I'm interested in trying to establish, based on what can be
done now, what things are likely to be like (not certain, just likely).
I'm learning quite a lot from these discussions. That's why I'm getting
involved in them.

Sorry, that got a bit preachy.

-Brian Quirt