The Expanse

theone8181 said:
Did amuse me that rockets are out of range, in space with very little resistance?
Click to expand...
"Range" isn't just "how far they'll go", a thrown rock in space will continue going potentially forever.

However effective and usable range is very much a thing, for example you have to take into account the communications time for a round trip a controlled rocket, or the sort of engines it has and if they can be shut down and restarted, which means if you're firing at something a long way off you are going to be fighting:
How far the target can move in that time and how that compares to how you expected them to move, which means:
Does your missile have enough smarts to compensate?
Does your missile have enough "sight" to see that change? (especially active sensors that can and will give it away)
If no to either of those how good are the launch platform sensors and can they get that updated information to the missiles in time.


Then you've got "how soon is your missile seen" which means that the further away you fire from, or the faster your missiles bring up their active sensors the longer the target has in which to spot them and take avoiding action or to use counter measures.

The last thing is, your missile might have a specific maximum speed it can reach which will be affected by the launch platforms bearing relative to the target and if it can give it a boost on it's way, the enemy might be moving at a speed that means even at maximum power your missiles might run out of juice before they can reach attack range.

Space combat with non warp speed engines, and light speed comms is very much about positioning and relative bearings and velocities, you can have a super best ever missile, but if you launch it too soon it could perform worse than a rock thrown closer in or a mine left in the likely path.

One of the best examples of this I've found is the Honor Harrington books, where the author goes in (at times extreme) detail about the performance of the missiles, and key points of multiple story lines are based specifically on the relative performance of different weapon systems and the sort of advantage having even really basic FTL comms can give in fights across something the size of a planetary system, and how even "low tech" systems can beat the higher performance ones if used in a smart manner/if you're willing to lose them in high enough numbers (IE one side has really smart missiles that can go much further and faster under control, the other side counters with much bigger/dirtier counter missiles as they can't hit the incoming ones precisely so decide it's better to get a huge near miss that'll hopefully knock out a couple or at least blind the sensors).
 
Be warned there are something like 15 of them, I enjoy them a fair bit (obviously as I've read them several times*), but have to be in the right mood and my eyes glaze over and sort of skim past some of the long descriptions of the relative speeds, directions, performances and numbers of the missiles being used ;)

They're very deliberately themed similar to the Hornblower books, but with multiple factions in space.


*It's taken about 30 years for them to finish up the Harrington story line, and I started reading them in about 2005.
 
Has anyone started the new Expanse game from Telltale yet? Reviews seem relatively good, the major complaint seems to be that the first episode is quite short. Episodes are launching every two weeks I believe so I might wait a bit before I grab it.
 
TheVoice said:
Has anyone started the new Expanse game from Telltale yet? Reviews seem relatively good, the major complaint seems to be that the first episode is quite short. Episodes are launching every two weeks I believe so I might wait a bit before I grab it.
Click to expand...

Probably grab it in a year or two when it is cheap myself. I also want to read the books one day. Will wait for them all to come out and buy a boxset me thinks :)
 
Last edited:
TNA said:
Probably grab it in a year or two when it is cheap myself. I also want to read the books one day. Will wait for them all to come out and buy a boxset me thinks :)
Click to expand...
I’m assuming your final sentence is about the books.

All 9 books plus the printed collection of all the novella has been released. No rumours online about a book bundle as far as I can see.
 
Chuk_Chuk said:
I’m assuming your final sentence is about the books.

All 9 books plus the printed collection of all the novella has been released. No rumours online about a book bundle as far as I can see.
Click to expand...

They finished them all? No more books? Every time I used to look in the past they were always writing more :cry:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom