Orbital Warfare/Planetary Seige

Discussion for the Next Big Thing, which is purely theoretical.
AlphaDetisMegas
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Post by AlphaDetisMegas »

glassing planets doesn't necessarily have to mean glassing the entire planet, what if said ship fires missiles into critical areas, like population centres, ore mines(explosive probably), forests, or the like, then said ship would be able to use the planet to deprive it of resources, virtually the same as using heat(lasers or plasma) to manually glass the planet piece by piece.

Furthermore, I think that a few stray autocannon shots or something like a HVM or normal missile could do the same thing as a glassing by laser, as they get accelerated by the planets gravity pull, and that alone probably causes a huge impact crater, not to mention damage, dust, etc.
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Arcalane
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Post by Arcalane »

AlphaDetisMegas wrote:glassing planets doesn't necessarily have to mean glassing the entire planet, what if said ship fires missiles into critical areas, like population centres, ore mines(explosive probably), forests, or the like, then said ship would be able to use the planet to deprive it of resources, virtually the same as using heat(lasers or plasma) to manually glass the planet piece by piece.

Furthermore, I think that a few stray autocannon shots or something like a HVM or normal missile could do the same thing as a glassing by laser, as they get accelerated by the planets gravity pull, and that alone probably causes a huge impact crater, not to mention damage, dust, etc.
Except in most cases they're already going at a ridiculous speed.

More importantly, they have to contend with the planet's atmosphere. Entry/re-entry is not a smooth and harmless process. This necessitates heatshielding, which is impractical for most projectiles. Energy weapon shots and beams will attenuate.

None of this is an issue for a vacuum world of course.

Ed: Also, if you choose to fire weapons at a planet for whatever reason, there will be stray shots. Planetary Conditions will be damaged no matter how you try to worm your way out of it.

~~

In any case, as I've said to LT a few times before in the IRC channel, this concept is, quite frankly, too complicated for BSF to accurately handle. Also take in mind that the more I have to interact with a battle, the more chance there is of my interaction having a direct impact on what happens. Ideally, all I should need to do is spawn the ships in, enable the controller, and wait until only one faction is left standing.

Further comments should be withheld until LT has come up with a new system.
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