We need a Science Explanation Thread

DISCLAIMER: This is not a Science Explanation thread.

Rather, this is my suggestion that we start such a thread. I would do it myself but i very seldom visit these forums and therefore wouldn't be a good choice to keep such a thread organized. However someone like knight or nanolathe (or any of the other scientifically inclined regulars) might feel up to this task.

I've read a lot of threads that inevitably stumble over some scientific misconceptions, the lengthy explanation of which tends to derail the thread entirely. Wouldn't it be better if we could link to a thread were the scientific core concepts for many of the games aspects (based in reality) are explained, such as to avoid (or reduce) endless discussion about scientific disagreements.

Frequent discussions about planet and asteroid movements, KEW, Color of the Atmosphere, What Robot Vision looks like etc. come to mind..

I would be very willing to contribute to such a thread but for aforementioned reasons don't think i should start it myself (otherwise I would have instead of posting this).

So who feels up to the challenge, and how should we actually go about it?

Eh, I just post all the facts in the thread as needed. Most of it isn't really that hard to look up. If you Google a question you're more than likely to get some form of answer.

If you use Google Scholar, like I do, you're VERY likely to get an answer to any scientific question

That said if you want to ask questions on the Forums feel free to do so. The best idea is to try to not come into a topic, without doing any research, and claim something scientific that's easily checked on Wikipedia.

(A note about Wikipedia: Use it with caution. Follow the citations. Read the research itself rather than Wikipedia's summary and read what the actual scientific journals and articles say. Then use that knowledge rather than just copy-pasting from Wikipedia.)

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What I'd suggest is an open thread that posters ask questions in and then a relevant "expert" can come in to answer it. Most of the time it's not even a very opinionated post when SCIENCE! appears in a topic... I personally try not to defend game mechanics or how Planetary Annihilation's going to handle things and just post the raw facts of the real world.

Unless there's a compelling reason for me to get personally involved in a scientific debate I usually try to leave it at, presenting the facts...

That doesn't always happen though

As long as you come in with an open mind and are willing to accept proof when provided, or provide proof to your argument when you state it, I'll get along fine with you

I'm not an ogre. I'm a scientist.

That's an equally good idea, and it fulfills the same purpose as one can still link to explanations without giving them again and again...
I'm afraid people might not really use it though...

Yeah you could say that...

So... basically let's start such a thread.

Maybe even compile a list of people and their fields, although that is largely unnecessary as most questions are going to be so basic that anyone (with a scientific background) can answer them...

Wait isn't that wikipedia?

:lol:

Pack up guys, we're done here.

Seriously though, check around the internet for an answer. You'll be suprised at how fast you can find them

Seems the joke is on me then.

Just to let you know, i didn't mean we should make a thread where people could ask questions that could have been answered through a google, wikipedia or even forum search.
I meant we should make a thread were we could arrogantly point people to if they ask questions that could have been answered by the aforementioned methods.

Also there's the thing with people doing their own research and coming to completely wrong conclusions anyway...

But as i won't start such a thread, might as well let that discussion die right here...

It's ok, the thought was appreciated.

It's just that the internet is too easy to find information with.
Anyone claiming ignorance these days is nine times out of ten, just lazy.

Fun fact: when you actually sit down and think about doing legitimate combat in space, everything becomes super boring; you snipe from around corners using gravity, but there's only a select number of places that the mathematics says you can hide... and everyone knows that mathematics, so they always know your hiding spots.

Agility in space comes from having balls. Yes. Balls. The most agile spaceship is a sphere, with a stonking great rocket on the arse-end of it.

Don't bring realism into the conversation. Any real combat between AI in the very far future would constitute massive nano warfare that we wouldn't even be able to see, and might even occur on a digital level without physical weapons. The pew pew in this game is for fun, and the same goes for a space component. Even though the Star Wars or Star Trek type space battles are ridiculously unrealistic, they are entertaining and make for good games.

What does that have to do with the price of cheese?

:shock: ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING! Don't you know! You can't have space combat without cheese!

Being a sphere in space doesn't have many advantages, really. There is no atmosphere in space, so having an aerodynamic contour is irrelevant. I'd say space is all about center of gravity, rotational inertia, and location of propulsion systems.

Fun fact: this is a half truth at best. Just because you know something doesn't mean you can do something about it. If you knew the sun was going to explode in a year, you wouldn't be able to prevent it. What corners are you sniping around? There are no corners in space. It's SPACE!

You're all making way too many assumptions I think...

combat in space can be boring or interesting depending on a great variety of assumptions you make. From properties of sensors, propulsion systems, power requirements (i.e. I can haz fuel?), power scale, weapons (kinetic/lasers/guided/insert random spec) and this is all before we start leaving the very strict hard sci-fi trail and start adding FTL (travel, comms, sensors), shields, etc.

If we look at the low energy, infinite LOS sensors, yes people would all hide behind things and use planets gravity to fling projectiles around at things. You have time lag issues, but if they're not going anywhere then a guidance package solves the problem. We can also solve the hiding problem by distributed sensors, so just hiding in the other side of a planet is of no good, you have to actually be hiding, not just floating in space if you want to hide.

A more realistic approach I think would be to skip hiding and go with a 'guided' random walk toward/away from targets as needed, and fleets doing networked missile defense (using off vector kinetics) with high speed sensor pickets (disposable preferred) dodging the super fast bits of metal. If you want to get really standardized you make your missiles your sensor pickets. Missiles could be stealthed by active cooling systems (LN or LH) where the only detection systems would be active sensors(LIDAR and radar) which have light lag issues, but price of said missiles would skyrocket.

This version of space warfare gets expensive quickly as your primary tactic is saturating defenses of your targets with very expensive missiles. Depending on ranges, lasers may not be useful offensively dues to light lag and inability to be guided.

Was that response needed, no, but it felt good... I'm such a nerd...

The object with the smallest rotational moment of inertia is a sphere.

If you need 1,000kg of equipment, fuel, guns, and ammo; the best way to pack them is in a sphere. You could try a deforming it into a football shape, or even a cylinder... if you knew what directions you wouldn't need to evade attacks from.

When you have a gravity well (read: orbiting something big like a planet) to fight against when moving, a flying saucer may indeed be a very sensible shape for a spaceship.

But in the really cold depths of space, where you're millions of miles from anything; sphere all the way.

Also, being a sphere means that you never present an unnecessarily large target towards anyone. Being a small target is a great way to both; not get shot, and not be seen.

I'm not going to assume that you're an idiot. This is an international forum, and TA/ZK/SupCom fans are frequent the world over. I'm going to assume that English isn't your first language.

I'm using fairly imaginative metaphors in that post. If you're not fluent in Australian, I can understand the confusion.

When I said 'snipe from around corners' I mean firing missiles/rocks/etc while being hidden behind moons and planets, and letting gravity curve the projectile just right so that it smashes into the target.

You are right about the possibility of not being able to do something about it. But, if you know where all the great hiding spots are, you can put camera/radar/etc there. Or even better; you can fill the place with mines and stuff that make it not a fun place to be. The defender has the home-field advantage with the fact that he or she can set things up beforehand.

Lasers can be deflected with a shiny paint-job, as well as a cloud of shiny chaff. Even if your spaceship armour isn't shiny, not all of it is going to be absorbed... every photon you shoot that isn't absorbed by your target is a tiny packet of energy wasted.

Shine a laser pointer on a car, or a chunk of metal (or near a cat); you can see where it's striking, right? That's energy wasted.

So what about nuclear bombs? They can funk **** up plenty good... when they're not in vacuum. Like any explosion, the destructive power comes from the wall of stuff that comes and smacks into you. Usually, that's a wall of air, or (if you're a submariner) a wall of water. Space has no such luxuries there.

Surely the EMP from that nuke will fry the circuits of your spaceship? Well. Maybe. Humans know there's already a lot of awfully strong sources of magnetic fields, and EMR in space. And good spaceship engineer will put some measure of EM shielding around the sensitive parts of the ship. Ultimately, it'll come down to how strong the EMP is, and how resistant the ship is.

So what about the radiation, or the million kelvin flash of heat? They can useful. But they both follow the inverse-square-law. Every time you double the distance to the target, a quarter as much stuff reaches them. Logically, that means nukes get much better up close. The heat from the blast is like a big laser; so you can defend against that too if you have enough warning.

And the best sort of up-close is on the inside. Just jam the nuke through a window or something and all the energy from that explosion is used effectively. Any energy that does get out; has to fight its way out through the bulkheads and armour.


If you want to break something, you have to do work. That is, expend energy on it. Doing that efficiently means all the energy you spend gets put into tearing/ripping/melting something, and doesn't end up elsewhere. Projectiles remain the most efficient way at wrecking things.

I'll leave the essay on fuel and economics for another post.

While I'm not an Australian, forgive me if I don't believe your claim that "corner" means moon or planet in Australian. Feel free to use all the imaginative metaphors you like when describing your thoughts, but there's an old saying "Say what you mean and mean what you say," that may serve you better when trying to get your point across.

Again, just because you know they exist, doesn't mean you can cover them all. Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a long way down the road to the chemist's, but that's just peanuts to space.

Anyway, hiding behind a planet isn't a very good hiding spot. It'll leave most of you open. An asteroid belt would be a better hiding place. It's got lots of obstacles that your opponent will have to maneuver to get to ya.

My lasers will melt your shiny paint job. Anything that may get reflected is an acceptable loss if it means I've disabled your space ship.

Ok, now you've lost me. You've gone waaaay off topic.

So does gravity. I hope you're sniping awfully close to those corners, mate.

Unfortunately, this is physically impossible. As you mentioned before with at least some of the laser getting reflected, any contact between objects is going to generate at least some heat as waste energy. You just have to accept that you are going to have to waste some energy.

Most of this is irrelevant though. There's not much need to simulate realism in a space battle. The only need is to make it fun. At least in the context of implementing them in an RTS.

Asteroid belts are very, very sparse, so it'd be less about maneuvering around obstacles and more about chaff; which asteroid is your enemy hiding behind?

Go to college and study physics, chemistry, biology, medicine or engineering.

I don't think _you_ really have a grasp of emptiness of space. You exist. You exist in a point in the universe. If you want to exist in a different point in the universe, you have to /move there/.

Moving takes time and energy.

To go into the depths of that mind-bogglingly huge bit of space you so gleefully mentioned, you either need to spend a fuckton of energy to get there, or wait a century (or more) to get there.

Why the hell do you need to cover an area of space that you know nobody is going to be in? As you pointed out;

SPACE

IS

BIG.

REALLY

BIG.

It's so big that you never want to be in 99.99% of it. You don't want to be in those parts because it costs too damn much to get there, and too damn much to shoot things out of it. I'm not going to look for you in that 99.99% because I know you're not going to be there.

Hiding behind a planet is great; you're only visible to the cold lonely parts of space... where there aren't going to be any eyes to see you.

And if your laser didn't disable my ship? What then?

What does that have to do with the price of cheese?

Yeah, Second Law of Thermo and all that. Doesn't mean that a bullet will have less wasted energy than an equivalently energetic laser. In the end, if you've only got x units of energy to wreck something with; an old-fashioned bullet is going to help you the most.