Outsider Ground War

[Cthulhu]

Okay, are we discussing mere theoretical possibilities or a viable defensive tactic in the Outsider universe? For that we need to define some variables.

1. How much better are the defensive platforms? For example, if we can assume that a purely defensive installation costs about, say, a quarter of what a similarly powerful ship costs, then it may be economically feasible to divert enough resources from shipbuilding into constructing citadels and setting up asteroid bases (which also need to be towed into position). Otherwise a fleet is going to be the better option because it can be massed to intercept the enemy, especially considering farsight. (For all MoO II players, remember how a star base costs only half of what a battleship costs, but a battleship can protects every planet in a system or even in an another one. If you can see the enemy's movements and have good hyperdrives, a fleet is the better choice for defense, considering limited resources.)

2. A (semi)-stationary defense is only a good investment if it is placed around a asset which the enemy wants to capture or if it is set up in some kind of a bottleneck. Bottlenecks are quite impossible in space, thus it only leaves valuable assets, usually planets. Are the combatants more inclined to capture civilians or maybe just the planets? After Seren both powers are more inclined to exterminate the other side then to capture civilian populations, thus ground wars are going to be quite different from space invasions. Why defend against something what the enemy will not attempt?

3. Umiak consider the Loroi civilian populations to be non-assimilatable and captured Loroi, like on Seren, were simply eradicated . It can be assumed that the Loroi will do the same to the Umiak. It appears to be that at this point it is easier to eradicate enemy civilian populations and then re-settle the planet, because the enemy civilians can not be pacified in a reasonable timescale. Thus it is not very likely that any side will consider wasting too much resources on extensive ground forces, because it is easier to kill everyone from space and then re-settle the planet. If any power can destroy the other side's fleets, then it can besiege its planets for as long as they see it fit. If someone surrenders, especially allied races, then they will be spared, others will be killed. That is one possibility why at the end of any era there were massive orbital bombardments. (Again, for all MoO II players, imagine the "Klackons" capture a planet in ground combat. After that, without the Alien Management Center it will take 20 turns to assimilate each captured population unit. A Terran planet with a population of 12 or 16 will take ages to be productive, with the constant risk of a rebellion until more troops are stationed there. What would any player do? Try to get rid of the aliens unless they have very, very good racial bonuses. The "Elelerians" do not have any and thus their fate is the same as on Seren. In fact, one only risks ground combat for the chance to capture techs, buildings and earning points for captured population units, assuming they are too weak to keep and will be exterminated later. If those things are not worth the effort, nuke 'em away. Or nuke them just because a massive counterattack is coming.)

4. How will the ground war be then? If any side can win the space battle in a certain system, then it can continue the assault in the next ones. Meanwhile any planets behind the new front lines can be blockaded and besieged. Since they can not contribute anything to the losing empire anymore they are essentially lost until the system can be recaptured. The winning empire can simply decide to leave them and all their defensive installation be until the war is won and then demand a surrender. Or it can take its time to bombard it from space with whatever it takes. Even if the planet is heavily defended, something will still come through and decimate the defenders and the defenses. If the goal is to eradicate the stubborn population anyway, the options are practically unlimited, save for a new ice age or a complete glassing of the surface. The only exception is if the planet is too valuable to pound, for example if it contains Soia artifacts or extensive industry. There a full-scale invasion might be worth the effort.

5. How to protect oneself then? Any defensive installations need to cross the most likely plans of the enemy.
- Only those planets the enemy wants to capture intact need to be heavily defended. However since those are most likely at the core of the empire, the war is usually lost if the enemy gets this far. It can however buy some time to fall back, regroup and then to start a counterattack.
- The defenses of any planet the enemy does not want to capture intact do not need to be that extensive. Instead they should only stall the enemy and give some time to evacuate if the planet cannot be defended properly. Any planet one side has no intentions to capture intact and the other side having not enough power to protect will be simply added to the Charred Steppes. This is very likely the other reason why many planets were heavily bombarded in the past. After the war the winning empire hopes to gain so many new resources and planets, that a few "lost" ones do not matter.
- Even big citadels can be destroyed by a determined assault. It may appear as a viable tactic to let the enemy bleed out assaulting a fortified position, but the history of this war shows that even the Umiak are not that stupid. Since there are no bottlenecks, any fortress can be flanked. The point is, can the enemy be tricked into losing more resources to attack such a fortress then the fortress was worth?
- Fortified positions can assist defending fleets in a decisive battle and turn the battle in one's favor, but since it was already attempted (and not very successfully), how are the chances that it can be repeated and are those chances good enough to consider building the fortifications? Will the enemy really accept the challenge on your terms?
- Fortifications can free up some of the fleet from guarding duty, thus giving one more offensive power. Combined with the farseeing blocker, this might be a viable tactic for the Umiak to defend outposts and the like. The Loroi with their farseeing can however use their defensive fleets with pinpoint accuracy and do not need many fixed defenses.

P.S.: I intentionally omitted any specific technologies and their practical appliances. Is Outsider really such a hard sci-fi? And even if it is, then we should give the author the freedom to implement them as he sees fit. Which of course won't stop us from nitpicking later on .

P.P.S.: Embrace the insanity which stems from my wall 'o' text of DOOM! Ahem, I mean sorry for the long post...

[Arioch]

I don't think there would be quite that much cost savings for a battle station over a comparably-sized starship. A battle station needs pretty much all the same systems that a starship has, except for jump generators. A battle station still needs engines, though it can spend less on the drive components, and you'll still want artificial gravity and inertial dampers. It can be larger and heavier than is practical to build most starships, as it doesn't need to be as mobile and you don't have to worry about jump field coverage, though if it's very large it will probably have to be constructed in-system. It will also be able to divert power that would have gone for high acceleration into heavier weaponry.

I would guess that a battle station would cost perhaps 75% as much as a starship of the same size, but is probably better armed. If you have border systems like Seren or Azimol with important bases that come under regular attack, then I think it will make sense to build up a certain amount of local defenses. There are very few border systems that still have large civilian populations, so what needs to be protected is primarily your military bases and their supporting infrastructure. If the system needs orbital infrastructure such as spaceports and depots and shipyards, then it makes some sense to build them as hardened, armed stations that are more likely to survive an attack (rather than constantly rebuilding cheaper civilian platforms that are frequently damaged or destroyed). Second, while it's true that battle stations can't leave the system to aid in an attack on a different system, even the Loroi won't want to move 100% of their forces to every hotspot; Farseers are not 100% reliable, and important bases like Azimol and Seren will need some kind of defense all the time, regardless of whether there are attacks elsewhere. Battle stations can move anywhere within a system, just not as quickly as more conventional warships, and smaller battle stations can potentially be relocated to other systems by jump-capable tugs.

Because the Umiak regularly and deliberately attack high-value Loroi targets rather than trying to bypass them (in order to force the Loroi to defend and thereby expose themselves to casualties), I think it makes sense for the Loroi to build fairly large and well-armed citadels in the major frontier bases, supported by numerous smaller battle stations that can be redeployed throughout the system as needed. If the planet has airless moons, these will be good sites for ground bases. If the planet is moonless, you might consider towing in an asteroid or two, but I'm not sure that's really necessary.

The Umiak don't have Farseers and so must keep defensive forces (or at least patrols) in every border system, so battle stations might make sense, but they maintain very large defensive reserve fleets that don't rush around to hotspots the way the Loroi forces do, so battle stations are probably not as necessary. It's also true that when the Loroi do go on the offensive, they have a better record of breaking through than the Umiak, so "fixed" Umiak defenses have a greater chance of being bypassed than Loroi versions. I would expect the Umiak to build mostly cheap orbital platforms for the infastructure they need, and rely primarily on their extensive fleets for defense.

[daelyte]

The huge fortress isn't going to do anything to a fleet that is just passing through or has more interest in other strategic objectives in the system.

Exactly. The main weakness of static defenses is that you can't easily use them to fight somewhere else.

if the energy is not perfectly aligned with center of gravity it will turn the ship, it will not effect the first shot much, but is a nuisance for volleys since it forces perfect timing on shots or serious degradation of accuracy.

Hmm, yes it would be a nuisance for volleys. If you have more than one you can use them to correct for each other somewhat. Agile ships like those in Outsider must be able to turn pretty quick, so correcting for recoil shouldn't be too much of a problem.

You know the shots are fired relative to the ship's own velocity right? If you're moving towards an enemy ship at 3000 km/s and toss something out an airlock at 1 km/s, it will be moving towards the enemy at 3001 km/s. Unless you're moving exactly towards the enemy ship you're not likely to collide with your own shots, so only the Umiak have anything to worry about.

oh, and not to forget, no atmosphere to use for course correction = needs engine = more costly.

Same kind of propulsion as small missiles would have a similar cost, and you only need it for course correction so it can be on a large slug for solid impact. Forward thrust would come from the the coil gun and as I'm now realizing, the ships' combined velocities. If ships in battle are moving towards each other twice as fast as typical cruising speed, it's very possible to get into relativistic weapon territory and that's just nasty.

[daelyte]

I agree with Arioch's assessment concerning mobile battle stations, as well as what would be worth defending, and how the Loroi and Umiak doctrines would apply to such things.

I especially like Arioch's idea of hardened orbital infrastructure, and I would add that digging into an asteroid would be a cheap way to do that. It would be especially cheap if you don't install much more than point defense weapons on some of these. Energy weapons like lasers are small and cheap, if you already have the power sources for other reasons and plenty of mass to dissipate heat.



A fortified base can provide a convenient place to resupply and launch raids on an invader's supply lines in connected systems, making a citadel useful for force projection much like in our own medieval past.

If a planet has well designed heavy defenses, they would need to be overwhelmed to do any real damage, tying up a significant amount of the invader's mobile forces for a fraction of the cost. A blockade would take much less resources than an effective siege if there are heavy defenses in play. If a planets is capable of producing ships, they can build up a fleet to try to break the blockade, in addition to any reinforcements sent from outside the system.

The alternative for planets not worth defending is to evacuate and glass your own planet to deny the enemy any infrastructure you built (scorched earth policy) and may be how the charred steppes came about.



An asteroid base in a mostly stable orbit has a very different cost and role than a mobile battle station. I'd guess an asteroid base would have maybe 5-10% of the cost of a starship of comparable power.

A large asteroid like Vesta has a mean diameter of about 525 km, and a mass of about 259,076,000,000,000 kt. Eros is a bit smaller at 33 x 13 x 13 km and has a mass of "only" 6,690,000,000 kt. A 5x5x5 km asteroid of similar density would still be about 10,000 kt. Compare that to Outsider warships and you'll see its a bit more massive.

That much mass is only advantageous if you're not planning on moving it around much. I'm not sure of the size of the Loroi and Umiak fleet, but I'm guessing just one large asteroid could have as much mass as the entire fleet combined. Building subluminal propulsion for a starship of that size to move an anywhere near typical speed would be very impractical in terms of industrial capacity. Larger bases like airless moons might not be able to turn around quickly, so you might have to work with their natural rotation which may not be convenient for some types of weapons (large coil guns).

Getting it into position doesn't need to cost much if you're not in a hurry, you can give it a nudge and let it drift for a few months while installing whatever you want to build. Some asteroids come close to the desired planetary orbit, or even intersect it, so they could be diverted more easily.

Digging into an asteroid would be much cheaper than building a large solid structure. I would guess an asteroid fortress would cost half as much as a similarly armed ship (not same size or power), due to only needing enough propulsion to maintain orbit or slowly turn towards incoming attackers.

All that mass provides a lot of heat dissipation, allowing for more energy output and constant firing for a long time without needing to cool down. Extra mass also acts as armor, because most weapons damage can be boiled down to heat energy vs whatever you're trying to vaporize.

So I think an asteroid base could be cheaper, more powerful, and harder to destroy than a similarly armed starship, at the cost of being able to defend only one planet that it is orbiting.

[icekatze]

hi hi

They still need surface area in order to fire. Any weapon port on the surface can be targeted. And if you're talking about a dwarf planet like Ceres, you're not going to be able to aim anything that isn't turreted or self-guided. It might buy you some time while the enemy has to stop and glass the surface, but no matter how big your weapons get, they're not going to be able to scale your way past the problem of light-speed lag when attacking accelerating targets who are using beam weaponry.

An asteroid may be significantly larger than a starship, but any manufactured component (like weaponry) is going to need to be manufactured just like on a starship, then its right back to opportunity cost.

[daelyte]

Any weapon port on the surface can be targeted.

Any weapon port on the surface can be closed unless the weapon is firing. Most weapons would require sustained fire to get through even a few meters of armor. If the port goes into the surface a bit, you'd have to target it almost head on for the duration of that sustained fire, which would be like sticking your head in a cannon. I wouldn't recommend that.

Anyway, targeted with what? Particle beams have very short range and can be stopped with defensive screens. Lasers and plasma weapons have limited range and do heat damage which means you must keep them on target to get through any kind of armor. Missiles can be scragged, especially if you have plenty of energy to fire point defense lasers continuously. What does that leave?

And if you're talking about a dwarf planet like Ceres, you're not going to be able to aim anything that isn't turreted or self-guided.

Quite right, which is why an asteroid a few kilometers in diameter seems more reasonable.

no matter how big your weapons get, they're not going to be able to scale your way past the problem of light-speed lag when attacking accelerating targets

Yes we can. If you can spare the energy or ammunition, you can just spread out your fire to cover the area that the ship could be by the time your weapons would get there. Weapons that have some guidance and propulsion can cover an even greater potential area, because they can continue to adjust their trajectory as they get fresh information.

Lightspeed lag is less of a factor if the trajectory is somewhat predictable. That means any enemies can't come straight towards you or whatever you're protecting, nor can they move on any constant direction without the risk of getting shot down. That means they are constantly fighting their own inertia, slowing them down and wasting fuel.

What's more, you assume that the target's acceleration can be applied in ANY randomly-chosen direction with equal ease. If a ship's primary thrusters are facing the back of the ship, the ship has to turn to accelerate in another direction. How fast can the maneuvering thrusters turn the entire ship's mass around?

An asteroid may be significantly larger than a starship, but any manufactured component (like weaponry) is going to need to be manufactured just like on a starship, then its right back to opportunity cost.

Yes, manufactured components would cost the same for starships and asteroid bases.

Outsider torpedoes explode their own fuel instead of using warheads, they are therefore almost 100% of propulsion. Starships go half the speed of torpedoes, therefore I assume propulsion must be half the mass and probably half the cost of a starship. Starships also needs heat sinks so they can more endurance than a torpedo, and some armor so they don't get torn to shreds by point defense lasers.

An orbital asteroid base really wouldn't need much engines, and it can save on heatsinks and armor. It would still need weapons, power, life support, sensors and electronics, and a few other manufactured components. Of these, power and life support would probably be the most expensive, especially power since excess heat is less of a problem than for spaceships.

[Arioch]

What's more, you assume that the target's acceleration can be applied in ANY randomly-chosen direction with equal ease. If a ship's primary thrusters are facing the back of the ship, the ship has to turn to accelerate in another direction. How fast can the maneuvering thrusters turn the entire ship's mass around?

Ships can turn pretty quickly using differential thrust of the main engines (especially the Loroi ships, which have two large main engines spaced well off the central axis), but a ship doesn't have to turn at all to "dodge" a shot. All it has to do is vary its acceleration regularly in the direction it's already heading, to cause a shot to miss in front or behind it. This won't work very well against beam weapons inside about half a light second, but it will work just fine against projectile weapons up to very close range. Naturally, this assumes the target is not heading directly towards the firer.

[bunnyboy]

The planetary defense can be build on planet. Ground telescope designed today get better images than Hubble, because they can adjust on to interference of athmosphere in microseconds. So build lasers. Even if the target is so far away, that it doesn't get damaged, you can keep their sensors blind and if you can heat the ships faster than it can radiate (cool themselves), they had to turn away or start sweating. It is very hard to hit any target, when your toilets are boiling and tin on your computers start melting.

[GeoModder]

The planetary defense can be build on planet. Ground telescope designed today get better images than Hubble, because they can adjust on to interference of athmosphere in microseconds. So build lasers. Even if the target is so far away, that it doesn't get damaged, you can keep their sensors blind and if you can heat the ships faster than it can radiate (cool themselves), they had to turn away or start sweating. It is very hard to hit any target, when your toilets are boiling and tin on your computers start melting.

That would be a feat, heating a ship as a whole to boiling water temperatures from a distance of a light-second.
(if the whole ship isn't involved, the water won't start boiling)

And a ship could easily evade a 'blinding' laser by just using the lateral thrusters.

[Just a Crazy-Man]

Just to ask what kinda personnel weapons and equipment Loroi Marines, army, and security forces use?

[daelyte]

Ships can turn pretty quickly using differential thrust of the main engines (especially the Loroi ships, which have two large main engines spaced well off the central axis), but a ship doesn't have to turn at all to "dodge" a shot. All it has to do is vary its acceleration regularly in the direction it's already heading, to cause a shot to miss in front or behind it.

Using differential thrust of the main engines is certainly faster than maneuvering thrusters, but still has limitations. Based on what I saw in the comic itself, I'm assuming gimbaled thrust is involved as well. However, it doesn't look like the main thrusters can fire forward (like B5 starfuries) or be turned entirely sideways, so...

1. A ship can't go backwards that way or even slow down, the only options are continuing at the current speed or how much to accelerate.

2. Using differential thrust to alter course means not fully using forward thrust, limiting how far the ship will be from its projected course.

3. The ship will continue to rotate until that rotation is countered by differential thrust in the other direction, reducing acceleration again.

4. The ship will continue to move in the same direction, plus whatever thrust is applied in another direction. Rotating the ship doesn't apply its existing momentum to the new course.

5. With only two thrusters, all this only works in one plane, so the ship has to present its belly (or top) to the enemy to fully alter the possible arcs of fire. Gimbaled thrust could provide some rotation in other directions but this would be much more limited.

All of which means that while a ship that can accelerate at "30 G" may be up to "588 meters" ahead of its expected course within 2 seconds, its ability to move in other directions using differential thrust with two main thrusters is limited to basically a flattened sphere of probabilities.

Thinking about differential thrust, why wouldn't a space missile use that as well? It's not like it needs to be aerodynamic or anything.

This won't work very well against beam weapons inside about half a light second, but it will work just fine against projectile weapons up to very close range. Naturally, this assumes the target is not heading directly towards the firer.

Projectile weapons with some thrust can adjust their course as they get closer, beam weapons can't. They can also choose to accelerate or not.

There may be enough evasion for combat between relatively equal ships, but against a static base that can spare more weapons/shots to cover a broad range of possible locations, the chance of a hit are much higher so the effective range is extended.

If heat dissipation is not a problem, continuous fire using beam weapons is more of an option. That means that even if it fires ahead of where the target is going, it can just keep shooting and the ship will walk right into it.

An asteroid-based laser could have longer effective range (power not accuracy), because even if intensity is lost over distance, more power can help make up for that. I think it could easily have double or triple the normal range compared to a ship-based laser so long as it can spare the power (and heat sinks).

[Arioch]

what kinda personnel weapons and equipment Loroi Marines, army, and security forces use?

The three security officers in the recent pages (98-101) are outfitted in typical Marine gear: medium armor and a blaster assault rifle (a particle beam weapon). Shipboard marines will prefer energy weapons to slugthrowers because they operate in a delicate environment and need to be precise in their application of firepower, and energy weapons can be more easily "dialed" up or down as the situtions demands. Marines will also typically carry anti-personnel grenades, breaching charges, and other tools for operating in and around spacecraft.

Surface army units will equipped in a similar manner, though with a greater variety of weapons. The standard army assault rifle will probably be a slugthrower with armor-piercing and incendiary ammunition. Some units will use heavier armor. Since Loroi are not known for their great physical strength, I think most squad heavy weapons will be self-propelled.

Projectile weapons with some thrust can adjust their course as they get closer, beam weapons can't.

The important distinction there is that it takes even the fastest projectiles 10-20 minutes to cross the same distance that a beam crosses in 1 second, and the projectiles themselves can be shot at with beams.

[Just a Crazy-Man]

Black Ops or Loroi Commandos?

[Arioch]

Black Ops or Loroi Commandos?

Traditional commando operations require access to enemy territory, which you won't have most of the time. But any such forces would probably be outfitted the same way as army or marine troops (and would probably include Mizol).

[Just a Crazy-Man]

Any skin tight black ops Stealth suits that hide someone from many form of sensors.

[Smithy]

The three security officers in the recent pages (98-101) are outfitted in typical Marine gear: medium armor....

That's medium armour!?

It's definitely a step above the flak jacket on page 36. So I'm wondering is heavy armour just bolting on a larger chest & neck plate to the medium armour, à la the x-com reboot heavy class?

[daelyte]

Shipboard marines will prefer energy weapons to slugthrowers because they operate in a delicate environment and need to be precise in their application of firepower, and energy weapons can be more easily "dialed" up or down as the situtions demands.

Makes sense.

The important distinction there is that it takes even the fastest projectiles 10-20 minutes to cross the same distance that a beam crosses in 1 second, and the projectiles themselves can be shot at with beams.

Yeah, that's pretty pitiful. You could get more initial acceleration with an external energy source.

Put the same amount of energy that would be used to accelerate a battleship into a 1000 ton slug and you could get 800,000x more acceleration. Over a 5 km track that would get you to 2190 km/s, which would cross a distance of 1 light second in 137 seconds. The acceleration time is 0.004563s so you can have a max fire rate of 220 slugs/second. I don't think shooting this kind projectile with beams would have much effect.

100 tons and 10x as much power gets you 21936 km/s, which can cross a 1 light second distance in 13 seconds, with a max fire rate of 2192 slugs/second. Here beam weapons might melt it, but I'm not sure how that would help given that it would probably vaporize on impact anyway.

Now, obviously a smart slug would get less acceleration for its mass, proportional to how much of that mass is non-ferromagnetic, so there's a tradeoff between muzzle velocity and post-launch thrust. For example, a 50/50 slug/missile hybrid would only have 70% as much muzzle velocity as a full slug of the same mass, but can change course (or continue to accelerate!) once it's out.

Edit: numbers were off concerning how many tons in a kiloton, scaled up the mass of the slugs accordingly

[Arioch]

Put the same amount of energy that would be used to accelerate a battleship into a 1 ton slug and you could get 800,000x more acceleration. Over a 5 km track that would get you to 2190 km/s, which would cross a distance of 1 light second in 137 seconds.

As has been discussed a lot on these forums, there are inherent problems in ultra-high-velocity mass drivers. The first problem is how to subject any projectile to that much energy without vaporizing it. The second is how you accurately aim a 5km-long barrel at a moving target. There are are more, but those two will suffice, especially when your best-case time on target is still more than 2 minutes.

So I'm wondering is heavy armour just bolting on a larger chest & neck plate to the medium armour, à la the x-com reboot heavy class?

I imagine true "heavy" armor as being bulkier and giving 100% coverage (without the gaps at the joints that lighter armor has). The sort of thing you might need for EOD or toxic environments, or a role where you need to be moving around where shells are going off around you (perhaps artillery spotting, or some combat engineering jobs).

[Just a Crazy-Man]

Any power armor?

[Mayhem]

Put the same amount of energy that would be used to accelerate a battleship into a 1 ton slug and you could get 800,000x more acceleration. Over a 5 km track that would get you to 2190 km/s, which would cross a distance of 1 light second in 137 seconds. The acceleration time is 0.004563s so you can have a max fire rate of 220 slugs/second. I don't think shooting this kind projectile with beams would have much effect.

1/10th of a ton (100 kg) and 10x as much power gets you 21936 km/s, which can cross a 1 light second distance in 13 seconds, with a max fire rate of 2192 slugs/second. Here beam weapons might melt it, but I'm not sure how that would help given that it would probably vaporize on impact anyway.

This seems a good point to jump in with a quote from my sig.

Particle beam cannons are mass drivers

I had a great spiel about it on the old forum but it appears the old forum has finally been deleted so I can't look it up.

Short version:
In order for your mass driver to be useful against mobile targets at range, you drop the slug mass to increase the slug velocity. Taking this to its logical conclusion you get particle beam cannons.