What do you think are the top 10 Spaceship weapons?

[Aramanthus]

That would fall under Bio weapons. And I'm sure the three galaxies has their share of those weapons and their stock piles.

[taalismn]

Temporal Distorters---because it's hard to effectively operate a ship when one moment you're doing exactly what you did five minutes ago, and the next moment you're doing something you MIGHT/WILL BE/MIGHT HAVE DONE six minutes later....

[Aramanthus]

That is when you have someone on board who can break the chronic hysteresis for your ship.

[KLM]

One of the most usefull effects of the Rift Canon is when the target is
teleported into the (near) future.

This means after a salvo, the Warlock Navy has to deal only with parts
of the enemy fleet, not the whole task force.

Adios
KLM

[taalismn]

One of the most usefull effects of the Rift Canon is when the target is
teleported into the (near) future.

This means after a salvo, the Warlock Navy has to deal only with parts
of the enemy fleet, not the whole task force.

Adios
KLM

Yep...you can do all sorts of nastiness--lay mines for any 'returners', lay in wait, call up reinforcements...

[KLM]

D
1.) Nuclear Weapons. either atomic fission or atomic fusion. The best bang for your buck. cheap, powerful, decently compact, and pretty unlikely to suffer catastrophic results if moved/banged around. (this especially true if you have some form of Fusion bomb that does not need a fission bomb trigger. then you don't even need to worry about radiation.) put them in as shells for guns or as warheads on missiles/torpedo's. the big drawback? contact detonation only for results. in a vacuum, there is no air to make a shockwave. a nuke in space does it's damage from the thermal energy it puts out (via various wavelengths of light, including things like X-rays), of which intensities drop off quickly due to distance. unless your within a kilometer, the worst it'll do is look very bright. and even within a kilometer, it'll not do much more than burn away paint unless your within a few hundred meters.

Just giving it a bump:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_New_York_%28BB-34%29
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German_cru ... rinz_Eugen

It looks like nukes aren't particularly effective against "hard" targets even in
atmosphere (or underwater) for that matter, so better score a direct hit.

Adios
KLM

[KLM]

Not neccessarily, even if the term "projectile" includes missiles (self propelled, guided projectile).

Adios
KLM

[DhAkael]

In regards to the cap-ship scaled psi-amplifiers.
There's one angle you forgot; anti-demon.
Get a few psionic healers / exorcists linked-in to a psi-amp array...Demon Stars, beware!!!!

[Aramanthus]

That is a great point DhAkael! One that we had missed. Thank you!

[KLM]

Huhh?

"Canon" shield defend against hypervelocity slugs, rays of all sorts, even against
a ray of frost spell (if there is a ray of frost in Palladium)...

Adios
KLM

[taalismn]

Cold-based weaponry tend to be rather useless against spacecraft unless they're REALLY weak and flimsy...
Try lobbing rockhard ice at hypervelocity, however....the famous 'snowflake wall' for hammering ships moving at near-light velocity without proper shielding....

[KLM]

Cold-based weaponry tend to be rather useless against spacecraft unless they're REALLY weak and flimsy...

Of course, directing a jet of liquid helium (for example) against a starship will not cause much
damage (thought it might cause cracks if the hull was heated to a few hundred degrees by
sunlight).

Cold based weaponry however might mean sucking away thermal energy - and the brittlenes
of materials around the Absolute Zero, coupled with thermal expansion (or contraction for
that matter) will cause severe damage. Of course it is only feasible with magic, not with
the "canon, standard" tech of the 3 Galaxies.

Mind you, it all started when I stated that shields (among other things) do protect against
cold-based (magical) attacks too.

Adios
KLM

[taalismn]

My top 10:

Relativistic kill vehicle (The forever war)
Duodec (from Lensman)
The Death Star Super Laser (star wars)
Nova Cannons & Graviton Pulsars (from 40K - imperial)
Frag Cannon (Farscape)
Protobolters (from Silent Death).
Boarding Missiles, filled with troops (Spacemaster)
Rail Cannons (various)
Photon Torpedoes (various)
Lasers (various)

Forgot: Inertialless Planets(Lensmen)
Transporting two large planets to either side of your target, then letting them go moving on a collision course...
E.E. 'Doc' Smith also gave us the 'Sun Beam', a massive plasma weapon that temporarily takes all the sun's energy and focuses it into one powerful beam....

Singularity Weapons(Weber's 'Heirs to the Empire')

Also in the 'too powerful for tactical use'

Relatvistic Missiles(James Pelligrino's -Killing Star-)
Buster Machine #3(Gunbuster....a black hole bomb using Jupiter as the critical mass)

[Aramanthus]

And don't forget that special weapon in Galaxy Quest. Omega 13.... The one that gives you last 13 seconds back for your own use against your enemies. Taalismn, you mentioned several of my favorites.....David Weber's works, E.E. "Doc" Smith and of course Gunbuster.

[Aramanthus]

At the very end of the movie when on the way back to earth and everyone is shot by the villian of the movie. The captain (Tim Allen) pushes that rod back down in the command chair and it resets the universe for the needed 13 seconds. And everything is changed because of it.

[KLM]

Ever heard that "Soldier, your most dangerous weapon is your radio!" ?

"Communication, sensors and mobility" beat "firepower and thick hides" at
least 6 days a week, IMO.

Adios
KLM

[taalismn]

Ever heard that "Soldier, your most dangerous weapon is your radio!" ?

"Communication, sensors and mobility" beat "firepower and thick hides" at
least 6 days a week, IMO.

Adios
KLM

"Death Star coming your way. Please move your planet."
-Warning to Aldarran..

[KLM]

Well, that was on Sunday (ie. the 7th day of the week).

On the next day, around the gas giant Yavin, however...

Adios
KLM

[taalismn]

Well, that was on Sunday (ie. the 7th day of the week).

On the next day, around the gas giant Yavin, however...

Adios
KLM

Yep...and just in case R2 didn't make it, I sent a copy of the blueprints via Fed-Ex."
"Not Big Brown?"
"IPS? _Imperial_ Parcel Service? I'm not STUPID."

[Aramanthus]

ROFLMAO!!!! Those were some great ones!!!!

[Qev]

I think my #1 is Noach weapons from Anvil of Stars. A single spacecraft (crewed by children) solos an entire super-tech solar system civilization.

[Aramanthus]

Sounds like an interesting book. Which is the weapon you are referring too Qev? Is it the weapon that destroys civilazations. Or is it something that they use against their creators.

[glitterboy2098]

Cold-based weaponry tend to be rather useless against spacecraft unless they're REALLY weak and flimsy...

Of course, directing a jet of liquid helium (for example) against a starship will not cause much
damage (thought it might cause cracks if the hull was heated to a few hundred degrees by
sunlight).

Cold based weaponry however might mean sucking away thermal energy - and the brittlenes
of materials around the Absolute Zero, coupled with thermal expansion (or contraction for
that matter) will cause severe damage. Of course it is only feasible with magic, not with
the "canon, standard" tech of the 3 Galaxies.

Mind you, it all started when I stated that shields (among other things) do protect against
cold-based (magical) attacks too.

Adios
KLM

actually your going to just make the ship more dangerous. spacecraft have to deal with multi hundred kelvin temps on the sunwardside, and temps in the dozen kelvin on the shaded side.

use magic to reduce the temps further and you just make it's radiators more efficent.

on the otherhand, a laser or microwave based 'heatray', using unfocused light/radiation to heat up the materials of the enemy ship might be useful in a lower tech setting. by heating the ship, you give it more heat to have to deal with. since in battle a ship is generally going ot be running with radiators off and heatsink's to store heat until the fragile radiators can be deployed, this could force an enemy to surrender without having to blast his ship to peices first.

the downside? the heatray projector is going to generate more heat on the ship it is mounted in than on the target it is fired at. so a ship so equipped will likely overheat itself before it can force it's target to do so. (adding additional heat sink capacity could offset this, but once the heatray becomes a common bit of tech, the enemy would start building their ships with extra heatsink capacity as well...)



for "handwave" technology, i think star trek novels have some interesting ones, if a bit overpowered in some. for example, the novel Inflitrator had a colony of geneticly engineered "superhumans" with, amid other enhancements, improved intellegence, employ weapons like Anti-Gluon beams (which caused stuff to break down to their component quantum particles), nanite dissesemblers (which literally took apart ships atom by atom), singularity torpedo's (used an artificial singularity designed to Evaporate once the stabilizing device in the torpedo was turned off, the resulting expulsion of mass was equivilent to a reaction involving 6 tons of antimatter/matter, (gigatons of damage..)....later you found out they also had multi-lightyear transporters, antimatter inverters able to convert antimatter to regular matter from a distance, and so on. disasterous war was narrowly averted by the fact they were engineered by their creators to be meek and non-violent, and once the expansionist political leadership was removed from power, a peace treaty could be signed..

yes, the technobabble did flow in that one.

[KLM]

Cold-based weaponry tend to be rather useless against spacecraft unless they're REALLY weak and flimsy...

Of course, directing a jet of liquid helium (for example) against a starship will not cause much
damage (thought it might cause cracks if the hull was heated to a few hundred degrees by
sunlight).

Cold based weaponry however might mean sucking away thermal energy - and the brittlenes
of materials around the Absolute Zero, coupled with thermal expansion (or contraction for
that matter) will cause severe damage. Of course it is only feasible with magic, not with
the "canon, standard" tech of the 3 Galaxies.

Mind you, it all started when I stated that shields (among other things) do protect against
cold-based (magical) attacks too.

Adios
KLM

actually your going to just make the ship more dangerous. spacecraft have to deal with multi hundred kelvin temps on the sunwardside, and temps in the dozen kelvin on the shaded side.

use magic to reduce the temps further and you just make it's radiators more efficent.

If an ice dragon breaths on your ship's radiator fin (aside from making the science officer a bit
hysterical ), the effect probably freezes whatever coolant is used, but only in a more
or less limited area.

First, the pipeline has to deal with the sudden drop of several hundred degrees, second, parts
of the radiator are actually blocked by "ice" - which results in a temporary loss of cooling area
(because we can assume that the coolant has a very high specific heat value, so unless the
radiator has some form of heating installed, it will take quite a time to melt the "plugs").

On a severe case, the pipeline of the radiator breaks, resulting in coolant loss and
cooling area loss. In the most overkill cases, the magic frost ray/breath weapon
causes the onboard fusion reactor to stop, the hull becoming superconductor,
shorting out electronics and of course killing the crew.

In the lightest case, refer to "SDC weapons vs MDC structures" topic -
shooting a jet of - say - liquid nitrogen against an MDC starship won't do much,
even if MacGyver assembled the device - so it is definitely the case.

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

I don't think the dragon breathing on a radiator in space is going to have any sort of effect on the radiator. Since space runs the gauntlet in range of temperatures. You'd think most space ships especially if they are MDC would be nearly immune to the effects of the ice dragon's breatrh weapon. I don't foresee it causing any problems for the ship. But that is only my opinion.

[KLM]

I don't think the dragon breathing on a radiator in space is going to have any sort of effect on the radiator. Since space runs the gauntlet in range of temperatures. You'd think most space ships especially if they are MDC would be nearly immune to the effects of the ice dragon's breatrh weapon. I don't foresee it causing any problems for the ship. But that is only my opinion.

I have to disagree.

First, I have a heat-resistant glass baking pan. I can store it in the freezer or roast meat on 250 celsius.

However, get it out of the owen, and put it into a pile of snow, and it will shatter. Heck, even metal
fireplaces can be cracked by good sized icycle.

After all, the ice breath weapons does MDC, and you have to explain as a GM, how...

Now, of course, the engine of a Scimitar frigate has like 1200 MD, and the breath of an ice dragon
causes like 5d6MD (17,5 on the average) so it takes quite a time for a hatchling to do serious damage.

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

Everyone is allowed their opinion. And I'll stick with mine in this example.

[Greyaxe]

Though they have limmited ammo and have relatively short ranges; RAILGUNS!
Why?
Most ships have either energy refracting armour, or if magical in nature, impervious to energy.
Kinetic Kill linear accelerators tend to cut through that stuff

Technically railguns in space have an unlimited range they are just slow.

[DhAkael]

Though they have limmited ammo and have relatively short ranges; RAILGUNS!
Why?
Most ships have either energy refracting armour, or if magical in nature, impervious to energy.
Kinetic Kill linear accelerators tend to cut through that stuff

Technically railguns in space have an unlimited range they are just slow.

I meant short range for practical combat..if your target is stationary...-boom-

[Greyaxe]

Though they have limmited ammo and have relatively short ranges; RAILGUNS!
Why?
Most ships have either energy refracting armour, or if magical in nature, impervious to energy.
Kinetic Kill linear accelerators tend to cut through that stuff

Technically railguns in space have an unlimited range they are just slow.

I meant short range for practical combat..if your target is stationary...-boom-

YUP!!

[Aramanthus]

Planets, planetary bases and spacestations make great targets for rail guns.

[KLM]

Spacestations ought to have some means for manouvering. Not dogfight grade, but enough
to compensate those alterations in course caused by traffic, passing by celestial objects,
solar wind and flares, etc.

Maybe even tractor beams or fields...

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

That is true. BUt against a big gravity rail gun I don't think that will help them. But that is just me.

[KLM]

Depends on the flight time of the slugs and whether or not they have terminal guidance.

You know, even a planetoid can be kicked out of course with a small solar sail and even
wet navy battleships were able to dodge their kin's grenades.

----------
As a side note, tractor beams and fields should not be too usefull, at least tactically,
or else we can have pretty much invulnerable ships (impervious to energy spell AND
repulsor fields... brrr...).

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

That is true KLM. Unless you could throw a real crowbar at people. (Like from Renegade Legion) Even then those were still relatively short ranged.

[KLM]

A crowbar is a suitable support for any argument, in any debate

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

You are right about that!

[Aramanthus]

Just remember phase weaponary doesn't go thru force fields and big ships have big force fields. I takes a long time to affect those big ships.

[Syndicate]

Lots and lots of missiles, and a Fast'porting System.
Then a Mass Driver or two.

Eww...Mass Driver...nasty...

[Aramanthus]

They are nice weapons. But they have that limited range. The really big ones are great against relatively stationary objects.

[Aramanthus]

Sounds pretty nasty. I haven't seen that one at this time.

[KLM]

in AU you have those Giant Anti Metal Spiders that are invulnerable to All weapons save magic and particle beam weaponry. Very nasty to launch those at anything..

Provided you can keep them in the shell, prior launching

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

That or you could always find giant space wasp and have them paralyse some giant spiders then send them that way too. You just need to have someone inject the spider with something that neutralizes the wasp sting. That'd be a way to send your wasp.

[KLM]

Giant Anti-metal Spiders:

you can use their own cocoons, or Plastic....

Mhhh... I just realised, that the TGE ships are not built from metal.
Also, there is no guarantee, that starship hull are not made from
stuff like ceramics.
(Well, the Iron Ships are definitely making compasses mad... )

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

Well if the ships are made from shells of creatures they very likely are made of some naturally occuring ceramics. And the TGE might add various metals to reinforce various areas of their ships.

[KLM]

And the TGE might add various metals to reinforce various areas of their ships.

That question boggles me for long time (but not to the degree that I cannot sleep or
something ) - but sooner or later a TGE ship needs patching.

Do they weld metal plates to them?

My call is no. I would bet on something similar than nowadays we pacth up carbon- or
glassfiber stuff : resin, a piece of carbonfiber fabric, resin, repeat until done.

Now, if this resin comes from the ruk ness russ, it explains why the Hopebringer
(the FWC's only dread) has less than maximum MDC due to battle damage.
It is not the lack of facilities or know-how - its the lack of materials, namely the
resin, which forces the FWC to patch thier flagship with inferior materials.

So, the point is, that it is entirely possible that starships do not have metallic
parts potruding from the main armor, except maybe some antennae (not neccessary!)
and the business end of weaponry.

Some starships, that is.
-------------------

BtW, I still concerned about a delivery system for such a payload (be they anti-metal
spiders or just some beefed up T'Zee nanites), for the "eaters" (whatever they might
be) must pass the shields somehow, then survive the impact (both shock and intense
heat), then survive on the hull long enough to do damage.

Also, there is the "Hey Joe, you are dead!" issue - I mean if a TGE Berserker is hit
by these, but may be able to gut a few ships before she is disabled.

Adios
KLM

[Aramanthus]

That is a good point KLM! I suppose the TGE does have a way to repair the ceramic armor of their ships. They would have too.

[KLM]

Or chitin. Or whatever...

Adios
KLM

[taalismn]

The Bakalaponan paper starships are looking better and better, I see
(*don't bother looking for the Balalaponans in any of the books...they're a star system I created for several other threads and hope to stat out in detail...they're essentially the descendents of the inmates of an abandoned Golgan Republik penal colony/mental hospital/nueral medicine research facility...THey've since regained space travel, but favor unconventional propulsion systems like giant planet-based FTL slingshots, bootstrap lift systems, and folding paper spacecraft...)

[KLM]

They probably need some DNA injections since the hulls are after all living creatures, and I'm sure not much of the FWC has dawned upon this.

Err... The TGE ships are not alive. Well, not anymore than your average
wooden ship from this reality - which are also made of (once)living
creatures (ie. trees), but otherwise they are not alive.

Anyway, the concept of actually living ships is... Well, interesting.

Adios
KLM