Well you can try to give planets ability points or weapons ports in XSI. Ive not done it yet so Im not sure it possible. You can give planets a passive ability, That does work. Have a working test of that. Im attempting to see if you can have a structure buff the planet so it can shoot. But my limited knowlege in modding is slowing progress.

Anyhow, it would be nice if you kind IC folks could either in Diplomacy or another Entrechment patch, give us a way to give planets active abilities it would super super super super super super cool of ya!

well when it comes to planetary weapons i could see how the vasari could easily pull it off make a gun emplacement on the planet that fires things into phase space that exit it after a certain amount of time (hopefully fixing issues with things like gravity and atmosphereic conditions and then after it exits that atmostphere it reenters normal space for either impact or explosive goodness

just by the personality of the way the tech do things i wouldnt be suprised if it was something like a massive icbm of uberdeath

and the advant it could by something like a concentrated phyonic blast of confusing energy .....stuff or they could throw a mad kitten at them they both work

Uhm, you just said that there is more room on a planet to build stuff, than there is in space.... You do know thats totally and utterly wrong right? How can their possibly be more room on a planets surface than there is in the infinate expanse of outer space?!?!

The clue is in the name, 'space'

Seriously, there is infinate room in space for building truely massive guns that are also not as effected by gravitational forces, and as such, are easier to design as you don't have to take into consideration wether it will 'stand up' under its own weight. Look at the tech super weapon, its a giant space gun nearly half the size of a planet! There is no way you'd be able to build something that big on a planets surface without it collapsing under its own weight.

Its also worth noting that the games primary building materials (metal and crystals) are extracted from asteroids floating in space, these materials would actually be easier to ship to a construction site in space than it would be to get them down to the surface of a planet in one piece (or without crashing into your own cities).

Logistically speaking, given the game world that sins employs, it is far far easier and cheaper to build a massive gun in space and fire at other things in space, than it is to ship all that stuff safely down to a planets surface and build it there, where you have gravity and atmosphere to worry about. (a planets natural resources are being used to supply the massive populations they have, not to build massive guns!)

so basicly, yes, it is possible to build massive guns on the surface of the planet to shoot at things in space, but its not economically sound. It makes more sense to build them in space, where you can build them bigger and cheaper and with less complications (we are assuming they have already mastered the art of living and building in space, given that they are more than capable of constructing large fleets and orbital structures :P)

one problem with the above- Conservation of Momentum.

If a gun has a projectile energy of several gigatons/teratons/really large number of TNT ton equivalent yield, then it will require AT LEAST that much amount of energy to actually FIRE a round, and have that much force in RECOIL.

In short, if a gun can turn a planet into dust, it has more than enough recoil to send it moving backwards at velocities that are a significant percentage of the speed of light.

This is because there is no medium for the recoil to be absorbed by. This medium on a planet is the planet's surface or crust. In space, the medium is the gun itself.

Momentum is conserved, so I am not sure what is meant by having a medium to absorb the recoil.

The equation is,

Mass_a * Velocity_a = Mass_b * Velocity_b

For any amount of momentum given to a projectile, the same quantity has to be given to whatever has launched it, whether it is a gun in orbit or a mounted cannon on a planet. If the orbital gun were to have the same mass as a given planet, which is not likely but let's pretend the mass has the same value, then the resultant velocity after firing would be the same for a planet with no atmosphere. For a planet with an atmosphere, some of the momentum is returned to the planet by the air resistance, so that would reduce some of the momentum of the projectile as it is leaving the atmosphere and return it to the planet.

The planet's surface will reduce the amount of impluse, the force distributed times time which is equal to the momentum, but it will not reduce the total amount of momentum.

my basic point is that a giant orbital cannon doesn't have anything for its recoil force to be distributed/dissipated against. A planetary cannon does.

Of course, then there is the fact that such a huge structure has to have an immense amount of structural strength, in order to not collapse in on ITSELF! Plus, there is the sheer amount of resources involved.

And for the killing blow to a giant orbital space cannon, there is the fact that there is no stealth in space. None. Zip, zilch, nada. No stealth=no way to hide your big friggin' space-borne weapons platform. On a planet though, a weapon can be hidden VERY easily and effectively, is much easier to construct (laborers are already on location, sort of), and while one planetary gun system may not be as effective as a giant space cannon, many planetary weapons batteries will be vastly more effective, because of the difficulty of accurately attacking said batteries.

EDIT: I just realized that I DID NOT MEAN Conservation of Momentum, but actually meant Newton's 3rd Law- for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Ground to space weapons argument aside...

How about a planetary based sheild generator instead of the one we have now?

And planetary strike craft hangers? Orbital hangers could be much faster to throw out a reaction to a provokation, but the planet itself could support vastly larger number of squadrons than orbital hangers. Not to mention the orbital hangers would be more expensive...

THOUHTS???

OK this is slightly off-topic but one thing about sc. Why not add another type of sc? planetary bombing sc. They cant attack anything but planets, maybe only capital carriers/starbases can field these

Recoilless projectile weapons can be designed. You expel a particle in the opposite vector with the same momentum as the one you fire forwards. Net momentum = zero, no recoil.

Hiding a weapon on a planet is fine; until you fire it, that is. Space is much the same issue. Actually, it can be harder to find a space based weapon since there's just so much more room to hide it in. Consider the basics: the surface of a planet of radius R. The amount of space you can hide it in is 4(pi)(r)^2. Let's compare with a similar situation, except there's no planet; just empty space. The area you can now place said weapon is 4/3(pi)(r)^3. That's a heckuvalot greater space to search. Granted, there's no cover; but you don't need cover. If you made the weapon out of stealth materials, you couldn't generate a useful electromagnetic (EM) return off of it, thus making it effectively invisible.

Yes, that's right. Something in space is naturally invisible, unless it emits radiation (essentially any EM radiation) or unless you can bounce something (EM radiation, particles, cannonballs) off of it. A weapon on a planet surface "hides" in plain sight amidst the clutter of other signals. A weapon in space "hides" by becoming a non-emitting, inert body in a very large volume.

Invisibility is not necessarily putting something between you and a sensor. Invisibility is preventing any kind of emission from yourself (or your immediate environment!) that a sensor could detec.

*sigh*. Yet another person who thinks there is stealth in space. There are numerous ways to find a giant space gun.

Let's start shall we?

1. An object in space (like a spacecraft, or space gun) is NOT naturally invisible. This is because the background temperature of the almost-total-vacuum of space is all of 3.5 Kelvins. Nearly absolute zero. A habitat module on a spacecraft would have a temperature of at least 285 Kelvins (about room temperature). Then there is the power source (likely nuclear or antimatter/matter), which will (if nuclear, est. similar if antimatter/matter) put of 800 Kelvins of temperature signature. Ergo, I just have to look for IR-emissions with a passive sensor.

2. Using excessive amounts of very large (hence very heavy) heat radiators causes the problem of possible star occlusion. Sure, you might not have a temp signature anymore, but now you have the problem of the enemy noticing you occluded a star.

3. Sure, space is big. That's probably why it's called space. But, quoting the Atomic Rockets site (which is quoting Ken Burnside by the way), "A full spherical sky search is 41,000 square degrees. A wide angle lens will cover about 100 square degrees (a typical SLR personal camera is about 1 square degree); you'll want overlap, so call it 480 exposures for a full sky search, with each exposure taking about 350 megapixels.

Estimated exposure time is about 30 seconds per 100 square degrees of sky looking for a magnitude 12 object (which is roughly what the drive I spec'd out earlier would be). So, 480 / 2 is 240 minutes, or about 4 HOURS for a complete sky survey. This will require signal processing of about 150 gigapizels per two hours, and take a terabyte of storage per sweep.

That sounds like a lot, but...

Assuming 1280x1024 resolution, playing an MMO at 60 frames per second...78,643,200 = 78 megapixels per second. Multiply by 14400 seconds for 4 hours, and you're in the realm of 1 terapixel per sky sweep Now, digital image comparison is in some ways harder, some ways easier than a 3-D gaming environment. We'll say it's about 8x as difficult - that means playing World of Warcraft on a gaming system for four hours is about comparable to 75 gigapixels of full sky search. So not quite current hardware, but probably a computer generation (2 years) away. Making it radiation hardened to work in space, and built to government procurement specs, maybe 8-10 years away.

I can buy terabyte hard drive arrays now.

I can reduce scan time by adding more sensors, but my choke point becomes data processing. On the other hand, it's not unreasonable to assume that the data processing equipment will get significantly better at about the same rate that gaming PCs get significantly better.

Now, this system has limits - it'll have trouble picking up a target within about 2 degrees of the sun without an occlusion filter, and even with one, it'll take extra time for those exposures.

It won't positively identify a target - it'll just give brightness and temperature and the fact that it's something radiating like a star that moves relative to the background.

3. The problem with having a recoilless weapon for a space-borne cannon on the scale of the Novalith/Kostura cannons, is that the same amount of energy from the projectile fired at the enemy planet (or ship) will be required for the counter-balance projectile. Hence, you now need twice as much energy to operate the weapon, as you need not only energy to fire 1 projectile but the energy to fire 2.

4. EM-returns? That would only be valid for an active sensor. Not a passive one. Active sensors 'ping' a target (much like sonar in a way), and they also tend to have shorter range, but greater identification capability, than passive sensors. Passive sensors on the other hand simply intercept whatever emissions your ship is already putting off. And a weapon on a planet can still be concealed for FAR longer time periods than one on a ship. PLUS, a giant space laser will not have the benefit of a planet's crust for use as a heat sink. A planetary laser cannon will.

To Derek06- this is an EXCELLENT idea. I like it very much, except for one thing- this bomber should be something that only capital carriers or starbases have (cap carriers&SBs being the only units with sufficient space and support capacity for the craft), and that the bomber be able to attack all units, but it simply has ANTIMODULE weapons, so it is really only effective against structures, and then has either an ability (which can be done with ease) to do damage to a planet, or actually has a 'bombing' point and 'bombs' the planet.

A couple of problems with that last post:

Firstly, your right that there is recoil, but that only applies to a physical cannon (not a laser) and it also still applies to plantery cannons. Something the size of the kostura cannon firing at a distant planet while mounted on a planets surface would cause so much recoil that it would knock the planet itself out of orbit! So really, a cannon that size is impractical whether in space or on a planet, it makes little difference (though I'd preffer it if my space cannon flew off backwards into the depths of space than my planet did!). Unless of course its launching a rocket or other self propelled projectile (which i'm assuming the kostura cannon does), in which case the whole point of recoil is moot and the space cannon still wins as the projectile doesn't have to escape the planets atmosphere.

A non-physical projectile would not have those issues, which leads me to the other problem with your post, how can a planet possably be a better heat sink than space itself!? You said yourself that space has a natural background temperature of 3.5 Kelvins, the temperature around a space cannon will be far far lower than the surface of a planet, and will dispate heat much much faster. It doesn't NEED a heat sink in space, it's sitting in the equivalent of liquid nitrogen already

As for smaller cannons, recoil can be conpensated by using high efficiency thrusters designed to 'burst' fire to specifically compensate for the fireing of the weapon. Sure on a planet you dont need that, so you don't need the extra energy there, but you still need extra energy to compensate for gravity and atmosphere, which one is a larger amount of energy? I don't know, thats one for a real physicist

And finally, why do people keep thinking that its cheaper to build these things on the planets surface? Remember that the materials used to build things in SoaSE are metals and crystals, which are extract from asteroids in space. It is cheaper to keep it in space and build stuff there than it is to ship it safely down to a planets surface and build there. Planets don't produce building materials in SoaSE, they produce money, it can therefore be assumed that 100% of the planets resources are being used on supporting the population so you can tax them.

Building is space in SoaSE is cheaper, more practical, and doesn't use up valuable land space. Judging by the huge population values planets have in SoaSE, they need all the land space they can get!

yes, perhaps in SoaSE it is better to build in space, but if you consider a hard SF scenario (as in as real as you can make it), most materials will have to be produced on planets at first, because that is where the most people will be.

The problem with having a giant space laser is that of heat sinks. First, even at 80% efficiency (the max theoretical of a free-electron laser, or so I have learned), a laser cannon with a total power of, let's say 10 zettawatts (ZW), then 2 ZW of power (an astounding 2,000,000,00 TW!) is WASTE HEAT. Yes, 8,000,000,000 TW can be directed at an enemy target, but 2 billion terawatts are simple waste heat! That's probably enough to vaporize the cannon. The other problem with a giant space laser is that of range. Lasers are only (at maximum possible effectiveness against an enemy target) truly useful at distances of (at most) several light-seconds.

To put that in perspective, light travels at 300,000 km/s in vacuum. I say in vacuum because light travels much slower in air or water (which is how you can produce Cherenkov radiation, incidentally). So, at a distance of 5 light seconds, a laser beam will travel a distance of 1,500,000 km in 5 seconds (lasers travel at light speed). However, because of the sheer distance involved, a laser beam will still take time to get there. Additionally, it might not even hit what you shot at.

This is why I like missiles so much as it happens. Missiles, unless the run out of propellant (which is different from fuel, BTW (in anything besides a chemical rocket)), or is 'scragged' (rendered inoperable/unable to damage the target, or destroyed outright) by hostile point defense, will always hit what you shoot at with them.

On the note I made about the fuel/propellant difference- in the case of a nuclear thermal rocket (several of which have been flown by the Russians, and tested by both US and Russia), fuel is what is used to power the reactor core. Propellant, also called 'reaction mass' or 'remass' is what is used to actually provide thrust.

Yes, a missile will take a longer time to get to the target, but at least it is guaranteed to hit.

All that proves is that lasers of that level of power are pointless, the planetary ones will have the same problem, a planets surface is not as good a heat sink as space is, because the background temperature is much higher. A ground based laser still wont dissapate 2 ZW of power fast enough (and even if it did, would probably fry the surrounding countryside, or worse, urban area).

That does bring me to another danger of planetary weapons: they are dangerous for your population! Encouraging the enemy to rain bombs down to your planets surface, especially when you've tried to hide your defenses, is asking for a lot of civilian casualties. At least in space you keep the majority of your explosions and crossfire away from civilian areas, the battle rages in orbit leaving your planet unscathed (mostly, obviously some debris or stray shots might make it down, but its unlikely they are designed to make it all the way to the surface without burning up).

You only have to look at the stuff going on in the middle east to see what happens when you mix military hardware in with civilian housing!

note: I am aware that some people will design ships specifically to bomb planets (like the siege frigs in SoaSE) but they wont all be like that, because they'd need enough non-planet-bombing ships to take out the orbital defense, unless you have nothing but planetary weapons, in which case they can just go all out on the planet bombing. The fewer planetary guns you have, the more non-planet-bombing ships the enemy will bring to the battle to counter your defenses (and thus the fewer planet bombing ones).

Holy effing nerd-gasm. I can appreciate a detailed arguement over the "facts" as well as SF, but I have to admit my eyes dried up there.

to effectively bomb a planet: large rock pushed or accelerated on a course to intercept. adjust for gravity or "space kentucky windage."

Booom! no slaves, but tons of a ranchland (in a few years).

You guys do realize we're talking about a game that features magical energy shields and psychic weapons right?

tbh it sorta obsaletes the whole point of, well everything. if you have a planet that can resist being bombed by shooting everything in the gravity well/or even just the bombers then really whats the point of all those defenses that stardock/impulse (w/e) gave us?all my floaty stuff sits so close to the planet anyway that what ever range you gave weapons would probably save my stuff in space as well.

Thanks you!

In all honesty, while a discuss about the physics and theoretical possibilities of it is enlightening, this is a game we're talking about. Like Will the Great said: they have psychic weapons and sheilds and use antimatter and fly through wormhole/blackholes. Yeah, physics is awesome, but really, all that needs to matter with a discussion like this is balance in-game, ease of creation, and if it's a good idea.

To answer that, I'd say balance isn't a problem. Just make a special one for each race, like the gigaguns.

Ease of creation? I dunno, I'm no programmer. I bet it'd be easy, just based on games that have it, and the wonders modders can do.

If it's good? Hells yeah! I'd love anything to help defend my poor planets while my fleet is out unloading righteous anger. I remember the Vong (excuse me, don't mean to be insulting) Yuuzhan Vong invasion of Coruscant when they had turbolasers on the rooftops hammering bolts into orbit and tearing apart the landers. So epic. Sins=epic already, so why not add some icing to the cake?

Cadalancea

Side note: I wonder how much of this came from God

You make a good point, althoguh i suspect there is a problem with balance involving the seige frigates, they arent used much as it is, they'd be used even less if the planets could fire back at them!

But in any case, my main reason for posting was to point out logical inconsistancies in what people were claiming about what is realistic, I don't actually mind wether stardock/ironclad makes planetary defenses in sins

to me it means rebalancing alot of stuff, as this "planetary weapon" can kill, meaning something has to be added to counter it. If were going to submit a suggestion for an addon, atleast suggest its counter.

  Maybe not ground to space weapons, but how about letting the planet itself house its own squadrons of Fighters/bombers (Say, 2-4 maybe?) as a free passive defense off the getgo.  Even with a disadvantage for them(200% replacement build time, maybe, to account for launch time from the planet to space?)  Just a thought...

  As for those who say there would be targetting problems from the surface with weapons, (Just to silence that argument once and for all)  How about something like if you have a structure in space, let them act as a secondary targetting system, commanding the planet-side weapons from orbit.  Also, have a 50%+ miss chance if there are no such structures to target with.

Who says the planet defense will destroy ships? You could have a number of things that can make up a planetary defense. Not limited to already orbital structures the game has.

I can tell you that my version features Ion cannons atm. Very Star Wars inspired.

I must now bang my head against my desk for Koiju's response.

YOU STILL DO NOT UNDERSTAND!!!! Space may have a background temperature of 3.5 Kelvins but it is STILL NIGH IMPOSSIBLE TO DISSIPATE YOUR WASTE HEAT!!!!

Basically, you heat sinking materially is ALREADY AROUND your sinks on a planetary defence. IN SPACE YOU HAVE NO SUCH LUCK. In space you radiators can get shot off (hence you retract them), and your sinking material can only get you so many shots. And versus a planet's mantle, you will get MUCH FEWER SHOTS for a spacecraft.

Also, they ARE ONLY DANGEROUS TO YOUR POPULATIONS IF THEY ARE IN POPULATED AREAS. What's to stop you from sticking cannons or missile silos in the Sahara or Gobi deserts, or Antarctica, or even Alaska (which is mostly uninhabited). And that is just using Earth as an example. Also, what's to stop from sticking a laser cannon in a submarine, and having it surface to periodically fire the weapon, then SUBMERGING to hide.

I concede this point- in a volume equivalent to a planet, there's a lot more space to search technically. This is because you do not have curvature of a sphere to deal with.

As for the 'planet-bomber' ships, any useful space warship armed with some railgun, coilgun, or heck, even a really big 16"-style gun, will be a useful planet-bomber.

To 52500- a big rock is useless. If the universe is like the Solar System, then presumably, easily inhabitable objects are very valuable. Only a moron would deny their empire a boon of real estate like that by dropping a really big rock on it.

And no, bombing with railguns is not the same. Railguns fire small, hypervelocity rounds. This allows high accuracy and precision targetting. Lasers, of appropriate wavelengths, also afford the same precision.

Also, as to stealth- good luck. You are going to have to go through the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics to get there.

Excuse me, but you at no point made any attempt to adequetly explain your point. At no stage did you say something to the effect of 'but in space it is more difficult to dissapate heat because there is no matter to transfer that heat in' (infact you still havnt explained that fully, it's just as well I was able to work it out on my own by what you implied :P)

So excuse me for not thinking of every single possable counter argument, but im not psychic, try explaining your point properly in future and then you wont have to bang your head on a desk because someone isnt getting something that you didn't even mention properly

Also, and this may surprise you, but space isnt as much of a vaccuum as many people think it is, there is still quite a lot of very tiny bits of physical matter floating around in space. Is there enough to dissapate heat through? I don't know, but unless you can show me where an experiment has been done to prove you can't, I'm going to have to assume that it's possible.

And yes, on earth as it currently is you have large areas of open space with no civilians, but we also don't have the sort of population levels that planets in SoaSE do. If you try and hide you guns, the enemy has no idea where they are, so they'll just bomb the crap out of the surface of your planet anyway, on the off chance they'll hit something. Your still encouraging the enemy to bomb your civilians, even if the guns are a long way away from populated areas. Space to planet weapons also tend to have significantly larger areas of effect, it's like dropping a cluster of nukes on the sahara, sure, there isnt many people there, but some may stray off a bit, and then you've got nuclear fallout to worry about.

Alright, I'll break it down- yes, I know that there is still quite a bit of tiny stuff flying around in space. However, space it isn't actually enough to efficiently use as a heat sink.

And by "NIGH IMPOSSIBLE" I meant "very difficult because your sinking material must be within your mass limits".

As for the civilians objection, here is my thinking- The enemy isn't going to want to cause as much damage to the native infrastructure and population in most cases. This is because you want to capture the planet (relatively) intact.

Orbit-to-surface ordnance CAN have a larger area of effect. However, it is more favorable if it has a very SMALL AoE, because that generally means you can focus an EXTREMELY larger amount of firepower into a very small spot.

Also, nuclear weapons would likely be too expensive to be economical for orbit-to-surface ordnance. Instead, kinetic bombardment weapons with high (10-11 km/s) terminal velocities would be used.

As for "punting" a missile into orbit, there are several very wonderful methods: a "Verne Gun", where a 10 megaton nuke is detonated belowground, and launches up to 2,000,000 lbs into orbit. Or tons, I forgot which it happens to be. Then there is also the "Orion Drive". Ever put a firecracker under a tin can? An Orion-drive ship is the same way, except the tin can is your spaceship (or missile), and the firecracker is a nuclear shaped charge.

Then, of course, there is staging. And there is also nothing to stop you from putting an airbreathing stage into a multi-stage missile. Because of the fact that you need some 10-20 km/s velocity to leave the Earth's orbit, and that the Space Shuttle reaches Mach 24-30 upon its ascent into LEO, a simple missile warhead of the missile body itself would be sufficient, as anything hitting something else at a relative velocity of 3 km/s equals its weight in TNT. The only exception is for velocities >0.14c. At 0.15c+ velocities, you do more damage. Exponentially more damage.

So, overall- Nukes aren't economical enough for bombardment. A kinetic kill weapon will do the job cheaper and with greater potential accuracy. A large kinetic kill slug may also be able to mount a small multi-directional motor, to more accurately strike its targets. For defense, staged missiles and DEWs, most likely laser cannon, are optimal, though there is nothing wrong with using a kinetic-kill system. A large AoE is only useful in certain, and likely rare situations. Small AoE with the same damage (overall)=more lethal weapon.

As to the idea of using a 'roid to bombard a planet- a sizeable enough asteroid will likely be monitored closely. If its orbit changes suddenly then an "Orbit Guard" will likely be dispatched to investigate, and if necessary, destroy the asteroid. Plus, what is truly scarier- an enemy who can redirect an asteroid's orbit (which any 'roid miner with a mass driver can do when you think about it and if you have 'roid miners), or an enemy who can penetrate your planetary defenses and land an invasion force. I would much rather face the roid. Much easier to deal with.

OK, much better post that time.

I see your point, but at this stage I don't think either of us truely knows how efficiently space can act as a heat sink, unless scientists have already tested this? There is less mass, but it's colder, so it will depend on just how much mass there is, one would need to do some proper calculations or experiments to determin which is a better heat sink.

True, a precision weapon would be less of a problem for the civilians, and in theory is a better idea, but do you trust your enemy to be that sensible? I don't trust the American army not to hit civilians, or even their own side! So as right as your point might be, it is assuming that your enemy is as sensible as you are, which imo is not the best plan.

I never said that a ground to space gun would be impossible, it's just that it's not going to be as efficient or cheap as launching a projectile from a space based platform. The 'Verne Gun' may very well be possible, but if you're detonating a 10 megaton nuke for every round you fire, that's going to quickly add up to a lot of money!

At the end of the day, it is extreamly complicated, and there is no guarantee that planet to space weapons would be any cheaper or feasible than space based platforms, so stating that planet to space weapons 'make more sense' is untrue, and it's just as feasable for a sci-fi writer to turn around and say that in their story, everyone makes spacebased platforms instead due to [insert reason here].