Space Superiority Fighter Thread

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First ship I bought, and I don't know if I'll ever switch. Its the sexiest thing I've ever piloted. Even the cockpit interior is sleek and stylish.

>>14918042
>anime
when?

>>14918055
What game is this?

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>>14918042

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>>14918288
Elite Dangerous
I personally prefer the Viper

Space fighters are always sad because the designs are neat yet a space fighter in the style of a jet fighter makes less sense than a fucking mecha in space.

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>>14918592
Yeah, that may be true.

But if you put the pilot in the middle of the craft and you got maneuvering thrusters at the front, back and sides, there wouldn't be too much difference to a mech moving around in space.

Except for arms to aim your guns more quickly, but there is gimballed weaponry for that, so...I don't know

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So, what do you think of COD: IW fighters?

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>>14918646
Some are fine and remind me of the movie "Stealth" and some look like space penguins.

>>14918601
>AIM-4 Falcons
>Mavericks
>Hellfires


what the fuck

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Shame she never left the drawing board.

>>14918646
I was more a fan of the Skelters. The Jackals are ok. A bit chunky for my tastes. Like an F-22 went on a bad ice cream bender. Still pretty cool though and I enjoyed flying them.

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>>14919074

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>>14918384
Kids this days...
Classic all the way FTW.
<-- Cobra MK3

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>Incoming jump signature.
>Hostile configuration.

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>>14918042
guys... come on das is gud

>>14919944
>Colony wars Vengence.

Holy fuck i remember getting this back in the 90's and holy fuck was it good. Really advanced for it's time considering it was a console only shooter.

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A wing commander is fine, too

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>>14920701

You Sir have good taste. Although along with the fighter I'd have posted a sexy photo of Erin Gray.

>>14918384
Murder-Lance for win

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Reminder that the Wing Commander movie was pretty cool.

>>14920794
They could save that chick by going to her fighter with space suit or making her fly like in space.

>>14920794
>Reminder that the Wing Commander movie was pretty cool

No, only Saffron Burrows was hot and she's a fucking lesbian.

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>>14921059

So looking through this thread made me think about and then look up reactionless drives, during which I came across the idea of inertialess drives and finally ended up reading up (again) on EE Doc Smith's Lensman series - for which I'm probably going to end up ordering the first book or two in the next few days. As such, a few questions: Can I read Triplanetary on it's own, or is it a companion piece with First Lensman as I'm gathering reading up on them on Wikipedia?

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>>14920794
I love /m/ but this place has terrible taste and nobody takes you seriously.

>>14921455
Not related to your question, but whatever you do, don't watch the anime. You'd get frustrated like Starseeker is about it.

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>>14922018

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>>14922022

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>>14922023

>>14921455
Which work is this picture from?

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>>14920845
Those are terrible and awfully generic.
>that fucked up perspective
wew

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No TIEs yet? I am dissapoint /m/

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>>14922258
>>14922262
Don't you have anything smaller? Below Battleships Class, maybe?

>>14921585

Frustrated he can't understand it or what?

>>14922056

No idea. I'd presume Ringworld or something, but it could be an original work for all I know since I got it from here - probably in a thread like this.

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>>14922060
>>14922063
>>14922065
>>14922067
Wing Commander 1+2 deserve a reboot

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>>14921545
He didn't say the movie was good, only that it was cool. Dumbass.

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Space fighters that are big enough to be called small ships in other universes

I kind of like that idea.

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>>14922701
I like large bomber class ships, but please no gun-turret spouting assault cruiser

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can I play too?

>>14922487
That's what the dream for Star Citizen was. Then fuckers got over-hyped for the PU. the hype went to Robert's head and suddenly the project is on the edge of being one of the largest trainwrecks in gaming history.

I just want Roberts to sell out already, he's reached the point where he's more of a hindrance to the project than any sort of lead.

How come there are no one man x-wing type fighters in the Star Trek universe?

>>14920794

Speaking of Wing Commander

Is this game any good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qqtyGuV49rc

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>>14922781
There are designs out there, but as far as i know, they are all fan-made / inofficial

>>14922795
that is a mod for freespace 2. Try it, its free. Gameplay is good, writing is pretty horrible, imho.

>>14922774
Iowa guns shooting nuclear warheads?

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>>14922781
There is semioficial carrier and small assault ships that can be count as fighters from Invasion game.
Also: http://memory-beta.wikia.com/wiki/Fighter
There are fighter crafts in Star Trek, mostly used by other races and factions. Dominion, cardasians, et cetera.
Pic related and >>14922809
, as well as Valkyrie class, are cannon, as they shown up on screen here and there but with totally different hull shape then pictured here.

>>14918384

Viper is my ship-fu I was heartbroken when I had to get a vulture to stay in that money making game

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>>14922896
The old fan-made 3d model for that modded version of first encounters was pretty fine as well

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Needs more weapon prongs.

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>>14922913
prrrrrongssss?
or star fishies?

>>14922809
>>14922871
I really like those warp nacelles for some reason.

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I do like me some oversized guns

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Saberfish

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>>14922854
Those aren't the main guns from an Iowa, just regular five inch naval guns firing nuclear shells. Iowa's main guns were used as the CIWS of the mothership.

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this her looks like the fighter version of the Sol Bianca

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>>14923648
>>14923652
>>14923655
where did you get these from? they are lovely!

>>14922067
This thing was such a piece of shit in the game.

>>14923260
Best part of Michael is that we could conceivably build that sweet beauty right now.

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>>14923763

We could, but it'd be a fucking disaster to get everyone's approval to launch the damn thing.

>we're going to just detonate a few nuclear bombs in the air to launch our spaceship into orbit.
>what do you mean "environmental concerns"?

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Re-issue happening this February. Pretty pumped to get this kit at a reasonable price.

On a related note, happy upcoming 30th to Darius!

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And also, a happy 25th to Darius' neglected sibling, Metal Black.

>>14923853
That's why we would build it in space.

Duh.

>>14923872
>On a related note, happy upcoming 30th to Darius!
Darius Burst CS is a seriously excellent title.

>>14925140
>somehow managing to get not one but TWO complete triple 16" turrets from an Iowa class BB into space

Building it on Earth is way easier.

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>>14923260
This is one novel of Niven/Pournelle that I still haven't read. Oh well.

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>>14925676

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>>14925676
>>14925678

>>14925676
Get on reading that. It's fantastic.

>>14922701
Oh, man you would get a kick out of Elite: Dangerous ships.

>>14919904
man i miss piloting one of those, FS2 was surely lacking without them

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>>14918042
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YcwLoefGvh8

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Heartbreaking reminder that space fighter make no sense.
any "minimal combat ship" would basically be a warship with minimal crew in itself.

>>14925140
Even in space, Orion's nuclear pulse propulsion is the worst thing you could ever make. The only reason anybody support it is because it look awesome and nobody bothered to tell that each nuke explosion would create radioactive debris in orbit.
This propulsion is basically a Kessler syndrome generator

>>14927762
forgot my obligatory link :
http://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunexotic.php#fighters

Basically you will have to handcraft finely any need for one man space-fighter

>>14922896
You dont need, just mod your viper

>>14925676
>>14925678
>>14925680
Just watched these, they were really neat. Thanks anon.

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>>14927762
Radiation is not really a problem in space since there are a lot more sources such as solar and cosmic radiation. The nuke capsules used for propulsion would propably be completely turned into plasma so no significant size particles would be left behind. And with the velocity the nuke explodes the particles would be scattered quickly.

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>>14928686
Sorry but you are still in error.
Hoping the nuke disappear is wishful thinking that the original concept planned for that, but it didn't. the 70s were crazy, they even wanted plane with open-cycle nuclear engine.
Next, in space nearly all the thermal energy is lost, vaporizing stuff entire is out, and even if you are left with ten thousand 1g balls of metal you have already lost.
Worse, in the case of shaped charge their very job require them to resist and canalize the shockwave in a direction. And considering how they are going to be fired they'll either deorbit or stay in orbit.
Finally their radioactivity stay a problem because anything they'll get stuck into in will become radioactive. At low orbit be wary of EMP effect as well.
I would add the Van Allen belt problem but all nuclear thruster would suffer from it.

...in any case that's assuming the engine was both feasible and practical in the first place. No, no, no "we can already make nuke" don't mean you can make a shock absorber with a trap that resist dozen of explosion. If you needed a spaceship to use far away from Earth, it would still be easier to build high-thrust nuclear lightbulb.

One reason some people have a hard time letting go this bad idea is because it sell us an instant-warship that look like it can tank nuke (it wouldn't, enemy nuke wouldn't gently explode at safe distance on front of the shield), while the only alternatives are fragile radiator glass-ship that break if you sneeze at them.

I hope this answer was informative even if fun was not allowed.

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>>14919904
You can fly the Herc 1 through most of the FS2 campaign, actually. I often found it more palatable than the Myrmidon.


Now, the Valkyrie, though......I would do unspeakable things to have that back.

>>14928686

The artificial radiation belt left behind by the high altitude tests of Operation Fishbowl are credited with having fatally damaged at least six satellites (four American, one British, and one Russian), and another three are suspected to have been damaged less severely. That's from three nuclear detonations over the course of four months, the biggest of which was 1.4 MT.

Oh, and that 1.4 MT nuke knocked out all the lights in Hawaii when it went off. There's a reason everyone went nuts on the whole EMP hardening thing afterwards, but most things still aren't hardened enough to resist something like that.

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>>14928805
>>14929265
I'm not defending Orion. It's a stupid idea expecting to nuke your ship constantly and expecting the pusher plate to survive for long. I'll refer the bible of atomic rockets for this one:

>When fissionables like plutonium undergo fission, their atoms are split which produces atomic energy. The split atoms are called fission fragments.

>The good news is that they have very short half-lives, e.g., in 50 days pretty much all of the Strontium 94 has decayed away (because 50 days is 58,000 St94 half-lives).

>The bad news is that they have very short half-lives, this means they are hideously radioactive. Radioactive elements decay by emitting radiation, shorter half-life means more decays per second means a higher dose of radiation per second.

>The fragments that come screaming out of the detonation aimed at the sky are no problem. They are moving several times faster than Terra's escape velocity, you will never see them again (Terra's escape velocity is 11.2 km/s, the fragments are travelling like a bat out of hell at 2,000 km/s). The ones aimed towards Terra are a problem. The fragments can be reduced by using fusion instead of fission pulse units. The fragments can also be reduced by designing the pulse units to trade thrust in favor of directing more of the fragments skyward.

So fragments aimed retrograde would leave orbit quickly.

cont.

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>>14929850
>A more sophisticated objection to using Orion inside an atmosphere is the sci-fi horror of EMP melting all our computers, making our smart phones explode, and otherwise ruining anything using electricity. But that actually is not much of a problem. EMP is not a concern unless the detonation is larger than one megaton or so, Orion propulsion charges are only a few kilotons (one one-thousandth of a megaton). Ben Pearson did an analysis and concluded that Orion charges would only have EMP effects within a radius of 276 kilometers (the International Space Station has an orbital height of about 370 kilometers). So just be sure your launch site is in a remote location, which you probably would have done anyway.

So EMP is not a serious problem at relatively low orbit. Just make sure there are no non-Chinese or non-Russian satellites nearby.

cont.

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>>14929855
>>14929855 (You)
>Detonating pulse units in space near Terra can create nasty artificial radiation belts. The explosion can pump electrons into the magnetosphere, creating the belt.

>There are two factors: detonation altitude from Terra's surface, and magnetic latitude in Terra's magnetic field. If the detonation is within 6,700 kilometers of Terra's surface (i.e., further than 2 Terran radii from Terra's center) and at a magnetic latitude from 0° to 40°, the radiation belt can last for years. Above 2 Terran radii the radiation belt will last for only weeks, and from latitude 80° to 90°, the radiation belt will last for only a few minutes.

>The military discovered this the hard way with the Starfish Prime nuclear test. The instant auroras were very pretty. The instant EMP was very scary, larger than expected (but the test was using a 1.4 megaton nuke, not a 0.001 megaton pulse unit). The artificial radiation belt that showed up a few days later was a very rude surprise. About one-third of all low orbiting satellites were eventually destroyed by the radiation belt.

>The radiation belts are harmless to people on Terra, but astronauts in orbit and satellites are at risk.

Yes, the nukes would leave electron radiation belt behind. However, I think that nuclear propelled spacecraft would have invested for enough radiation shielding to be safe. This also limits Orion to deeper space, which defeats the purpose of having high thrust and lower exhaust velocity than NTR's that I prefer.

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>>14929850
> I'll refer the bible of atomic rockets for this one

That's good, but you seem to have translated "minimizing the problem" to "problem solved" when even minimized it was only acceptable for a 70s rocketpunk setting.

Take the fragments : the text say only some of them will not be a problem, retrograde fragment are the one more likely to stay in orbit or deorbit, Plus not everything will be ejected at max speed.
Then as an Orion ship reach escape velocity, the fragments that previously escaped would now stay in orbit. Shaped charge will survive and stay even slower.
For the EMP, I don't see much of a difference, you still create an EMP and fuck-up / wear out valuable equipments.
Just saying : our equipment today are less protected from EMP than it was before, our smartphone and computer get more sensitive as the circuit get smaller.

On radiation, I'm not fearing for the ship itself but for strengthening the Van Allen belt. I think we are likely to need very big satellite meant just to disrupt and magnet away that belt.
Good to know you aren't defending the concept.

>>14922553
This ship design from gundam seed is way cooler than it desrves to be.

>>14922034
Taiidan did nothing wrong

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>>14931884
delete this

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>>14931884
>>14932250
wrong one

>>14921455
You absolutely can read Triplanetary on its own.

It sets the stage for the overall Lensman series, but is composed half of vignettes and half by a sort of introduction/prologue to the universe and setting of First Lensman onwards.

The latter part of the book leads pretty directly into First Lensman, so calling it a companion piece is pretty fair.

I'd be hard pressed to say precisely *when* you should read it, as there are a couple schools of thought on how to go about it, at least in my experience. EE Doc Smith very clearly had the endgame of the whole Lensman series planned out ahead of time, pretty much "spoiling" the desired end-goal pretty early in the beginning of Triplanetary, with occasional reminders of that end-goal in some of the later books' prologues.

So one school of thought is to read Triplanetary and First Lensman AFTER the rest (so starting with Galactic Patrol), as a sort of post-series prequel that makes the general dramatic flow of the series work a bit better, with more mystery, surprise, and suspense.

The other (more boring?) school of thought is to read the whole series in chronological order, which, ultimately, I'd probably recommend - despite my personal experience of starting with Galactic Patrol (when someone gave me an old copy from a used book store when I was but a wee-lad), reading through the series to the end of Children of the Lens, and not getting to Triplanetary and First Lensman until a while after the fact.

All that said, I absolutely recommend the entire series, regardless of the order you start them in. It's a blast, if very, VERY dated. Too much fun to pass up.

If you (or someone who wants to get into the series but isn't big into reading) want, there's a really great audiobook rendition of the entire series out there, as read by Reed McCollum(sp?) from... I think it's "Books In Motion" out of Spokane, Washington. He does a great job for the whole series.

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>>14932255
You don't have tech to make Heavy Corvettes in this mission.

>>14932250
>>14932255
>Implying the Taiidan aren't the better exiles.

>>14934000
Taiidani frigate and destroyer designs are clearly better, but I never cared for their super-capital ships. Their heavy cruiser looks like it should be hauling cargo.

>>14935959
best

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Have a star citizen alien figther

>>14936026
That's the thing, they look more like a bunch of desert nomad refugees.

The Kushani ships look more like a decadent evil empire.

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>>14940816
My nigger, I loved the Panther. Now you may say this doesn't count but the way I flew it does.

>>14942341
I think partway through production they actually switched them. There's artwork of the Taiidani scout in the manual labeled as a Kushan ship.

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does this count? they still refuse to clarify WHAT they keep sending it up there for.

>>14945129
My old boss says it was for zero-g crystal farming. He was a bit of a conspiracy nut, but I can't shake the thought that it's the only explanation I can think of that would require it to stay up for months at a time and then come back down.

All the regular explanations (Recon, A-sat warfare, ect) sound much more menacing, but we already have spysats, and if we have killsats, there is no reason to make them recoverable.

>>14942103
I know it shouldn't but this thing still makes me fucking mad

>>14942341
ITS YOU AGAIN THE FUCKING "WOOD PANELLING" FAGGOT ISN'T IT!

>>14945175
Wood paneling?

>>14945129
Keeping an eye on the BETA occupying the moon. That's the REAL reason we haven't been back since the 70s.

>>14945129
how big is the x-37? is there any chance of it or a derivative being used as part of a manned launch system?

>>14945369
You can see people next to it in the picture, you think someone could fit inside there?

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The strongest space craft that I know of. Besides the R-101 but there's like no plot for that besides it was the end so I'm not sure if it counts.

>>14945392
those are gundams

>>14945394
>strongest space craft that i know of
How so?

>>14946480
It's the second fastest ship in the game, and can equip any weapon in a series where even the vulcans hit like tanks, all ships have a living power core that functions as multiple guns and an impenatrable shield, and Wave Cannons that can regularly break the laws of physics in many wonderful ways, and this one has access to ALL of them.

The fact that it can fight and win against the Bydo singlehandedly, much less at all, is a testament to how powerful we're looking at here.

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>>14946480
>How so?
It's kind of hard to explain without getting into the whole backstory of the R-Type games. Basically, the enemy force in those games are inter-dimensional biomechanical lifeform with near reality-warping powers, something like a cross between the Borg and the End of Evangelion Rei-thing, and the R-100 is a fighter-ship capable of fighting it on equal terms simply by virtue of having enough firepower.

Oddly enough, the R-100 is literally a museum piece built to preserve the technology that went into it. It was actually the R-99 series that actually saw combat and ended the conflict.

For my money, though, the OF series were cooler ships.

>>14922464
Frustrated, because the Lensman anime is not very faithful to the books. Besides, /m/ Subs and Skaro are steadily tackling it, so.

>>14945129
Testing out technology they want to use on future spy satellites.

>>14945369
Look up the X-37C it was pretty much exactly what you're thinking of. An oversized X-37 with a crew area instead of a cargo bay. It lost out internally to the CST-100 although I'm not sure if it was ever even seriously taken any farther than some basic concept art.

>>14947743
I went with the R-100 because it's supposed to be stronger than the R-99, even if it never saw actual combat, and I'm not sure if the R-101 actually exists or not. My point though was just that it had access to so much raw firepower that it outpaces something like the Bydo that assimilate people and planets at will and can do it through sound waves.

>For my money, though, the OF series were cooler ships.

I'll give you that one but really all of the R-Type ships are fantastic.

>>14921455
>So looking through this thread made me think about and then look up reactionless drives, during which I came across the idea of inertialess drives and finally ended up reading up (again) on EE Doc Smith's Lensman series - for which I'm probably going to end up ordering the first book or two in the next few days. As such, a few questions: Can I read Triplanetary on it's own, or is it a companion piece with First Lensman as I'm gathering reading up on them on Wikipedia?
You can certainly read Triplanetary on it's own. It was only made a prequel to the Lensmen series after it was written, which is to say it's almost entirely disconnected from the rest of the series. First Lensmen is likewise not too important, despite it's title. It's almost best to read it last, since the most interesting parts about it are it's callforwards, which lose all impact if you read it first.

Honestly, the Lensman books mostly aren't that great. It has a lot of fascinating ideas, but those ideas are spread thin between dozens of chapters of the most powerful individual in two galaxies using his immeasurable psychic powers to... bust crime kingpins who undermine civilized society by selling space marijuana. Occasionally he gets his ass beat and your treated to a few chapters of him and his hot nurse flirt with each other in the driest manner since the Rover Boys.

The only book that's really worth reading is Children of the Lens, and that's less because it's a good story (although it's head and shoulders above the rest) than because it's such an influential story. It's a fascinating read if only to see where Arthur Clark, Robert Heinlein, and Frank Herbert got a lot of their ideas.

>>14933858
>So one school of thought is to read Triplanetary and First Lensman AFTER the rest (so starting with Galactic Patrol), as a sort of post-series prequel that makes the general dramatic flow of the series work a bit better, with more mystery, surprise, and suspense.

>The other (more boring?) school of thought is to read the whole series in chronological order, which, ultimately, I'd probably recommend - despite my personal experience of starting with Galactic Patrol (when someone gave me an old copy from a used book store when I was but a wee-lad), reading through the series to the end of Children of the Lens, and not getting to Triplanetary and First Lensman until a while after the fact.

Having read the books in chronological order, I definitely recommend NOT doing so. Triplanetary is alright, but First Lensman just does not hold up as it's own story.

>>14947775
>I'll give you that one but really all of the R-Type ships are fantastic.
I agree 100%.

I've been trying to track down a copy of R-Type Tactics recently. I've been told it changes the lore slightly, but the changes seem to make things more coherent overall.

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>>14920768
Meow.

>>14918088
That's hardly aerodynamic.