How do you make vampires intimidating in a space opera setting

>>53470714
Make it imperative in your setting that ships travel with some sort of cloaking or coating that precludes windows on space ships most of the time. Find whatever fake science most justifies that, and then they're not in obvious danger aboard a space ship. For hunters, make the techniques that they use to hunt vampires obscure and difficult enough that not just anyone can do it, but don't make it foolproof-- every hunter should be risking their lives with every target

>>53470714

Vampires aren't killed by starlight nor by sunlight reflected off the moon, so clearly distance matters.

>>53470714
Make the vampires wear some kind of second skin/space suit. There's bound to be plenty of space faring suits and armour available. Plus, you can use this to give your vamps a unique aesthetic/flavour. You could make some spooky looking suits with apparatus to allow vamp to bite even while wearing the suit. Needless and tubing, etc.

If vampires are a thing, then artificial sunlight ought to do just as well as real sunlight.

Best bet is this: >>53470879 . If people are going to use technology to their advantage, then vampires should do that as well.

That aside, technology will eventually close the gap between superhuman vampires and regular people, so aside from being physically dangerous, vampires should leverage their immortality. Vampires should be dangerous not because they're that much stronger than regular people, but because they're much, much more experienced.

Last resort is to just change the rules for vampires, like everybody and their mother does these days. Justify it by saying that they're alien vampires or something.

It's only some special types of star. We lucked out but the rest of the universe is crawling with them.

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>>53470714
make them the vampires from Macross 7.

>>53470879
>>53470941
These. Plus, if it's a space opera, the vampires could have some kind of psionics as well.

>>53470941
>If vampires are a thing, then artificial sunlight ought to do just as well as real sunlight.
If vampires are a thing, then clearly something supernatural is going on and it shouldn't be assumed that artificial sunlight will "just work" against them. Not to mention that generating blackbody radiation at 5000 kelvin is pretty tricky.

>>53470792
Aren't windows on a spaceship pretty stupid to begin with? They provide a nice weak point in the hull for pretty much any object travelling at insane interstellar speeds

>>53470714
>any type of sunlight
Well that'd be a pretty broad spectrum of light. I'd probably restrict it to a small portion of the UV range. Preferably a part you're unlikely to see on space stations as part of normal lighting. Maybe have emergency lights that do go into that range but they have negative effects, like giving normal people and xenos nasty burns or some shit.

>make vampire hunters competent
Make vampires physically imposing. If a vamp has hidden in a closet and refuses to get out, it's only scary to go in if the vamp is physically imposing. So issue all vampire hunters titanium testicles.

>>53470792
Don't need to do much to justify that. Windows are almost completely pointless. Any useful visual information is going to come from some sort of display.

>>53470941
>emphasize experience of vamps
That would also be a good way to make the hunters look competent. Gotta be good at your job to outsmart and remove ancient horrors.

>>53474188
I'm not sure having them cum because of rock and roll makes vampires any more dangerous.

>>53472039
This actually is a Great idea. 90% of habitable worlds are crawling with the Vampire plague. The few paradise planets like earth are technologically ahead (most worlds don't even have Space flight). Now that earth ships are venturing out they don't have their sun to protect them. Most planets they discover are full of vampire warlords (and their Blood thralls and slaves) waging endless wars. Earth quickly starts a Crusade against the Vamps.

The Vamps on the other hand are Now able to their hands on hightech that could potentially allow them to invade sanctuary worlds despite their deadly Suns.

>How do you make hunters seem competent

They are fucking space marines crossed with the master chief and the Doom Guy.
They are Stronger and faster than the Vamps (due to power armour and implants) and have much better weapons.

The vamps on the other hand have endless planets at their disposal (the competent ones might even have some inferior hightech because they were able to preserve some civilization on their planets despite their parasitic and destructive nature). They have done nothing but wage wars for centuries and they are absolutely ruthless.

Throwing endless waves of blood slaves against the hunters till their ammo runs out. Then you send your crude biomechanic blood beasts and when the hunters are weakened enough the vamps themselves attack. For the next attack they might be able to retroengineer crude power armors from the hunter debris.

>>53475627
So you basically want Warhammer 40k?
Honestly how well that idea works depends on how fights are handled. Is this some Hellsing shit, some DMC shit or just some 40k shit?

I've actually been running a homebrew where the players are vampires in a space opera setting, and I've just decided to ignore the sunlight weakness.

In my mind the typical vampire weaknesses exist to bring what are otherwise absurdly powerful creatures down to a level past/present mortals can defeat them. When you get into high tech space opera settings, the power level of humanity grows due to better armor, guns, robots, and/or psionics/space magic. So with how I've been playing it the vampire PCs are still bloodthirsty predators who can wreck the average person or even a space corp grunt, but someone who's significantly modified or well armed could give them a run for their money.

It takes a lot of energy to get the ship to relativistic speed. Once you sped up, you won't be able to stop midway, because you'll run out of fuel and end up stranded in the middle of nowhere, lightyears away from any solar system, without any hope of salvation.
And when the ship is travelling at relativistic speed, there are no stars. Doppler's effect pushes the starlight into the wavelengths invisible to human eye. For months, there is nothing you can see outside the walls of your ship till the very end of the universe. There is only darkness. And in the darkness, there are no monsters.
The monsters are inside with you.