Spaceship scale

[acelanceloet]

1. wrong: radar works in space, so why would stealth not work? also, painting your ship black will make it invisible in most circumstances, well at least if your engine is not pointed at the 'enemy'
2. I think timothy knows more about that subject then you (and me, for that matter)
3. you forget newtons laws currently.

[APDAF]

1) Radar stealth would work but optical and IR will not work as even if you paint your ship black it will still be seen on a telescope and you need to disperse your heat into space anyway to IR trackers will find your ship.
2) Think about it most major inventions i.e steam engines, computers ect, started as huge underpowered machines and become smaller.
3) Depends on what kind of drives you uses.

[Thiel]

1) There is no point in jamming in space due to being no stealth in space.

Jamming and stealth have nothing to do with each other. Being able to disrupt the other side's communication would be worth a whole lot all on its own.

2) A FTL drive will be huge and require huge amount of power and a fighter will not be able to house the fusion reactors needed.

Says who? Last time I checked we have no working FTL drives, nor even a clue as to how one might go about building one, so we have no way of saying how big it would be.

3) A fighter will never have a range more than the local gravity well unless you use a highly compacted fuel source, oxygen tanks, food and water are also needed for a long flight and it is easier to store such items in a huge battleship than a 100 ton fighter.

Depends on the FTL technology in question.

[Morten812]

If jamming is high, FTL drives are small but expensive, and ranges are long then expect fighters.

Well that mostly wrong because:
1) There is no point in jamming in space due to being no stealth in space.
2) A FTL drive will be huge and require huge amount of power and a fighter will not be able to house the fusion reactors needed.
3) A fighter will never have a range more than the local gravity well unless you use a highly compacted fuel source, oxygen tanks, food and water are also needed for a long flight and it is easier to store such items in a huge battleship than a 100 ton fighter.

It's my Space AU and fighters ( and Carriers ) do work - please remember it is totally unscientific

Please don't get to serious

[acelanceloet]

1. good point about the heat, I forgot that as timothy pointed out to me minutes earlier
2. yes, but if we are talking about space battleships we are not talking in early development, are we
3. newtons laws, for example action = reaction makes that smaller ships need smaller engines if the relative mass is the same (and I would even say that an fighter has an relatively bigger engine) an fighter would work because of that.
also, when an ship is brought up to speed (for example by an catapult) she could keep moving at almost the same speed for an very long time due to the lack of air friction. this could limit the amount of fuel you need to take with you a lot! but would not be applicable to large warships that much.

[TimothyC]

If jamming is high, FTL drives are small but expensive, and ranges are long then expect fighters.

Well that mostly wrong because:
1) There is no point in jamming in space due to being no stealth in space.
2) A FTL drive will be huge and require huge amount of power and a fighter will not be able to house the fusion reactors needed.
3) A fighter will never have a range more than the local gravity well unless you use a highly compacted fuel source, oxygen tanks, food and water are also needed for a long flight and it is easier to store such items in a huge battleship than a 100 ton fighter.

Wow, you missed the point. I said IF [Condition 1], [Condition 2], & [Condition 3] THEN [Conclusion].

I didn't say that those Conditions would always hold, only that if those conditions hold, and I should have added the condition that a small craft will be able to carry a weapon that can damage a capital ship, then fighters are expected. If you remove two of those (now four) conditions, then the conclusion doesn't hold.

But without further information on the setting, and knowing if the conditions hold true, the plausibility of fighters can not be determined.

What can be determined is that there are a set of conditions that support the existence of space fighters, and by extension space carriers.

Morten, I apologize for this diversion.

[Morten812]

If jamming is high, FTL drives are small but expensive, and ranges are long then expect fighters.

Well that mostly wrong because:
1) There is no point in jamming in space due to being no stealth in space.
2) A FTL drive will be huge and require huge amount of power and a fighter will not be able to house the fusion reactors needed.
3) A fighter will never have a range more than the local gravity well unless you use a highly compacted fuel source, oxygen tanks, food and water are also needed for a long flight and it is easier to store such items in a huge battleship than a 100 ton fighter.

Wow, you missed the point. I said IF [Condition 1], [Condition 2], & [Condition 3] THEN [Conclusion].

I didn't say that those Conditions would always hold, only that if those conditions hold, and I should have added the condition that a small craft will be able to carry a weapon that can damage a capital ship, then fighters are expected. If you remove two of those (now four) conditions, then the conclusion doesn't hold.

But without further information on the setting, and knowing if the conditions hold true, the plausibility of fighters can not be determined.

What can be determined is that there are a set of conditions that support the existence of space fighters, and by extension space carriers.

Morten, I apologize for this diversion.

Apology accepted

I better begin drawing some more Spaceship, the reaction taken into account