These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

EVE Fiction

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
Previous page123
 

Modern Day ICBMs can go much further than missiles in EVE. Why?
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
Ramius Decimus
Daitengu Fleet
#41 - 2012-08-22 17:18:39 UTC
First off, it's a matter of game mechanics.

Secondly, as simple vacuum and gravitational physics dictate, a projectile of any kind in an open vacuum would retain velocity and trajectory indefinitely without an interactive force (gravity). With an interactive force, the projectile would lose or gain momentum and trajectory would alter in relation to force applied. None of that is textbook verbatim but that's the gist (correct me if I'm wrong).

So, technically, except for energy particle weapons, all projectiles (hybrid, conventional, missiles) would have near indefinite range (and in a sense, some you could imagine as continuing it's course of direction into space after missing a target).

From a logically immaginative point of view, I see missiles as having a limited amount of fuel and the moment that fuel runs out it no longer has accurate controlled guidance and as a safe-guard the missile warhead goes inert (to reduce chance of friendly or collateral damage). I'm sure I could come up with other viable reasons but that's sufficient enough for me.

Rear Admiral

Commander-in-Chief

90th Fleet

Caldari Navy
Rachel Silverside
Deep Core Mining Inc.
Caldari State
#42 - 2012-08-31 15:07:06 UTC
Logically it's because of game balance. In game it's still because of game balance but nobody knows it.

Really there is no reason for the short ranges other than game balance and entertainment. In fact, only very slow projectiles and or missiles would have short ranges and even that would be their effective range against a moving target.

To illustrate. A one megawatt gamma ray* laser with a .1 second beam duration could, with a focusing lens radius of 25cm, melt through more than 600 meters of Tungsten at 1000km away. Now I obviously didn't take into account heat transfer via conductivity and the vapor cloud that would be created but I honestly don't need to as the decrease in penetration would still leave you with double digit meters worth of penetration.

The ranges in game are so short entirely because of game mechanics and the fact that if they were realistic then combat would occur beyond visual range and thus be boring as hell. Missiles and autoguns would have fairly short ranges but that would only be relative to the ranges of other weapons like railguns, blasters** and lasers


*we'll use the longest wavelength for gamma rays to get the shortest range. For those interested it is 1e-11 meters.
** They're still particle beams so while their ranges would likely be shorter than that of the lasers and railguns they would still have significantly longer effective ranges than Minmatar weapons and missiles.
Jim Era
#43 - 2012-08-31 15:19:48 UTC
AlleyKat wrote:
Wu Jiaqiu wrote:
Is it because a wizard is not allowing heavy missiles to travel too far?


No, the surrounding space of the cluster is different than the atmospheric conditions on earth.

Just as a bullet fired on the north pole would decrease altitude 60 feet per-second per-second faster than a bullet fired in death valley.

The only way to question this logic would be to fire a missile in New Eden, but as New Eden isn't real, my above logic will have to do for now.



Stopped reading here

New Eden is REAL!

Wat™
Shaalira D'arc
Aliastra
Gallente Federation
#44 - 2012-09-03 21:09:57 UTC
Lots of plausible theories here, but I think the wizard one is the best.
Saxifrage Bizzaroclan
Perkone
Caldari State
#45 - 2012-09-05 13:57:05 UTC
Evet Morrel wrote:
Synthmilk wrote:
David Toviyah wrote:
Simon Heirmonious wrote:
Better questions would be why Lasers dont have infinite range.

That would actually be a worse question since the reason is relatively simple: Dispersion.


So what is dispersing the beam in Spaaaaaaaaace? Also I believe the term you were looking for is divergence.

Space is a vacuum, not 100%, but close enough that for our purposes it might as well be. This means that a photon will continue on a straight course at constant speed and energy as there is nothing to act on it. In short, there is nothing to disperse a laser beam in space.

Now divergence is a different beast, and basically is the tendency of a laser beam to get wider with distance, due to the relationship between the wavelength of the projected light and the diameter of the laser aperture (assuming the parts of the laser emitter are not faulty). This means it's impossible to get a 100% straight laser beam, where all photons are leaving the aperture in parallel.


As you say lasers, all other things being perfect, have a diffraction limit which is a consequence of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. Shame really, among other benefits like observing very distant objects, it would be a cool way to ship energy around the universe.


1) inverse square law also says hi (for lasers).

2) On the topic of missiles: Everyone else pretty much answered the missile question, and concluded that EVE actually is pretty realistic, partially because your analogy is flawed. ICBMs make for a bad comparison to Scourge Light Missiles, because ICBMs are neither designed nor intended to hit small targets (like spaceships). It's apples to oranges.

Compare Eve missiles to something like the AIM-9 Sidewinder for a valid comparison (numbers are close estimates, as are the conversions to metric values).

Scourge Light Missile (no skills, just the missile):
Range of 20km
Max Velocity of 3750 m/s
Tracking system capable of hitting any target in space once launched


AIM-9 Sidewinder Missile (unaffected by skills or implants):
Range of 28 km
Velocity (maximum?) of 850 m/s
Solid-state, infrared homing system

Comparing apples to apples, EVE missiles are indeed really close to real life missiles, given how advanced the EVE universe is compared to our own. EVE missiles travel about the same distance as "our" ship-to-ship missiles, but have 4x the velocity and better tracking. I have no idea how to compare warhead strength (the Sidewinder has a 25lb warhead, but I'm not going to figure out even rough explosion velocity/radius figures because I'm lazy).
Frying Doom
#46 - 2012-09-05 14:04:05 UTC
It is because that this is the future

Now all things are better we are flying space ships but the down side is of course that Occupational Health and Safety for flying ships into combat is such a big thing that 99% of the ships are full of safety features so you don't stub your toe or warning devices for people who unload cargo, that there just is not any room left for guns and missiles that go long range.

Plus the amount of propellant required for such missises is against OH&S regulations.

Any spelling, grammatical and punctuation errors are because frankly, I don't care!!
Tricky Dutch
Anoikis Equilibrium
Honorable Third Party
#47 - 2012-09-10 13:33:36 UTC
ICBM's get their range from entering an orbit-like path. With an apoapsis in the hundreds of kilometers, earth's gravity will pull them back to earth in a trajectory, much like a massive, rocket-powered artillery shell.

Thank you, KSP!
Sebrefa
The Scope
Gallente Federation
#48 - 2012-09-10 23:02:09 UTC
Purple, because balloons wont float on mars.

Someone tried to say they keep them short because of warp jammers/webbers.
You fail mam, as those things, along with space travel, warping, infinite fuel, nano bots, and any number of other things are not possible in this game, making it pure fantasy.
Doddy
Excidium.
#49 - 2012-09-11 10:09:03 UTC
Wu Jiaqiu wrote:
Pottsey wrote:
Wu Jiaqiu wrote:
Is it because a wizard is not allowing heavy missiles to travel too far?

Eve is liquid space which is also why you lose speed once engines turn off. (please note facts posted might be 100% made up)


I actually thing I read about this somewhere...but never payed any attention to it. Is there something explaining liquid space in the lore?


Nope, it just made better game play/easier coding.
Doddy
Excidium.
#50 - 2012-09-11 10:11:15 UTC
And isn't most of an icbms range just the earths gravity pulling it around?
Verone
Veto Corp
#51 - 2012-09-14 12:41:00 UTC

Nanites. It's always about the nanites.

Cool

Verone CEO & Executor Veto Corp WWW.VETO-CORP.COM
Saede Riordan
Alexylva Paradox
#52 - 2012-09-14 14:20:46 UTC
Istvaan Shogaatsu wrote:
If I were in charge of Eve... I would introduce many, many new kinds of weapons. We've been using the same bloody weapons since day one - not exactly an ongoing arms race.

One such weapon would be an ISBM - an Interstellar Ballistic Missile. Not ship-launched, but launched from installations, and able to take out other installations. Costs a crapload of resources to assemble, but able to take out a small POS in a single blow. Three could take out a large.

Such a missile would rely on gates to travel. It would also be possible to intercept this missile by shooting it down with ships before it reaches its target. The missile would be equipped with some countermeasures to protect itself - a cloak perhaps. However it would also have a short warp range, requiring multiple 'skips' to get across a large system. Once it gets into terminal range (within one warp of target) it is no longer possible to intercept by any means.

Certain POS modules would allow you to identify inbound warheads targeted at the POS.

My reasoning: The Wing Commander III mission with the Skipper Missiles. It was incredibly fun, but also incredibly intense - the missiles would stay cloaked 90% of the time, only dropping cloak to re-adjust their course toward a planet. If they hit the planet, the population is wiped out.

This sort of thing would make POS war a lot less mind-numbing, I feel.

Just one of many weapons I'd add...



Why haven't CCP hired you yet anyway?

Fear and Loathing in Internet Spaceships
Previous page123