From: 'Jet Jaguar'
To: soc.military.starfighters
RE: Glass Cannons.
Fragile and simple does not mean expendable. Neither the craft, nor the pilot.
The Wasp will still carry AGM's - and if you absolutely have to go tank plinking, a 40mm railgun. But it's not built for it.
The more roles we ask something to take, the more complex it will be. Complexity is our enemy. We don't want to go there. Let the UNIX philosophy hold. Everything has one job, and everything does that one job really well. Rather than a few expensive, overcomplicated jack-of-all trades that get whipped by the specialists when it's not being preened in the hangar.
The Wasp is designed to be easy to build, cheap to maintain and deadly when defending its home, or the bomber it's a parasite on. It had to be simple to build, otherwise we couldn't afford to build it ourselves. It had to be lethal, otherwise there was no point in having it. So something had to give. Adding armour add's complexity, and adds cost. It means more engine, more complex controls, more advanced software.... like I said, all of this gets exponential.
So, the more complexity we add on top of things, the harder it will be for ordinary people to buy them and maintain them at a properly, the less of them we'll have to spread around. Which means longer response times to threats. Which means even more parts of Fenspace relying on older and genuinely kevorkianesque machinery that absolutely won't be up to the task.
There's also the phrase, 'quantity is a quality all of it's own'. And that doesn't mean a callouse disregard for redshirts. The simple fact is, there is safety in numbers. Numbers in the sky are a masive force multiplier. Numbers let you harry and harrass a single enemy, concentrate on them and swarm them into submission, while making it harder and harder for that enemy to swat you down because swarmed enemies can't fight back without exposing their vulnerability to another member of the swarm.
"I am always the aggressor and shoot first"
This is not a design flaw. Generally, in modern spacefights, the one who gets into a firing solution first, is going to win.
All of this is based on my experience during OGJ. I'm not as tough as most Kunstler - I just can't tank damage they way they can. So what? I can take on full-sized battlemovers piloted by cybers with DNI's and A-rank AI's, single handedly, when I know one swipe of an arm might kill me, because I know I can move fast enough to not get hit and hit hard enough to make it count on the one opportunity I'll get. Because I'm faster than all but the motorball players. Armour - or going full-steel, might make me tougher, but it'll slow me down to the point that I have to rely on that toughness more and more to tank damage. Any time I have to tank damage, I'm dying.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?
To: soc.military.starfighters
RE: Glass Cannons.
Fragile and simple does not mean expendable. Neither the craft, nor the pilot.
The Wasp will still carry AGM's - and if you absolutely have to go tank plinking, a 40mm railgun. But it's not built for it.
The more roles we ask something to take, the more complex it will be. Complexity is our enemy. We don't want to go there. Let the UNIX philosophy hold. Everything has one job, and everything does that one job really well. Rather than a few expensive, overcomplicated jack-of-all trades that get whipped by the specialists when it's not being preened in the hangar.
The Wasp is designed to be easy to build, cheap to maintain and deadly when defending its home, or the bomber it's a parasite on. It had to be simple to build, otherwise we couldn't afford to build it ourselves. It had to be lethal, otherwise there was no point in having it. So something had to give. Adding armour add's complexity, and adds cost. It means more engine, more complex controls, more advanced software.... like I said, all of this gets exponential.
So, the more complexity we add on top of things, the harder it will be for ordinary people to buy them and maintain them at a properly, the less of them we'll have to spread around. Which means longer response times to threats. Which means even more parts of Fenspace relying on older and genuinely kevorkianesque machinery that absolutely won't be up to the task.
There's also the phrase, 'quantity is a quality all of it's own'. And that doesn't mean a callouse disregard for redshirts. The simple fact is, there is safety in numbers. Numbers in the sky are a masive force multiplier. Numbers let you harry and harrass a single enemy, concentrate on them and swarm them into submission, while making it harder and harder for that enemy to swat you down because swarmed enemies can't fight back without exposing their vulnerability to another member of the swarm.
"I am always the aggressor and shoot first"
This is not a design flaw. Generally, in modern spacefights, the one who gets into a firing solution first, is going to win.
All of this is based on my experience during OGJ. I'm not as tough as most Kunstler - I just can't tank damage they way they can. So what? I can take on full-sized battlemovers piloted by cybers with DNI's and A-rank AI's, single handedly, when I know one swipe of an arm might kill me, because I know I can move fast enough to not get hit and hit hard enough to make it count on the one opportunity I'll get. Because I'm faster than all but the motorball players. Armour - or going full-steel, might make me tougher, but it'll slow me down to the point that I have to rely on that toughness more and more to tank damage. Any time I have to tank damage, I'm dying.
________________________________
--m(^0^)m-- Wot, no sig?