[gurps] [VEHICLE] of the week 680 – Hybrid Starfighter

[Zan Lynx]

On Fri, 2007-11-09 at 18:17 +0100, Onno Meyer wrote:
[cut]
> The problem with baby starfighters is that in space, there is no 
> fundamental difference between fighter tech and battleship tech. 
> 
> Try to imagine a rowboat-sized "fighter boat" against real warships

It totally depends on the tech available.

Weapons: If weapons are insanely powerful, fighters (or robot missiles)
make sense.  Say a fighter carries two quantum singularity warheads each
capable of erasing 100 cubic km * 20 minutes of space-time.  Big ships
don't make sense, they are only targets.  Spreading out is a better
strategy.

Drive: If there is size cutoff on, say, an inertia-free drive so that it
works for fighters but not battleships, then the fighters have a huge
advantage.  Even light-speed weapons have time to target problems and a
fighter with 1,000 g accel or more can easily dodge even at close range.

And many more possibilities.  However, you might have a point about
starfighters in particular fictions.  They're not often well thought
out.
-- 
Zan Lynx <zlynx at acm.org>