Battlestar Galactica

[falcon]

Hi,

 

I recently discover the show "Battlestar Galactica" (shows are coming later in french speaking countries)... with the struggle for life of humanity against the Cylons and the quest of a new home... I'm really impressed by this show which is, for me, as good (if not better) as Stargate SG1 and I wonder if there is a game planned related to it ? Which kind of game (RTS, RPG, XCOM-like game ??) ? Is there a official site ?

 

See you

[Pete]

I've not heard of one, but think about this - it would surely flop as the game would be uncontrollable if the camera movements were as shaky as the series

 

Seriously BSG crew - well-done lighting, sets and blood will add ALL the atmosphere you need. Shaking the camera is just childish.

[Kernel]

I've not heard of one, but think about this - it would surely flop as the game would be uncontrollable if the camera movements were as shaky as the series

 

Seriously BSG crew - well-done lighting, sets and blood will add ALL the atmosphere you need. Shaking the camera is just childish.

 

At least they have silence in most of their space scenes as opposed to the sound of ships engines and weapons fireing.

[Pete]

Really? Did you stick your fingers in your ears?

 

Okay, so they're quieter, but there's still noise in exterior shots in the episodes I've seen.

 

Anyway, who's to say spaceship engines and laser fire won't be able to punch a noise through vacuum in the future? I mean, we've rewritten the laws of physics so many times over the last few centuries that nothing's impossible (except, at the moment, sound through the vacuum of space ).

[Solarius Scorch]

Oh come on, maybe their operators tend to use their camera to get rid of flies, but this is the best friggin' space opera series I've seen! Well, at least in the plot and characters field - I haven't seen any plot holes (I'm in the middle of Season 2 at the moment), and the characters are ALL brilliant. I also like the space battles - yes, they have sound/visual effects, but they don't look like I WW in space, which is a plus in itself.

As for the game, I know there is one for some gaming platfotrm (not PC), but based on the original series, from the early 80's I think.

[Space Voyager]

Well, I have a slightly different view of BSG... I stopped watching somewhere in the middle of the 2. season. Battlestar Galactica was supposed to be about the FIGHT for survival but this show turned into a sobby family soap opera in space. This was just too much for me. Adama (whichever) crying every show, everybody having their detached reality moments etc.. This is definitely just my personal oppinion but for me the show became utter crap.

[Accounting Troll]

When it comes to sheer ineptitude, I loved the original series.

 

The only way you would be able to hear sound in a space battle is if all the ships on both sides maintained open communications, so that the noises generated by the ships are transmitted. Offhand, I can't think of a single example of a TV or film producer who chooses accuratre physics over a visual spectacle when portraying a space battle.

[Aralez]

@AT: Stanley Kubrick, 2001

[Solarius Scorch]

Well, I have a slightly different view of BSG... I stopped watching somewhere in the middle of the 2. season. Battlestar Galactica was supposed to be about the FIGHT for survival but this show turned into a sobby family soap opera in space. This was just too much for me. Adama (whichever) crying every show, everybody having their detached reality moments etc.. This is definitely just my personal oppinion but for me the show became utter crap.

 

Well, I can't say I agree with this opinion. I have never seen any SF series with so wonderfully well-developed, multidimensional, believable and intriguing characters. I don't know where the show became "sobby family soap opera in space", unless one consider every scene devoid of fighters and explosions boring. Well, de gustibus non disputandum est.

 

When it comes to sheer ineptitude, I loved the original series.

 

The only way you would be able to hear sound in a space battle is if all the ships on both sides maintained open communications, so that the noises generated by the ships are transmitted. Offhand, I can't think of a single example of a TV or film producer who chooses accuratre physics over a visual spectacle when portraying a space battle.

 

Good point about Kubrick, Aralez. But actually, I think that sound and visual effects are not result of creators' (or viewers') stupidity, but rather simply a movie tradition of storytelling. I guess nobody knows how to interestingly show space battles without them, so they became a kind of media shortcut - thanks to them, everyone knows what's going on, who shoots at whom etc. I personally don't mind seeing and hearing lasers in space, because they are there for our convenience, not to mock reality.

[Matri]

Technically speakning, gunpowder weapons in the gravityless confines of space is a very very bad idea. The counterforce generated by a single shot from a small-calibre round is jarring enough for a human. Imagine the high-calibre, rapid-fire gatlings mounted on the Vipers.

 

At the very least it should slow to a standstill while being rattled in its frame. You can't have inertial dampeners and Newtonian physics.

[Aralez]

Matri has a point there. Even in real-life the A-10 tankbuster plane with its huge cannon is slowed down when shooting it.

 

Which brings up a question: Explosives do work in similar manner as sound does (the pressure is carried by the air), so what happens to e.g. nuke explosions in space? Is there only the radiation and no "pressure" ? Any info?

[Space Voyager]

Which brings up a question: Explosives do work in similar manner as sound does (the pressure is carried by the air), so what happens to e.g. nuke explosions in space? Is there only the radiation and no "pressure" ? Any info?

There are still alpha, beta ang gamma rays (ok, "rays", since alpha rays are particles) , no shockwave effect. There is no air to be heated and expanded into shockwave.

[Matri]

That's a conumdrum there. What we're thinking is, the nuke's destructive power is reduced, because there isn't any air to carry the sound or the shockwave. There's still a lot of energy in the form of heat and light, though.

 

And yet... How do supernovas cause the destructive of entire solar systems? Something has to impact the planets to shatter and break them up. I doubt if the nova releases enough heat to do that. Bridge Commander got that one part right, at least. The initial burst of heat & energy ignites a planet's atmosphere.

[Solarius Scorch]

To be precise, the very energy also carries a certain amount of kinetic energy, just like the solar wind does. I can't say how exactly big this energy is in case of a nuclear blast, but I'm sure it is minimal and doesn't really count.

As for the gunpowder (or equivalent) weapons in space, I think they're not as bad as You say, especially when fighter engines are taken into account as compensators - provided that such a weapon is rather small (not only because of its recoil, its very weight also matters). Besides, such a weapon doesn't use any of the reactor power, which might be important. I'm not saying that kinetic cannons in space are the greatest weapons ever (just think of their pitiful effective range due to their relative slowness), I just think they have their place in the armoury of the future.

[Matri]

I never said kinetic weapons were bad, only gunpowder. Kinetic weapons itself are good. Rail guns, gauss cannons, massdrivers, missiles & torpedoes... But gunpowder weapons use chemical explosives. Counterforce is generated of equal power to the projectile's mass and speed. Weight is not an issue in space. So when you consider that the mass of every bullet fired is culmulative, the counterforce generated can indeed equal that generated by a small fighter craft's engines, or at the very least strain it.

 

Also, you're wrong about the speed. Projectiles launched from a moving platform add the platform's speed to their launching speed. Since there is no drag in space, it is theoretically possible to launch projectiles at the speed of light, provided the speed of the platform plus the launch velocity are at half-light each, or any combination thereof. This is demonstrated to a lesser effect by javelin throwers, where they can get more speed, and hence more distance, by taking a running start before throwing the javelin.

 

As for reactor power, this should have no bearing whatsoever in our discussion. No sane person would design a fighter craft that drains engine power to charge weapons as a default setting. Weapon energy accumulators charge from excess reactor energy, not primary. The only time engines should suffer for weapons is when the pilot wants it to. And everyone knows what happens to stationary targets.

 

Of course, if you are flying a craft designed that way, you're pretty much asking for it...

 

 

By the way, kinetic energy cannot exist in a vacuum. It must be transferred via objects with mass.

[Aralez]

I think most space battles in the future would be made at ranges far to big to see the enemy at all. A dogfight would be very unusual. The side that sees the enemy first will usually win then.

 

Imagine how a spacewar with realistic physics wpould develop:

 

A 30000 ton spaceship is in the orbit around the moon, a radar station on earth picks it up and fires a laser beam at it, 1 second later the spaceship melts or disintegrates, maybe explodes, all in total silence. The end.

 

The only way the spaceship could defend itself would be radar stealth. But then IR and other electro-optival devices could be used to track the target, so it must maybe use cloaks for those wave-spectrums as well.

 

Or it could fire a laser at the radar itself the moment it gets tracked.. Or it could prepare its attack by launching a nuke to use the EMP to cripple the enemy's computers. Otoh those surely would be hardened against such pulses. And the missile itself could be shot down, too...

 

Ok, maybe an attack on a ground based defender from space could look like this: A huge fleet hides behind the moon to hide from radar and beam weapons, they fire nukes, decoys and lasers (redirected by small mirrors at the right points) in masses to prepare the attack. After the enemy is weakened they land and start the "dirty" phase of the battle. Well, of course if there is a enemy base on the backside of the moon they would be pwn3d

 

Grah, terrible, this is so complicated, why can't they simply live in peace?

[Matri]

Grah, terrible, this is so complicated, why can't they simply live in peace?

That'll just be boring

[Solarius Scorch]

I never said kinetic weapons were bad, only gunpowder... (...)

 

I generally agree with Your arguments; looks like we just misunderstood each other a little. I would gladly respond, but we're going off-topic here, so we better stop. OTOH, maybe the Administrator would be so kind and move relevant post to a new, suitably named thread? That would be great.