Space Combat

As much as certain people don't like it (and as much as some do), conflict is a part of life. As various species rose up through their homeworld's atmosphere and up into the stars, they have taken their conflicts with them, and made new ones with the others they encountered in the star-speckled void.

The development of widespread spaceflight and greater airborne capabilities has led to oceanic navies becoming largely obsolete, with certain exceptions. The new sea is empty space, and a great deal of modern war is persecuted within the vacuum. Each species has their own way of thinking, their own outlook on the galaxy we live in, and ship-to-ship combat is a place where the creativity and ingenuity of each faction truly shines. No two groups in the Milky Way fight exactly alike.

While it may be unpleasant, warfare is an intrinsic part of the political scene in the 'Way, and space warfare is the most vital part of it all. Without the fleets, you couldn't protect shipping lanes, hold vital warp routes or choke points, or deliver your soldiers to enemy turf.

## How it Works

The thing is, space is a ridiculously vast place. So huge that our minds can't really comprehend it. Now, one would assume that this makes space combat a prohibitively complicated endeavour, but not so much. There are expected ways that fights between starships will play out, and the vast majority of battles do fall within these lines.

The first and most significant rule of thumb is that nearly every fleet battle, from skirmishes to truly titanic engagements, occurs in a gravity well. Usually this gravity well is a star system, but it could be a black hole or some other point of interest. The reason for this is twofold. The first reason is because gravity interferes with FTL travel, so starships very often have to stop when approaching gravity wells. It's not a matter of choice. The second factor is that beyond the borders of star systems, there's just nothing. The whole point of fighting is that you're doing it to try to achieve a goal. There's nothing out in deep space. Spaceships don't even travel through it in any meaningful sense thanks to FTL technology. So, why would fleets bother actually showing up in deep space? They wouldn't. There's no logical reason to.

Narrowing that point down further, fleet battles most often occur in orbit around planets. Whether the intent of the assault is to land troops on the planet below (the most common reason), to destroy orbital stations or shipyards, or even simply bust up an enemy fleet, odds are it's happening around a planet. Defending fleets will most often prepare to receive attackers so that they can take advantage of station defenses and surface-to-space weaponry the planet might have, and to be better able to respond to any tricks the enemy might have up their sleeves regarding the planet.

Planets are the most valuable resource in the galaxy. Precious few of them are habitable, and the ones that are represent the core of any empire's population, industry, and economy. Indeed, the number of prosperous colonies an empire has is a far truer measure of its greatness than military strength. So in warfare, planets are the primary targets.

A significant number of any nation's ships will be devoted to the goal of troops making planetfall on hostile ground. Strike carriers and mass landers are the most common methods. The rest of the fleet is there to protect the troop landers, destroy enemy troop landers, destroy enemy warships, and deal with threats that the armies can't, like orbital shipyards and mining stations and such. The fleet also serves to support the army in a more direct capacity, utilizing orbital bombardment to strike at military emplacements and soften up hardened targets. Of course, orbital bombardment can easily be used to spread destruction on a much greater scale if you have no actual interest in capturing a planet, but that's rare, and doing so in any case is looked down on besides.

Of course, there are some fleet battles which don't occur in orbit, and not every fleet engagement is for the goal of making or preventing planetfall. Fleets are tasked with the defense of shipping lanes, and fights over them are rarely focused around a specific celestial body. Sometimes two fleets may clash in a system with no planets of any value (though that right could still happen in orbit around one anyway).

## Methods

With the questions of where and why established, let's look at the matter of how. Any warship worth its salt will be equipped with all manner of advanced combat systems. These of course include the ever-popular gun batteries and shield generators, but there are just as important systems that are mostly invisible to the naked eye. Ships are all equipped with targeting systems, electronic warfare suites to scramble enemy targeting systems, point defense weapons to counter solid projectiles and starfighters, internal defenses and fail-safes, and many other systems besides. All these things are important when designing a starship.

But once battle is joined, how do these things help? The primary issue with space combat is distance. Even when you limit a fight to just one star system, or even just one planetary orbit, distances are vast. There will come a point when the enemy ships are so far away that you can only fire at what you know to be their general location, and shots may take more than a minute to reach them. This kind of warfare doesn't actually accomplish anything. So the two most important factors in a spaceship battle are the strength of your own targeting systems, and what kind of signature the enemy is putting out.

The more advanced a ship's sensors are, the longer a range they'll be able to get accurate firing solutions on an enemy at. Larger ships will often have more powerful targeting arrays. Likewise, larger ships will often have a greater signature. A ship's signature represents how easily it shows up on enemy sensors. This usually has to do with heat and energy output, but there are other factors involved as well. A frigate-class vessel running silent will have an extremely low signature, and thus other starships must be very close (by space standards) to accurately target it. Likewise, a battleship that's unleashing all of its guns on its enemies will give off a very high signature, and could likely be targeted by the entire battlefield. Some weapons will also increase an enemy's signature. If an Alliance cruiser used its boring laser to slice into an enemy battleship, its signature will spike of course, but the residual heat from the powerful cutting beam will also cause the enemy battleship's signature to spike a bit too.

Other important factors are effective ranges. Now, in space, things that you shoot have a tendency to keep going. Range itself isn't so much an issue. However, for things like torpedoes, which have a comparatively slow movement rate, they are in significantly greater danger from things like flak cannons or pinpoint laser arrays than, say, a slug fired from a powerful railgun. As such, they usually need to be fired in closer proximity to the enemy ship in order to give the enemy's computers as little time as possible to establish a firing solution.

Of course, possibly the biggest factor of them all is the main guns, armour, and shields. These are the big ones that will blow holes in enemy ships and protect your ships from having holes blown in them. Of course, things like that are so widely varied and easy to understand that they won't be elaborated on here.

Environmental factors may also play into a space battle. Pulsars mess with shield harmonics, nebulae can obscure targeting systems and even some weaponry, and small ships that dive into the atmosphere are much, much harder to hit for ships still in orbit. All of these factors play into larger strategies, trying to lure enemies into an area where your fleet will be at an advantage.